Thoughts on Season 7 of Game of Thrones & Looking Ahead

Sunday was the final episode of Game of Thrones for potentially a long time.  I heard somewhere that like Westworld, it could be over a year until the final season begins to air.  Whether that's true or not remains to be seen.  In any case, that season will only be like 6 episodes, though like the last episodes of season 7 some will probably be longer than the usual 50-ish minutes.

One thing I lamented in previous seasons (especially season 5) was how long it took for things to happen.  But starting in season 6, with the number of episodes dwindling and having exceeded the storylines of the books, the producers started to put the pedal to the metal.  All of the sudden Danerys could round up a fleet of ships and transport an entire army across the sea to Westeros in the blink of an eye.  I mean in the first couple of seasons it took people several episodes just to get from Winterfell in the north to King's Landing in the south.  And Danerys had been wandering around the west like Moses for almost 6 fucking years.  Now all the sudden she can conveniently pack up and fly across the sea on her dragon.

Season 7 then began to really exaggerate that.  The penultimate episode was probably the worst offender as Jon Snow and a fellowship go past the wall to round up a zombie.  In prior seasons this would have taken an entire season or at least half of one.  But in this episode they go beyond the wall, find the zombie army, get stuck in the middle of some ice, have one guy run all the way back to the wall, then have the guys on the wall send a raven with a message to Danerys, and then have Danerys show up with her dragons like choppers in a war zone.  It was all pretty ludicrous.

So while previous seasons I could complain they were too slow, this one I complain everything is moving too fast.  It's like the people of Westeros all the sudden figured out supersonic engines and bullet trains.  Like the episode I mentioned, this allows for characters who were far apart to arrive just in the nick of time to lend a hand or provide critical information.  Like at the end of the season when Sam arrives at Winterfell just in time to tell Brandon that Jon is the rightful king of Westeros.

It makes it a little difficult to predict what will happen in Season 8, whenever it airs.  With the Night King and his zombie army breaking through The Wall, are they going to move like a bullet train and be at Winterfell's gates in the first episode, or are they going to move at a more traditional pace to give Jon, Danerys, and everyone else time to arrive?  I really don't know, but you have to think it'd be pretty easy for the Night King to just fly ahead and use his zombie dragon to turn Winterfell into a pile of rubble (again.)

It is funny then how you think you want something and when you get it, it doesn't really satisfy you.  I thought after season 5 I wanted things to move along and now everything is happening so fast it's hard to keep up.  That's life for you.

Anyone reading this has probably A) Seen the show or B) Never watched it so I don't really feel like going into much more about it.  Let me just finish with my wish list for Season 8:

• Theon "Reek" Greyjoy dies saving his sister.  And stopping Cersei's mercenary army from reaching Westeros in the process.  And so Reek finally shows some courage and dies a hero's death and we don't have to see him anymore.  (Though it was pretty funny in the last episode when the guy he was fighting kicked him between the legs like three times and he just smiles like, "I ain't got nothing there no more, fool!")
• The Hound finally kills his brother.  They faced each other in the finale of season 7 and at some point you have to think the Hound will finally take out the Mountain, his now-undead brother serving Cersei Lannister.  Maybe once the White Walkers are dead and everyone goes after Cersei they can have a throwdown--if Arya Stark doesn't kill the Hound first.
• Arya and Sansa do...something.  I actually have no idea what I really want either of them to do.  It was cool that they tricked Littlefinger and took him out, but I really have no idea what else they can do with the zombie army bearing down on them.  If they became zombies I wouldn't really give a shit.
• Some main characters become zombies.  You have to make at least a couple of token main characters into zombies at some point.  I really don't know who but like The Walking Dead just about anyone is fair game, especially in the last season.
• Brandon and the Night King have a warg-off.  Now that Brandon has all this mystical psychic bullshit going on, he needs to have a throwdown with the zombie army's leader, the Night King.  And if they didn't already, tell us who the Night King is and how he came to start the whole zombie army thing.
• Dragonfight!  You have a zombie dragon and two non-zombie dragons so at some point we need a fight.  And the one Danerys doesn't ride will die because it's the spare.  I mean the only other reason to have two dragons is for Danerys to ride one and Jon the other.
• Tyrion is the Last Lannister Standing.  Since the rest of his family has shit on him pretty much the entire series it would be pretty awesome if Tyrion is the last of the Lannisters at the end.  And he could let Bron have Castelly Rock while he remains Hand for whoever sits on the Iron Throne.
• Someone good should sit on the Iron Throne.  After 8 years let's not end the series on a bummer with Cersei on the Iron Throne or the Night King turning everyone into zombies or shit like that.  It should be Jon or Danerys, which is why it probably won't be, but at least someone who isn't evil or shitty, please.  They don't have to go all LOTR with the end but it'd be nice if good defeats evil and winter ends with a new king or queen who isn't fucking awful.  I'm just saying.  My dark horse candidate:  Sam the big fat guy.  I mean he is the head of the Tarley house or whatever now technically, isn't he?  So if the other families get barbecued or zombified he has a shot, right?  And he's GRR Martin's avatar, so there you go.

The writers kind of painted themselves into a corner now as far as Jon's love life goes.  We find out Danerys is his cousin or whatever just as they finally get around to fucking.  And the only other women he could hook up with are his sisters, Brienne, or Cersei Lannister.  There are no good cards in that hand at all.  Well done, producers!  So either Jon isn't going to end up with anyone or he's going to die--again.  And, hey, what happened to that witch who brought him back to life?  She was in like one episode just standing around out of sight.  Maybe she can get the "Lord of Light" to help with the zombies or something.

If you're wondering by now, I'm 90% serious about everything in this post, which is pretty much maximum seriousness for any post on this blog.

The Selfish Critiquer

This comes from frenemy John Oberon's blog about a month ago.  Someone asked for a critique on her poem:

FROM A.B.ENGLAND

Let me first say, poetry is not my strong suit. That's why I need a little help. I've been trying to improve in this area, and I would greatly appreciate a few honest opinions of the attempt and/or suggestions on how to improve it.
Thank you in advance.
**************************************************
I know not why I turn to Nature’s embrace
when the man-made confines of wood and stone
become too stifling to endure longer.
It seems my soul longs to trace
the sun’s warming rays,
dancing amidst the riotous colors of spring’s fresh blooms,
and I am helpless but to obey.
At such times, I leave the dusky shadow of my home
and set out down the old gravel path
until my feet irrevocably lead into the neighboring wood.
I can measure my life in the changes
of her humble trees
passing from one phase of their life
to another by regular degrees.
Today, I entered by a path untried
by my feet in my score years.
No humble herbs sprouted here save the mosses
carpeting the forest floor with a fresh green softness
absent from the other well-worn paths.
Here the elders of the forest’s arbors
rise high above my lowly head to proudly raise
their branches in praise to their creator.
I walked there through the long, solemn halls
of a cathedral untouched by bumbling mortal hands
and gazed heavenward upon a mural
no man’s craft could hope to rival.
Leaf and sky, light and shadow,
gathered in an undulating dance
unhindered by the passage of time.
All too soon the sanctuary came into view,
and I stood transfixed in awe of its simple beauty.
A crystal brook wound merrily along its course,
the tinkling waters joining in the songbirds’ hymn.
A single dogwood tree stood alone in the clearing,
blushing blossoms sheltering the brook
from the overlooking sun’s mottled light.
My soul rejoiced, joining in the chorus,
and I remained, having no will to leave.
When I thought my heart could hold no more
wonder for the marvelous sight,
I was further blessed to see a single deer.
She passed the shadows of the trees
to dip her head to drink of the stream’s waters.
Her countenance was unlike any I’d ever seen,
a delicate, graceful form covered in fur of purest white.
The wind shifted,
showering the clearing with dogwood blossoms,
and the doe raised her hoary head to regard me.
I felt no fear from her,
only my dumbstruck awe,
regarding the lovely creature glowing in the sunlight.
In an instant the moment was gone,
and the snow-white doe vanished
into the forest once more,
leaving me with the realization
the creature I encountered was no fleshly being,
but the spirit of the woods.

And here was his response:

Well, the meaning is crisp and clear, and that's good, but it reads more like a factual account of an event than a poetic impression. It's almost like you initially wrote this in prose, then simply diced it into eight stanzas of varying lengths with very little rhyme or reason. Good description, though.

A big problem is the idea of worshiping nature...of trying to draw spiritual transcendence out of flora and fauna. Certainly nature provides us with moments of beauty, awe, and grandeur, but only because they are the handiwork of the most beautiful, awesome and grand Creator. They reflect the character of God and apart from Him, they are nothing but shadows and dust. To misplace worship on the created rather than the Creator is little more than emotional masturbation. It is hollow and in the end leads to despair, because it can never fill the God-shaped vacuum in our souls. Nature dies, but we are meant for eternity.

So if you want to improve this "poem" immeasurably, at least as far as meaning, direct the worshipful feelings and awe that nature inspires to the infinite God, because all of nature points to Him.

So after one short paragraph that could actually be construed as helpful, he spends two paragraphs lecturing her about Christianity.  It's so silly too this idea that you can't "worship" nature without Christian God.  Um, hello, Native Americans and tribes in Africa and South Africa and so forth have been doing that for thousands of years before Christ was even born!

But more to the point, this is just selfish on Oberon's part.  The author didn't ask him about religion; she wanted help with her poem.  Instead of providing much actual help, he uses it as a platform to harangue her about his religion.  It's just bad form.

The goal of a critique is to help the author, not save his or her soul.  If you want to do that, walk around your neighborhood handing out pamphlets.

FREE BOOKS!

I emailed Amazon and they finally made A Hero's Journey permafree!  In case you haven't read it already, now you can get it free on Amazon.  It's already free on Barnes & Noble and other retailers.

And in case you forgot what it's about or are new to this blog (which was used to launch the book in 2012):

Dr. Emma Earl never wanted to be a hero. But when she finds a magic suit of armor that can deflect bullets and turn her invisible, she becomes part of an ancient war between good and evil. It’s up to Emma as the latest incarnation of the heroic Scarlet Knight to save Rampart City from the fiendish Black Dragoon and his plan to rule first the city and then the whole world!

You can go to the Special Features tab to get lots of bonus content like character bios, a guide to Rampart City, and an animated comic!

There are some other new free ones too:

There's supposed to be a couple more but maybe they'll show up as free later. (Yup, 3 other Eric Filler books have also been added: Unisex, Private Dick, and Race Against Time. I'll add links later.)

Our Brand Needs Crisis

MSN.com is one of the few pages I can open on my computer at work.  I like to take their daily polls just to see what other people are thinking about things.  Sometimes it's pretty funny.

• Who do you blame for the healthcare bill failure?  48% Senate Republicans
• Do you think Trump is doing a good job?  68% No
• Who are you going to vote for in 2018?  40% Republicans, 39% Democrats

OK, so you don't think the Republican president is doing a good job, you don't think Congress is doing a good job...and yet 40% are still going to vote Republican. 

This is kind of a depressing thought I had:  A lot of liberals like to talk about flipping the House or Senate in 2018, but for me the problem is that unless things really tank, I worry people are just going to be too comfortable to make a change or even bother to vote.  Let's face it:  most people don't really follow what's going on outside their neighborhood or sports team or favorite TV shows, so as long as things aren't too bad for them, they don't really see the danger.

The biggest gains Democrats had in this century were in 2006 with the Iraq war bogged down and 2008 after the economic collapse.  Since then they've just been losing, losing, losing seats.  In that time there's been no great crisis to motivate people.  The Iraq war has pretty much wound down, Afghanistan is no longer on the front pages, and the economy isn't great but not as bad as it was.

The movie Our Brand Is Crisis gets its title from something Sandra Bullock's character tells the Bolivian candidate she's working for:  that he needs to instill in voters the idea there's a crisis that only he can solve.  It's something to large extent Trump did for his voters by whining time and again how we're not great and losing and blah, blah, blah.  Enough people bought it for him to win the electoral college.

If nothing really changes economically or militarily in the next year, the challenge for Democrats is instilling in people that there's a real crisis that needs a change of management.  A lot of us in "the resistance" already think that but we saw in the 2016 election how that doesn't necessarily play out to blue wins.

The Imaginary Middle Ground

There's one blog I follow written by a self-styled "independent" in Texas.  We don't agree on some things like gun control (being from Texas of course he wants no gun control, yee-hah!) but we do agree on regulating Wall Street.  So among individuals you can have some agreement despite political leanings.  But one thing he said I found particularly ridiculous:

Democrats have to realize Republicans can have some good ideas.

Oh really?  Like what?  That was the challenge I put forward:  tell me one good idea Republicans have that doesn't benefit special interest groups or rich people/corporations?

And the answer:  I don't have to tell you.  Look it up!  You're lazy!  You're close-minded!  Read The Economist!

In other words, even though he says I should think Republicans can have good ideas, he doesn't actually know any good ideas they have.  I guess they CAN have good ideas, they just don't.

I mentioned before how on Twitter I got into it with a Hillary supporter who whined about Bernie Sanders's ideas.  I said, "At least he had ideas" to which she said that Hillary had plenty of ideas.  Like what?  (That she didn't steal from Bernie.)  And it was the same response as on this guy's blog:  Look it up!  She has ideas!  Tons of them!  Just sounding like when you ask a virgin how many women he's fucked.  So don't think I'm just picking on the right.

The problem here is people want to think there's some middle ground, but it no longer exists.  The "Blue Dogs" like Hillary, Cory Booker, etc try to play to a center that isn't there anymore.  All they do is anger liberals by being too far right and angering conservatives by not being right enough.  The days of compromise and everyone getting along for the common good are over--if they were ever here to start with.  So let's just stop pretending.

And for that matter we really need self-styled "independents" to grow up.  If you can't name one good idea Republicans have, then maybe it's time you stop pretending like you have a choice.  It'd really be nice if one-issue voters like NRA members or "pro-life" people could grow up too and realize maybe there are more important things in life than whether you can go hunting with a machine gun.  Fat chance of that, I suppose.

Amazon Giveaways Are Still an Epic Fail

Over a year ago I blogged about Amazon's flawed giveaway system.  When it debuted it had three options, none of which were very helpful.  They have since corrected it so you can select the "sweepstakes" option that like its sister site Goodreads picks one or more people at random after a set time period.

I thought about using it and filled everything out.  Then I got to the payment screen.  Amazon wanted to charge me for the two books I was going to give away (which is fine) but then they also wanted to charge me $6 shipping on each book, which was the price of the book, BTW.  My first thought is:  WTF?!  I'm an Amazon Prime member, why do I have to pay for shipping?  They've anticipated that with a button that says, "Why can't I use my Amazon Prime?"  The answer is basically:  Cuz we said so.  You can't use Amazon Prime for giveaways.  Which is pretty fucking lame.  I mean I'm already buying the books from them why do I have to pay twice as much to ship them?

So Goodreads is still the better alternative.  Or just using Rafflecopter or one of those things to do the giveaway yourself.  Then I can just order the books from Amazon and use Prime to ship them for free.  So suck it Amazon.

It just seems to me another way of Amazon disrespecting independent sellers on its site.  I read an article the other day about how starting this fall they're going to kick their already loose return policies up a notch to make it even easier for scumbags to defraud sellers, as happened to me when I tried to sell a laptop on Amazon.  I just get really tired of dealing with their crap; if there were another way I'd take it in a heartbeat.

Speaking of giveaways, you can enter a Goodreads giveaway to win 1 of 2 copies of the Eric Filler gender swap novella The Comeback.  It's probably the closest to literary fiction I've written in a few years.  An 80s hair rocker who has since become a has-been gets drunk and falls off a stage while playing the Corn Festival in Auburn, Michigan (which is based on a real thing) and wakes up in a "rehab" facility as a teenage girl.  His manager then signs him up for an American Idol-type show and he begins a new career as a pop princess while also getting his heart broken a few times.  It's out in paperback now and in a couple of weeks in Kindle.  If you want, be like most people and enter to win it and then never bother reading or reviewing it!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Comeback

by Eric Filler

Giveaway ends August 24, 2017.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

The Slow Burn: Season 2 of Man in the High Castle

Amazon's Man in the High Castle, Season 2 has been out since November or December I think, but for whatever reason I just never got around to it until about a month ago.   I binged all 10 episodes over 2 days while recovering from having a tooth extracted.  The season was OK, but it's one of those seasons that's more about building to the future than setting off fireworks in the present.

The premise of the show is taken from the Philip K Dick novel featuring an alternate America where the Axis won World War II and split America between the Third Reich (who control east of the Rockies) and the Japanese (who control west of the Rockies).  It's set in an alternate 1962 where there's an uneasy peace between the Reich and Japanese Empire, though Hitler's health is failing while Japan works to have its own atom bomb.

Much of the first season focused on a reel of film that showed a San Francisco destroyed by an atom bomb and Nazis executing people in the street.  Other films from the mysterious "Man in the High Castle" show an entirely different world--our world.  A Japanese trade minister at the end of the first season was able to somehow cross over into our world.

So the questions this left were:  Who is the Man in the High Castle?  Where Do These Films Come From?  What Do They Mean?  How Did the Trade Minister Enter Our World?

Most of these questions are answered to some extent.  Who is the Man in the High Castle?  Would you believe it's that nerdy guy in Office Space who wanted his red stapler back?  OK, not true, but the eponymous mystery figure is played by Stephen Root, who played Milton in Office Space and has appeared in tons of other stuff like No Country for Old Men and as the voice of Bill Dauterive in King of the Hill.  But who he is and where he gets these films from is not really answered. 

What do the films mean?  Apparently besides just our world there's a whole multiverse covered in the films.  The Man in the High Castle indicates that most people who show up in multiple universes act somewhat differently, but some act consistently.  One of these is Juliana Crane, who was given the first film shown by her dying sister.  She then became a reluctant operative of the American Resistance, which used her to spy on the Trade Minister and others.  In season 2 she defects to the Reich and spies on the Nazis, especially the household of American Nazi spymaster John Smith (Rufus Sewell star of Dark City and other stuff) and their little Stepford Wives-type suburban neighborhood.  It's the kind of neighborhood that's like one of those Twilight Zone or Sliders episodes where at first you think it's nice because it's clean and neat and people are smiling and polite...then you find out all the horrors under the surface like Jews, blacks, gays, and the disabled are all outlawed and executed.  To be allowed a visa, Juliana has to go through a whole brutal examination to test her for ethnic "purity."

Meanwhile Juliana's former boyfriend Frank is joining the Resistance in San Francisco, helping them to salvage an old unexploded bomb and use it on the headquarters of the Japanese secret police.  At the same time he makes a deal with the local mafia (the yakuza) to save his friend from detention. 

After coming back to the show's reality for a couple of episodes the Trade Minister goes back to our world.  It's during the peak of the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, which in a way parallels the growing standoff between the Reich and Japanese Empire in the other reality.  The Trade Minister is reunited with his wife and son who died in the other world but his wife in our world wants a divorce and his son is a college student protesting against nuclear weapons who decries his father's Japnese-ness.  How the Trade Minister goes back and forth is barely explained.  It's sort of like Somewhere in Time where if he just meditates enough he can go there.  He finds out too his assistant in his world is actually from our world, where his family was killed by one of the A-bombs that ended WWII; to him the reality of the show is the happier reality because his family is alive.

One of the main characters in the first season was "Joe Blake" an American Nazi who worked as a double agent to try to get the film Juliana had.  A lot of unnecessary time is spent with his character in the second season as he goes to Berlin to meet his long-lost daddy who's a high-up mukety-muck with the Nazi Party.  His dad takes him to a facility where in the 30s they were trying to create "pure" babies including Joe.  Joe hangs out with some Eurotrash and is there when his father is promoted to chancellor while Hitler lay dying and then is also there when his father is overthrown by Nazi Party insiders aided by John Smith, who then becomes a Hero of the Reich.  Joe will probably be thrown in prison or something, but who cares?  I mean really that added almost nothing to the story--yet.

On the homefront, John Smith is also trying to keep word from leaking that his son Thomas has early signs of muscular dystrophy.  In the Reich a degenerative disease like that gets you thrown in the ovens so the Obergruppenfuhrer has been trying to cover it up, which he does in part by murdering the doctor who diagnosed Thomas.  And then murdered a couple of subordinates who inadvertently found out.  Will that catch up to him at some point, especially now that he's a big star in the Nazi firmament?  Time will tell.

The season ends with the Man in the High Castle introducing Juliana to her sister, who's maybe not dead after all.  Meanwhile a Resistance agent gives the Trade Minister a box of the Man in the High Castle's films.  Those are a couple of plot points that will hopefully get sorted out (somewhat at least) in the next season.

The problem with this season is as I titled the article, it's a slow burn.  There's no "Battle of the Bastards" like Game of Thrones or anyone getting beaten to a pulp with a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire like The Walking Dead.  Sure plenty of people get killed and there are a couple of explosions but nothing too big and showy.  It's the sort of season that might lead to better things, but probably isn't too memorable on its own.  I hope if there's a season 3 they can ramp up the excitement a little more to make it a bit more entertaining.

I'd give it a solid 3/5

(Fun Fact:  One of the new characters of the season is Gary, the head of the San Francisco Resistance, who's played by Callum Keith Rennie, who played a Chicago detective in season three of Due South, one of the favorite shows of me and my sisters in the 90s.)

Author: JT Leroy: A Primer on Fake News

In the history of literature there have been a number of hoaxes and scams.  Like James Frey's fake memoir A Million Little Pieces or Clifford Irving's fake Howard Hughes diaries.  The Amazon documentary Author: JT Leroy is about more of a literary Catfish scandal that ensnared authors, agents, publishers, rock stars, actors, directors, and radio/TV/magazines/newspapers around the world for nearly 10 years.

If you don't know, Catfish was a documentary and later MTV television series about a guy who tracked down a woman in Michigan who was claiming to be someone else, whom he'd fallen in love with until he started noticing some weird things.  In confronting her he found out this woman had numerous fake accounts.  Online it's pretty easy to use a fake picture and make up a profile.  "JT Leroy" did largely the same thing only IRL.

Back in 1995, a chubby 30-something woman named Laura Albert was bummed out and for some reason called a teen suicide hotline.  She used the pseudonym "Terminator" and tricked the shrink on the phone to think she was a teenage boy who'd been abused and even had his genitals mutilated so that he sounded effeminate.  She called the doctor a few times, making the story bigger and bigger, until he suggested she write about it.

And so she did and then contacted Bruce Benderson, author of the book User, again using the silly "Terminator" handle.  He in turn put her in touch with his agent and eventually a book called Sarah came about under the revised handle JT Leroy for Jeremiah Terminator Leroy, the surname coming from someone she knew from her job working on a phone sex line.

The book was supposed to be a roman a clef about a boy who pretends to be a girl working as a hooker at a truck stop.  It was a big deal because people thought it was written by a 17-year-old boy based on real experiences.  (Which it wasn't.)

When the book gained notoriety people were clamoring to see JT Leroy in public.  If they saw a chubby 30-something woman the whole thing would be blown, so she convinced her boyfriend's sister to dress up in a wig and bulky sunglasses and make public appearances as "JT Leroy."  And not only did this work, soon JT Leroy was rubbing elbows with rock stars like Bono, Billy Corgan, and Courtney Love; actors like Matthew Modine; and directors like Gus van Sant who bought the rights to Sarah but never got it produced.  "JT Leroy" was an associate producer on van Sant's 2003 movie Elephant and also began writing music for a band called Thistle--a band Albert appeared in as a British woman named "Speedie."  Often "JT Leroy" and "Speedie" would be together at events along with Albert's boyfriend.

It really struck me how ridiculously easy this all was.  Not only was "JT Leroy" hobnobbing with celebrities, but "he" was also being profiled in magazines, newspapers, and TV pieces and NO ONE smelled anything fishy.

Thanks to Donald Trump "fake news" has been bandied about a lot in the last 2 years.  A lot of fake news is created online and spread through social media but in this case it happened largely through traditional means.  The reason is because in the media you have two types of people:  reporters and journalists.

Reporters are most of the media these days.  They just report what someone says:  Today Donald Trump tweeted the moon is made of green cheese.  A journalist would actually talk to people who worked at NASA present and past and various scientists to say that no the moon isn't made of green cheese and here's the proof.  It's unfortunate that we do have mostly just reporters regurgitating statements, press releases, and Tweets without actually corroborating anything to determine its accuracy.

That's why it took 10 fucking years for this scam to unravel.  Ten.  Fucking.  YEARS!  Finally in 2005 a journalist named Steven Beachy for New York magazine began poking holes in the "JT Leroy" story.  Then other outlets that hadn't bothered to do any journalism on the subject previously began to pile on.  (Just like Trump's Russia connections.)  But it wasn't until Albert's jealous boyfriend rolled on her that things really collapsed.

And what happened?  Not a lot.  Albert had to pay $350,000 to a publisher for signing contracts with a false name.  In the documentary she shows absolutely no remorse about duping the public or making a bunch of celebrities and news outlets look like chumps.  "It was just a pen name."  Bullshit!  If you're an author using a pen name you have to tell your publisher this in advance.  When Stephen King wrote books as Richard Bachmann or JK Rowling wrote books as Robert Galbraith you think they sent someone pretending to be that person to events?  Or signed contracts with that fake name?  Um, no, because that's not how you do it because that is called FRAUD.  The fact she's still out there writing books under her own name now makes me kind of angry.  But hey when you're a celebrity they let you do what you want, right Mr. President?

One thing that occurred to me is that she's never going to know whether her writing was published on its own merit or because the author and agent she Catfished early on thought it was coming from a teenage boy with a touching (ie marketable) backstory.  But you can say her fiction must have been good if she could fool all of these people, right?

At the end of the documentary she talks about being molested as a toddler by her uncle and at that point I was numb because really, could I trust her?  Or was that just another story she was making up?  That's the problem when you cry wolf.  And when supposed journalists just report someone crying wolf, it allows fake news to spread until we're all being Catfished.

And I have to say the problem with documentaries like this one or even the one on the Corman Fantastic Four movie I watched last month is that they too are just reporters regurgitating quotes and not delving into it to get at the truth.  In this case I'd really have liked a journalist to ask Albert some hard questions and make her squirm instead of letting her off easy by just saying it was a "pen name" or some "character in her head" and leaving it at that.  There are so many authors out there trying to get recognition that it just sucks when someone can cut to the head of the line and suffer almost no consequences.  It does all of us a disservice.

It Lives: Stuff I Watched

More stuff I watched (obviously):

Power Rangers:  Like the Ninja Turtles movie from 3 years ago I went in with very low expectations and was pleasantly surprised that this was actually not terrible.  As the Honest Trailer suggested it's basically like if you took The Breakfast Club and then gave them robot dinosaurs and had them fight a giant gold dude.  The teen characters are pretty much John Hughes archetypes:  the jock (Red), the princess (Pink), the nerd (Blue), the loner (Black), and the crazy chick (Yellow).  Bryan Cranston is largely wasted as Zordon, who like Abin Sur in Green Lantern crashes on Earth and dispatches power rings coins that eventually find the five kids above in Angel Grove to fight the scene-chewing Elizabeth Banks.  A little more subtlety for the villain would have made it a stronger movie but otherwise it was good. (3/5)

Get Out:  This revolves around the needlessly complicated plan of white people to abduct black guys and implant them with white guy brains.  On the surface it's about as sensible as The Thing With Two Heads where Ray Milland's head is sewn onto Rosie Grier's body, but the movie is well-crafted to avoid campiness so that it's really only at the end that you think:  WTF?  Why would anyone come up with such a ludicrous plan?  It is well-crafted but a little slow in the middle.  (3/5)

I Love You, Man:  Harmless and amusing Apatow-lite movie about a man who goes looking for a friend and then naturally finds one who starts taking up his entire life.  The movie requires a lot of suspending disbelief in the idea that Paul Rudd has no friends.  Really you need someone like me for that--the movie ugly version of me anyway like maybe Kevin James or Danny DeVito. (2.5/5)

The Frontier:  A woman on the lam from murdering her abusive husband (presumably) falls asleep on Route 66 in front of a diner/motel called "The Frontier."  The kindly owner lets her stay in the motel and gives her a job waitressing.  There she finds out that pretty much everyone who comes in and the kindly owner are all in on an armored car robbery.  And so everyone begins backstabbing each other to end up with the money.  Parts of it were fairly predictable, but it was a decent indie movie. (3/5)

Hardcore Henry:  The concept of this movie is that it's basically a first-person shooter video game only shot with real actors.  "Henry" is a cyborg who is activated and then takes on an evil corporation with the help of Sharlto Copley--or a whole gang of Sharlto Copleys really.  It can be kind of nauseating at times with the way the camera has to jerk around to simulate the first person view.  But it's also kind of fun if you've played first-person shooter games. (2.5/5) (Fun Fact:  M*A*S*H did an episode like this back in the late 70s or early 80s where it was shot from the POV of a patient; I thought that was pretty cool.)

The Night Manager:  This was a miniseries on AMC last year based on a John le Carre novel.  A hotel night manager (Tom Hiddleston or Loki in the MCU) in Egypt falls in love with a woman who's killed by a crooked arms dealer named Richard Roper (Hugh Laurie of Dr. House fame).  The night manager eventually stages a kidnapping of Roper's kid that he thwarts to get inside Roper's organization.  Though apparently Roper never watched The Departed or he'd know that when your criminal organization starts developing problems, you should really be looking at the new guy, not your long-serving lieutenants.  The first couple of episodes are really slow and hard to get into (especially the second one) but it eventually picks up the pace.  If you can make it past those early episodes then it becomes a decent cat-and-mouse thriller. (3/5)  (Fun Fact:  Richard Roeper is a film critic in Chicago who replaced Gene Siskel on TV after his death.)

Punisher: War Zone:  Until Wonder Woman this year, this movie was the one people trotted out for why women couldn't direct big superhero movies.  We tried it once and didn't work, OK?  That seems totally fair. [eye roll]  Anyway, the problems for this movie lie in the script and casting.  You have a Punisher in Ray Stevenson with less charisma than Karl Urban in Dredd and a villain (Dominic West) who with his damaged face and overall campiness seems to think he's channeling Jack Nicholson's Joker.  The plot is pretty simple:  the Punisher kills a bunch of bad dudes and one who survives tries to take revenge.  It's probably good in a way this movie wasn't very good as it eventually let Marvel get the character rights back for the Daredevil series on Netflix and now his own series. (2/5)

Insecurity:  Have you ever wondered what Canada's intelligence agency might be like?  Wonder no more!  This CBC series from 2011 is like a live action Archer in that it focuses on a group of spies working for "NISA" who aren't always all that bright or competent and yet usually get the job done.  For instance in the first episode the rest of the team accidentally leaves their leader behind to be captured.   She's taken to the sadistic "Doctor" only to realize he used to be a nerdy kid she went to high school with.  Awkward!  While not as vulgar and globe-trotting as Archer, some of these episodes would have been good for Sterling and the rest to tackle. If you've never watched that, think of it like Parks and Recreation or The Office only with Canadian spies.  There are 2 seasons, the second ending by going Friends and hooking people up, so it's probably just as well that was the end of it.  I really enjoyed it, though it needed a better theme song.  (4/5)  (Fun Fact:  While it's set in Ottawa, most of the show was filmed in Regina, which rhymes with fun!)

Pacific Heat:  This animated series I think takes place in Australia and like Insecurity above focuses on a team of misfits who fight crimes.  The animation is like Archer mixed with an old NES game it seems at times.  There are some funny parts but the annoying thing is they talk about as rapidly and often as the Gilmore Girls. (2.5/5)

Steel:  Though the character originated in Superman comics, this eliminates all references to that.  Instead a former Army weapons designer and his friend build a metal suit and a "hammer" that's some kind of EMP weapon or something to fight Judd Nelson who's another Army weapons designer who has gone rogue.  It's exceptionally cheesy with a lot of casual racism concerning its black and Latino characters.  And Shaq is as miscast as a genius weapons designer as Robert Downey Jr would be as an NBA superstar.  This would be a lot more fun as a Rifftrax movie. (1/5)

Night of the Shorts:  This was a live Rifftrax special last year focusing on shorts.  The first was an oldie called "The Trouble With Women" about a sexist guy who lamented how terrible women in the workplace are.  (Mike Pence would be nodding along with the guy.)  Another has an annoying guy tape record teenagers so they can hear how they mispronounce words.  A short called "One Got Fat" was really macabre in that it's about kids wearing monkey masks on bikes getting killed one at a time to promote bike safety.  WTF?!  A two-part Canadian short film about "communication" was really boring and depressing.  The final bit was an old Batman serial called "Robin's Wild Ride" that hardly featured Robin.  Though this was filmed live, I wonder why they included the part during the Batman serial where the film stopped for like three minutes; you'd think they might edit that out.  It was fun because besides the normal 3 people they had a bunch of "guest riffers." (3/5)

When Justice Fails:  Marlee Matlin and Jeff Fahey are a deaf attorney and a renegade cop and...um, I don't know.  That seemed like about it for the story.  I fell asleep during the last third, not that much had happened to that point. (1/5) (Fun Fact:  This was from 1999, long after that Reasonable Doubts show on NBC where Matlin played a deaf lawyer opposite Mark Harmon's renegade cop.  I'm not sure why she doesn't talk in this movie as from that show and other stuff we'd already heard her speak before.)

Lone Wolf McQuade:  A forerunner to Walker, Texas Ranger as Chuck Norris plays a Texas Ranger who's after bad guys who killed his daughter's boyfriend and nearly killed her.  It was so scintillating I fell asleep about 2/3 of the way through.  The opening credits and theme music really, really want you to think you're going to watch a Sergio Leone Western, but nope, you're just watching an extended episode of Walker, Texas Ranger. (1/5)

College:  Three high school seniors go to a college for a weekend and end up going to wild parties and so forth.  They soon find that the "college experience" isn't everything they were hoping for, especially when you're a pledge.  The things I missed by not living on campus. (2.5/5)

Trespass Against Us:  Michael Fassbender is a dad who lives with his family in kind of a modern gypsy village where people just park a bunch of trailers and RVs together.  I've seen the same thing in Crackle's recent Snatch series.  Anyway, cops get after him and he steals a dog and...I didn't really follow it that well.  It was kind of boring. (2/5)

The Galaxy Invader:  In this cheesy low-budget 80s movie an alien ship crashes in the most redneck part of Maryland, where the locals hunt the creature, who looks like a low-rent Swamp Thing cosplay.  Most of the movie consists of rednecks running around chasing the creature and each other with guns. (1/5)

Bad Seed:  Luke Wilson is a husband who has a fight with his wife about the guy she was having an affair with--Daryl of The Walking Dead, aka Norman Reedus.  So Luke Wilson does the logical thing and goes over Daryl's house and barges into a bedroom and kills a guy who turns out to be Daryl's retarded brother.  Luke Wilson goes on the run then, enlisting a low-rent detective played by the late Dennis Farina, to help him try to get a damning tape back.  Then it becomes a really pathetic game of cat-and-mouse.  I think they should have made this as a comedy instead of a drama because these guys were all so fucking stupid.  The big twist is that the retarded brother killed Luke Wilson's wife, so his murder was kinda justified I guess. (1/5) (Fun Fact:  I really don't know who the title refers to:  Luke Wilson, Daryl, or maybe Daryl's brother.  It doesn't make a lot of sense.)

Girl House:  A bunch of sorority girls wire up a house with cameras to stream X-rated videos and chat with horny dudes.  Then of course one fat, bald sad lonely guy (it wasn't me, I swear!) gets obsessed and when he's rejected goes to the house and starts murdering everyone.  Pretty predictable but there's plenty of nudity not of fat, bald sad lonely guys, so there's that. (2.5/5)

Extraordinary:  This is a documentary that could probably be a mockumentary too.  This guy named Sam sees a UFO bobbing around the sky in the daytime in 2001.  Then aliens begin stalking him, little gray dudes appear at his doors and windows, creepy orbs drift around, and weird shadows show up in the house.  He's also beamed up numerous times, usually along with a woman he later meets at a UFO convention.  And apparently there are human/alien hybrid kids, one of whom starts calling him and even shows up at another convention.  It's kinda hard to take all of it seriously.  When the aliens call him "starseed" and act like he's some Chosen One it makes me think of 2001: A Space Odyssey.  Anyway, I guess it depends if You Want to Believe or not. The documentary starts off with the "evidence" that is of course usually grainy video and then it goes into interviews that are fairly boring.  (2/5)

Knowing:  In 1959 a little girl writes a bunch of numbers on a piece of paper that's put in a time capsule.  50 years later Nic Cage's son gets the piece of paper when the time capsule is raised.  Nic Cage examines it and realizes the numbers relate to disasters like 9/11 with a casualty count.  And then spoiler alert it's mostly pointless because the last set of numbers is for a disaster that will wipe out the planet.  So yeah, why bother?  Pretty lame ending. (2/5)

High-Rise:  In 70s London, an architect (Jeremy Irons) constructs a high-rise that's supposed to be like a self-contained world with its own supermarket and so forth.  A guy who lost his sister recently (Tom Hiddleston) moves in and soon it all turns into Lord of the Flies or Mad Max as class warfare leaves the whole place a shambles, to the point people are eating dogs.  The obvious question is why the people don't just leave and go somewhere else?  It seems pretty obvious really.  So yeah there's not a lot of logic in the movie but some nice visuals and an orgy of mostly unattractive people.  Yay? (2/5)

The Square:  Long, mostly cliche story where an Australian man and woman cheat on their spouses and plan to run away with some stolen money, but of course things go wrong and the body count starts rising as they have to cover up their improprieties.   (1/5)  (Fun Fact:  This was directed by Nash Edgerton, based on an "original" story by Joel Edgerton, who I'm just going to assume is his brother.  Joel Edgerton also co-stars.)

Mindhorn:  This Netflix Original movie is like Hot Fuzz meets Galaxy Quest.  In the 80s Mindhorn was a popular British series but now the actor is a has-been getting by with lame commercials and such.  Then a lunatic calling himself the Kestrel demands to speak to Detective Mindhorn or he'll start killing people.  So they bring the actor in.  There's then a long, not extremely interesting local mystery involving a local politician.  It's the sort of comedy that's only about 90 minutes and yet feels like 3 hours, the bit getting old fast. (2/5) (Fun Fact:  On American Dad there's a parody show called Mind Quad about a veteran who had his limbs blown IN, which somehow gives him psychic powers.  Now that should be a Netflix original.)

The Last Slumber Party:  Laughably inept 80s slasher film about an escaped mental patient with a scalpel who dresses up in scrubs and terrorizes some annoying girls.  Makes me glad it was the last slumber party. (1/5)

Willow Creek:  Found footage movie where a guy and his girlfriend go into the woods to look for Bigfoot.  It's pretty pleasant for the first half where they're in a small town talking to locals and stuff; it actually feels like a low-rent documentary on Bigfoot.  But then they go into the woods and there is literally about 20 minutes of them just sitting in a tent listening to noises.  Sadly I was watching it live on Showtime so I couldn't fast forward.  One of the limitations of the found footage movie is that unless the people go outside the tent we can't see what's terrorizing them.  So we're just so supposed to sit there watching people listen to stuff?  WTF?  When they finally leave the tent they get lost in the woods and die thanks to Bigfoot or something.  The End.  (2/5)  (Fun Fact:  The movie was written and directed by Bobcat Goldthwaite, who you might remember from the Police Academy movies, Scrooged, and other things.  A movie where Bobcat Goldthwaite terrorizes a couple with his obnoxious voice would probably be just as scary.)

Page to Screen: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

Recently Amazon had Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs on sale so I downloaded that.  And the movie was recently on HBO so it seemed like a good time to read the book and watch the movie and compare the two.  There are a lot of similarities--at least until the final act of the book vs movie.  Spoilers ahead!

The book is told in first person from the point of view of sixteen-year-old Jake.  He lives in Florida with rich parents and for most of his life he's grown up with his grandfather's stories of fantastic children like a girl who could fly, a girl who can conjure fire, a boy who spews bees from his mouth, and more all led by Miss Peregrine, the headmistress who turns into a peregrine falcon. Jake used to believe those stories, but as he got older he started to think of them just as tall tales.

Then one night he comes home to find his grandpa dead.  Jake thinks he sees a monster running from the scene.  Traumatized by nightmares he goes to see a shrink.  In the book the shrink is a man while in the movie it's a woman played by Allison Janney.

In the book Jake's grandpa gave him some cryptic final words that led him to looking up the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson before he receives an Emerson book from his aunt.  In the book the book contains a letter while in the movie it's a postcard and Jake receiving the book is more streamlined.  Anyway, the letter is from Miss Peregrine only a few years earlier.  The address leads Jake to an island off the coast of Wales.  His father accompanies him to do some birdwatching for an ever-gestating book.

When Jake gets some kids to lead him to Miss Peregrine's house, he finds it a bombed-out wreck.  An old man tells him that the house was bombed by Nazis in 1940 (1943 in the movie) and there was only one survivor--Jake's grandpa.  (In the movie no one is supposed to have survived, Jake's grandpa having left earlier.)  After a few days Jake finds a trunk of pictures and drops it to the basement, where he soon finds himself back in 1940 when the house was good as new.  (This was streamlined in the movie.)

Jake meets all the children his grandpa told him about and Miss Peregrine, their caretaker.  They're called "peculiars" and like X-Men's mutants or Marvel's Inhumans they all have a natural ability that they're born with.  Miss Peregrine can turn into a bird but her real talent is for controlling time--something only birds can do.  For her and her children it's always September 3rd 1940/1943.  They live in a "loop" created by Miss Peregrine that resets every night just before the bomb hits.  The kids and Miss Peregrine don't age but they do know what's happening while the normal people on the island do not.  It's sort of like Groundhog Day with all the kids and Miss Peregrine as Bill Murray.

For some reason the movie changes Emma, the girl who dated Jake's grandpa and is thus attracted to him, from the girl who controls fire to the girl who floats unless she wears lead shoes.  I'm not sure why they made this change; maybe they thought the fire thing had been done too much already with Johnny Storm, Selma Blair in Hellboy, and Pyro in the X-Men movies.  But either way Jake and Emma become sort of a couple.

But the monsters that killed Jake grandpa's are soon coming for Jake and the peculiar children.  The monsters called "hollows" and their masters called "whites" (for their white eyes) feed on peculiars to try to regain their humanity.  They also want to kidnap Miss Peregrine to use her time abilities in an attempt to give them eternal life.  Jake, like his grandpa, is the only one who can see the monsters--his peculiar talent.

It's about this point that the book and movie really diverge.  In the book Jake and Emma spend some time together and go home to find the monsters have taken Miss Peregrine and another bird.  They gather up some other kids to track the monsters to a lighthouse, where they manage to free Miss Peregrine but not the other bird.  The monsters take off in a U-Boat while Jake, the children, and Miss Peregrine in bird form go in hot pursuit.  That's where the book ends, though I assume the chase is picked up in the next two books.

In the movie Jake goes back to town in the present and finds that the old man who told him about the bombing is dead.  He goes back to "the loop" but is followed by a tourist who reveals that he's a white--and also Jake's shrink.  (In the book the white was also Jake's bus driver in 8th grade and a couple of other people watching him.)  Jake takes the white to Miss Peregrine's where she volunteers to go with the white, turning into her bird form and letting him put her in a cage.  The children fight a hollow and then travel to another loop, this one in England in January 2016 on a boardwalk.  Using snow and cotton candy the children make the hollows visible and take them down before then using their powers on the whites to free Miss Peregrine.  The kids and Miss Peregrine return to the past, though they're no longer part of "the loop" and will live normally.

Kind of have to question whether the movie producers decided they were only going to adapt the first one and thus didn't want to end on a cliffhanger.  Which was probably pretty true since I don't think the movie did that well financially, though it can be hard to tell these days with foreign markets, Redbox rentals, digital downloads, and all that.

Maybe since I read the book first I actually liked it a lot better.  Much of the time when I compare a book or movie if the movie is similar enough to the book I say to just watch the movie since it's less time-consuming.  Since the movie is so different, especially in the last act, I actually think reading the book is better.  And actually it's probably better to read it in paperback or hardcover since there are a lot of old-timey photos included that really I couldn't appreciate all that well on the Kindle.  The writing is OK but there's maybe a little too much telling instead of showing and at least in the version I read a typo--"just deserts" instead of "just desserts."  But I think the book does a better job than the movie in setting up the background about Jake and his family and the island.  That all seems rushed in the movie, maybe so they could have the much longer ending.

I don't think the movie is bad, it's just not as good.  This seemed like the perfect project for Tim Burton, but like Charlie & the Chocolate Factory and Planet of the Apes he seems to phone this one in.  Miss Peregrine seemed like a perfect role for his wife Helena Bonham Carter but instead the part went to Eva Green (until the credits came up I honestly didn't realize this; I just assumed since Bonham Carter, like Johnny Depp, is in pretty much every Tim Burton movie she would naturally be in this), so maybe that's part of the reason the movie might be quirky but just seems lifeless.  And while I guess it's nice to have a more concrete ending, it is a significant change from the book.

Alternate Alternate HIstory Shows

It seems alternate history shows are the latest rage.  First there was Amazon's Man in the High Castle based on the Philip K Dick novel where the Axis wins WWII and splits America between the Nazis and Japanese.  I watched Season 2 recently and have a review of it posting in a couple of weeks.

Then came word that the creators of Game of Thrones were producing a show called Confederate about if the South hadn't lost the Civil War.  And then Amazon announced they were going to have a show where freed slaves were given their own chunk of the country for themselves.

So since this a trend, I thought I'd propose some other alternate history shows:

The Yiddish Policeman's Union:  This novel by Michael Chabon is based on a real idea during WWII.  Instead of creating Israel there was an idea to give Jews a chunk of Alaska called the Sitka.  The book takes place years later and involves a murder mystery of sorts.  The end of the book features something some Trumpsters would like, which is to start a war in the Middle East to set off Armageddon.  But really because most of it is like a noir-type mystery it'd make a good series for one of the pay cable or streaming networks.

The Years of Rice and Salt:  This novel by Kim Stanley Robinson deals with the what if:  what if the Black Death had wiped out nearly all of Europe?  Instead of Columbus, etc discovering the "New World" it's explorers from China and India.  Though the obvious problem would be finding a way to cast all white people in a show where white people are all dead.

The Plot Against America:  This novel by Philip Roth is similar to Man in the High Castle only in this case instead of the Nazis taking over America, America reaches an "understanding" with Berlin when Charles Lindbergh and his "America First" campaign (no, Donald Trump did not invent that) beat FDR in 1940.  The story focuses mostly on a Jewish family facing the rising fascism.  This would be another great series because it already has a fairly narrow focus so you wouldn't need a huge budget.

Marvel 1602:  Marvel is bringing out a host of TV shows but if they want to get into the alternate history game this graphic novel by Neil Gaiman would be a good way to go.  It reimagines the Marvel Universe in Elizabethan times.  Dr. Strange is an advisor to the queen and Nick Fury a spy for her.  Bruce Banner and Peter Parker are there too, though not in superhero guise yet.  The Fantastic Four and I think the X-Men are also around.  But it all revolves around Captain America in the New World.

Superman: Red Son:  Since we have one for Marvel, why not one for DC?  This graphic novel by Mark Millar imagines what if Superman's capsule had landed in the Soviet Union?  Instead of Truth, Justice, and the American Way, Superman is an agent of Stalin who later takes over the Soviet Union and then most of the world while Lex Luthor becomes president of a second-rate America.  Batman, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern also appear.

Pirate Utopia:  This book by Bruce Sterling is actually pretty lame, but the title and basic premise would be a good starting place for a series.  Basically this imagines a world where Hitler died in WWI and a group of pirates with airships have their own refuge by Italy.  The book really ended before it got to much of a point, but I'm sure a good TV writer could think of something.

Anything by Harry Turtledove.  I mean that's pretty much all he does, so just pick one at random.

And really why not do a Sliders reboot series?  Seems like the perfect time for the original TV series about alternate histories to come back.

The Last Message Board?

Today's when other writing blogs are whining, so I'm joining in.

Last fall I finally got run out of writers.net for belittling someone who never had any intention of sticking around in the first place.  The moderator in her infinite wisdom decided to protect that person who didn't give a shit anyway and booted me from the group after 10 years.  And now the group is dead.  Not even Jay Greenstein is around anymore.

Anyway, enough sour grapes about that.  I was looking for a new writing board and one sent me a birthday card.  I had signed up there back in 2009 and forgot about it and so decided to go check it out.  It was run by the same people as writers.net but still slightly more active.

Soon I dropped a little SPaG on someone who whined that he just wanted to know if people liked it; he didn't want actual help with his writing.  And then he got mad and called me a "cunt."  I'm like, whoa hey there but then someone else was like, "Yeah you are a bit of a cunt."

That pretty much set the tone for the place.  They'd lament they didn't get many new enrollees but when you're basically a closed loop good ol' boys club why would anyone new want to stick around?  But I have more stubbornness than most so I did stick around for a few more months.  Things cooled down a little.

Then I made the mistake of admitting I think Cormac McCarthy is pretentious and overrated.  I might as well have said the moon is made of green cheese.  Everyone jumped on me to say pretty much the same thing:  he's great!  His writing is beautiful!  It's poetic!  Yeah, so?  That doesn't make it less pretentious.  I mean for instance the thing where he uses Spanish dialogue but doesn't have a translation.  One genius was like, "Well just Google it!"  So I should have to put the book down and Google everything?  "Well, just get the gist from context!"  Yeah, but the one book of his I read was supposed to be a love story.  Tell me:  would Romeo & Juliet have been as touching if Romeo were speaking English and Juliet speaking Klingon with no subtitles?  Sure you might get the gist they love each other but you wouldn't really understand what's going on.

That then started the gaslighting of constantly saying I was dumb.  Anything they didn't agree with: you're dumb.  Or you're just the old drunk guy at the bar who says crazy things.  Um, no, that was the yutz who kept posting about interest though he didn't understand it.  Or the moron who thought we should privatize everything and rely on bartering.  Well what about roads, police, fire, courts, etc?  Meh, "someone" will take care of it for...reasons.  Those people were dumb and just saying stuff.

Part of this campaign was this one guy bitched about putting lol in posts or emoticons.  I'm like, Dude I've been posting on message boards for 20 years so don't tell me how to post.  He sulkily said, Oh well after 20 years you haven't learned much.  Like there's a "right way" to post on a stupid message board.  Such a stupid Greenstein thing to think.

A sensible person would have left, but who said I'm sensible about that?  No one.  The site "administrator" the only authority-type figure left was a NRA nut, the one who posted that lame "Lamentations of a Liberal Woman" story.  I think because of that he really championed the "you're dumb" cause.  Which wouldn't have been that much of a problem until he started using his admin power to rewrite my posts to make them say something other than what I intended.

That was when I threw in the towel.  I mean if your administrator is going to use his authority on a petty grudge, then that's no kind of site I'd want to be part of.  It's not the kind of site anyone should want to be part of.

Since then I haven't gone looking for any new message boards.  I think for the moment I'm just worn out.  If I went to another group it'd just start the cycle again.  There'd be ingrate newbies who can't handle they're not the writing gods they think they are.  And people who call me every name in the book to say how evil I am for disagreeing with their argument.  Blah, blah, blah.

I think for now I'll just sate my online bloodlust trolling Yahoo News on Facebook or something. Message boards are so 2000 anyway, right?  As for crtitique groups, I'm really past the point where I give two shits about what some amateurs I don't know think.