Hello there ladies and gentlemen, are you ready to rock? It’s time for me trolling yet another thing that I don’t quite understand. Look on the bright side however. I’m actually searching for enlightenment rather than just petty name calling or pigeonholing. So hit the jump and enlighten my ignorant ass.
I want you to consult your medium.
And I’m not talkin’ about that gargantuan-racked Gypsy babe you met at the bus stop. Do I think it’s righteous that she wore a revealing shawl and was jambox-blastin’ an Among the Living cassette? Yes. Do I think that she actually has psychic powers? No. Unless you like waking up in another state to find that you’ve been drugged, robbed, and’re wanted on an arson charge, you’re goin’ to want to stay away from her.
Trust me, I know from experience.
Anyways, the sort of medium we’re dealin’ with today ain’t of the supernatural variety. Well, not literally (we’ll come back to that). See, the word “medium” comes from the old-tyme Ancients’ expression for “in the middle.” As such, there’re a whole mess of ways to apply the term. Yes, that’s why when you go to Dunkin Donuts, the serving size of hot dirt-water that’s larger than the small but smaller than the large is called medium!
Ta-dah!
When takin’ a stroll across the Arts & Entertainment Dance Hall, we need to look at media as the ways in which creators express themselves. In a sense, any given medium is the means by which a transfer occurs from the mind of the Creator to the mind of the Viewer. It’s actually an alarmingly simple process: an idea is in the Creator’s mind, the Creator shapes some sort of artifact, the Viewer experiences said artifact, and now the same idea is in the Viewer’s mind! Voila!
Stephen King describes the process in On Writing:
Look — here’s a table covered with a red cloth. On it is a cage the size of a small fish aquarium. In the cage is a white rabbit with a pink nose and pink-rimmed eyes. In its front paws is a carrot-stub upon which it is contentedly munching. On its back, clearly marked in blue ink, is the numeral 8.
Do we see the same thing? We’d have to get together and compare notes to make absolutely sure, but I think we do. There will be necessary variations, of course…
I sent you a table with a red cloth on it, a cage, a rabbit, and the number eight in blue ink. You got them all, especially that blue eight. We’ve engaged in an act of telepathy. No mythy-mountain shit; real telepathy.
That’s right, you degenerate broads and bastard boozers clinging to the railing of Spaceship OL — every time you read a book or listen to an album or play a video game, you’re on the receiving end of some genuine telepathy! And when you find it in your soul to create some art? When you show someone the landscape you painted or the sonnet you penned? Yeah, you’ve got it — you’re on the transmitting end of the thought-transfer!
So what’s this all gettin’ at? Well, simply put, I want every goddamn one of you to declare your medium-allegiance. At the end of the day, in which art form are you most invested? Which mode of expression sweep-picks your heartstrings? What is it about this medium that gets your blood pumpin’ and spirit swirlin’?
[What is your medium of choice?]
It’s time to sing the praises of the unsung hero.
That’s not to say that there isn’t something wonderful about zest and panache and pageantry. `Cause there most certainly is. In fact, some of the best entertainment consists of the bombastic acts of conspicuous heroes. Take the guitar solos out of Megadeth’s Rust in Peace and see how much headbanging you do. Don’t let Tony Stark drink and bang babes and fly in his metal-dude suit, and feast your eyes on a rich nerd. Hell, would you even watch basketball if the NBA outlawed slam dunks?
I certainly wouldn’t.
Still, that’s not to say that all heroes are of the sweep-pickin’, philanderin’, slam-dunkin’ variety. There exists another sort, a breed concerned less about the spotlight and more about gettin’ the job done. Y’know the type — the guy quietly keepin’ to himself while the hero of the day slugs champagne and smacks ass and gets high-fived. These taciturn troopers may not be the first to spring to mind, but when we consider their contributions it’s impossible to deny their importance.
What I’m tryin’ to say is that there are unsung heroes who deserve our praise. If you really love the Beatles, send George Martin some flowers. If you think Michael Jordan’s the all-time greatest, get Scottie Pippen a Dunkin Donuts gift card. And if you think Tarantino is an unparalleled master of cinema, find a way to pay tribute to Sally Menke.
Even Moses would’ve been a useless sack of shit without Aaron.
[Which unsung heroes deserve to have their praises sung?]
I want you to consider the following premises, keepin’ an eye peeled for similarities.
When a West Philadelphia-born prince ascended his Californian throne, he sang a little ditty. That time when the boxer prepared to avenge his friend’s death and defend America’s honor? You bet your ass he was jammin’ to some butt-rock. And when the world was ushered into the era of Y2J, it was greeted by the dulcet tones of a computerized countdown and processed vocals.
The conclusion: theme songs kick ass.
Hell, if you think about your favorite movie, TV show, or video game, chances are that it features some sort of soundtrack. Moreover, it’s also a solid bet that there’re clear-as-day, identifiable-as-hell themes woven throughout said soundtrack. While you’re experiencing this bit of entertainment, themes amplify the emotion at hand, whether it happens to be jubilation or intrigue or suspense. So affective, in fact, are theme songs that hearing them out of context can still teleport our consciousnesses to the space-time junctions of entertainment-inebriation.
Fighting Sephiroth.
Being devoured by a Great White.
Swoonin’ over a man with a license to kill.
If you count yourself amongst the OL faithful, then some of your life’s most consequential moments have probably been accompanied by a soundtrack. As such, I encourage you to respond to one or both of this weekend’s OPEN BAR prompts:
[What is a theme song you dig?][What would you choose for your own theme song?]
It’s with a tearful eye and a hyper-extended thumbs-up that I bid farewell to 2012.
The last twelve months have been some of the finest of my entire life. And I’m not exaggerating. Unlike those saccharine slobs who always clamor about the present hour being their finest and the preceding moments nothing more than the bliss-steps to their existence plateaus, I have no illusions about the fact that I’ve chalked up some miserable years. I’ve anguished through entire calendars, burnin’ `em up with fuel of the most incendiary sort.
Self-doubt! Resentment! Apathy! Vitriol! Cynicism! Sally forth towards the mire!
But 2012 was a whole different beast. Sure, there definitely some moments when my nostrils were assailed by the wispy vapors of the aforementioned propellants. But repugnance was ultimately cast aside, overpowered by the surfeit of wonder! It’s almost as though entertainment and art and love formed a giant sword-wieldin’, monster-destroyin’ mech, and I got to pilot the son-of-a-bitch!
If only!
Anyways, it looks as though every crew member of Spaceship OL is delivering their year-end highlights, so I’m going to join the party. But since I’ve garnered a reputation as being the erratic, currently-undiagnosed-but-we’re-working-on-it, hack-writin’ resident of the crew, I’m going to switch things up a bit. Each of my highlights will be paired with an Ultra-Dimensional Portal! By clicking on any UDP, a hole will be punched in space-time, and your consciousness will be projected astrally.
Got it? Okay, here’s one last look at 2012!
Hello there! If you’re reading this it means that Frankenstorm hasn’t totally rocked you. Not yet, anyways. Or, if you took the proper precautions as I did, you’re safe in a bunker, leisurely tapping away on a hard-shelled laptop produced in 1995 and powered by a Soviet-surplus generator.
Mother Nature is a powerful woman of antiquity, but I’m a crafty miscreant in the digital age.
Anyways, welcome to the Monday Morning Commute, the weekly meeting at which we confess our darkest entertainment secrets. Can’t tell your boyfriend about that comic book you bought? Come to the MMC! None of your coworkers will appreciate the Japanese import you just got in the mail? Come to the MMC! Pretty sure your wife doesn’t give two buttery squirrel shits about the fact that you’re going to beat Super Mario Bros. 3 without the use of a single warp or whistle? Come to the MMC!
I’m going to get things started. But then it’s up to you to share what you’ll be doing this week. C’mon, it’s electronic show and tell!
Transcender knew he was in for a world of shit.
He’d woken up from his Post-Lunar nap a bit early. Which wasn’t unusual. But rather than waiting for Larissa – the lab assistant with the big smile and bigger bust – to help him out of his pod, he crawled out on his own. Everyone on the Station knew that rule number one is that Transcender was never to be left to his own devices.
Especially after a nap.
Running a hand through his beard, Transcender gazed out the bay window and laughed to himself. “Sweet Man-Jesus, where’ve they sent me now? Is that Saturn? Oh, if Rodrigo could see this, he’d prolapse for sure!”
Had he studied the mission plans as thoroughly as he told Doc he would, Transcender would’ve known that they were far, far past Saturn.
Transcender Yonder’s attention was fully directed out the window, on the satellites and comets he’d soon be smashing to pieces, when a breeze of bitter wonder wafted into his nose. He immediately spun around, balancing best he could while his muscles readjusted to the artificial gravity, and began searching for the source of the smell. Other than his pod, all that was in the room was sterility – medical instruments, monitors, a vacuum.
And, much to Transcender’s delight, a coffee pot.
Fast as he could, the Meta-Man approached the coffee pot, threw back its lid, and poured the contents into unhinged gullet. Having never tasted coffee before, Transcender basked in the wonder of simply experiencing something new. Coffee! Aha! So this is what they drink when they wake up! A fine concoction! Chemically stimulating and socially facilitating!
But then Transcender’s hyper-sensitive neurons kicked into gear.
Larissa walked into the room just in time to see the six-foot-six ubermensch fall to his knees. He clutched at his left eye and screamed, “I have the pressure of a dying star within my skull! Sweet-mammaried Larissa, save me! I beg of you!”
Without hesitation, Larissa picked up the phone on the wall and dialed zero. “Doc? Yeah, it’s me. Looks like he got into the coffee. Yeah, Transcender’s having his first headache.”
Already knowing the answer, Transcender Yonder looked up and asked sheepishly, “Am I in trouble?”
—-
This is the Monday Morning Commute. I’m going to run through the things I’ll be doing to entertain myself during the week. Then, you hit up the comments section and do the same. Hell, ain’t this the whole damn point of the Internet?
Let’s rock.
Love `em or fear `em, there’s no denyin’ that extraterrestrials are an absolute fixture of our pop-culture consciousness.
Aliens have been depicted in variety of forms, from the benevolent bestowers of universal knowledge that helped build the pyramids to the nefarious sons-of-bitches that ruined Jeff Goldblum’s Fourth of July. Some spacemen want to go home. Others just want to call their folks. And the worst of `em want to kill Danny Glover.
Coming from outer-space (and thus being the most foreign specimens imaginable), aliens are elicit more fear, joy, and awe than anything on Earth. Who amongst us hasn’t looked to the skies and wondered whether or not we’d be visited by someone – or something - from beyond? You might’ve been inspired or horrified or curious, but I have no doubt that the thought’s crossed your mind.
So, the prompt for our open-bar: Who is your favorite extraterrestrial?
Old hands to the back, newcomers to the front. This here’s an introduction and I want to make sure there ain’t no damn confusion! My name is Rendar Frankenstein and I’m a hack-writer, born-again optimist, and caffeine junkie.
It ain’t a perfect life, but I like it just fine.
The quaint piece of scrap metal I’m currently tryin’ to lodge into your brain is the Monday Morning Commute! I’m goin’ to show you the various bits of entertainment I’ll be pouring milk over and chompin’ on in the hopes of warding off ennui-illness. Then, you hit up the comments section and tell us what you’ll be doin’ for esses and gees.
It’s a big, sweaty, nerd-based version of show’n'tell.
Let’s dance.
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