Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Review

Here we are, back again, dusting the cobwebs off of this old blog to review the latest Star Wars movie. I'm afraid that this time around, I won't have such an overwhelming heap of punishment to dish out as with my last review, which was so full of piss and vitriol that it nearly derailed the entire Star Wars franchise and sent high-level Disney executives plummeting out of their penthouse suites screaming "God forgive me!!!" into the night sky. (Ok, that didn't actually happen, but if you want to read it, it's here. ) However, I do intend to review Episode IX, and then launch into a tirade about what's wrong with everything about entertainment today, so if you can handle a measured, even-keeled few paragraphs, we may see some fireworks later on.

I liked Episode IX exactly as much as I expected to. JJ Abrams is remarkably consistent with creating C+ sci-fi franchise additions that combine the promise of nostalgia and moments of true brilliance with scene after scene of excessive bloat that add nothing to the films but time. To start on an up-note with some of those brilliant moments, I can say that the first scenes of the movie comprised the most badass cold open in the history of the franchise. I was 100% here for it as Kylo Ren descended into what was absolutely the purest vision of what the secret ancestral planet of the Sith should be. In fact, everything about the Emperor from a visual standpoint was done perfectly, and as Ian McDiarmid carried the good parts of the prequels, so he does here again.

Rey becomes more of a three-dimensional character in this one. Both she and Adam Driver give very good performances, their handy mind-swapping ability serving as a vehicle for the closest thing we get to genuine character development with any degree of emotional complexity. The battles between these two, whether mental, light-sabered, or force powered, make for the more interesting scenes in the film, and often left me feeling annoyed with the classic screen wipe as it cut to something going on elsewhere.

Additionally, the C3PO-getting-memory-wiped gag went from being sad to entertaining really quickly, and I was delightfully surprised with that. When he says "Babu Frik, one of my oldest friends!"... well, I really loled at that cheeseball. I'm glad they were able to make C3PO's comic relief actually funny for the first time in many films. And finally, I believe this film is a visual success. I like how JJ peppers in the relics of the "old wars" and makes them into set pieces. The second Death Star floating in the ocean is really cool, and makes for some good old lightsaber battlin' terrain.

That all said, when this movie was over, I felt a little overwhelmed, and more than a little sad. After all, this is Episode IX, the finale that had been promised to me in my childhood by the knowing whispers of comic book store owners; those arcane keepers of all pre-Internet science fiction wisdom! The end of Star Wars! Well, the end of what we used to know as Star Wars, but what has now been relabeled by those robust, forward-thinking corporate creatives as "The Skywalker Saga", for, in our foolish youth, we may have thought that it was possible for Star Wars to ever be over. And so for this grand finale, for this trilogy of trilogies, what have we seen?

Nothing different, really. I mean, Rey models herself after Luke, Kylo Ren after Vader. The Emperor, the Ultimate Evil (although admittedly, astoundingly so as a techno-lich) beckons the Jedi to slay him and take his place upon threat of the death of her friends, and the Sith apprentice receives redemption as he sacrifices himself. All the beats remain the same, and the narrative crosses the bridge from homage to reenactment so completely that one wonders if we are watching a sequel or a remake.

Episode IX, like VIII before, suffers from MacGuffin fever. The characters must get the thing that leads to the other thing, which will lead them to the place. It's fine, I mean, that's one way to do it. The issue is that the MacGuffins, these supposed objects of ultimate necessity, continually vacillate between being supremely important and not important at all. For example, with the 'Sith d4 of Exogol Finding', one is found by Kylo Ren, then another by Rey. The second is destroyed by Ren, and then later we are made to believe that the first is destroyed when Rey torches Ren's tie fighter. It isn't, of course, as later they just reach back into the hulk of the burnt-out tie fighter, dust the thing off, and plug it back in to have it function perfectly. Whew, what a close call! Almost thought the characters' choices had meaning!

The whole final trilogy is just filthy with this kind of thing if you really pay attention. Take the example of Luke's lightsaber over the course of the three movies: Initially, Rey finds Luke's lightsaber. Rey later gives the lightsaber to Luke. Luke throws it away. Rey recovers it. Rey says she's not worthy and gives the lightsaber to Leia. Later on, Leia says that she is worthy and gives it back to Rey. Rey goes to Ahch-To and chucks the lightsaber like her hero, Luke. Ghost Luke catches it and gives it back to her. Then finally, Rey goes to the moisture farm on Tatooine to bury both Luke and Leia's lightsabers, which is sentimental only to the audience considering the facts that Luke hated that place and also it was the scene of his Aunt and Uncle's gruesome murder, and Leia had never even been there at all. I'm not really sure what's going on with this constant elevation of objects to the point where they simultaneously drive the story and ignore all consequences from the action of said story. Maybe it's like a weird fan-service thing. But whatever it is, I did find it tiring.

Moving on, I still find both Finn and Poe pretty lackluster despite some attempts at adding character backstories. Sure, Poe may have stolen something in the past and dated the Helmet & Tights lady, but it seems like the point of both of these characters is to do battles and loudly yell what's happening in the scene to each other at every opportunity. ("The stormtroopers fly now!" "Are you doing the lightspeed skipping?" "I'm doing the lightspeed skipping!" "You can't do the lightspeed skipping!" etc, etc). The attempts at giving these two a sense of camaraderie generally falls flat and makes me feel like I'm in a freshman dorm room watching a softboy undergrad play Mario Kart with his fuckboy roommate. The novelty of the Star Wars universe's first bromance sort of wore off for me after Episode VII, so whenever these jokers are on screen together, I was really just waiting for it to cut back to whatever was going on with Rey.

I'm not going to spend too much time picking apart plot holes or addressing sequel power-creep. I'm not really bothered by new force powers, the fact that every star destroyer is a death star except shooting the gun blows it up instantly, or that it was somehow an efficient use of the Emperor's time to literally create a Sith lord in a test tube that was more powerful than the force-users he was trying to recruit in order to build a fleet one ten-thousandth of the size of the one he already had just to use it as a bargaining chip to temp Kylo Ren. Or to test his moxie. I'm not really sure which angle he was going for since he uses the classic "throw 'em down a pit" maneuver the second Kylo rejects him, which seems like a cavalier waste of resources for a guy who's been planning this for fifty years. But I digress, because I think we've all gotten used to every character in this trilogy pulling a complete 360 several times over.

I think my real issue with the movie is a little bit more intangible. It just feels kind of lonely, sort of like I'm watching Return of the Jedi in a dream or something and all the plot points are there, but everything is unfamiliar and just a little bit off. The trilogy in general feels less like Star Wars than either of the spinoff movies, which seems difficult to achieve considering it was engineered to be Star Wars in the most authentic and literal way.

The new generation of main characters is here to take us through this iteration of the time loop while the old familiar ones transcend death (both narratively and literally) to watch over them, phasing in and out of the screenplay like wistful spirits haunting the house they inhabited in life. We're reminded by the briefness of their token appearances that this isn't their story anymore, though one may wonder after all is said and done why the fuck not. That indeed, if it might not have been better to gather up the old crew, gray hair and all - Expendables style - for one last big ride instead of martyring them each in turn so that the new, less interesting heroes can win the day. In the now traditional '3rd movie victory party' scene, Finn, Poe and Rey dance around in a joyful embrace while Chewie, R2, and C3PO stand there and watch them like pets whose original owners have all died, trying to take some joy in their strange new environment. In the end, all we're left with of the old gang is the support crew and the comic relief, which in some way is more sad than if they weren't there at all.

In a way, even the Emperor's story is sad from an audience perspective. He is the one constant - he's been there with us all along, weaving his webs throughout every movie, both good and bad, across the decades. And here he is at the last, having outlived all of his apprentices and his enemies, begging his granddaughter and the grandson of his last apprentice to kill him. Though surely a character of such pure, unmitigated evil would be unmoved by the tragedy in this, I couldn't help but find these circumstances even darker than the actual action of the film's climax.

I'm sure a lot of this is just me. All three movies had the arduous tasks of creating a new ending to a 40 year old franchise, simultaneously appealing to adults, children, and the Internet (if such an endeavor is even possible), and providing fresh feed for the marketing engine. (I don't imagine Old Han, Fat Luke, and Granny Leia are exciting enough for an action figure line on their own.) Surely the subtle plays on nostalgia are lost on the 11-year-olds of today, much like the cheesiness of the Ewoks were not apparent to me until a long-delayed adulthood rewatch. So take this with a grain of salt.

However, it is much harder for me to suspend my disbelief and be immersed in the world these days. For one thing, we just know too much. We know that whatever George Lucas had planned for the third trilogy was vetoed, for better or worse, and that what we got was a fast-tracked, controversy-embroiled series of films that juggled writers and directors with constant press coverage and tight deadlines. Believe me, I have no love for the prequel trilogy (though a soft spot for III), but I can say that it told both a complete (if byzantine) socio-political narrative as well as a character arc that was wholly different than what came before. The sequels, on the other hand, feel more like a made-to-order product (a McTrilogy, if you will); a game of narrative hot-potato, or a reboot that hot-swaps the characters, locales, and items of interest on otherwise well-tread territory.

To expand on this point, I'll quote critic Nick Pinkerton from his appearance on the Red Scare podcast, which is as far as you can get from a pop culture podcast and therefore in a great position to offer insight:

I could give two fucks less about, like, the Star Wars universe, but I mean, say of it what you will, it was the actual product of a person with particular predilections and interests. But I think there was something of a collective sigh of relief when it had been handed over to a safe, corporate entity who was going to lovingly make certain that nothing like, the ... I don't know, Attack of the Clones ever happened again, that we wouldn't get anything like these somewhat disappointing (in some people's eyes), soggy prequels, and that only the best and most efficient and most streamlined entertainment would prevail from there on in the Star Wars world. It's chilling. Certainly it's one thing to have The Suits pursuing and leveraging for whatever power that they can get, but to have a contingent of fans, so called, who are absolutely excited...

I confess that I was in the same category of fans at the time. But a few scant years later, the cracks are beginning to show.  For one thing, the stakes are so much lower now. If Episode IX feels hollow and derivative, well, no worries - there will be dozens more movies and hundreds of hours of TV shows on Disney+. The Star Wars Universe will expand for a thousand years, and our children's children's children will have no more emotional attachment to Luke Skywalker or Han Solo than I do to, I don't know... Steamboat Willie.

The Disney-helmed strategy of 'giving fans exactly what they want, and lots of it' seems to be working for the time being. Personally, I'm already experiencing burnout. Five years ago, you'd be hard-pressed to find someone more 'here for it' than I was about all of the Marvel content being generated. But I haven't seen any of the post-Avengers Endgame films, because honestly it feels done to me. I mean, a ten year, twenty-five (or something) movie storyline wrapped up in a way that I thought was really great. Two weeks later, Spider-Man is up to something again. Soon, Black Widow. Then, Shang-Chi(??!). Next, we'll be making the rounds again through Dr. Strange, Thor, Black Panther... who the fuck can care for this long at this pace?? Will nothing end?

If Game of Thrones taught us anything, it's that I am wrong and everybody wants everything to go on forever. And really, not only that they want everything to go on forever, but that they are in fact entitled to have everything go on forever. Personally, I thought the ending of GoT, though not perfect, ended sensibly enough. I was pretty astounded by the opposition, but when the people I talked to were pressed for exactly why they were so pissed off, it wasn't that the resolution didn't make sense (with some exceptions) or that the conclusions hadn't been alluded to for nearly the entire series, but the series had ended at all. That the directors were lazy. That there should have been three more seasons. That the directors didn't care anymore. That it wasn't that Khaleesi turned into a tyrant (fuckin obviously), but that it happened too quickly. That plot line needed more time.  More seasons! More everything forever! More, more, more!!

People were so incensed and entitled that two million of them petitioned the government to force the studio to remake the last season, because that is certainly the rational response a functioning adult takes when confronted with a work of art they didn't like. Yea, let's just crowdsource and redo every piece of intellectual property that has ever disappointed us, cause I'm sure things will work out much better this way. Let's install the choose-your-own-adventure buttons in every movie theater a-la Futurama, so that the audience can decide the optimal resolution for every moment of conflict. Why stop there? Let's petition the government to send Navy Seals in to kidnap Metallica and force them to rerecord the bass on ...And Justice For All at gunpoint!

Now, obviously, I'm not against criticizing works of art. You may notice that I've done some of that in this very article. So before you label me a hypocrite (you asshole), what I am against is the attitude that as critics, we have any right to force creators to make (or remake) exactly what we want. But this is the environment we have fostered, a fertile field for a smily, gladhanding megalith like Disney to roll into and pump us full of custom-ordered content. And like I said, for the moment, it's working. But we're eating cookies for dinner every night, and eventually we're going to become malnourished entertainment-zombies, so addicted to the fulfillment of our own expectations that we won't remember what it's like to appreciate something we've had to wait for, or to be surprised by something we didn't expect, even at the risk of disappointment.

Episode IX really is a perfect example of this. It's entertaining. It's both brand new and nothing new. It's a little bit funny, and a little bit sad. It's nowhere near as bad as I feared, but not as good as I'd hoped. A little something for everyone, and not quite enough for anyone.

Expect a lot of this in the next decade.

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If you want to listen to the rest of that podcast episode I quoted (which I recommend), you can find it here: https://redscarepodcast.libsyn.com/cinema-dead-and-loving-it-w-nick-pinkerton

I also have written a collection of short stories in e-book form, which is available for the low, low price of 99¢:

Buy on Amazon

Nerd Rage Star Wars Spoiler Review

"I've seen raw disappointment like this only once before, in Episode I. It didn't disappoint me enough then. IT DOES NOW!" 

Ok, look, I'm not proud of what I'm about to do here. I'm getting older, folks. I really, really thought that my days of complaining about the substandard quality of pop-culture, big budget blockbuster epics were over. I thought that in my age and wisdom, I could reconcile the fact that no story is really sacred, there are winners and losers, and you're better off just sneaking a flask of Wild Turkey into the movie theater and tryin' to have a gooood time! For example, the Thor: Ragnarok script plays out like every single part was written for Robert Downey Jr., with ancient celestial deities awkwardly delivering punchy one-liners like it's open mic nite at the Asgardian Comedy Store... but hey! Those visuals, am I right? That soundtrack! After all, it's a comic book movie. Transcend your negativity, man.

Besides, something that really turned me off to giving my actual opinion about anything was the Ghostbusters backlash. Like, holy shit, what even was that? An army of kids who were three years old when Dan Ackroyd Et Al. ad-libbed their way through one of the most ridiculous non-porno scripts of all time feeling so entitled that they started harassing the actors off of Twitter. I know those were some really precious memories of discovering the original Ghostbusters on DVD fifteen years after its release following a really animated "Dude, you've never seen..." conversation at the local food court, but the cold truth is that Colombia Pictures is not indebted to your forced sense of sentimentality. The whole thing made me question whether the world really needed one more nerd with a blog (me) taking up more server space with lamentations about how an industry that is now like 90% dedicated to nostalgia and fan-service is ruining our memories and disservicing us as fans. It just seemed a bit like overkill.

However, I am but a humble human nerd, and I guess I'm off the wagon again.

Part of it is that pesky, irrational emotional appeal of Star Wars. Despite the fact that as a movie franchise, its got a less-than-stellar batting average and really, the entire toiling juggernaut pretty much just gets along by sprinkling in ever so much originality into an ever-expanding soup of self-reference, I'm just not really over it. And so, with two pretty good Disney-led Star Wars films in the bag and scores of glowing critical reviews all over the Internet, I walked into this one with some high hopes.

I felt that familiar emotional rush during the opening fanfare, the 'Its really happening!' moment I literally dreamt of as a little kid during the pre-prequel years. And, just like the first time, it transitioned pretty quickly from 'It's really happening!' to 'Surely this will get better!'. But deep down, I knew. I'd been down this road before. Following the first exchange, where they let Oscar Issac's now traditional opening joke stretch out just long enough to not be funny anymore, I looked back through time and space to my younger, less buff, baggy-jeaned self sitting in the theater for The Phantom Menace and said, "I got a bad feeling about this".

I'm convinced that this current crop of beaming movie critics are either being paid off by Disney or watching a completely different move than the one I saw. After seeing reviews like, and I'm paraphrasing here, "This movie keeps all the mystery and magic of Star Wars alive while taking it in bold new directions, etc, etc...", I can not willingly believe that our experience was the same. The Last Jedi (hereafter referred to as TLJ) was not only one of the worst Star Wars films ever made, but it fails repeatedly at even the most basic elements of storytelling. Whatever isn't boring and pointless is fucking unbelievable. Whatever is believable is boring and pointless. And yes, I am of course adjusting for suspension of disbelief.

Let's start with the fact that this thing is a giant 'fuck you' to even JJ Abrahm's derivative vision of the Star Wars story. Sure, he basically remade A New Hope with a fresh crop of handsome, sassy youngsters, but he left plenty of threads to pull on to keep the fan-theory boards alive and well for two years. Absolutely nothing about the state of this cinematic universe is answered in TLJ. Every juicy question put forth by The Force Awakens is either completely ignored, or made immaterial by the death of what or whoever we were asking about.

Additionally, while all of our questions are being unanswered, the majority of the characters are doing absolutely nothing. That's right! Nothing! I tried long and hard after seeing the movie to remember what all of the gang was up to, which was very difficult because none of it had any effect on the story. Finn and Rose begin a very Star Wars sounding quest to sneak onto an Imperial... sorry, First Order ship to once again disable some overlooked piece of equipment that will help the rebels not die. In the course of this convoluted side-quest, they go to a space-casino that any director in Hollywood, or really, any 9-year-old with some Hasbro action figures and an active imagination should have been able to write into a more interesting story point. Instead, the crew gets instantly arrested, meet Benicio Del Toro en route from the Marvel Universe on his way to a paycheck via an ultimately pointless character, and then ride around on a bunch of dumb CGI horsegeese while trying to make some point about how rich people are bad. Then, after escaping that cockamamie scenario, they get captured again and fucking fail. That's right! Not only do they fail miserably at the (what now, 4th?) Star Wars 'dress up like the bad guys' plan, but it turns out that by the time they would have succeeded, their fleet is pretty much destroyed anyway.

And you know what? That's OK. From a writing standpoint, its fine, even dare I say, bold to have your main-ish characters fail at something. The problem for me is that the whole process took so long, with so many chase scenes, explosions, and ham-fisted pseudo-discussions about morality that by the time the whole thing is over and Captain Phasma falls into a pit (how many pit-deaths is that now for the franchise? 4?), I totally fucking forgot where the characters were supposed to be or what they were supposed to be doing. The whole rebel fleet > casino > jail > enemy fleet > jail again > rebel fleet transition was spliced in via 4-5 minute segments for two hours of a movie that included two other story arcs. Get out your graph paper, folks.

So what's our snappy new hero Poe Damron & the fleet doing during all of this? Running awaaaaayyyyyy!!! Yes, after an initial rally and then a brutal asswhooping, we get all the excitement of an hours-long sub-lightspeed chase. As tactically sound as this decision may have been for the characters (especially in a universe where apparently all ships have an equivalent maximum cruising speed), it does not make for a very exciting movie. During most of this time, Leia is comatose, having survived being blasted into the vacuum of space by way of the absolute most asinine scene in cinema history. Let's just forget about the fact that the angle and velocity caused by explosive decompression and the residual velocity of the ship would have put her miles away from the vessel within seconds. Suspending all possible disbelief regarding anything to do with how space, or really, moving objects work, it was just fucking stupid. In sixty years, Leia has only ever at most displayed a spider-sense level of force control. Now, for the purposes of a cheap audience fake-out, she whips out almost godlike powers to save herself. This is doubly bad because the movie had not by this point, and does not at any point in the future, re-establish an emotional bond between Leia's character and the audience. The only reason anyone gives a shit that Leia might die is because of how we felt about her in previous movies. It's a dirty, bait-and-switch, poor-ass movie making tactic that does no real narrative work. This rings especially true because after Leia wakes up out of her coma, she doesn't fucking do anything besides show up, stun Poe Dameron, and then idly recite empty platitudes about hope until she changes her mind and the end and says that actually, there is no hope.

In the meantime, the role her character should have had is given to Admiral Holdo, a late-addition rando whose purpose is to argue with Poe, (in an exchange about as compelling as a Dungeons and Dragons adventuring party leadership dispute after the soda and chips have run out) and then singlehandedly destroy the enemy fleet. Ok, I guess.

Finally, the Rey / Skywalker / Kylo Ren storyline is the most palatable of the bunch, and the only one that features any attempts at acting, mostly thanks to Adam Driver. It also is the only one to actually advance the plot through the poorly-paced, overscored middle 70% of this epic-length movie. After all, Rey finally gets on the path to becoming a Jedi, despite the fact that Luke spends a combined total of about 7 minutes actually training her and the rest of the time running across the island to yell at her if she uses the force at any point thereafter. Kylo Ren ascends to power by killing Snoke, another no-backstory rando who is introduced just to run his mouth and then fucking die. This results in the best fight scene of the movie, though without further explanation I have a little trouble trying to accept the motivations for Snoke's trained Red Power Rangers to fight to the death defending their already dead master against his clear successor. Like, if they are that loyal, shouldn't they be trying to kill themselves for failing?

The Skywalker scenes are kind of hit-or-miss. I'm assuming they were trying to paint him as a jaded recluse with a dark and bitter past, but he sort of just comes off as an awkward crazy neighbor. That is until the end. And oh boy, let me tell you, if Leia's space ballet was the stupidest scene in movie history, the end of Luke Skywalker is the most vicious, faux-clever, fuck you cop-out that I've ever seen. The fact that what we've been waiting to see for 30 years, Luke fucking Skywalker back in action, was ALL aN IllUsIon!!, a shitty deux-ex-machina double-take bullshit scam where he just sent out his spirit to do all the dirty work and made us all think it meant something is the worst part of all. Like a deadbeat dad who promises to show up for your birthday and then swings by for 15 minutes on his way from the bar to his girlfriend Cheryl's house, the disappointment is real. The emotion of Luke's last words to his sister? Fake. His epic last stand to confront Ben? Fake. All of it rendered meaningless in a trick to literally buy ten minutes for the kids to run into a cave and escape. And then he dies anyway! After all of that chicanery, we cut to Luke meditating on his front porch, where he shouts, "Oh! My ticker!" and falls over. What the hell was the decision making process behind that? This speaks to my point about sloppy writing and having characters do a bunch of convoluted shit that lands them in the same exact same place with the exact same consequences that they would have experienced anyway, just with extra steps.

Just cut out the middle man! Have Skywalker show up in person, use force push to make all the AT-ATs blast each other, have a real lightsaber battle with Kylo Ren, and then suffer a fatal wound to die a hero after the gang gets to the Falcon. Or something. It's not that hard. I have no idea how that ending got past a first draft, because a 'ha ha! gotcha!' ending like that wouldn't make it out of a freshman creative writing course. Its not a 'bold', 'unexpected' bit of scripting that deserves to be lauded because people fell for it. It's a cop-out masquerading as crafty misdirection, a crutch used to support lackluster ideas. It's the kind of thing you do when you're writing down to an audience.

In general, the film suffers from pacing issues that make it feel rushed and disjointed even though it's actually three weeks long. It somehow had the ability to make me simultaneously bored yet anxious, which I guess count as emotions. Beyond that, in addition to the general character-pissing-on fest I detailed above, the movie seems to prioritize bad, superfluous characters above characters people actually care about. Chewbacca is basically relegated to cheaufeurr and comic relief, seemingly cutting in on C-3P0's action, while R2-D2's role is to painfully remind the audience that Star Wars used to be good. Yoda shows up to impart wisdom, in the way that a stupid person might think a wise person would impart wisdom, saying Zen-sounding things and generally being a doucebag. Instead of these fan favorites, we get either boring new characters or JJ Abrams creations trotted out and then disposed of without any enrichment or purpose.

And finally, maybe it's on a spreadsheet somewhere, but I have absolutely no fucking clue how anybody got anywhere in this movie. Like, physically how. Space travel, the Journey, and the passage of time are all rendered meaningless in this movie. Despite lightyears of distance, light and sub-light speeds, and time-sensitive events, everyone just gets where they're going at the exact second they need to be there. I'm sure if I plotted it out on a graph, it may all make sense, but as an audience member trying to keep track of 9+ main characters, 3 schemes, & 5 locations, I just have to take their word for it. I have no idea which ship anyone is on at any point in time. People show up just in the knick of time, and since I can't remember where they just were or what they were doing, I'm forced to take it on good faith that they both knew where the next event was happening and had the means to get there.

To that point, travel and technology concerns that used to encompass entire movies or at least several pinnacle scenes are now routine tasks for even minor characters. Remember when getting onto and off of an Imperial starbase took 60% of A New Hope, even for a party led by a Jedi as powerful as Obi-Wan? That was amateur hour, apparently. After being flung at the flagship dreadnaught in a space-box by Chewbacca like a stressed-out UPS driver, Rey survives the battle with Kylo Ren. She then wakes up while he's passed out, somehow finds her way off this gigantic ship under the nose of the entire First Order, gets from that ship back to the Milennium Falcon, and from there to the final rebel base... all off camera.

Also, unlike for the entire Rebellion in both Return of the Jedi and Rogue One, flouting Imperial shield technology is no problem for Benicio Del Toro (or "DJ"... fucking of course his name is DJ), who somehow has a set of flash drives that are universally compatible and allow him to both cloak his newly stolen ship and disable First Order shields. This is another convenient Deus ex Machina that happens to be possessed by a random character that Finn and Rose meet in jail while searching for a different character who would have served the exact same role. It's a confusing bit of  redundant audience misdirection that conveniently advances the already-moot-by-this-time plan to the next stage. Maz Kanata makes it real fucking clear that there is only one guy in the galaxy who's good enough to crack First Order shield codes. It turns out that not only is that dead wrong and there are there two guys in the galaxy who are good enough to crack First Order shield codes, but that the other guy who can do it, out of all the myriad planetary systems of the Star Wars universe, is literally downstairs from the first guy. Like, ok? Why tho?? Does nobody understand that if you send your characters on a mission to find an important plot device and they fail, and then they are provided immediately with an identical backup replacement for that plot device, there are no stakes to the story and nothing that happened really mattered?

Or how about Rogue One even, which murdered its entire cast demonstrating how fucking hard it is to steal top-secret enemy plans? Not for Rose, the low-rank flight deck worker who can just pull up holographic dreadnaught schematics in her bedroom on command. All of these things, while they could potentially be overlooked individually, combine to make a pretty nasty case of sequel-itis. At this point, you're glossing over problems that other writers constructed entire films around (like how characters get places or know important things) because by the end of the movie, none of it mattered anyway. And that's a bad sign!

So that's really the trick to this one; you can turn your brain off and just go along for the ride (which is what I assume all these gold-star bestowing critics were doing), but even then, there's not much to hold on to. Characters that were starting to show promise at the end of TFA either plateau or backslide. The general storyline of the universe is whittled away to the point where JJ Abrams is basically going to have to either turn Rey into a god or go completely off the rails to come up with any way to end this 35-year story arc, which is a pretty tall order for a guy who is basically a B- directorial composite of his influences. I do feel for the guy though. Rian Johnson basically took everything Abrams tried to seed in this new trilogy and wiped his ass with it, leaving him with nothing but original trilogy support characters and a new class that spent their transitional 'Empire' movie doing nothing but chase scenes and running from explosions and generally spinning their wheels. Because of Carrie Fisher's passing, the only Skywalker left to complete the Skywalker storyline is Ben. (Man, that was sad to type). However, if anyone can salvage the final installment, I think it's Adam Driver / Kylo Ren. He gets all kinds of fanboy flak for not being a badass, but while somehow the critics have been lauding this pile as a 'bold masterpiece', what's actually bold is to play a follow up to Darth Vader as a deeply flawed, petulant child with anger issues who has more power than he knows what to do with. After all, if you wanted a super-powerful stock villain with no depth or conflict, well, you already got Snoke, who fulfilled all those requirements so perfectly that all he had to do the entire trilogy was put on a bathrobe and sit in a fucking chair until he got killed.

It may take a lot, but judging by the scores the actual audiences are giving this one (which some critics are of course pinning on trolls because this movie is obviously perfect), a course correction may be possible if the studio is taking note.

So hopefully, two years from now, I won't have to do this again.

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UPDATE:
Holy moley, I mean to put the link to my book at the bottom of this rant and totally forgot. Now that it's too late and you're already read this, here it is! I wrote this collection of stories years ago, so there's basically no diversity. So please, everyone buy it and support my next one which will have lots!

Buy on Amazon

In Memoriam - The Onion

    

     For as long as there has been the Internet, there has been The Onion. 

     I don't know if that's true, and I'm certainly not going to fact-check it, but damn it, that's how it feels to me. Before I hid people from my newsfeed, before I shuffled the positions of my Top 8, even before I changed my away messages, there was The Onion. In my formative years, I can remember piss-crying myself with laughter as my best friend and I read about a fictitious pudding factory that exploded, dooming the residents of the nearby town to a gooey, delicious demise. Later, I would come to enjoy the sporadic but always delightful op-eds by the almost certainly racist Herbert Kornfeld, including such gems as Accountz Reeceevin' Ain't For No Candy-Ass Temps, and Keep Your Fucking Shit Off My Desk. Though in recent years I may be guilty of simply chuckling at headlines instead of "giving the full click", I have continually delighted in the poignant literal irony of the articles I come across. One of these, Find The Thing You're Most Passionate About, Then Do It On Nights And Weekends For The Rest Of Your Life, remains my bedrock, no-question-about-it, favorite piece of satire I've ever read, and I'm proud to say that I am following its advice as I write these very words. 

     So last week, when I noticed that the Onion articles in my newsfeed started reading like unfunny, thinly-veiled puff pieces about Hillary Clinton, I started to wonder what was up. As it turns out, Univision, a company co-owned by one of the Clintons' biggest (read: richest) supporters recently purchased a 40 percent controlling share of the company. You can read all about it here (Ha Ha: Hillary Clinton’s Top Financial Supporter Now Controls “The Onion”) and here (Hillary’s Top Donor Just Bought The Onion — Started Publishing Propaganda Immediately) because let's face it, I'm not here to provide you with "facts". I'm here because this is bullshit. 

     It's always depressing when satire loses its edge, like The Simpsons after season 9, or Tom Sawyer Abroad. 

 

Yep, you saw that right. That's Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn in a motherfucking hot air balloon. I haven't read this book since I was 11 years old, but as I recall, the lovable duo that singlehandedly set the bar for American literature fly around the world and make fun of Arabs or something. (That's probably why it hasn't been banned from American schools yet). Anyway, these sad works, dwelling in the shadows of former achievements, prove that even masters such as Ol' Langhorne can eventually lose their touch and end up jumping the shark. 

At least he got to go into space before he died.

    However, that's not what's going on here. The Onion writers didn't suddenly forget how to be funny after two decades, they got fucking co-opted. While an article like Female Presidential Candidate Who Was United States Senator, Secretary Of State Told To Be More Inspiring might seem at first glance to contain a glimmer of relevant satire, in reality, it is nothing more than an un-ironic listing of Clinton's previous political positions underneath a campaign-quality photo. Jesus Christ, next time just post the URL to her Linkedin page and save on staffing costs. At least for that one, however, I can take comfort in the fact that what is essentially a campaign advertisement is so unfunny and boring that nobody who has ever previously read an Onion story could possibly mistake it for the genuine article. Not so the case with Clinton Credits Nevada Victory To Inescapable, Pitch-Black Tide Of Fate. It's as if a think-tank full of stuffed suits in a nuke-proof bunker half a mile underneath of the Pentagon were paid time-and-a-half to read through the Onion archives and pantomime, to the best of their ability, some watered-down, off-brand, Payless Shoes version of the witty hyperbole that once made these articles fun to read. Don't fucking pretend that your agenda-driven, self-congratulating, politico-masturbatory garbage article is even remotely doing anything other than squelching any potential criticism of your darling candidate with the power of obscene amounts of money.  Don't you use phrases like "pitch-black tide of fate from which no man, woman, or child could ever hope to escape" to try to fool me into thinking that you're some hip, up-and-coming comedy writer who's got his or her finger on the pulse of the youth instead of a bought-and-paid-for PR/Poli-sci dual major straight out of Georgetown University. And way to hammer it home with a sentence like "At press time, Clinton was reminding supporters there was still plenty of work ahead to secure a win in South Carolina next week." I know you're trying to mimic contrast for comedic effect, but your stupid, transparent commercial at the end of the article basically came through my wifi, assumed human form, and put a bumper-sticker on my car. Its as if to say "All jokes aside, Hillary's really hard working!" Are you fucking serious? Is that my take-away here? I came to this website to laugh at the horror of the human condition, not register to vote in the Iowa Corn-Dog Straw Caucus or whatever happens next Tuesday, so give me a break. 

     Again, it begs the question, why even write articles? Why even go through the motions? Univision has clearly asserted the fact that they can buy off a large website and stifle unfavorable messages, so why not just own it, guys? Take down your pseudo-satirical, faux-meta-Machiavellian bandwagon bullshit and just link the front page of The Onion to the super-pac donation site. You've got a better chance that someone will accidentally enter their credit card information than that anyone will actually believe that this website is still contributing anything of value either comedically or intellectually. 

     I know its probably too late, but I want to make it clear that I'm not making a point about Hillary Clinton. However, I can understand why it seems that way, and I'm looking forward to hearing about how I am an anti-feminist, pro-rape, patriarchal chauvinist who not-so-secretly yearns for the social climate of the American Revolution. If my reservations about the puke-rich cohorts of the aristocracy buying and selling vessels of satirical commentary for their own gain make me some kind of suddenly counter-progressive "Bernie Bro", well so be it (I guess?). 

     My point is this: we need satire. We need Mark Twain, and we need H.L. Mencken. We need the Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Last Week Tonight, and The Simpsons. We live in a social climate where moneyed interests own nearly every news outlet (which includes the shows I just mentioned), We live in a time when the totality of your political views may well be a product of the op-ed pieces algorithmically placed into your Facebook newsfeed as a function of your clicks, likes, word-usage, and event attendance, virtually assuring that you will never accidentally read an opinion with which you disagree. Satire is the last bastion, the last domino to fall, because in the face of ever-increasing sums of money being spent to sell you a candidate, it critiques our environment in a way that actually requires some brainpower to decode and process. To silence that criticism is far more dangerous than the constant bombardment of attack ads and polarizing opinion pieces trying to buy your approval every election cycle. It is dangerous because satire urges us to laugh, not to hate. It reminds us that even though the issues we face are important, we can still have a sense of humor, and can maybe lighten the fuck up a little before we resort to calling a group of people fascists, racists, Nazis, or Anti-Christs.  

     And so with that, I bid a fond farewell to my constant companion, The Onion. Though your toothless, spineless ghost may forever continue to haunt the tubes of the World Wide Web, I will never forget the effect you had on me. You were loved by many, and you said what needed to be said. Until you became a billionaire's bitch. 

Well, there's always The Hard Times. (Please read my submission! Please?)

The Death of Intellectual Property

     There is a common misconception that many, if not most students take with them from primary school in the US. Whether this misconception is explicitly taught or simply implied may vary from case to case, but it should at least be familiar to everyone. The premise is this: The Native Americans had no concept of land ownership. Besides the fact that this premise dismisses the heterogeneous nature of the peoples, cultures, and customs of pre-colonial America, it is also false. "Property rights, supplemented by customs and traditions where appropriate, often produced the incentives that were needed to husband resources in what was frequently a hostile environment"(Anderson).

     It was not a conceptual void that laid the groundwork for aggressive and most often one-sided colonial expansion of European settlers, but simply a differing view of ownership that was forcibly delegitimized in the wake of a turbulent period in history.

"So Native Americans [...] did have concepts of private property and land ownership [...] but European systems did not recognize the social and legal frameworks that undergirded it. If a claim did not have the force of European legal recognition, then for them, it did not exist" (Khosikulu).

So why is this misconception so easy to believe? It could be, in one sense, because it is philosophically relatable. Land was here for millions of years before the first human was born, and will be here long after the last human dies (or, more optimistically, leaves to settle elsewhere). Our only claim to a piece of it lies in a physical or electronic document, the validity of which is only maintained by the goodwill of the prevailing legal institutions (as the Native Americans found out). Perhaps it is very easy to imagine a culture that realizes the temporary and ultimately futile nature of a contract with earth.

     With this in mind, we must wonder what the future holds for the concept of intellectual property, a concept in every way more nebulous than that of land ownership. After all, land is physically persistent, able to be seen and felt. Intellectual property has no such advantage, for while the manifestations of ideas can exist in the physical world, the ideas themselves cannot. If someone has a revolutionary idea for some product, method, or work of art and then dies suddenly, did they, for that brief second, create property? Was that property suddenly destroyed? Or is the concept that a person can own a sequence of thoughts fundamentally ridiculous?

     These questions are perhaps better left for philosophers, but with this framework in mind, I'd like to put forth the argument that with our technological advances, the existential rules for intellectual property are changing, much like the ownership rights of the Native Americans hundreds of years ago. The scope of intellectual property laws and what intellectual property can be considered to be is very broad, so to contextualize this argument, I will examine the effect that these changing rules have had on the music industry. It may well be that in the future, this industry will be seen as the first domino to fall, the canary in the mine shaft, or any number of other cliches that describe the fundamental restructuring of what we, as a society, think of as property.

"Want to buy a Tower Records?" ~ Justin Timberlake, The Social Network

The idea that Napster killed Tower Records may not be quite as off the mark as the misconception about Native American property rights, but it isn't quite accurate either.

"Even after the dawn of Napster and online music piracy, [Tower Records CEO] Solomon's belief in people's general willingness to pay $18 for a CD stubbornly persisted. ...Solomon thought people would always want physical record collections--an unsound prediction that ignored the rise of mp3 players" (Leon).

    Despite questionable business choices on the part of the CEO, the liquidation of large music retailers such as Tower Records was inevitable. Music, the sequencing of sound waves at varying frequencies, is as old as humanity itself, and yet, only for a very small fraction of this time have we had the ability to reproduce it (via written music). For an even shorter period of time, (roughly since Thomas Edison invented the phonograph cylinder in 1877), has it been possible to commercially replicate music in a physical medium, and to own or sell that medium for profit.

In a relatively short span of time, physical recordings took on a variety of forms; records, 8-tracks, cassette tapes, and compact discs, until finally, the .mp3 (among other digital files) revolutionized not only how music is purchased, but how it is not purchased.

     The above chart takes digital sales into account, and yet still displays an industry-crippling loss of sales over the past decade and a half. The often-heard arguments that music piracy either did not affect or somehow benefited the music business have been proven wrong by the sales data of a few short, painful years. Today, the decision to purchase music is just that; a decision, not a necessity. Consumers are fully aware that anyone with even a novice-level ability to navigate the Internet can find and download entire artist catalogs for free. The efforts made by companies to bridge this gap by monetizing digital and streaming services has in no way made up for the loss accrued.

"The recently published sales figures of RIAA give no reason for musicians' optimism. Since streaming, subscription and SoundExchange payouts account for nearly a third of the revenue from digital music sales, the musicians' income from digital and physical music sales will further decrease. Just a small group of superstars, whose songs are streamed millionfold - besides solid CD and download sales - will benefit from such a development"

     All of this begs the question; once the tangible medium for intellectual property becomes obsolete, how can ownership rights be effectively enforced when the fruits of millions of dollars' worth of investment can be gotten in seconds for free (assuming adequate bandwidth)?

This is not to say that attempts are not made to safeguard copyright protections. Music piracy remains illegal, illicit file sharing sites are regularly shut down, and sometimes, high profile arrests are made, such as with Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom in 2012. As of this writing, however, these efforts have yet to return to music sales to anything resembling their previous levels.

     Besides the huge roadblocks to effective enforcement of copyrighted music theft, another gauntlet remains on the horizon for this industry. Most music consumers alive today have at least some recollection of owning or purchasing music in a physical medium. The recent upswing in vinyl sales could potentially be attributed to nostalgia; emergent twenty and thirty-somethings with disposable income and vague recollections of growing up in a house with their parents' record player. In other cases, teenagers might recall the first CD they purchased at a store "when that was still a thing." What will the situation be like in ten years when no wistful tactile memories remain? How about in twenty? It is reasonable to conclude that soon, the demographic to whom albums were marketed so aggressively for the latter half of the last century may not even realize that music was ever something that had to be purchased. Furthermore, they might not realize that it was something that ever could have been purchased. The idea that entire corporations were created to sell less than 1GB worth of music on little pieces of plastic may seem absurd and ridiculous to them. In fact, their concept of intellectual property, at least insofar as it relates to music, may not even exist. At the very least, it will be vastly different.

      As mentioned above, the music industry may very well be the spark that starts the fire for the cultural and legal redefinition of the entire concept of intellectual property. Mp3s are relatively small. They can be downloaded quickly and stored easily en masse. Of course, however, download speeds and storage capacity increase constantly. Books, movies, video games, and apps all suffer from a similar weakness in that they require nothing more than a phone, laptop, or tablet to utilize. Which industry will be the next to fall? Several video rental chains have already been put out of business by the advent of streaming. Indeed, streaming services seem to have the upper hand now, but will the same be true when we can fit 500 movie files on our smart watches and Chromecast them directly to the 60-inch HD screen in our living rooms? How about when we can transfer them to someone else's watch just by touching the two of them together? At that point, a $9.99/month Netflix subscription might not seem like the great deal it once was.

     None of this is to put forth the argument that intellectual property, as we define it today, is not valuable. Quite to the contrary, besides the need for food, shelter, and companionship, there is nothing more essentially human than the free exchange of ingenuity, creativity, and expression. Those who invent, express, and create artwork, in my opinion, should be afforded the same opportunities for success as those who provide those aforementioned necessities. The problem lies in the fact that while we still apply the same general conditions for success to intellectual property as we do for physical property and services (i.e., financial viability in a marketplace), intellectual property will soon have no more horses left in the race, so to speak. Houses and cars cannot be illegally downloaded over an Internet connection, but an entire life's work of novels or screenplays can. Nobody can digitally replicate an afternoon of physical work invested in running a cleaning or lawn service, but they can copy ten years' worth of content from a movie studio or recording company in about the same amount of time. Intellectual property laws provide ownership of ideas, but if one owns something and yet can not stop others from owning it at their whim, what does ownership signify in the first place?

     The rules that govern intellectual property, at least as of now, are becoming more obsolete and unenforceable every day, much like those that gave the Native Americans the rights to their own land. Just as it was then, rules that have no meaning to the offenders will be subverted, ignored, and transgressed. In the coming years, we will be forced to redefine what intellectual property is, what it should be, and perhaps, if it is actually property at all.

References:

1. "Property Rights Among Native Americans" Anderson, Terry L. 2/1/1997.

http://fee.org/freeman/property-rights-among-native-americans/

2. "Colin Hanks Explores the Rise and Fall of Tower Records" Leon, Melissa 10/18/2015

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/10/18/colin-hanks-explores-the-rise-and-fall-of-tower-records.html

3. "Music Sales Over the Years: 2014 Year-End Soundscan Data" Brown, Jake. 1/5/2015

http://gloriousnoise.com/2015/music-sales-over-the-years-2014-year-end-soundscan-data

4. "The Recorded Music Market in the US, 2000-2013" Tschmuck, Peter. 3/21/2014

https://musicbusinessresearch.wordpress.com/2014/03/21/the-recorded-music-market-in-the-us-2000-2013/

5. "How Accurate is the Popular US Perception that Native Americans Lost Their Land 'Because They Didn't Understand the Concept of Ownership" (Reddit AskHistorians thread) 2013 Khosikulu

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1g8v2t/how_accurate_is_the_popular_us_perception_that/

Music Review: Comet 67P/C-G's New Material Uninspired, Predictable

A big, rocky sell-out

As anyone closely following the news emanating from the enormous intersection spanning the world of popular music and the realm of the scientific studies of celestial bodies well knows, 
Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko has just released new music, prompting an insane amount of buzz in the press. Rosetta Blog, Discovery News, Smithsonian.com, and a host of other hip, pop-culture websites are treating 67P's latest like its the greatest thing to happen to recorded music since the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper.

Unfortunately, this is a tune that all true music fans have heard before. Its the classic opus: the formerly unknown artist, the starving musician toiling in obscurity, making meaningful and creative music suddenly gets a little mainstream success and bam!, all the substance leaks out like so many ionized particles through a pseudo-atmosphere of electrically conductive plasma.

It would be unfair to say that 67P's new music is "unlistenable" or "a complete pile of steaming space-garbage", but the terms "derivative" and "uninspired" come to mind. Clearly, this is an attempt to capitalize on the sudden attention from a massive new market. We've seen this kind of thing countless times in the past when an artist suddenly explodes in, say, Japan or Europe. The comet is now clearly pandering to its new demographic: the population of Earth. Of course, the bandwagon will rush to defend the artistic integrity of 67P (thereby justifying their own shameless frontrunning) by saying "Oh, if the comet were really pandering to mankind, it wouldn't have released its music at a frequency 10,000 times below the limit of human hearing." However, such arguments are barely defensible these days, and, frankly, becoming somewhat tiresome. Mp3s vs CDs, vinyl vs cassettes, Pandora vs Spotify,  within range of the audible spectrum vs 10,000 times lower than the lowest sound detectible by the human ear... isn't the music supposed to matter more than the format in which its released?

Nevertheless, this latest effort from 67P will doubtlessly shape up to be the comet's "Nevermind", its Black Album, its "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness". The comet will surely reach the height of its popularity thanks in part to its producer/sound engineer team of the Rosetta spacecraft and the Philae Science lab, bought and paid for with the deep pockets and fat wallets of the European Space Agency. With these huge tech-dollars now funding its efforts, the comet will get a taste of the sweet, sweet nectar of an audience with the ability to interpret and enjoy sonic vibrations, and once that fame train gets a-rollin', it'll be on the fast track to mediocrity.

Rating: 5/10

You Are Not A Music Promoter

Today I want to solve a mystery. If you are in a small-time band, you are no doubt familiar with this type of person: someone who will spam your inbox with exciting opportunities to play venues all over the place, call themselves a "promoter" or a "booking agent", and possibly have some sort of fancy company name. I'd been getting bombarded with these for a while, so for a laugh I replied to one and asked what the payment structure was for the bands at one of these venues. Here is the reply that I got in return, broken down piece by piece so that we may examine exactly what each section is saying:

A FACEBOOK INVITE IS REQUIRED FOR THIS SHOW: PLEASE CREATE A FACEBOOK INVITE FOR THIS AND ALL SHOWS WE BOOK WITH YOU -- THIS IS IS VITALLY IMPORTANT FOR YOUR BAND TO PROMOTE THIS SHOW! PLEASE ALSO LIST THE SHOW ON ALL YOUR ONLINE SITES AND INQUIRE WITH US IF YOU WISH TO OFFER ADVANCED DISCOUNT TICKETS!

Ok, the first thing we notice here is that this paragraph is completely in troll caps. Note that the author felt the need to yell at me right from the start like I'm some kind of moron who needs to get it though my thick skull that this shit is serious. For Christ's sake, its not like I dissed Ronald Reagan in the comments section of the Fox News website, so how about we take it down a notch? That said, the request isn't really unfair at all. Sure, bands should make a facebook event to promote their shows. After all, why wouldn't you? Its free. There's nothing particularly obnoxious about that . However, stringing together a bunch of poorly worded demands in all caps lock is disrespectful and annoying. Plus, I'm pretty sure bold type is an option in most modern email sites. Moving on.

Load in: Please load in at least 1 hour before you play. There is no sound check - just a line check before your first song. Load in thru the main entrance.

Great. This means your band is guaranteed to sound like shit and nobody at the venue will care or, more likely, be able to do anything about it.  But at least you get to bring all of your shit in through the same door that all the bar regulars are simultaneously leaving through, because lets face it: they're not there to see your band. Or any band. So why does this place even have bands? But that's a question that we'll address later. On to the good stuff.

Payment: Admission is $10 at the door; $8 in advance. Bands are paid $5 a head starting with the 16th person (or $3 a head for anyone who has pre-paid for an $8 ticket), but you must draw at least 25 people to be paid. The door person will ask every attendee the name of the band they are there to see. To offer advance discount tickets to your fans, I need to set up an account for you -- contact me at xxxxxxxx@gmail.com to do so (at least 2 weeks before the show). I am not paid by the club, nor do I receive a cut of the bar, so it’s imperative that you take promotion seriously and bring people, so that I may cover all costs to the club including sound, security, door person, etc.

The mysteries here abound. Ok, let's try to unravel this payment structure math. So we get $5 per person after the 16th person, but nobody gets paid til the 25th person. So essentially, persons 17-24 are meaningless for our purposes unless persons 25+ show up. So if person 25 happens to break down on the freeway, we essentially forfeit $40 that we are supposedly owed from person 16 onward, making this a largely symbolic offer. But really, that's just the tip of the iceberg of stupidity that is this payment structure. For example, we have the option to set up some sort of account and offer discounted tickets. Great news for the fans! Except for the fact that the discount comes directly out of our share, dropping our cut from $5 to $3. So this begs the question; Why would we bother to set up an account to fuck ourselves in the ass? Why would we ever do a bunch of paperwork so that we can make less money while you make the same amount, whoever you are? In what world would someone agree to a deal like that? That has to be the stupidest...
    
Which reminds me, who the fuck are you again? What exactly is the job description of the person with whom I'm corresponding? They've just said that they are not paid by the club in any fashion, but are in fact indebted to them to cover a sound person (who does not perform sound checks), and a door person. It is imperative that I promote and bring people, so this person is not a promoter. So, they don't work for the club, and they're not a promoter, and in reality all they've done to this point has been to spam my inbox with bullshit and offer to set up an account whereby I can get cheated out of money. So what does that make them? I'm not sure exactly, but the phrase "con-artist" comes to mind...

Guestlist/Reduced Admission: We are unable to offer this due to our costs so yes your girlfriends/husbands/mothers must all pay the full cover.

God, really? My girlfriend/husband/mother can't get on a guest list because of your costs?  I've played a looot of hole-in-the-wall dives, and all of them that even remotely take themselves seriously as a music venue offer a guest list, even if it just comes out of the band's cut at the end of the night. I'm not asking for miracles here. My band is going to spend everything we make at the bar and then some, so just let my god damn girlfriend slide on the $10 because she fucking carried half of the equipment. Oh, but wait, you don't get paid by the venue, so the fact that a bunch of wild rockers are neck-deep in $3 PBRs means absolutely nothing to you. In fact, so far there's been so much pressure for me to cover your costs that I'm starting to wonder exactly is my motivation for playing this club instead of throwing a kegger in my basement, where I'll make my own guest list and put my mother on it, thanks.

Where's the beer pong, pussies??

PROMOTING THE SHOW: The audience at these shows is based solely on the draw of each band so please post this gig on your myspace page, facebook, etc. Neither the club nor I can bring a crowd to you - you must be able to draw people on your own. If you cannot, please don't play the show. The better you draw, the better the night/venue/time slot I can offer you in the future.

Finally, we end with a paragraph full of lies. "Neither the club nor I can bring a crowd to you." Well that's a bunch of bullshit. The club could, in fact, bring a crowd if they had hired a promoter instead of letting you work pro-bono to do whatever the fuck it is that you're doing, and you could maybe bring a crowd if you were, in fact, a promoter, or, to a lesser extent, put half as much effort into promoting as you did into sternly reiterating the fact that YOU ARE NOT A PROMOTER. I mean, you could at least have put up a facebook event page in that span of time. And furthermore, "The better you draw, the better the night/venue/time slot I can offer you in the future." Well, since you've so forcefully stated that you will absolutely not in any way advertise the show you're attempting to book, what the fuck does it matter what night or venue you put us in, since there is 0.0000% chance of anyone being there besides maybe a bartender and the people I personally brought? Is this supposed to be some kind of motivator? "Hey, if you can bring out 25 people to this empty shithole on a Tuesday at midnight, I'll let you bring the same 25 people to a different shithole on a Thursday at 11:30." Wow, what a deal! Am I fucking rich yet?

So what I want to know is, who exactly benefits from this business model? Obviously the bands lose out because they're getting such a bad shake. You're potentially facing a situation where you could bring out, on a weeknight, 24 of your favorite girlfriend/husband/mothers to a dive bar that they (or anyone else) would never otherwise go to, have them all pay a ridiculous $10 cover charge with NO EXCEPTIONS while they overpay for drinks all night at the bar, and you walk away with literally nothing except the equipment you had to haul and a parking ticket from the PPA. There is absolutely no scenario in which doing this is in any way more advantageous than playing in your own backyard.

But furthermore, how is this a win for the "promoter"? They have obviously agreed to work for these clubs at a risk to themselves, because they are responsible for paying the sound and door people (if their emails are to be believed). Therefore, they send these pseudo-abusive emails in which they feel they need to badger and pressure bands into selling the show before they even know if they've booked a local rock legend or a sadomasichist scat-hip-hop DJ with a Casio keyboard who cuts himself on stage. How is this a formula for success? They shove down your throat that you are responsible for covering all of their costs, and yet they are offering you nothing but an empty room far away from your house that you will lose money getting to. That is, unless you can bring 25+ people on any given weeknight in the middle of the night at the drop of a hat. And let's face it, if that's the case, you can find a better deal pretty much anywhere. So what band that is even marginally successful at drawing a crowd would ever be motivated to work with you? Probably none, so these promoters will be forever scraping the bottom of the barrel, yelling at inexperienced bands with no following to make facebook pages for their shows and bitching about all their costs.

Well you know what? Fuck your costs. When I agree to promote a show for you and draw a certain number of people, do I demand that you cover my costs? Guess what, my bass rig cost $750. That was a personal expense that I needed in order for my band to exist and bring people to the shitty bar that you don't actually work for. That was a financial risk that I took in order to be able to do my job, which, by the way, is not to be a promoter, but to rock. See how ridiculous it sounds when you spin it around like that? And we're all supposed to sit here and sweat the fact that you might take a loss when you a) neither have nor will have done any real work in putting the show together besides the arduous task of spamming pre-scripted emails, b) are offering nothing of any real value except the vague promise of a "better night/venue/timeslot" which, if it actually exists, will undoubtedly enforce the same set of draconian rules you're imposing on the shitty night/venue/timeslots, and c) knowingly took on the risk when you chose to do this. Just because you're able to shaft most bands out of their entire fanbase's admission costs doesn't mean that none of us understand how money works and that, if given the choice, you'd rather not lose it. We fuckin get it. Things are tough all over.

But finally, how is this situation a win for the club? Sure, on the one hand, instead of hiring someone to book and promote talent, they have a person whom they don't have to pay (or even really speak to) to try to get people into the door on those pesky weeknights when most people aren't trying to get sloshed. But as with everything else, you get what you pay for. Wouldn't it be better for business to take a little bit of a hit and hire someone who knows what they're doing? Wouldn't it be better to have one great show every week that can be properly advertised than five shitty shows where six people show up to each wishing that their car had caught fire on the way there because the sound sucks and everyone is pissed off and miserable?

Additionally, if you can't offer a sound check, a guest list, or even a back door through which to move equipment, maybe having live music isn't really your thing. It's ok! Not everyone should do it. Maybe you could stick to DJs, or pool tables, or having hot bartenders, or a really cool jukebox. Or, fuck, maybe have good food and drink specials, or whatever the hell bars used to do to get business before all of these con-artist fake promoters showed up trying to turn every last hole in the wall into CBGB's. If you're going to do something, do it right. And remember, its OK to say no.

Or, I don't know, have some other kind of gimmick...

Now, allow me to address some of your predictable retorts.

Hey asshole! I'm one of these promoter type people you're talking about! Bands are all like 'pay me money' and shit, but they usually suck and can't even bring out 5 people to a show! How is it my fault these people don't get paid? If they suck and can't bring anyone out, there's no money to pay! Why don't they understand that? Why do they even want to play a show to nobody?

Well, you're right. Most local bands do suck and can't bring 5 people to a show. Why do they want to play a show? The same reason you want to be a promoter. Everyone wants to be in the scene and nobody can ever come to terms with the fact that they just might not be good at certain things. So, what do you, as the sham promoter, do to filter out bands like this? You ask them what their draw is via email, to which they can tell you literally anything you want to hear in order to get the show. "You need us to bring 40 people on a Wednesday? If I say no we can't play, but if I say yes we get the show? No problem!" One could argue that a better method might be to actually fucking listen to some of the bands you book in order to gain firsthand knowledge of whether or not they suck. Or for that matter, whether or not they've bothered to record a demo. If they can't even dropbox you some rough MP3's, they probably can't self-promote a show very well.

Additionally, at least half of the time, you have the first band to sign on to the show find other bands to fill out the bill! This is absurd on so many levels. Firstly, now, beyond just not being a promoter, you're not even doing the booking! You are literally trying to get money for nothing. "You want a show? Well BOOK IT YOURSELF! I'll be there to take the money." You're one step above spray painting a water-gun and robbing people in the subway station. Have me book the show? Fuck you! Who are you, my life coach? To whom I have to pay an exorbitant fee to get "pointed in the right direction"? I don't think so, pal. You emailed me about a show, not the other way around.

Secondly, even a sham promoter should know at least three to four bands of a similar genre that would make sense on a show together. If all you do is sit around sending emails all day on your breaks from managing a PacSun, maybe you could, I don't know, email some bands yourself. Its good to know bands, since, you know, you're trying to book live music.

And because finally, if you pawn off the last remaining duty of the job you claim to be doing onto your clients, who do you think they're going to fill the show with? Their friends, dipshit. Most likely, a band with limited connections isn't going to be able to reach too far outside of their social circle to find acts that want to play with them. That's where, ideally, you would come in to use your experience to put together an event. But, since every band now on the show probably knows each other from high school, you're looking at a very limited pool of potential fans. That decreases the odds of you covering the costs that you somehow managed to accrue while doing nothing, and makes it even less likely that anyone else will get paid.

At this point you're probably thinking "But I can't afford to be picky! I have to book 30 bands a week just to make any money at all!" Well, that's that whole problem of you not actually being a promoter again. Even if you had had those urges to begin with, its obviously impossible to properly promote a show when you have one 6 out of 7 nights a week. Since doing so would be an unrealistic workload for what is doubtlessly a 2nd (at best) job for you, you leave it up to the bands, most of whom are shitty, to do themselves. You're getting exactly what you paid for, just like the bar that hired you.

Wow, for a guy who's supposed to be passionate about music, sure seems like you're obsessed with getting paid. If you're doing something you love, do we really have to hear about how you can't make all this money because of evil promoters?

Well, first of all, I can assure you that any musician around 30 years old who works full time, has commitments, bills, possibly a mortgage or a family, etc, isn't in this for the money, myself included. But there's a big difference between not being greedy and not wanting to be ripped off. The worst thing about these kind of promoters is that they appear legitimate. Now, there are actually dishonest-to-goodness hornswagglers out there who take money from bands for services and then disappear, never to be heard from again. (One day I will burn you alive, "Michael" "from" "Oceanus Tours"). I almost prefer their type though, because at least after they get you they're gone, and they don't have the audacity to pretend they are a legitimate service. These other guys are just some unnecessary middlemen who, for some reason (greed), think they are doing something worthy of payment. I'm all about fairness. If we can produce money for the venue, we deserve a fair cut, not $15 for gas money after our crowd spent $500 binge drinking at the bar after paying a cover charge. Conversely, if you did your job in putting a decent show together, you are also entitled to a fair cut. However, if you emailed me about a show, but I found the bands, I made a Facebook event, I spent money to make fliers and posters,  I made phone calls to get people in the door, and then I played the fucking show, how the fuck are you entitled to any of the profits? You didn't fucking do anything, asshole!

In conclusion, I actually think that the dive bars are still the winners. Look at it from their perspective: get someone to tell five bands they can play a show on a Tuesday night, and bam, 25 people in your bar on a Tuesday night. Who cares if nobody wants to hear their music? People who are serious about their bands, we all need to wise up. You don't need these people. For one, learn which promoters are the real deal. A good indicator is if you can actually talk to them like a person, not just a mystery address on the other end of a pre-scripted email chain. The real ones are busy, and may not respond to you right away. That's not a deal killer. But are they reasonable? Asking that you be able to draw 20 people to a given show or sell tickets is not bad business. Drafting an overly complex payment scheme that makes no sense probably is.

Another option is to not deal with promoters at all. Find a bar or a hall and book it yourself. If you're going to find bands and promote everything anyway, you might as well deal directly with the venue and work out whatever cut sounds good to you. Cut out the fucking middlemen.

And finally, spread this rant around. If you've gotten this far into the post, either you think my prose styling is the stuff of legend, or this hits close to home for you. I'm sick of these flakes, and I'm sick of their bum deals. Send this to the next fake promoter who screws you over. Send it to all your friends in bands.

Let them know that they have no place in the "doing this purely for love of the game" music circuit.

"Revenge" of the "Nerds"

Good news everyone! Rejoice, for a time of redemption is at hand. Yes, all of you brethren who were unfortunate enough to develop a leaning toward subculture-oriented media in your days of public schooling, otherwise dubbed by your seemingly indefatigable physical superiors as nerds, geeks, dorks, freaks, queers, mouth-breathers, losers, pantywaists, wusses, pussies, pansys, faggots, quags, maynards, fergusons, Van Houtens, dinkleys, spanglers, and bitches, our time is at hand. Finally, in our post racial society, we have also fostered a culture of acceptance that has made such leaps and bounds since the time that having a copy of the novelization of Return of the Jedi was something to keep hidden from the public at all costs. No longer is there a gaping social chasm between Joe Mainstreet Football-Fan and Quincey "New-In-Box" First Edition Action Figure Collector/Elvira Enthusiast.

Proof, you say? Well, if the mainstream blockbuster success of such phenomena as The Big Bang Theory and Comic Book Men left any doubt in your mind that the sun has risen on a new age of enlightenment, look no further than this (which I came across in my Facebook feed):

Philly's Hottest Nerd Girl Contest 

not because I Googled "Hottest Nerd Girl". I swear. 

Finally... finally, people are beginning to respect those with differing opinions about what's "cool" or "attractive". How else could a contest like this come about? At long last, a cultural mecca like Philadelphia is willing to fly in the face of conventions and sponsor a beauty contest in which the individuality and uniqueness of the contestants challenges our preconcieved notions of the status quo. I mean, take "Angel" here: 

Instantly you'll note the trappings of a once-trampled underclass: the bulky, sadly broken, thick lensed glasses (doubtlessly a hold-over from parents who either couldn't afford or refused to acknowledge the need for a more stylish model), the suspenders (probably a result of the same), and the Catholic school uniform, whose solemn conformity was probably one of few similarities she shared with fellow private school students who surely looked down upon her because of her choice of books, movies, and music. 

But if you look beyond these things, you'll see subtler, more painful hints in the eyes of these nerd girls. Beyond those horned-rims, there's a sad look that says, "Yes, I understand, for I too had my Millennium Falcon broken by bullies outside of the hobby shop ten minutes after I bought it. I too was the only middle-schooler who still wore a ridiculous bicycle helmet, and I too spent the bulk of my weekends watching Star Trek with my parents while my peers were at the mall learning how to french kiss and smoke cigarettes."

Yes, the wurm has turned, as it always does. The word "nerd", once used as a derisive expletive by those who hated and wanted to kill you, can now be used as a badge of pride and honor by those who truly underwent a social trial-by-fire. But what is the prime mover for this long overdue phenomenon? What could possibly have evened the social scales and given these nerd girls the chance to flaunt their uniqueness, free of the undue criticisms of the past? The answer is so simple, we should have realized it long ago:

All they had to do was already be stripper-hot and take all of their clothes off for radio DJ's.