Fuck You, Nathan Rabin

It should be noted that in a few weeks, I'll be giving up swearing for Lent, so I might as well get this out now.

Fuck you in the face, you hipster douchebag

Rabin's "Two Cheers for the Maligned Slacker Dude" is the most self-serving piece of tripe I've read this side of, well, The AV Club.  For starters, fuck him for thinking he understand what it means to be a 20-something.  Rabin is 35 years old.  He's in a completely different generation from the so-called "slackers" he's writing about.

Secondly, the difference between the Gen-X slacker and the New Slacker Rabin can't shut up about is that the New Slacker comes from a different economic situation.  Mark Zuckerberg didn't create/steal Facebook from the dorm of his state college, he started it from Harvard.  This generation of losers can afford to waste time on MFAs in lolcats because their helicopter parents will let them move back in with them.

And hey, what about slacker broads?  What about those of us who are putting off marriage and children in the face of our mothers asking when we're going to get hitched, or our sisters and friends who've already had babies?  Why not?  Rabin knows as much about being a woman as he does about being a 20-something--i.e nothing. 

Worse, I hate being praised for the so-called courage of my creativity.  I don't need you to pat me on the back, Rabin.  I lost my job and we're heating our place with space heaters and wool sweaters because we can't afford fuel oil and we don't qualify for any government subsity programs.  I chose to major in creative writing, I chose to go to grad school for the same thing. It's my fault that I'm cold, but damn it if I'm not busting my ass to send out submissions, write another novel (the first two were universally rejected) write spec scripts with my awesome partner Matthew (a badass Gen-Xer who could hand Rabin his ass) and make my degree work for me.  Hell, this blog was started as a grad school project.  I don't need a handjob from Nathan Rabin any more than I need anyone's pity.

I didn't go into writing to be brave.  I didn't go into it to make money.  I went into writing because 1) I didn't get into theater school and 2) Because I love writing.  I love writing enough to risk being cold and hungry and miserable for it.  Having some of that Harlan Cobin money would be nice, but it's not my sole reason for putting pen to paper.  There are easier things I could do for cash, like escort work. 

For a really lovely piece of writing on Nathan Rabin, check out Daryl "Fucking" Hall's Profiles in Coverage, which features a picture of Rabin looking like David Cross' wang in a novelty colored condom from the punchbow in the RA office.

HE'S SO CUTE!

 And finally, to apologize for all this rage and for yesterday's picture of Snooki, here is a picture of my kitten, Bosco, with his tongue sticking out.  Yes, those are my mix CDs on the floor behind him.

I Owe Liz Hand a High Five

I was pretty harsh on Generation Loss and the author, Liz Hand, possibly cosmically, found my blog. You can read her comment, but what it basically boils down to is that she didn't throw a fit or call me a douchebag or say "fuck you, I'm a real writer and you just have a blog," she kept the line open for discussion and allowed me to interpret her work.  She gave me the real explaination, which probably wasn't easy, but said "And I personally would never take it amiss that you (or anyone else) would beg to differ as far as opinions of writing or writers go"

Wow.

This is a real deviation from most of the writers I went to school with.  If you made one comment other than "this is brilliant and it will be taught alongside To Kill a Mockingbird," a few things might happen:




1) The writer would come up with some long-winded bullshit explaination about how it's explained in the other chapters, or in the movie, or the comic book series or the line of toys, none of which actually exist.  Or worse, the dreaded "but that's how it really happened!" (although I will admit, I have given answers 1 and 5)



Pictured: New York Times Bestseller



2) The writer would call you a moron and tell you to go back to watching The Jersey Shore with all the rest of the illiterate hicks.



3) The writer would go to administration and cry, then administration would threaten to kick you out of the program.

But no, Liz wrote to me, honestly and earnestly, and opened up a dialogue.  She didn't throw a hissy fit or try to have my blog shut down or send me pictures of her sitting on piles of money kissing her World Fantasy Award.  She said, "hey, let's talk, writer to writer."  Those of you who aren't writers cannot possibly comprehend how rare and cool that is.

So Liz, if you're reading, I owe you a major high five.  Thanks for setting me straight.

And we're back . . .

 . . . so I just finished watching the 1st season of Justified and I was ultimately unimpressed.  Before I get to my big thesis, some stray observations:

1) Walton Goggins is brilliant . . . most of the time.  But a lot of his performance as Boyd Crowder is straight out of the Billy Bob Thorton handbook, (minus the head cocked slightly to the side) and Billy Bob Thorton creeps me out because he looks like this guy who's dating my mom.

2) Enunciate, Mr. Olyphant.  I'm from Oklahoma City, and half the time I can't understand a damn thing you say.




I Hate You Like Anakin Skywalker Hates Sand

  3) Ava is now number three on the list of TV Women I Utterly Loathe.  Rita (Dexter) is number two, and Mara (The Shield)  has the proud place as Public Enemy #1.  For the record, Corinne (The Shield) is Number Four.

But my real problem with the show, I realized (other than that it's boring as sin) is that it, like Dexter, The protagonists don't have anything to care about, therefor, they lack vulnerability and connection.


In the first episode of The Shield we learn two things about Vic--he has a family and his team is also his best friends, and he will do anything, literally anything, to protect them. Later on, when Shane takes center stage, we feel for him because we believe he's doing all these bad things to protect his friends, his horrible, shrewish wife and his newborn son. These characters, as horrible, unlikable and damned as they are, are real in the sense that they are vulnerable, they have people they care about, they have something to lose.
Raylan and Dexter don't have these things.

The first season of Dexter is so great because despite Dexter's "I can't care about anything because I'm a monster boo hoo hoo" attitude, he does care about someone--the mysterious killer who keeps leaving dismembered Barbies in his freezer. He is fascinated, so we are fascinated. By the second season, though, the novelty has worn off, and his fascination/caring/murdering Lila is just half-heated leftovers of the season before.
In Justified, Raylan is such a badass that he lives in a motel. He can pack up and go at any point. Sure, he bangs Ava, and Wynonia, but generally, the audience gets the sense that he doesn't give a fig about anyone or anything other than his stupid cowboy hat.

THIS in contrast to Boyd.  There's a scene where the other prisoners have him pinned up against the wall, and he's clutching his Bible, but not in an overwrought community-theater/Frightened Inmate #2 sort of way, like "please don't hit me, I'm a man of God!" . . . he's holding it tightly to his skinny chest, with a look in those small, dark eyes that says, "I'm scared, but I have faith that my God will protect me." And sure enough, someone comes to his rescue.

Point is, Boyd has something to care about, so we care about him. It's a small, beautiful scene, and Goggins plays it sublimely.



Neither Could Kenny Johnson in a Leather Jacket



Sons of Anarchy tried to give the main character something to care about, (a premature crack baby) which was a good start, but it's such a poorly written show that even a half-dead baby couldn't save it.

HOWEVER, the reason people love Justified and Dexer is because they are pure wish-fulfillment. "I wish I could murder bad people!" "I wish I could wear a cowboy hat and shoot bad guys!" "I wish I didn't have to care about my nagging wife and my yelling kids." "I wish I lived in a motel and could just pack up and leave." Dexter and Raylan are living out our fantasies, and we've confused that with good writing because it makes us feel placated instead of making us feel something that might confuse or hurt us.

So keep your sexy badasses . . . and I'll keep my handsome screw-ups.

It's finally here!

Hooray!  It's Walton Goggins' birthday!  And as a present for all of us, here's an upshort.  Look at those legs . . . and that neck beard. 

But IMDB, being stupid, decided Tracy Morgan's birthday was more important, and alas, he makes the front birthday page.  Don't worry, Walt, they forgot Roland Emmerich too, and he directed the greatest holiday film of all time . . . Independence Day.  They also left out Claude Raines (Casablanca) and Roy Scheider (Jaws) too.

Today also would have been Brittany Murphy's birthday, had she not died tragically last Christmas. 

RIP Lisa Blount

Lisa Blount, star of Chrystal and Randy and the Mob (and An Officer and a Gentleman, who knew?) and 1/3 of Ginny Mule productions (with her husband Ray McKinnon and Walton Goggins) died today at age 53.  Now as someone who fucking loves everything Ginny Mule put out, when Matthew called to tell me the news, I was really, really sad.  

In other news, Lindsey Lohan is still alive!!!  Life isn't fair sometimes.  It is, in the words of Tommy Weiseau, "Tearing me apart!"

Rest in Peace, Lisa.

I've been after my BFF, Matthew, to watch The Shield for months.  I love it so much that I want to share it with him.  I want to talk to him about it and the way it's written and try to deconstruct it down to the bones, the technique, the raw writing itself.  I want to know how these characters are so dispicable and yet loveable.  I want to know how to take the chances they did and how to get away with just about everything.

He finally sat down at started season one.  And he called me up after a few episodes and said, very gently, "I understand why you like Shane Vendrell so much."

"Because he's got great eyes and a hot ass?" I deflected.

"I wouldn't go that far," Matthew countered.  "You are Shane Vendrell.  You're Shane and I'm Vic."

I thought about that for a moment, wondering if I should take that as a compliment or an insult.  I know what happens to Shane.  I know all the awful, unspeakable things he does throughout the course of seven seasons.  But before I slammed down the phone, I realized what Matthew was really saying.

My God, I thought.  I am Shane Vendrell!

It's not just the tight jeans and the great ass and the pretty eyes and that I'm originally from Oklahoma City.  It's that I don't always think through what I'm doing.  I'm a kick-down-the-door, shoot first, apologize later kind of gal.  And Matthew plans carefully, thinks things through, ponders the options and the exits before he makes his move.

I wasn't always this way.  Much of my childhood was spent behind told to settle down, lower your voice, watch your language, you are not going out of the house dressed like that.  My first boyfriend squelshed all of my freedoms and passive-agressively dictated what I wore, what I said, who I hung out with, what I ate.  When we broke up, my loud mouth became a defense mechanism.  I had been silent for so long, and now I was going to say what I meant regardless of who it offended.  I vowed to use my powers for power, not just to be an anonymous troll on the internet.  I had opinions, and I was going to voice them without fear. 

And people got offended.  At graduate school, when I spoke out against the rape-as-cosmic-punishment violently prevelant in Liz Hand's vulgar reading from Generation Lost, I was told by some twenty-sided dicer who I wasn't even talking to, "oh, we've heard this before," as though I was speaking out of turn because I don't like it when writers use rape to punish their female characters for so-called transgressions.  How dare I speak out against this published writer?  How dare I, as a woman, have opinons that vary from the norm?

This doesn't just go for me shooting off my big mouth.  I've packed up and moved to places all but overnight, with no job lined up and take the first apartment I can find.  I gave my ex-boyfriend of seven years his ring back and jumped ship for an art student I'd known for a few months.  (We're still together).  I send out submissions when most of the writers I know cower at the thought of rejection.  I make up new recipes.  I wear what I feel like wearing.  I run away to Denver, Chicago, Florida, Indiana, NYC when I feel like it.  I keep moving, keep testing my boundries.  I've touched the electric fence a few times, but it never stops me.  I'm improv, I'm a firecracker, I'm fearless.  I have to be.      

By contrast, Matthew is an Art Of War kind of guy.  He plays a long game, he looks to see what can net him the most of what he wants.  He speaks carefully, arranges the chess pieces, aimes carefully and fires. I prefer to just light a match and walk away from the slow-motion explosion.  I try to think ahead, but I usually get only one or two moves before I act.  He's got his reasons, just like I've got mine.  And, like Vic and Shane, we compliment each other, we piss each other off, but ultimately, we're partners.  Sometimes we do things his way, sometimes we do things my way.  Sometimes his way works, sometimes mine does. 

At one point, when Vic is lying in a hospital bed, he says to Shane, his voice thick with morphine.  "When we retire, we're going to play golf everyday."

"I'd like that," Shane replies, his voice thick with tears. (no man can cry quite like Walton Goggins.  He makes it look manly)

Through it all, Matthew and I are partners.  We're family.  We're a team. Vic needs Shane to spring him to action the same way Shane needs Vic to help him plan ahead.  So maybe being Shane isn't such a bad thing.  Especially if it means I get to wear tight jeans.

Throwing Things at David Arquette--Fish in a Barrel Edition

Sorry I'm a little late to the David Arquette party, but I had to stop by the bakery.  You may be wondering, "Why all the hatin' on David Arquette, what did he ever do to you?"

He fucked up my BFF's movie.

My BFF wrote the movie Slingshot.  I read the original draft, and a lot of the novel.  It was good stuff.  And then Arquette had to come along and fuck it all up.  He wouldn't come back for reshoots because he had to go to a baby shower, which, by the way, REAL men don't attend.  He rewrote a bunch of stuff.  And he was just a general bag of douche, which, frankly, he doesn't have the power to be.  You made Eight Legged Freaks, David.  And last I checked, that didn't win an Oscar, so you don't have an excuse to swat a fly, let alone be a dick.

And now it comes out that he is splitting from only connection to the Hollywood scene, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective star Courtney Cox (teehee).  He's done.  He has nothing to offer anyone.  He's a terrible actor who isn't good looking and who probably couldn't pick up rejects from Rock of Love.

The only upside is that if that he hadn't ruined the movie, my BFF would be in Hollywood instead of close to me, and we wouldn't have gone to grad school together and I wouldn't have a blog, which would be a drag.


So because I'm childish, and because I like to kick a man when he's down, today we're throwing:

A WHOLE FUCKING WEDDING CAKE!


That'll teach you to fuck up my BFF's movie, you pot-smoking, skank-banging, fashionless douche-bearded fat-headed sweathog!