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Sean O'Malley

Grey’s Anatomy Season 12 Episode 2 “Walking Tall” Recap

There was a time, long ago in the history of Grey’s where Miranda Bailey incited fear in the hearts of those who knew her. She was the Nazi, the no-fucks-given, no-shit taken captain of the ship and we loved her for it. In the second episode of what looks set to be Grey’s Anatomy 2.0 we were reminded of where our fearless leader came from, and surprisingly to no one more than myself, it actually might have paid off.

Since her days of reigning terror upon the interns, Bailey has gone through a strange transformation wherein she’s become a better surgeon, a stronger mother, a much healthier spouse but has unfortunately lost much of her self-confidence and respect within the show. Much of her gravitas is still derived from our memories of her yelling at her underlings and laying down the law and not from anything she’s done since (probably) 2011. This week, we finally got to see her return to that no-fucks-given, no-shit-taken Führer we fell in love with. But after so many years away, it was just as hard for Bailey to get back in the swing of things as it was for us to watch.

Last week I complained about the show moving too hard, too fast; Trying to make me forget the bad and trust in the show all over again in under an hour (And seriously, ain’t no oven pre-heat that quickly). Which is why I thoroughly enjoyed Bailey reaping consequences from trying to attempt the exact same thing. If this was completely unintentional from the writers, then I apologise for giving them that much credit. Because the decision to have a staple character overstep, overreach and overcompensate in much the same way that the show is – AND THEN NAIL HER TO THE WALL FOR IT- really made me smile in a way that Grey’s hasn’t made me do in  a while.

This all happened thanks to the B.U.G. (The Big Unfriendly Giant) whose tumour on her pituitary gland has caused her to grow exponentially, meaning that her spine might (but-almost-definitely will) snap. The B.U.G. is pissed because she’s bringing the internet to Africa or something and so can’t stay in the hospital for longer than 4 hours (which sounds like a process that might’ve necessitated an assistant showing up or something. I mean repeatedly saying “I’m needed, I have to go” doesn’t make you necessarily “needed” sweet rude giant lady, I got the feeling like they were probably doing ok without you). So Bailey thinks that weeks of hardwork can be crammed into 4 hours by our loyal docs. At best this seems ridiculous and at worst is just ridiculous… which, what do you know? just comes across as ridiculous either way.

Much in the same way as Jurassic Park, life does find a way and the job gets done but it’s not with Miranda’s help – it’s despite it. The Nazi might be on her way back, but it seems like faking it ’till you make it just isn’t going to cut it – She’s going to have to put in the time and earn the position she thinks she’s earned just from making it this far (*cough* Shonda Rhimes *cough* ).

Some fun on the side worth mentioning is the further introduction of new lambs for the slaughter: McCutey and McHottie interns. Grey’s is at it’s funniest when it commits to being a moshpit of #drahmaa and in earlier years hit home when we were leaked bits and pieces of stories that we never really saw, a.k.a. the interns of seasons 4 and 5. There’s moments of this kind of humour coming from this years batch of newbies, as we’re starting to see trickles of inside jokes and inside banter shine through. I don’t know anything about McCutey or McHottie other than McCutey is letting me vicariously creep on Jo and McHottie is well, just so darn fun to look at. But what’s great is, this episode at least really seemed to realise that with so much heavy #drahmaa coming from Bailey and ‘Japril’, all we really needed them to do is make us giggle. I’m sure their time will come (pretty sure McHottie is living with Arizona now but apparently it’s a cool roommate thing not to share a single scene together) but for now at least, if we can keep seeing McBanter fly without it having to be weighed down by me caring for more people that might die, then this might just work.

Finally, just some words on ‘Japril’ developments: April is a highly accomplished trauma surgeon being told by other well-regarded surgeons that she has a rash that could be dangerous and her immediate response is “No, I’m fine, please let me go so I can treat sick people”. She then complains to her hot hot husband about wanting to fight for their marriage after her immediate response to these problems last year was “No, I’m leaving because I want to leave”. All I’ve learned here is that April’s first instincts always suck and she is literally regret incarnate. This week she just suffered from dermatitis, but next week she could be suffering from divorce… and the cream for that is a hell of a lot more expensive.

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Grey’s Anatomy Season 12 Premiere “Sledgehammer” Review

The fans of “Grey’s Anatomy” have been through a lot. We’ve loved, we’ve lost, we’ve loved again and then we’ve lost again. But after seeing so many things that once made this show great get cancer, shot, hit by busses, crushed by planes, electrocuted, hit by trucks or just get boring (that’d be you Jackson), many of us are still tuning in to see if there’s any steam left in this ferry boat. I say ‘things’ and not people, because as hard as I try, I can’t help but feel that as much as Grey’s wants us to keep smiling at the new interns and new cases, my heart to care isn’t as full as it used to be – and it’s simply because the pieces we’re left with just don’t fit. It’s become obvious that the pillars of this series aren’t the freak-of-the-week cases or the interchangeable acts of sex in an on-call room, but the core cast of characters that built the show: Characters that are now all but gone.

None of this is a surprise: excitement for the show has steadily declined as the death tolls have gone up. But at least the show is aware of the up hill battle it’s facing to try and recapture it’s spark. At the close of this week’s premiere,  Meredith tells us to “forget everything we know about Anatomy” as she takes a sledgehammer to her childhood home. But with so much riding on this season after the loss of Derek you just know that this isn’t really Mer talking about a dead cadaver, but Shonda Rhimes talking about the stagnant linchpin of TGIT.

A lot of effort was made this week to help us forget how dreary the show became last season: Arizona is bubbly again; Maggie is bursting out of her shell; Callie is laying down the law basically showing us that she’s got her “oh no you didn’t” groove back; Bailey made a speech that didn’t end with me being depressed (!); Jo and Alex are being sexy and sweet living in their loft… which is cool… I guess? And Meredith is pissed at her new living situation (girls apparently don’t just want to have fun).

But ultimately is a few goofy meltdowns, some impromptu violence against a bigot (nice swing Mags) and a new focus on ‘roommate drama’ a la season one, enough to revive what’s been lost? With just this episode to go on, the answer is no. It’s no secret that Grey’s has strayed in the last decade from what made it excellent to begin with, but it hasn’t strayed in a vacuum. I can’t imagine anyone watching is as happy to move on as quickly as the show wants us to, and unfortunately this weeks hammerhead approach to shoving what it thinks is good-old-fashioned fun down our throats is borderline offensive.

This premiere and the places are Grey/Sloan Docs are in now, owes everything to what has come before. And in it’s attempt to reboot so hastily, the show is now in danger of feeling like “Grey’s Anatomy” lite: Fat free and soul free. No one mentioned Derek and aside from a ferry boat scrub cap and an obligatory family photo on the fridge, it’s almost as if McDreamy could’ve been a McDream all along. Arizona’s re-discovered pixie-esque buzziness is nice but are any of us fooled  by a bit of hot banter with a hot intern to forget how loathsome she’s become in recent years? Umm… No. Jackson and April are (not surprisingly) headed for a season of McBrooding which only bodes well for viewers who enjoy watching attractive people avoid eye contact with each other. But we should just let this one ride out seeing as it’s  pretty much the only thing the writers have yet to check off on their list of “how do we make this relationship interesting?”.

But it’s still Grey’s: Meredith has been through everything we have and she’s still chugging along, so I’m not ready to let her go on by herself just yet. I like to think we’re heading in a better direction by trying to establish super-good-fun-times as a new starting point, but moving forward I’d like it to be a little less heavy-handed and ‘excited’ to forget where we’ve come from.

That’ll do Grey’s, that’ll do.

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Television Cultures Blog Post 5 (Week 9) “it’s a mad mad world”

As a self-professed slave to the box, there are legitimate moments when I just have to stop and say to myself “God I love Television”. But when it comes right down to it, God has nothing to do with it; the only decent thing he’s ever had a producing credit on was Saving Grace and even he didn’t have enough star power to keep it on the air. No, the people who are truly responsible for my cries to the heaven are crazy geniuses like Joss Whedon, Aaron Sorkin, Ryan Murphy, Alan Ball, Josh Schwartz, and surprisingly to no one more than myself, and as I found out in this weeks lecture (Morris 2013); Matthew Weiner, creator of AMCs period drama Mad Men.

When I first sat down to watch Mad Men I didn’t really ‘get it’. I could see what it was doing and I could respect it but I just wasn’t the biggest fan. To date I’ve waded through the first three seasons, still waiting for that moment to get me hooked. It was an absolute shock to me then that it seemed I must have been texting when that moment happened. Because it happened in the shows very first episode. Check out the moment (also cited in Morris 2013) I’m talking about below:

Even if you’ve never seen the show, this moment is truly and utterly beguiling. This is the moment that had me stop and say “God I love television” and I can’t believe I didn’t see it before. The reason why I never fell in love with the show was because it always stressed the episode more than the season. There were arcs to keep me intrigued but nothing that said “you must watch next week or you will hate yourself”. But what happened here was a moment outside of complex narrative and series-long arcs. This was a moment that needed no introduction and still had me stop and say “God that was awesome”. I consider the show to be the storytelling cousin to fellow AMC drama Breaking Bad, which just completed what I believe to be a perfect run. This is a show that’s very premise was to detail the transformation of Mr. Chips into Scarface. A five-season epic that chronicled one mans journey from one thing to another. Bad never stressed the episode, it was always looking at the bigger picture, and this is something that I don’t think has ever been done quite as well, or will be for quite some time. Men on the other hand, and I get this more than ever now, is the gold standard for episodic narratives. Where Bad was reinventing what television could set out to do, Men has seemingly reinvented what its capable of in its purest form.

But ultimately, when there are so many examples of what we can deem great television, and mode of storytelling isn’t what makes them so special, just what is it that separates them from the pack? When we talk about the shows that paved the way for more complex dramas to appear on our screens, it almost always comes back to David Chases’ The Sopranos (which Weiner served on as an Executive Producer and wrote many episodes for). But just how did the poster-show for the mantra “Its Not TV. Its HBO” lead to a revolution across not just premium cable, but also basic cable and primetime network TV? Well, it’s all about the characters. If we forget about the distinction between long-form complex narrative and isolated episodic stories, there’s only got to be one great thing to get us to tune in. And that’s our favorite hero’s, anti-heroes… and yes, even villains showing up every week to do the thing we love to watch ‘em do. Tony Soprano led to Vic Mackey. Vic Mackey led to Jack Bauer. Jack Bauer to Walter White. And Walter White, well, he… I’m sorry, it’s still too soon.

I absolutely feel that I’ve been misjudging Mad Men all these years and I’m truly sorry about not giving it a fighting chance. The show it seems, like Don Draper himself is described, “isn’t what he seems under that polished surface. He’s as flawed and complicated and fascinating as any other great character of this period and he… masterfully explores the difference between perception and reality” (Sepinwall 2012, pp.301-302)

I believe Vic Mackey, corrupt and immoral anti-hero of FX’s The Shield says it best here…

… And I’ve gotta say, I don’t miss them at all.

References:

lucidmedia1, 2010, Don Draper’s best quote, Online Video, 10 November, Available from:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjg5TuXV09U, Accessed: 23 October 2013

Morris, B 2013, Week 9 – The Dispersal of Complex Narrative, PowerPoint Slides, RMIT University, Melbourne

Sepinwall, A 2012, The Revolution was Televised: The Cops, Crooks, Slingers and Slayers that changed TV drama forever, Kindle Edition, Self-published, eBook

xbfir3x, 2010, A Different Kind of Cop, Online Video, 01 December. Available from:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ixeh-uf9KQw, Accessed: 23 October 2013

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Television Cultures Blog Post 4 (Week 8) “wait? so who’s that guy again?”

Ok, I have a confession to make. I did not enjoy Treme. In fact I hated it. And no it wasn’t just because I had no idea what was going on the entire time… Alright, it was mostly because I had no idea what was going on the entire time; I was frustrated, I was bored, and I was angry at myself for being frustrated and bored. So the question I ask is, was it my fault? Or show creator David Simons?

Long-form narrative in television is probably the best thing to ever happen to the small screen since Betty White (how awesome is Betty White!?). But omigod is it a dangerous game to be playing. I don’t watch television conventionally. Most of the time I’ll sit down to a new show after impulsively buying the box-set and I’ll scrutinize it from the ground up. I’ll remember every plotline, I’ll dissect every episode and I’ll follow the arc to its completion. So a show that has a good story to sink my teeth into is something I’m always up for. But for the majority of people out there, when NCIS is the most watched show in America, a long complex plot isn’t always what the doctor ordered (my doctor loves The Mentalist). And what I experienced in this weeks screening of “I’ll Fly Away” Treme’s season one finale (cited in Morris 2013), is something I believe most people would also experience as a first time viewer. But it was still something I didn’t really anticipate. I really really hated Treme. And this is something that poses an interesting dilemma. Is a show defined by its series long arc? Or should it be judged at face value after one episode?

Drawing comparison to Simons’ other work The Wire, something that I have seen, it’s fair to say that he doesn’t pander. Without even a ‘previously on’ bit to catch us up, it’s clear that he’s not making these shows to satisfy a ratings mandate, he’s simply telling us a story that’s best watched from the beginning – and you better pay attention. As a result, people don’t talk about these shows as something they tuned into for half an hour and so became hooked. No, these are the shows that when people discover them, they will say “I am ready to watch The Wire” and thus commit to forsaking the real-world for the closest thing to a novel you’ll ever see committed to film. But does it really work as television? As something built to be consumed in 60-minute chunks? TV critic Alan Sepinwall, on the open-ended and unconventional nature of the pilot writes, “television in 2002 simply didn’t work this way – even the ambitious HBO kind of television… [Oz and The Sopranos] at least gave you a clear sense of the major players, and they provided some stories that had a beginning, middle, and end within the confines of that hour” (2012, pp.70-71). And I have to agree that there’s a fine line between a well-executed narrative, and a self-important writer who doesn’t respect the medium he’s in.

Because ultimately, television isn’t pitched to be a cult hit on DVD (sorry Firefly), it’s pitched to be able to invite new viewers and enthrall existing ones week-to-week and episode-to-episode. And this is where I find a big problem with Treme. I could care less what happens to these people. I don’t know where they’re coming from and I don’t feel the need to know where they’re going. Is it my job to care though? Or Simons job to make me care? Personally, and this is grand-sweeping statement time, I think that there should be something in every episode of every show that prompts a first time viewer to jump in. I don’t mean that a show should give up its message to satisfy newcomers, but that a shows creator can look at any episode and point to a moment and say “that’s it, that’s why you should watch”. But unfortunately, neither The Wire nor Treme apparently, manages to accomplish this in every hour they serve up.

Regardless of where I think they can try harder though, both The Wire and Treme do attempt something that I wholeheartedly support. I’m a big fan of the slow burn and look no further than Breaking Bad for a great example of when a show can be all the hotter for it. But I truly believe that David Simons needs to be sat down and told what is acceptable and not acceptable for a television series. And for me to be left wondering why I wasted an hour of my life, with the realisation that I clearly just skipped to the last chapter in a book. Well that’s not the point of TV, and I don’t see the point in pandering to a TV series that won’t acknowledge that long-form narrative is a two way street… And that most people are taking the bus.

Reference:

Morris, B 2013, Week 8 – The Poetics of Complex Narrative, PowerPoint Slides, RMIT University, Melbourne

Sepinwall, A 2012, The Revolution was Televised: The Cops, Crooks, Slingers and Slayers that changed TV drama forever, Kindle Edition, Self-published, eBook

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Television Cultures Blog Post 3 (Week 7) “Leave Quality Alone!”

Walter White. Don Draper. Tony Soprano. Nate Fisher. Vic Mackey. Christian Troy. Dexter Morgan. Carrie Bradshaw. Hannah Horvath. All uncompromising examples of what quality television has given us over the past decade…
What? What’s wrong?…
What did I say?…
Oh I used that word didn’t I?

Quality. It’s a funny little word. In any other discussion we would use it to describe something as being better. In television we use it to describe a genre. And if we hadn’t had cable networks start branding themselves with this term, it might still actually mean something. On July 12th 1997, HBO was the first to kick off a new era of scripted television, for this was the day it debuted Oz. Chris Albrecht, the then president of HBO original programming said that “It was the first thing we had seen for premium television that was a true dramatic series… it was startling how much different it felt from anything else on television” (cited in Sepinwall 2012, pp.271). The word he was looking for to describe it? You guessed it ladies and gentleman, it’s ‘quality’. However, while I don’t dispute the awesomeness that is Oz, as HBO went onto forge a name for themselves as the leader of the quality pack with shows like Six Feet Under and The Sopranos, they also started a dangerous precedent. This being that while all these shows had very little in common with regards to the stories they told, they were all being labeled as the same thing. As more and more series’ started popping up like The Shield and Nip/Tuck, we were again told that this was ‘quality’ because it was something that we hadn’t had before. But now that we can stack them up against each other and ask which one was better. Which of the quality’s is of better quality? We kind of have to admit that we’ve made a horrible mistake.

People who watched HBO ten years ago were watching for series’ like Oz, Six Feet Under and The Sopranos. Television that truly raised the bar for the kind of ‘quality’ stories we could see on our little black box. These were shows that had stories to tell and were allowed to do it because they didn’t have advertisers to worry about offending, and the sex and the violence was part of the package, not the premise. However, people watching HBO now are watching it for shows like True Blood, Game of Thrones and Girls. I’m not hating on this new generation, I do honestly believe that Hannah Horvath has more interesting things to say than Carrie Bradshaw, but the term quality, now synonymous with anything HBO puts out, has also become synonymous with the sex, violence and nudity that it allows. Does a nipslip mean better production values? Does a sword to the neck mean better writing? And does a close up of an “O” face mean better directing? These should be the deciding factors of quality, and not how many breasts we can fit into half an hour (sorry, Lena).

Unfortunately, it’s probably too late to take back the night and give quality its dignity back. And to even have a fair discussion about it would be unlikely because let’s face it, a discussion of quality when talking about television series is rarely a discussion among equals…

In fact, it’s usually a discussion between two high horses… that are facing opposite directions… and from different countries… oh and look, one of them just shot themselves in the foot.

References:

Sepinwall, A 2012, The Revolution was Televised: The Cops, Crooks, Slingers and Slayers that changed TV drama forever, Kindle Edition, Self-published, eBook

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Television Cultures Blog Post 2 (Week 6) “a fans journey”

It’s not easy being a TV series anymore. Why? Because an audience is a fickle mistress. She’ll think you owe her something just because she’s read the book you’re based on. She’ll think she’s smarter than you just because she’s seen The Wire. She’ll think she’s better than you because she’ll say its your job to entertain her, not her job to understand you, and ultimately she’ll think she doesn’t need you because NCIS is on in half an hour.

So why bother? Well because sometimes you might just find the one. The one who will send over 20 tons of nuts to CBS headquarters to keep you on the air for just seven more episodes (Jericho), the one who will pay over $5 million out of their own pocket to see you reach the big screen (Veronica Mars), the one who will form conventions and reunions and follow your universe into comic books, video games and novels long after you’re dead (every single Joss Whedon show) and as seen in the lecture (Morris 2013), the one who will lose their job, blow off their friends and harass complete strangers all in the hope of just seeing one more episode. Every TV series needs their soul mate, their fan-base who will stick with them through thick and thin. The fan-base that will only be disappointed in a misplaced plotline or character arc because they know how much better it can be. They will not turn away or switch off, they will be supportive and hopefully see their baby grow into the behemoth and cultural phenomenon that they know it can be.

What better example to discuss then than HBOs True Blood, the most shamelessly ridiculous show that year after year keeps getting sillier but continues to draw some of HBOs biggest ratings and most loyal fans. I’ve been with the show since it started, and I’m still here six years later on the hook for some of the most ludicrous television I’ve ever seen. So why am I still here? To answer this we have to first ask why I started watching it in the first place. Once upon a time, back in 2008 when I was far too young to be watching it, I tuned into the pilot and witnessed the start of something. I didn’t really know what it was but there was an interesting premise, cool characters, gorgeous cinematography, epic violence and a lot, and I mean a lot of sex. Basically I was hooked. Over the years, I believed it to be suspenseful, surprising and really top-notch TV and week after week for 12 weeks every year I would keep coming back for more. This is the True Blood experience that its fan-base enjoys.

However, watching the episode “I Will Rise Up” this week from Season 2 (cited in Morris 2013), I’ve just now realized how biased this experience is. Out of context and out of sync with the big picture that the season was drawing, I could finally see True Blood for what it really is. I’ve always enjoyed the show with a grain of salt, and as a self-confessed Truebie i’m not blind to its flaws. But when watching an episode at random, and the arc-based narrative goggles are off, oh my god is this show stupid. For a newcomer to the show to watch this episode and to have to follow a plot thread where “Meanwhile across town, Jessica and Hoyt are dealing with the fallout of realizing that as an immortal virgin she has a regenerative hymen” (I mean really? this is quality television?), it must seem like an outlandish piece of trash. As fans, we can simply just forgive and forget (I know I did), and idealise the journey we’ve been on.

True Blood is a heightened experience, everything is over the top and it doesn’t apologize for it. As a fan who’s been watching since the pilot I can still harken back to the interesting premise, the cool characters and the sleek look, and to date it remains the top dog in the “southern gothic-fantasy-horror-romance-comedy-drama” hybrid genre. But the secret to its success I think, doesn’t lie in its separate parts, but in its evolution from interesting premise to outlandish execution without losing anyone along the way.

References:

Morris, B 2013, Week 6 – Matters of Taste, PowerPoint Slides, RMIT University, Melbourne

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Television Cultures Blog Post 1 (Week 1) “the golden age”

So apparently the golden age of television is upon us. I really wish someone had told me and I would have tivo’d it. Was it on a monday night at 7:30 that the golden age of television happened? What about the silver age? or the bronze age? and can I just ask where we’re drawing these lines? The medium has certainly undergone structural changes over the past 10 years, no doubt, but does a different kind of entertainment necessarily mean a better one?

From the way the screening of Hollywood: The Rise of Television Series (cited in Morris 2013) discussed television in the new century, it implied that all of a sudden TV had become something more than what it had previously been capable of. It had begun telling stories that mere episodes weren’t capable of doing justice to as entire seasons had started to be far more cohesive.  As a result, people aren’t tuning into a show to watch episodes anymore, they’re tuning into the entire series. Personally, I didn’t realise that this shift had taken place until it was too late. My engagement with television was initially with reruns that were watched out of context. But this didn’t stop me from enjoying the hell out of shows like Moonlighting, Lois & Clark, and Friends without knowing what the series arc was. This is what television used to be capable of, mindless entertainment that you could take or leave without needing anything more to appreciate it. But when I started watching TV like Buffy the Vampire Slayer I could no longer simply tune into scheduled programming on a whim, I now had to schedule my life around my favourite shows. While Buffy might not be the best example of long-form narrative, (at the age of 11, The Sopranos was a little bit beyond me), even I could tell that I wasn’t coming back for just the next episode, I was just never leaving as there was no way I could simply turn the box off and forget about where these characters and stories were heading.

This it seems is where the newfound “golden age” can set itself apart. Television today is addictive, an episode can’t just be watched and forgotten about and DVD releases and online access mean that getting into series’ from the ground up is easier than ever. However, it also means that television is no longer meant to be experienced the way that it used to be. Stories are still defining what we tune into week in and week out but it’s no longer a question of “what crazy adventures will the gang get into this week?” but instead “how has the previous episodes events taken their toll on our troubled hero?”.  Now, is this really a better form of storytelling? Is it even television as television was defined in its inception?

As made evident in the screening, big names, big budgets, high energy and high patience for long-form narrative has meant a drastic overhaul in what people have come to expect from entertainment. But this is not a  story of one day everything changed and we entered a brave new world. No, this has been a long and stretched out evolution over the course of many shows that just kept raising the bar a little bit higher for what people could expect from their little black box.

In his book titled The Revolution was Televised: The Cops, Crooks, Slingers and Slayers that changed TV drama forever (2012), Alan Sepinwall singles out 12 series that are indicative of the supposed new age of television; The Sopranos. Oz. The Wire. Deadwood. The Shield. Lost. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 24. Battlestar Galactica. Friday Night Lights. Mad Men. Breaking Bad. What he does not do however is discuss them as if they are of an inherent better quality than those that came before it. In fact, he discusses this idea of the ‘golden age’ of television as something that we have perhaps already moved away from and forgotten about. The golden age was a time of episodic television that did not require anything of its audience, it was an easy and simple time. Now our shows demand attention and respect for the boundaries they push and the stories they tell, as they constantly go further than any that have come before. We are indeed in a new era, but to call it a golden age is, I think, to miss the point entirely.

References

Morris, B 2013, Week 1: Introduction to TV Cultures, PowerPoint Slides, RMIT University, Melbourne

Sepinwall, A 2012, The Revolution was Televised: The Cops, Crooks, Slingers and Slayers that changed TV drama forever, Kindle Edition, Self-published, eBook

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Run Forrest, Run!

Ok, so this is not the blog that I intended to write when I began. Honestly when the idea of a blog came to mind, I’d pictured myself behind my laptop at one in the morning after a fascinating night of adventures that I would wrap up in universal and easy to swallow pieces a la Carrie Bradshaw. Unfortunately, it turns out that I’m not Carrie Bradshaw – and outside of the idealism of that show’s everything happens for a reason mantre, neither was she. No, when we step outside the imagery, and look at what thepopculturelife must now be, we have to take it with the grain of salt that I don’t actually have adventures.

First also, I would like to apologize to all of my reader (you know who you are) for the delay between this installment and my previous pieces. Inspiration, motivation, intellectual masturbation (which is pretty much what all blogs are, don’t even get me started on the cerebral orgy that is twitter), is hard to come by when life is genuinely boring. I was walking through the city just the other day noticing how very few people were running. Everyone was just waking from place to place. And it’s like really? No one was in a hurry to get to the next bit of their life?

I like to think I look at life differently to other people. When I look at a situation I like to romanticize it and endow it with imagery and music that it turns out isn’t really there. I have to think that while my outlook is at times extremely destitute because pretty much nothing can live up to how I imagine it to be. The alternative, the walking, the standing, the living without montage-tinted goggles must be extremely pointless. Seriously, what do people get up for in the morning if they don’t have a reason to run? I truly believe that running is the backbone of real-life magic. Running to the person you love, running to deliver life-changing news, running away from a chainsaw wielding maniac (don’t laugh, it’s real), and ultimately running to the next moment that life is capable of. I don’t really run, but I like to think that someday I’ll have a reason to. But atleast I have that goal, looking around at the masses, and taking a stab in the dark at how boring a lot of them must be, they don’t even know that this is what’s missing. We shouldn’t run everywhere, that would be silly, but if you really can’t see the magic or the music that can give the everyday moments that extra spark, you should be looking for every opportunity to run. Wave your arms, pull them tight but just give yourself a reason to get somewhere really really fast.

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the generation wars… sega do you even go here?

“Congratulations! you’ve found an item” “A’ight girl, I hope you don’t mind a little sweat”

The above two phrases are both taken straight out of extremely different video games. One found its home on a console that I cherished and learnt a lot of life lessons from. The other managed to seduce me at friends houses as something I knew I really shouldn’t have anything to do with. Two very different childhoods live in these two worlds. The world of grand theft auto, and the world of the Legend of Zelda.

My first introduction to video games was my Nintendo Game Boy, given to me when I turned 6. A Classic by anyones standards the Game Boy said a lot about me. Sometimes it even did the talking for me when most of the time I just wanted to say “go away”. Because I can tell you right now that nobody does it better than the black & white juggernaut of anti-socialness, and i’m not just talking about racial segregation… although going to an english private school there was a lot of that there too. My point is that from an extremely early age i’d already taken a side  in a war that still rages on today (i’m not talking about the race war anymore FYI, although I did take sides there to, you white devil).

While older generations; my parents, your parents, your parents parents might just see riffraff, wastes of time or the ‘playing box’ (and choose their kids futures accordingly), I see, and you should to an epic struggle for survival in the world of xbox64s, playstationwiis, gamecubeUs, Nintendo Vitas and tamigotchis. The console you choose can very well define the rest of your life because it certainly did mine. Growing up with the Game Boy I had an affinity for jumping over turtles and onto mushroom caps and I would run up to girls in the street and try to rescue them… police had to get involved by this point. But the point is that people harp on about video games being improper influences on the youth of today and thats probably right. But what people are missing is that there is a direct correlation, not between the amount of FPSs you play or hookers you stab, but just simply the console you own that defines your childhood. I wasn’t ready for a playstation, I see that very clearly now. I actually bought one recently and I own over 60 games, almost all of them are MA15+. I also own a wii and a gamecube and almost all of my over 100 games are rated M or below.

So back-to-flashback, with the Game Boy in my back pocket (they were pretty big pockets), I went on to fall in love with a friends Nintendo 64. I caught glimpses of Ocarina of time, Pokemon stadium, Majora’s mask and Goldeneye through Game Boy-tinted goggles. This was my world and Link and Mario were my peeps. I didn’t understand the war that was being fought as the dreamcast was cast into the abyss, as sega bowed out and would choose to spend the next decade bending sonic over a megadrive until the only thing left would be blue bum fluff and as Microsoft would soon enter the ring and come to define the three-tiered prong of todays generation.

So that was where I came from, good natured platformer’s, RPGs and adventures that taught me to appreciate gorgeous level design, boys in green dresses, interactive story and girls who dressed up as boys to protect and guide the boys in green dresses… did I already mention good story? As I grew I learned to love and appreciate the history that came with my new pastime and as a result I became a fanboy. I regret nothing. But kids today are coming from Call of Duty: Modern Slaughter, Resistance: Fall of Good Taste and Medal of Honor: Rising Genocide. I grew up to be a delicate and soulful young man(ish) and i’m pretty sure that Mr. Miyamoto had a lot to do with it, he did teach me so much after all. But lil’ Johnny down the street has a playstation 3 and has never known anything else, and well, i’m pretty sure he’s gonna grow up to kill Miyamoto in an air raid #stayawayfromliljohnny.

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