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Saturday, February 10, 2007
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Answering For His Crimes
Someone asked me about Michael Jackson the other day. And while I usually answer to questions involving american celebrities and their varied social faux pas by saying "look over there" then lighting something on fire, it was the first time I realized that I actually cared about the life and times of america's favorite One-Man Freak Show.
As much as I hate to admit it, I'm actually upset by the whole "Michael Jackson Thing," and not for the usual "fuck, I hate you all" reasons.
There was a time, not so long ago, when Jacko was someone to look up to.
As a child of the 80's, I grew up in the days when MTV was actually a driving force of creativity, and not the soul-crushing bane of civilization that it is today. And the man that really pushed the limits of pairing popular music with inspired visuals was Michael Jackson. I was one of those kids that ran and hid behind the couch the first time Thriller was aired, in all it's were-cat glory. And immediately afterward, I was glued to the set to watch the "Making Of" special that followed. It was my first introduction to the Science behind Hollywood Magic.
For the following decade, every time MJ came out with a new video, it would employ the absolutely latest, never before seen technology in film and video effects. And he always managed to present them in ways that never made you think that he made up the video with the effects in mind; rather he'd planned the vide all along, and we luckily had just figured out a way to make it work. The man had a purpose and a point to everything he did. He'd become a sort of unofficial spokesman for advancement in Computer Enhanced Visual Effects, which had become all but official when he starred in Disney's first and only foray into 3-D, Captain E-O.
And as for the music, he's called The King of Pop for a reason. He's the only person I can think of who's music is referred to as "pop" without some sort of sneer behind the word. He spent the 80's showing the entire world that you can make music that is loved by the masses without selling out to materialism, sexuality, or mediocrity. Something that has yet to be duplicated.
For those of us who grew up in the 80's, he was an icon for creativity and personal inspiration.
Then, somewhere in the 90's, he got a little weird.
Okay, to be fair, he always was "a little" weird. But when you have a massively creative mind at work, we all give a little extra room for peculiarities. This goes double for musicians. For some reason, we let these guys get away with murder.
But, as time went by, paparazzi scrutiny of Mikey started to peel away the layers of privacy that he enjoyed. We started to get snippets and crumbs of just how odd the former Pepsi Poster Boy was. He desperately tried to keep to himself, begging the Tabloid Press to let him be, only to have that fuel everyone's curiosity.
Then, he gave up and gave an interview to Oprah. I admit, I tuned in. It was a momentus moment in history for us 80's Children, as our most noted icon was speaking candidly for the first time in years. In hindsight, it was also the halmark of when things really started to scream downhill for The Youngest Jackson.
The life of MJ, Post Oprah, is much easier to research. The erratic behavior and lawsuits have become so legendary, that it's sometimes easy to forget why we ever took an interest in the man to begin with.
His guilt or innocence aside, the whole thing is upsetting to me because it does more than ambarrass me as an american, shame me as a "fan," or disgust me as a human being. In a sense, it violates me as a Child Of The 80's. For all of us that grew up in the days of Thriller, who actually used to Breakdance durring lunch break at school, Micheal Jackson was the very symbol of everything we wanted to be; cool, creative, and filthy rich.
Now the veil has been pulled away and we are so horrified by what we've seen, none of us are willing to admit that we ever liked the bastard.
Seriously, how dare he do this to us?
TTFN
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Tuesday, February 06, 2007
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In The News...
Thanks to my fellow wankers at Fark.com, I've been able to keep up with bits and pieces of the news back home. As usual, it's more on the infuriating and depressing side than it is informative. Since I'm currently procrastinating, and wallowing in the self-pity that my latest genius idea has once again already been launched by cocksuckers with more money than me, I'm going to waste my and your time with some written responses to a couple choice notes of news that I've picked up on over the last couple of weeks.
1. Republicans want government approval of screenplays before a movie starts shooting.
Okay, so that is the message that was implied by the Fark Submitter that brought this story to my attention. It's actually not as Thought Police as it seems. Reading the article, I find that it's actually just one lowly state senator, who happens to be a Republican, who wants to make sure that government money isn't going toward "unsavory" subject matter.
Now, I hate censorship and Republicans as much as the next guy, but I actually think the guy has a valid point. Many states and Cities all over America are trying to lure filmmakers away from Hollywood by offering all manner of tax breaks and rebates. These offers are not valid to indie projects, since they're stamped with all sorts of addendums requiring proof that brining the production to the state or city in question has resulted in tourist level dollars being spent on local revenue generators (caterers, road crews, unions, extras casting, etc). It stands to reason that some might take issue with a multi-million dollar company saving a million or two at local resident taxpayer expense, only to have it churn out another Independence Day, though I don't think that is this Rep's concern.
The issue revolves around the upcoming film that features Dakota Fanning as a sexually promiscuous molestation victim. Not a film that I'm especially interested in seeing, but I'm the last person in the world to say a movie shouldn't be made just because it makes me uncomfortable. If america can survive Kids, it can survive anything.
So, the question is, should a movie be allowed government cheese if it has a scene of a 12-year-old being raped? Considering the fact that this film was backed by a multi-million dollar studio, and therefore would have been made with or without the tax-cut, I don't think that really counts as censorship.
If you ask me, the issue is much more serious. Why aren't these same benefits offered to the indie crowd? Life has been hard for the independent artist since the Repubs castrated the National Endowment for the Arts. Since then, the only voices of true creativity that can be heard are the ones that don't go against the Disney Grain. Rather than trying to attract Hollywood to your city, why aren't you trying to cultivate the already existing indie scene that is, as we speak, germinating in every city, town, burg, and village in the world.
But, that's beside the point. It occurs to me that there has been a lot of hubub about this Dakota Fanning flick. Article after article after news blurb about how everybody in the world is up in arms about it, and how the filmmakers swear up and down on how the whole thing is done in good taste.
Sounds like a hell of a publicity push to me. So, fuck them.
2. Not-for-profit Piracty legal in Italy.
Arr matey. It seems that somebody in the world finally grew a pair and told the Music Industry to quit their bitching. I've already made my opinions on piracy quite clear, and it seems that this judgment along with the number of Italian dots on my ClustrMap can hardly be a coincidence. I can only hope that this is the first step in my prediction, nay...prayer, that the Recording Industry will soon flatline.
My favorite part of article like these is when the Recording Industry Lawyers and Representatives start talking about all the layoffs that have been taking place all over the industry. How much do you want to bet that not one of those layoffs were the guys that greenlighted K-Fed's or Paris Hilton's albums?
3.Hi-Def DVD; Good for Porn?
Every great advancement in media technology, from the pinhole camera to DSL, has been kept alive in it's infancy by suckling at the silicone tit of The Blue Movie industry. I still remember my days of working in a Fry's Electronics in 1997, when there were more porn titles on DVD than there were mainstream films. I was even invited to an employee party to see the Deluxe Edition of Deep Throat that employed the "alternative angle" feature that early DVD's loved to advertise. Later that same year, Titanic was released on VHS and not on DVD for another two years.
So, with the new HD-DVD about to enter the market, everyone is wondering "what will Hi-Def Porn" look like. The consensus is "like shit." The poor lighting, bland sets, horrific scripting, offensive acting, laughable makeup, and shocking hygiene that porn has always been notorious for will now be impossible to ignore in the upcoming jump in "better than real life" picture quality tech.
I'd like to hope that this will give the porn industry the kick in the pants it needs to start upping the quality of their production standards. I know that if I was a porn director, I'd look at this as a chance to scream into the sky "At last! My chance to shine!" But that's because I take pride in my work, even if it's a cumshot on a midget. Nobody would be shutting off my porn after only 10 minutes.
But, it seems that while everyone is arguing over how this will decide the HD-DVD vs Blue-Ray war (didn't Sony learn their lesson with Betamax?), the only thing the porn producers are wanting to do with the new technology is add even more "interactivity" to the productions (i.e. bringing "alternate angles" back from the dead).
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
TTFN
UPDATE: (One Hour Later) Whoops. I spent all that time talking about porn, and I totally forgot to actually include some. Please accept my most humbled appologies.
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