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(Specifically; Me)

Friday, December 29, 2006 :
"Well, this really fucks up my plans."

If you haven't already, check out my latest entry at Red Menace before reading on.

Now that you're up-to-date, I'll continue...

It's a mixed blessing that the internet broke. Like when you were a kid, and the Nintendo NES mysteriously melted. For the first couple of days you're really pissed off, but by day three you're remembering how much fun pornography is.

It's surprising how these seemingly innocuous little gadgets of electronicly powered escapism somehow manage to twist and tangle up time and space. Five minutes become five days in a blink, and even the heroin junkie next door is saying "Dude, where have you been? We were worried."

So now I'm trying to put more focus on my work. Difficult to do these days. As much as I love the work, the fact that I have yet to successfully get paid for any of it makes it a little disheartening at times. This also means it's forced to take a back seat to any activities that might actually produce income.

We've gotten a couple of wealthy families here in China to take an interest in Needle, but for all the fear that an american would have towards a risky investment like a movie, the Chinese are have about ten times that much. Film production in China is still a rather "new" idea, as far as business prospects go. And "new" has to come from the top down in order to be accepted.

Two of my projects (an animated serial called Between The Lines: A Jack Martin Mystery and a live-action serial called Ghost Boy) have the potential to develop income in the future, but not until long after they've been completed. And Ghost Boy especially will require pocket money to complete. We have yet to get our hands on a completely reliable camera.

The comic, Misanthropia, is coming along. That's a hell of a lot of fun, but it takes time. And, like this blog, I'm worried that two years will go by and the only people reading it will be people I know personally.

In fact, I think that's the base of a lot of my anxiety. Time, effort, emotion, heart gets poured into my work, and while my closest pals pat me on the head and say "Good Doc," not one dollar is sent my way for my efforts.

Sure, all the great artists will go on about how the money and recognition don't really matter. It's all about expression, and the rest is just a fluke that they've somehow learned to cope with. They are usually saying this from the driveway of their Santa Monica condo, so fuck them.

I'm not ashamed to say, I'm in it for the money. As the old saying goes, "find the one thing you'd be willing to do for free, then find a way to get paid to do it." Well, that's exactly what I'm doing. I love to make up stories, express opinions, formulate arguments, and present them all to anyone who'll listen in the forms of essays, blogs, comic books, movies, serials, you name it. I love the sound of my own voice, and all I need now is to find some schmuck who'll pay me to talk.

I don't need the big house, fast car, trophy wife, beach condo. All I ask is to make enough money to cover my rent, utility bills, health insurance, Child Support, and maybe a minor stipend for DVDs. I'm sick of humiliating myself at remedial occupations, only to be compensated with just enough money to piss off everyone I owe money to. And as for fame? Well, who the fuck doesn't want fame? I spend my life screaming into the wind, it would be nice to know that someone heard me. And, now that I think about it, the Trophy Wife would probably be nice. But that's neither here nor there.

That said, I'm considering adding to my repertoire. I'm thinking of producing a podcast. When I was a kid, I'd always had this weird fantasy of being a radio DJ. This was back when I though DJ's actually had control over what they broadcast. It really appealed to me, the idea of not just getting on the microphone and saying whats on your mind, but following it up with a little music that you like and think others might like too. I was in the middle of researching RSS feeds when Teh Internets got clogged.

I can't imagine what the hell I could possibly come up with that I don't already cover here at Obviously. But then, I had that same worry before I started on Misanthropia. I guess changing the way you say something helps you come up with new things to say.

And that's how it is. I cover my insecurities toward my non-existing audience by creating even more content for people not to notice. I'm sure if I had internet access, I could look up the name for that disorder.

TTFN

Sunday, December 24, 2006 :
"...And Balloons For The Kids!"

Oddly enough, they do celebrate Christmas here in China, but it's not so much a "Birth of Christ" kind of thing as much as it is a "Look at all this fucking money!" kind of thing, since 90% of the world's Christmas gifts are made in Chinese factories.

We had our Christmas Dinner at Friend's Bar and Grill, a local establishment owned by our Canadian friend, Brother. I didn't think it was appropriate to have Christmas Dinner at a bar, but I turned out to be wrong about this one. Shocking, I know, but true.

Pretty much every foreigner from a Christian country was there, some of them even brought their kids. It was almost like going to a community dinner at a church, only there was no group prayer and way more wine. Good turkey, good potatoes, and fucking great stuffing, all served by cute Chinese girls dressed as elves. Santa must've got my letter.

Frogman's father, Dick, was there...and this is where the story gets funny.

First, a little background;

Last year, a building in Zhongshan accidentally burned down on Christmas night during a party. Now, when you consider that all of the buildings in China are made of solid concrete these days, that raises an eyebrow or two. So, this year, as the holiday party season geared up, the local magistrate started cracking down on fire safety.

Now, China isn't like america in the regards that a set of standards are laid out by a team of experts, and so long as those standards are met, you can pretty much assume you're safe. And even if an accident happens, if you really did meet the code, then it's pretty much agreed upon that it was a freak event that couldn't have been avoided, and we all have a good cry.

China doesn't have Fire Safety Standards, because their teams of "experts" are actually the cousins and nephew's of high ranking Party Members, and because they don't really have standards on anything other than dinner etiquette. So, the Chinese Fire Safety code reads something along the lines of "If there's a fire in your building, we'll send you to jail. Good Night and Good Luck."

Now, enter a woman I will call "Goodwife," a Swedish student that works on the side as a Hostess and Event Promoter for FB&G. She's very good at her job, and I love the way she shakes her fist at me when I tell her she'll "make a good wife someday."

Goodwife was at the door when Dick walked in with about a dozen floating balloons. You see, he had a plan. He wanted to get on stage with Frogman and sing "White Christmas" with helium voices. She stopped him and explained to him, with all the diplomacy the Swedish are known for, the situation with fire safety and how (due to the aforementioned lack of standards) floating party balloons in China have a tendency to be filled with Hydrogen rather than Helium.

Dick promised her that they were in fact Helium, and even opened one up to say "Hello, Merry Christmas" to a few other people arriving in that more-than-well-known high pitched Helium Voice. With that, he was allowed in.

So, after the dinner was served and the usual post-meal "Oh God, I can't believe I ate that much" palaver began, Dick went around to a few tables taking in deep breaths off the balloons to make holiday toasts with our fellow guelas.

He finally came back to our table and asked Frogman if he was ready to get on stage. Frogman, as you can imagine, was still a little apprehensive of the performance. We all knew he was going to do it, because it's his dad after all, but he still gets a little nervous about getting on stage when he's not drunk, and a spectacle of this measure is not to be taken lightly.

"Come on," Dick was saying, "You know it'll be fun. The Helium tastes a little funny, but the crowd will love it."

That stopped us all. The helium tastes funny?

"Let me see that thing," Frogman said, and took a deep breath off the balloon. "He's right, it does taste funny. I wonder how old these balloons are, the plastic might be decaying into the gas."

"Well, that shouldn't be too big of a deal, right?" Dick asked, he really wanted to have his moment on stage.

"Well," Frogman pondered, "I suppose if it is for just one song."

We all paused for a minute. Frogman had only taken one breath off the balloon, but as of that last statement, he still sounded like one of The Chipmunks.

"Hold on one damn minute," Frogman said. He grabbed his empty water glass and, with his hand over the top, squeezed air from the balloon into the cup. He then removed his hand and sparked his lighter just above it.

The resulting fireball lit up the bar.

"Jesus Christ!" Frogman exclaimed, "That's fucking methane!

Within microseconds, Goodwife had the balloons gathered up and taken out to the parking lot. Frogman started chugging Coke, trying to get the taste out of his mouth, saying "I just inhaled fucking methane," over and over.

Meanwhile, Dick was left to stand there, mortified with embarrassment and the knowledge that he'd been intentionally breathing it in all night.

It was the best Christmas ever.

TTFN

Friday, December 22, 2006 :
Nuke A Gay Baby Seal For Christina

Thanks to the GoogleAlert emails I get every week, I can now stalk Christina Ricci with little to no effort. She gets mentioned multiple times a week, usually in conjunction with the upcomming films she is co-staring in (Penelope, Home Of The Brave, and Black Snake Moan), or when she appears at some hoity-toity fasion event.

Every so often, a peice shows up in the gossip columns that possesive obsesives like myself get upset with, mostly because it exposes Chritina as the flawed, capable-of-mistakes human that she is, and not the flawless Godess of Talented Perfection that we believe her to be. Some months ago, it was her supposed "crush" on Justin "Oh, That Guy?" Timberlake, and their secret meetings with each other behind the backs of their respective Others, Cameron Diaz and Adam Goldberg.

Most recently, it was the snubbing of Christina by the guy that runs ChristinaRicci.info, which is (according to Google) the Number One Christina Fan Page on the net. Apparently, the wise learned folks at PETA decided to put out a "Worst Dressed" list of Hollywoods biggest animal cruelty offenders, and included Christina on that list for her willingness to promote her new movies by appearing on a magazine cover wearing raindeer fur.

In response, Christina's biggest fan on the internet, has decided to renounce his fandom as he is avidly against animal cruelty an anyone who advocates it. So, suddenly, Christina Ricci's Biggest Fan Page suddenly looked like this...

And it would seem, that this act alone was enough to get Christina to publicly appologize for the act, and swear off fur forever.

You can read two consise blurbs on the subject here.

As of me now writing this, ChritinaRicci.info has not been restored, however.

There, now you have the facts, as it were. Here is what I have to say;

What an asshole.

I mean, seriously...what an asshole!

And I say this for multiple reasons, and I'm afraid I'm going to have to go over them one at a time. I'm sorry, I was on the Debate Team at school, and got into the nasty habit of structuring my arguments. I'm sure you understand.

Item 1: Dead Sexy. That picture is easily among the best portraits of Christina I have ever seen. She looks fucking hot. I wouldn't care if the freshly dead, skinned carcas of the raindeer in question were in the background, with Christina holding a smoking rifle in one hand and a bloody skinning knife in the other. Anything this sexy is worth the sacrifice.

Item 2: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). I hate these people. I mean I seriously, seriously hate these people. They're like Pro-Lifer's, only with no concern for any human life.

Now, I'm not exactly what you would call "pro-fur." I'm not one of these jackasses that think that God put the animals here for our use and pleasure. Nor have I ever even had the desire to wear a fur coat. In fact, I get a little turned off by those women that are turned on by fur clothing. And yeah, it sucks that these animals are being killed for no reason other than to rip their skin off so people with too much money to waltz around in. It's a fuckin' tragedy, I admit that.

But A) the Fur Industry is now completely farmed, and so none of these animals would even have been born if not for their potential as worthwhile material, and B) on the long list of great tragedies in this world that need to be somehow remedied, animals that are born, raised, and killed solely for their fur is very far down the list of priorities, just below the dangerously growing Mormon Population.

As for Animal Experimentation, I'm not a fan of that either. Especially when they're spraying hair spray into the eyes of animals to test just how fucking bad for the eyes that is. That's fucking retarded, I'm with you on that one. But fucking up 10 years worth of HIV research just because you think it's unfair that a couple of monkeys have been infected with the virus so that we can try to cure them...well if you'd like to volunteer to take their place, I'd be willing to listen.

Worst of all, is PETA's international demand for Vegitarianism. I dispise Vegitarians more than I dispise Libertarians. The utter hypocracy behind saying "All living things have the right to live, and therefore I will eat no animal meat," then enjoying a nice fresh salad of still living plant life, turns my stomache. It upsets me so much, I almost can't finish my pizza. It's one of the cruelest facts of nature kids; in order for anything on this planet to live, something else must die first. It's a fact. Look it up. Now, deal with it.

Item 3: Dodger. The owner/operator of the Number One Christina Ricci Fan Site on teh intarwebs. What an asshole.

I would easily concede that this dude is a bigger fan than me, which is saying a lot. As big a fan as I am, I would never take the time to design and maintain a web shrine to Christina. The shrine I keep in my closet takes up enough of my time.

And yet, while I was able to (painfully) forgive Her involvement with such undesirables as Adam Goldberg and Justin Timberlake, this dickhead denounces her on the wholy innocuous grounds of being put on a shit-list authored by people with priorites more skewed than Strom Thurmond.

Again I say, what an asshole.

Item 4: Christina Caved. That poor girl. She just wants everybody to love her. Over 20 years of great performances (let's pretend Cursed never happened), and yet she still is required to play Hollywood politics of never offending anyone, no matter how fucking stupid they are.

Mel Gibson was caught on tape driving drunk and cursing jews, and yet his movie still broke the box office. And why not? He could beat a jewish schoolchild to death with it's own mother's severed head, and I'd still get in line for a Lethal Weapon 5. Riggs is so crazy.

On the other hand, Christina Ricci once did a movie with that weirdo Vincent Gallo, so she better watch herself.

Anybody else getting a headache from this version of logic?

If you read the linked article, you probably noticed the part where PETA was so happy that Christina recanted fur, they took her off their crappy little list and are planning on sending her a gift basket of "animal friendly" products. God knows how many innocent plantlife were murdered for that gift basket. Oh god, what is the basket made of?

Of course PETA was happy. Two very important things happened for PETA that day; A) they got their name in the papers again, however unnoticed it went for non-Ricci fans. B) It re-enforced the bullshit idea that PETA's Mafioso tatics are justifiable and effective in the fight against Animal Cruelty.

You see, when you're a "Not-For-Profit" business like PETA, it means you're in the business of getting noticed. The people who run PETA all get nice fat salaries (technically not really a profit) for making sure that it looks like PETA is making a difference in the fight against Animal Cruelty. That way, they get more and more contributions from people who really want to abate the guilt they feel, but don't actually want to do anything about it. Whether or not PETA actually is making a difference is really inconsequential to everyone in charge.

The day that Christina appoligized for posing on a magazine cover in a fur coat, I'm quite sure the PETA Board of Directors gathered together in the boardroom and had a nice, friendly circle-jerk around the magazine in question.

I think that when I get back to the states, I'm going to make a PETA Skin coat and give it to Christina for her birthday. I can't think of anyone that would be offended by that.

TTFN

Sunday, December 17, 2006 :
Moving On

I've been off the grid for a bit, as one or two of you may have noticed. The gang and I have moved our operations to a new location. We are no longer living in the guela-friendly gardens of Kai Yin.

We've moved into Zhongshan proper, right across the street from the city sports center, where everyone in town goes to exercise and play sports, and every morning we can watch from the balcony as the local police run practice drills with their riot gear.

Princess and I are no longer an item. And, as women are known for doing, she waited till she already had another white boyfriend before she told me she was done with me. Makes me wonder if she ever even broke up with her last white boyfriend before she started up with me.

Oh well, it's not like we were in love or anything. In fact, I couldn't really stand to have her around for more than a couple hours at a time. Maybe she's smarter than I'm giving her credit for.

Things are a bit tense and crazy in the office. The cost of the move drained us of our petty cash, and Frogman and Tankgirl had to renew their visas which took a mighty chunk of our remaining money. We're not in desperationville, but things are tight and that has us all on edge.

My daughter's birthday is this week, and this will be the second year in a row that I'm absent for it. That's got me good and pissed off.

I suppose the best I can do is try to dive back into work. Keep the goal in front of me and don't lose focus. Make the movie, stablize the company, then build my life the way I want it from there.

The first issue of Misanthropia should be out soon. A couple of new projects are getting started. Frogman has developed a new animation technique, and we're going to employ it in a series of serial shorts that introduce a couple of the characters in the movie. Should be fun. I also came up with an idea for a live action series that the gang seems to dig, so we'll be developing that over the next few months. The hunt for Needle investors goes on.

We met with a producer at Zhongshan TV a couple of weeks ago, and a director at CCTV Studios about a week after that. Trying to pick up work for acting or Special FX design. They really seemed to like us, buying us dinner and all, but left it all with "we'll let you know" and other such euphemisms.

I got a job as a private English Tutor. A 15-year-old girl that has been studying English since she was 7, and wants to go to america to study law. The poor girl seems to have a bit of a crush on me. And while that's a major stroke to my ego and all, it makes me think of my own daughter, and how if she were to ever tell me she had a crush on a 30-year-old guy, that guy would have to die. Cute, but just disturbing.

Her mother is no help in this matter. You don't have to know the language to know when two women are talking about a guy they both have the hots for. Her mother also keeps introducing me to her friends that also have teenage daughters that want to "learn English." This is someone's idea of a very, very cruel joke.

Stay tuned for my reports from inside a chinese prison.

TTFN

Friday, December 01, 2006 :
Daily Doses of Irony

I've grown tired of my own hatred for christians. I mean, they're just everywhere, and they just won't go away. Trying to kill them all with my brain has become exhausting.

Even here in China, where religion is legal but organized religion is not, they've taken it upon themselves to endanger their own lives, and the lives of all the other foreigners in the land, by quietly crusading in the name of their personal Tooth Fairy.

A few weeks ago, we came across a group of teenagers that could best be described as "aryan" who told us that they all came to China together to be English Teachers. But the matching crucifixes around all their necks told us the real truth. They were a covert-op of missionaries that actually had been snowed into thinking they were doing the Chinese a favor by ilegally spreading their own version of "The Religion of Peace." A sleeper cell of fundamental christian terrorists.

If these idiots got caught, I would be in danger from goverment reprisal solely because my skin was the same color. No matter where I go in this world, I can't escape the backlash caused by these dickheads.

So, as I said, the simple act of Hating them has become tiring, because there is just so much hate to be had with no end in sight.

I'm trying some mental excersises to help abate this pain. Little personal jokes and mantras to help remind myself why these eternally useless people are not worth my effort. First and foremost is the irony of their very actions.

To begin with Pride is one of the Seven Deadly Sins, well agreed upon by all factions of the of jesusists as a One-Way, Do Not Pass Go and Do Not Collect $200, express route to Hell.

There are one or two different definitions to "Pride" and you can see them here. Figure out for yourself which one I'm referring to.

Now, it seems to me that the very act of trying to convince other people that your religion is better than their religion is a form of Pride. Beleiving that your life, and afterlife, is somehow above others simply because you still believe in Santa Clause, strikes me as rather pridefull. Driving around with a bumper sticker that reads "Warning: In Case of Rapture This Vehicle Will Be Unmanned" is about the most gallingly Pridefull thing I have ever seen. Therefore, anyone that actually believes they are going to Heaven, have thus gauranteed the fact that they are definately NOT.

This, to me, is hilarious.

Now, I'm not saying I'm innocent of the Sin Of Pride. Hell, I am well known for opening saying directly into the face of others "I am better than you." If it turns out there is a god, I am not under any dilusion that I will be accepted into his kingdom. Ironically, this minor iota of humility actually means I have a better chance of getting to Heaven than anyone who actually wants to go there.

So, this is how I've decided to comfort myself every time I'm physically, emotionally, or socially accosted by the Soldiers of the Christian Coalition; Preach and Crusade all you want, you hypocritical fools, I'll see you in Hell.

TTFN

Previous Posts
Me Write - You Wrong
Wasteland
Dead People Suck
Hob-Knobbin' (sp?)
Out Of The Loop
Stunted Growth
Off Topic: Culture For Sale
Don't Do Me No Favors
Bored Now...
You Think That's Funny?

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