Monday, May 17, 2010

The Death of a Heroes

The TV show Heroes had so much potential that I actually showed nearly the entire first season to one of my classes as I weaved the curriculum around it. There was so much conflict, characterization, and thematic aspects to work with, it was easy to come up with lesson after lesson.

Now let me answer a question posed here. To wit: why did Heroes fail?

My list begins with the same number one, but I come at it differently.

1) Let Heroes be Heroes. What I mean by that is let them use their powers. Let them get into titanic struggles with those powers. We saw so little of hero vs. villain throwdown. I mean, there'd be a moment here and a moment there, but heroes have the right... nay, they have the responsibility to kick the ass and look impressive doing it. It simply didn't happen enough.

2) The story must be more important than the actors. Allow characters to die, if the story requires it. Really, they needed to give all the actors only one season contracts at a time. This would allow the writers not to have to worry about contractual obligations, which I think was a problem. The Cheerleader should have been dead a long time ago, and few from season one needed to be around by season five.

3) Do not insult your audience. When you have supposedly intelligent characters, then they should do intelligent things most of the time. Don't make us wonder aloud at the screen, "Why don't they just [insert obvious plot fix here]? Is [enter character's name] really that dumb?" Allow for intelligence to best intelligence - see Sherlock Holmes vs. Moriarty.

4) Be careful of powers. This, really, is #1 in a lot of ways, because everyone who gets into the hero trade eventually realizes that they have to figure this out or writing will be a hellish task. Don't make heroes too powerful, otherwise you easily run into problems with #3 as the audience asks things like, "But he couldn't have snuck up on Sylar; he's got super hearing!" or "Nathan's Dad could just stop time and then plan for as long as he needed, then execute his plan without any of the heroes even having a chance to stop him, why doesn't he?"

5) Internal conflict is key. Bruce Wayne struggles with the death of his parents, Peter Parker struggles with the weight of responsibility, Tony Stark struggles with his alcoholism, and Logan struggles with his humanity. Each of the heroes needed to be fighting themselves as hard as they fought their villains.

If there was a #6, it would be: have fun! Half of the thrill of hero comics is the thrill of seeing wickedly cool stuff happen. That happens when the writers are having creating all sorts of things just because the idea of it is so fun. Like everything else, there was elements of that in Heroes, but there wasn't enough and it wasn't consistent.

Regardless of what lessons are learned, some have to be, because we all want another awesome show about people with super powers, but we don't need another Heroes.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Audience Partici...

I'm going to assume that by now you've already heard about the 8 year old girls dancing (and dressed) provocatively during a dance competition. If not, click here.

Caught up? Good. Now go spit up that vomit that just forced its way into your mouth, freshen your breath and get back to me.

Minty!

Okay, WTF? That three letter acronym rarely has a use so appropriate as here. I'm going to skip the blame the parents bit, because so many others already have, that base is covered. But I am going to enter the blame game with this question: where would the act have been, were it not for the audience?

Follow-up for 50 points, Alex... how much responsibility does the audience have in this situation?

Watch the vid. Watch the audience. Hear the cheers; witness the applause. Oh, sorry, is the vomit back?

Where is the scorn for them? Where is the disgust for those who make it all possible? Because as we know - it's a show, and they're ain't no show when there ain't no body to show it to.

Why? Why did the audience sit and watch? Why wasn't there outrage? Why wasn't there people standing up and walking out? En masse? What would it take? What would the audience have done if there was a striptease? Sat there? Smiled? Continued to take their vids and photos?

Excuse me, but where the fuck is the line?

I thought what that vid shows would have been well on the other side of it.

I was wrong.

Is it our practiced passivity? We sit and watch because that's what we're trained to do? If so, we've got to get into some serious retraining sessions.

We have a responsibility as an audience, don't we? A responsibility to stand up at that very moment and say, "Whoa! Stop the music. This is wrong."

Frightening, I know. To do that in front of so many people, it would be nerve wracking. But to not to, to stand by and watch it all happen before your eyes, and not even try? That's got to be worse. It's got to be. Because if it isn't, this sort of thing is going to keep happening.

Because, when no one stands up, when you have the audience participating by applauding the vileness, the show... must go on.

Friday, May 14, 2010

When I grow Up...

I watched the space shuttle Atlantis begin its 32nd mission in space this morning (@wilw tweeted about it just in time, otherwise I would have missed it, then he blogged about it), and it was still a really cool feeling to see it go up.

It's really a symbolic cool feeling. I mean Atlantis is not doing anything extra special this time, but it symbolizes humanity's continued commitment to going where no human has gone before.

Something in me "gets" the whole explorer impetus, which may be why I became a fan of Science Fiction, and in some respect, Fantasy (exploration of the imagination).

When I was "a kid" in school we had to do reading one day in the "fiction" part of our library, and the other in the "non-fiction" part. When we got to do the non-fiction reading it was very difficult for some students to find books they wanted to read. Not for me. I could always find something to read.

I inevitably found one of four types of books to read, myths, poetry, sports or astronomy. So, it's of no surprise, perhaps, that when asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, my answer was one of three things: hockey player, astronomer, or writer.

As it happened, I wasn't great at the maths, so when I found out you had to be, astronomer was out. I was chubby as a child and wasn't already in hockey, so that quickly became out too. That left me with writing, by default.

But why astronomer? Why not astronaut? Yeah, I wonder that too. I think it was that I was just taken by stars. The moon and space walking didn't hold as much interest as the massiveness involved in contemplating the contents of the entire universe and its workings. I guess that was it. I had always been a kid in search of answers about how the world worked, and while the earthly questions were interesting, the universal questions really got me going.

That said, I'd rupture my left nut (sorry Sami!) to get into space now. I mean, I think you get to a point in life when you're thinking about what you are likely to do, and what you're not, and maybe as a kid I always thought I'd get a chance to get into space, so it didn't cross my mind to really want it. But now I know that unless I suddenly become VERY rich, I'm going to be earthbound 'till our expanding sun blows our earth and all our bits into space. So now I want it. Which may be another reason why watching Atlantis's rise today was still a really cool feeling.

Humble Pie 1.337

Just sos ya know. It occurred to me yesterday: hey, you like games, and you like fun stuff like being a part of something that will #ChangeTheInternetForever so I went out and paid my $10 to get the Humble Indie Bundle, and I found out another company has added a game so now it's six games for whatever you want to pay!

I gave the $10 to the Child's Play charity, because I figured by now the developers have received monies above and beyond what they were expecting, but the charities are always needing more, and I kinda was in the charity mood, so there ya go.

Here's to seeing more of this type of thing happen!

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Humble Pie

So I read in @WilW about the Humble Indie Bundle and about people pirating it, so I clicky the linky to find out what's going on, and find myself in the middle of a story that #WillForeverChangeTheInternet, so I'll let you clicky linkys and get caught up.

For those who have already done so and are waiting with me... how about those Habs, eh? Take out both the Caps and Pens in game 7s... epic. Halak is really putting on a Dryden/Royesque performance. Very impressive.

Ah, you're back, cool! Shall we continue?

Anywho, it occurs to me that I'm not sure which side of this argument I'm on. Personally I've been doing both buying and pirating digital stuff for, well, 20 years or so, so... so I'm not sure. It's clear that in some countries credit card access or iBanking can be extremely difficult if not impossible, so I get why they pirate. I know kids whose parents have security issues with their credit cards and the internet (and/or their children), so I get why those kids pirate.

I think it's the entitlement folk who get me. There are kids today who have NEVER paid for a song or a game. EVER. They don't only expect it for free, but they feel entitled to it. They feel something is dreadfully wrong if they can't get their band's latest album for free and immediately so.

I asked one of my classes about it, and got the response - why should we pay for something that's free? I suggested that if they don't then artists will need to find jobs that pay them money, and quit making their games and songs, that is, someone has to pay so that the stuff can be made.

They were... puzzled. I mean, they understood, but they didn't understand why that meant that they had to be the ones to pay. These are mostly middle class suburban white kids from homes with double incomes. People who know a thing or two about these things will tell you that it's this situation at home that creates this concept of entitlement.

Considering how much of the market might well be made of of these people, I feel kinda bad of the people who are going to want to make a living off them. It'll be hard.

Personally, I know why I should pay, I'm just cheap and lazy. I'd rather not be. I'd rather be a paragon of righteousness. But I'm not. I pay when I feel I need to, when it's uber convenient, or when it's a part of my consumer habits, otherwise I'll download it or stream it.

I most often fit into the group "they wouldn't have got my money anyway." I'm not one with a ton of expendable income. Seriously. I'm in debt mostly due to evil credit card companies getting to me when I was young and stupid. I have a mortgage and a ton of regular bills, and kids and... well you get the picture. I got about $20 a month to spend as I want, and even then I feel a bit guilty about it. I used to be so much wealthier when I was a kid getting $20 a week for allowance. Shit. Those were the days.

So yeah. That's where I fit in. But this whole "pay what you want" thing is ridiculously brilliant. I also asked my students if they'd buy songs if they were 50 cents or 5 cents, and they were much more inclined to forgo their entitlement. But I have a feeling it's because songs are 99 cents now - as soon as they're 50 cents, they'd be back entitling themselves to pirating again.

So I don't know how it's going to be, but I think this is a very interesting step - maybe not for the mainstreamers, but for those indie and fringe folk who just want their fair share of the pie. The Humble Pie.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

35 Years of Canucks

In 1975 I was three. I was watching a tv on the floor of our family living room, my Auntie was over and a game was on. I noticed she was cheering so I started cheering too. But I was cheering both teams. My Auntie helped me out, and said, "You only cheer for the team in white, those are our Canucks."

She had the passion. She was tight with the Canucks back then - went to some parties, later she would tell me tales like Glen Hanlon diving through a pyramid of emptied beer cups on a bar, and that Harold Snepsts, a very shy guy, had asked her after several beers to marry him. They were regular guys, not getting paid much in sporting terms, but having tons of fun.

My first game was in 1977. I have the program somewhere. I think Chris Oddleifson was on the cover - I think it was an October game and the ticket cost less than $10. Every year I made sure I got out to a few games, but between radio, tv, and in person, I don't think I missed more than a dozen games from 1980 to 1990.

The Canucks were my passion too. I collected all the cards. I had the pennants. I lived and died with them. I mostly died with them. But there was a magical few weeks in '82... we owned the 'Hawks back then ;) . It's funny how long you can go as a fan on so little success.

But as the decade turned I was getting into late teens and life began to make other priorities and the Canucks had to take a backseat more often. But the passion was still burning hot when in '94 a somewhat surprising playoff run turned into one of NHL history's best Stanley Cup final ever, and we wept with Captain Kirk and Trev when it was all over.

Then years - has it been 16? Again so long with so little. More life has taken me away - I used to know every name, every number, every stat worth following - now, I know much, but a shadow of what I used to. I have children, and a very time-consuming job. I don't even know who "we're" playing some nights or what the score was the last night. Blasphemy, I know.

But the passion still burns like an ember, not like one in the middle of a raging campfire, like in the '80s, nor one as the fire is being stoked, like in the '90s, but you know that one ember that's there the next morning that you use to light the fire again for breakfast - that's the one now.

So I still feel the pain, the loss, when the playoffs end without the Canucks hoisting the Cup. I still feel the sense of longing. The burrowing worm in the back of my skull asking if I'll ever see it happen.

Which may be why my kids both have jerseys, why my boy today - who can hardly yet speak a word - pointed to my Canucks crest and said "Cnkks" and then clapped to himself, and why they know to cheer only for the team with the orca, because, for forever and a day, "those are our Canucks."

w00tst0ck 2.0 The Revenge of teh Karma

I was excited but sure I was going to manage two things: 1) don't be a dick, and 2) don't be all nerdsquee or blank-face.

Well, little was I to know that there was a third option that I needed on that list: 3) don't be Mr. TooMuchToSayTooSlowly. Further, that being unthought, this thought also got unthought: 3 results in 1.

But let's begin at the beginning, with pics mostly coming from Wil Himself (the ending is shocking and horrifying, or so).

I got to the Moore theatre late - around 7:30. As I got out of my car, an "honest looking" fellow came over to me and offered me a parking ticket in a way I couldn't seem to refuse. He was charging the same $10 that the machine was so I didn't figure that was so bad but when I realized I only had $20s, I decided to test the waters, and asked if he had change, to which he immediately started with "I'll get my guy at my other lot to give you...;" I saw the fins in the water and tapped him on the shoulder and told him that I was already late and he could keep the change. I left glancing over my shoulder at my car hoping that it wasn't for the last time.

I got to my seat just as Molly Lewis was coming on, so I figured I hadn't missed much Wil, for which I was glad. She was grand, as she made up and forgot lyrics on the spot - that was so brave to try out a song that really actually wasn't finished - I kind want to have her baby now (and I'm a guy, which would make it much more challenging!).

Then there was Wil. Huge applause. I went ahead and began recording it on my iPhone. He started in with a story from Happiest Days of Our Lives - the one about the Rocky Horror Picture Show. He was clearly "on" as he pwn'd some newb who spoilerfailed about the location of the show in the story. Five minutes into it my sister phones and then texts to remind me it's Mothers' Day on Sunday, but I don't answer either, then, just for fun I check to see what it did to my recording... it stoppped it - shit. I restarted and got the rest of the reading which was well accompanied by Paul and Storm, though I think that they had more and sexier bits to work with in w00tst0ck 1.0. Regardless, it was awesome!

At which point MC Frontalot came on and would have killed but it seems many people (including myself) were unaware of the lyrics (and his rapping was too quick to pick many of them up otherwise). Nevertheless he was still lauded, and I gave him props for being the front-man at intermission and after the show at their counter selling their stuff to their adoring fans.

Then there was Hank Green - a really normal name for a rather extraordinary talent. He had a great tune about quarks and a ST:tNG song which he was tickled to be singing with Ensign Wesley Crusher (as it were) staring him down from the wings.

Stephen “Stepto” Toulouse was ominous. Cool, but you could tell, you wouldn't want to be Mr. p00nhun+er when he was on the job. Additionally, he had a very neat presentation, and though he broke into near-giggles a couple of times he held it together very well.

James Ernest and Mike Selinker were very clever and clearly worked very well together. They reminded me of Penn and Teller, as far as chemistry goes.

Jason Finn, who filled in with his drumming when required, reminded me a ton of Tommy Chong - sometimes unintentionally funny (like when he took a swig of wine) - but really off-beat and in his own world in a good way.

Then there was Mr. Adam Savage, who got one of the biggest applauses of the night. He was funny, and he had some Mythbusters advanced screening stuff - that was way bitchin'. He went on for quite some time according to my recording, but the time flew by.

Penultimately Paul and Storm came out and were frakin' hilarious - Nugget Man - classic! They made me pee a little. Just a little. They must be killer to drink with. Since I've been throwing around some comparisons I'll say these guys are the modern day Smothers Brothers.

Ultimately the Pirate song (The Captain's Wife's Lament) ... not much makes me laugh 'till I cry anymore, but this did it. If you weren't going to go for any other reason, you'd kick yourself for missing this. This is audience participation at its best. Aaaarrrrrr!

And that was it. But that's not what I've come to blog about. I've come to blog about karma. Remember karma? I mention it in the title.

So I buy a w00tshirt and get the complimentary (!) w00tposter, and get in line for the Paul, Storm, Savage, Wheaton line. It's really long. But I suck it up, because I know that it'll give me plenty of time to plan what I'm going to say. Now, I'm a teacher by trade, so I often find myself with moments in which I must say intelligent things off the top of my head, so I figure I'm good to go.

Not so. Apparently a mind given too much time is as failworthy as hands made idle. So I think about hockey because I've given up this night when the Canucks play a very important Game 4, for which I was wearing my Canucks jersey. I think about all the books/movies/tv shows/blogs/podcasts/interviews I've seen Wil associated with and think of comments for each. I think about snappy things to say about this night's performance. I think of clever things to say in general. I consider asking Wil to record a Mothers' Day message for my wife, but worry that it'd take too much time. I consider asking will to not only sign my copy of Dancing Barefoot and the w00tposter, but my iPhone's copy of Just a Geek (there's an app for that ;) ), though decide that would also be too much. I think about the "hand shake" knowing that Wil doesn't like to - even though I've seen him do it already to a couple of people ahead of me - but I doubt I'll try it.

I see him totally nerdsquee about a female fan wearing a shirt that clearly means something to him (angel wings on the back?), and am happy for her. It was probably way more reaction that she thought she'd get. I even get a good pic of it.

Amid all this I take a couple random pics here and there and a couple as I near the table. I'm AT the table! I say hi and thanks to Paul and Storm telling them I did in fact pee a little. I tell Adam that he's like the only reason I still watch tv (Wil and hockey are the others), and then I am before...

Wil Wheaton. Crap. It's really him. Right there. He looks up from his signing, says good bye to the people in front of me, sees my jersey and mutters, "Ah... you're one of those suporters, huh?" Yes! Hockey talk! "Yup" I say extremely wittily. He teases, "So how are the 'Hawks" treating you?" I had just found out that the Canucks had lost bad, and were now down 3-1, but I didn't allow my disappointment to show, instead came back with, "Is that all you got?" to which he says, "Yeah, pretty much," as he signs the w00tposter. Yes! That was sweet!

Now You're thinking, sign book, take pic, "thanks" - and walk away, right? That's how it should have happened. But no, He gets up, mentions something about the Kings upcoming prospects, specifically mentions a prospect goalie and a d-man by name (which I blank on). Now at this point he's clearly thinking: "Hand-off the camera and have the pic then, dude," but I have no clue and besides, here I'm talking hockey with Wil Wheaton which is the closest I'm going to get to talking hockey with Wayne Gretzky (coolness factor) so I say something like "Yeah, the Kings look good for the future, they'll win a cup then the Canucks can win the next year."

Noticing that I'm not going to hand-off the camera, he sits back down, I pass him my book. (Sigh.) Then I look at Wil and ask for a pic, which he graciously accepts, turn to the young lady behind me and I ask her to take the pic to which she replies, "No problem, as long as you do the same for me." (<---- note this) "Sure," I mutter, as I hand her the camera.

She takes a VERY good pic. Then my mind blanks for a moment I get Wil's attention one last time as I'm backing up (very nearly into the stand behind me). "Oh, and thanks for everything! Keep doing what you're doing; it means a lot to a lot of people." He looks somewhat surprised at the last minute sentiment and responds with, "Thank you. That means a lot to me."

At which point I nearly black out, turn around, avoid the stand, and stumble out the door.

I think of my car. Then I /facepalm -- the young lady who took my pic... damn! I'm such a dick! Then I think about how long I must have been in front of Wil, and go through the whole scene and think, I'm such a dick!

But there's nothing I can do, as I can't get back in, but walk away like said dick.

So, now that I have this opportunity, I apologize to the fine lady who took the pic, who didn't get the promised one herself, and had to stand behind Mr. TooMuchToSayTooSlowly.

So what do I get for my dickishness? Well, my car's still there and in the same condition I left it in. w00tthat!

But I get home, on Sunday, only to find that while the iPhone audio was there, ALL the pics and vid I took at the show (and a few from Sunday) are GONE. My pic with Wil, and the pic of him nerdsqueeing, and the others, all gone.

I had Picasa erase all the uploaded ones from my camera card, which I do by default, so I tried a Glary Undelete which only found the pics that had been uploaded. It was as if I deleted them from the camera myself or never took them at all.

I knew they were there because I looked at them when I got in my car, and I showed my wife the pic with Wil when I got back to the Hotel. I'll try a "professional" I suppose, but I'll be shocked if I ever see them again. But that's what I get for being a dick.

Regardless, I am thrilled I got to see an awesome show, and got to meet and chat with one of the few "public" people I truly admire as a person.