The downgrading of literature

I, like so many other writers and artists, have aspired for the wrong thing, making our end goal getting a movie made from our creative works. We forget to make them something to be enjoyed on their own.  

The crowds that go to movies are often the lowest common denominator, so the films reflect what is popular and unoriginal. Simple stories. "Good cheeseburgers."

It takes a person with an imagination and an attention span to read. That's why the best books are unfilmable. 

I thought about how Christian fiction rarely gets movies, how mainly bible stories get filmed.  We don't have a Christian equivalent to Star Wars because Christians believe that kind of huge budget should go to the poor, or a gospel film. 

But it's not just that. Christians are "people of the book," and they have an attention span. And imagination. Christians can be satisfied with books.

Although there are Narnia films and Left Behind movies, things like that are rare, and often flawed.  Christians don't need those anyway. They can read.

Another thing: I fail to understand the rating systems of fiction websites. I think if you are adult enough to have the patience and skill to read a book, you shouldn't be told you can't read it until you're 13 or 17. It's a restriction they took from movies and tried to make it apply to plain text.

Prose generally has no pictures. You have to come up with those in your mind. If your kid's mind is thinking up pictures inappropriate for a child under 13, then they've already been looking at actual photographs or video they shouldn't have seen in the first place. 

I think the blame really should be placed on the countless thoughtlessly unimaginative authors constantly uploading stories to those websites. Their excessive use of profanity and lack of vocabulary makes the more respectable authors look bad, especially when it comes to the writing of romance and erotica. Some so-called "erotica" is so coarse and tasteless that I often wonder if the author is a rapist writing from jail.

Conformity for profit

 I'm human, so I get jealous of other people's fame. That being said, after watching the Dumbledore movie, I'm glad I'm not famous. Anymore, if you want a popular entertainment product, it's got to appease the LGBT community. Since nobody has signed me on a movie or book contact, I don't have to choose between earning an income and pleasing God.  Only people in entertainment have to bend over backwards and compromise their faith to earn a profit. In other careers, people don't care who you are, or what your morals are. Only in the media do people say that you hurt their feelings when you said immoral things are immoral, because you're on TV being heard.

I seriously read a post from someone on Facebook that said that their feelings were hurt by what someone said on their television.  And I thought I was crazy.

Americans are so self centered that they actually think the people on the television are talking to them, and know who they are speaking to. Those celebrities don't know you from Adam. 

It's a symptom of a greater problem. A coworker of mine was absolutely convinced that our manager was speaking to her directly when she gave a speech about how our performance needs to improve. She took it personally when it was really about the company as a whole. Americans are quickly forgetting the distinction. 

Sign boards

 My friend from work gave me a bunch of TV trays that look like dry erase marker boards. I started to use them to do cute messages for the Easter season. It started out nice, the neighbors liked my palm Sunday sign, but then today the landlord beat on my front door so hard I thought I was being evicted, interrupting my job. 

Apparently I was not allowed to "block the hallway" with the sign. I guess I can kinda see that, but I tried to keep it out of the roadway. Oh well it was nice while it lasted. Not sure what I can do with it now. I don't use TV trays for their intended purpose.

Don't worry, I removed the signboard. I admit it was a little irresponsible in terms of fire safety, but it mainly just endangered my safety, like obstructing my exit from my apartment, so I didn't think it was a big deal. 

God of the top of my head

 Frequently, at around 4 in the morning, I have a strange vision. It's like this swirling red pattern beneath my eyelids, accompanied by ringing in my ears, and it's like the voice of God is speaking to me. 

It's always angry, always condemning me for the tiniest of infractions. Basically if I do anything Jesus didn't do, it condemns me for it and threatens to end my life if I don't change it and make myself super perfect. Jesus didn't play Tetris for three hours, so that's idolatry, and I could be punished for that. Or other minor things. Writing a science fiction novel is "idolatry".

There's no grace involved here, just the end of the world and judgment. 

Recently, I've discovered this has almost always coincided with my frequent need to go to the bathroom. Maybe I'm just fearful of wetting the bed. I don't know. 

I have bipolar disorder. I started seeing the red thing a lot when they put me on Paxil. I don't use it anymore, but the wrathful God voice keeps visiting me. 

It's not biblical, really. It's like religious compulsion. That's my problem with it. It tells me to go to extremes that no normal God believing christian would go to, for reasons that aren't always scriptural. I really have to be careful and make sure that I'm hearing the still small voice of God and not the thing in the top of my head.

Gumby

 I don't think I'll ever get rid of the guilt I feel for killing my pet ferret, or the way it soured my appreciation for the Gumby show. 

One summer many years ago, I owned a pet ferret. Owning one is a constant cleanup job. They can really stink up the place. 

I took the cage outside, on that hot day, sprayed the cage out, then set it out there in the heat to dry. Being the idiot kid I was, I put the ferret in the cage too.

I went inside in the air conditioning and watched TV. The ferret burned up in the meantime. I found its little corpse curled up in a ball. It peed on itself in attempt to cool down.

Gumby was on around at that time. I could hear the ending credits music as we stared at the dead animal. It was like funeral music.

Parking

 My apartment complex put out fliers saying you couldn't park in certain areas or get towed, because they were doing construction. I was thinking it unfair because the maps they made were confusing to read. 

Also, towing is expensive, and it takes time and manpower to move the car all the way to the impound lot. Imagine if you were the Incredible Hulk and could just pick up a car and move it to a safe spot until construction ended. It would be a lot less distance and wouldn't require the gas and expense of towing. 

Can we make some sort of machine that can move cars like that? A special car forklift?

Fake coupons

 Facebook takes the most minimal of infractions deathly serious. I created a joke coupon for something, and Facebook froze my Snuggle fan page.  Some lady with no sense of humor thought Snuggle made super tiny bottles in the supermarket, didn't seem to realize how it didn't look like a real coupon, and that Snuggle probably wouldn't give you a discount on chainsaws. At any rate, I don't miss the Facebook police.

Australia

 I used to have a Mickey mouse picture book about Australia. It said that kids over there had school through the radio. This was back before the internet. I used to think that was weird, but now everyone in America has internet school.

I've seen a lot of shows with Aussie stereotypes. A lot of them are depicted as backwards and dumb. If there's any truth to it, Americans are going to end up just like that with all this cyber schooling. If the parents are deadbeats, they won't commit to making sure the kids get their lessons, and we'll have a bunch of ignorant hicks running around.

Crazy People Assignments

 Assignment 600: Cook a huge pot of spaghetti, then "accidentally" spill it all over yourself and the floor. Third degree burns are really fun.

Assignment 601: When mom tells you "Use your words", reply in Japanese about how you want to stick lemon popsicles up your butt.

Assignment 602: Whenever you see a sign telling you to not park there, try your best to get the car in there anyway. He who pays the impound lot the most, drives best.

Assignment 603: If a new business takes over a building a different company used to own, don't let them go easy. Demand they still provide the service the old company used to give. That Mediterranean grocery should be able to do your laundry, damn it. And that adult novelty shop should still serve taco John's menu. Liberty Income Tax, you're not exempt. Where's your White Castle food. Spirit Halloween, yours is the heaviest burden of all.

Gender fluidity

 The problem with our progressively gender fluid society is how easy it is for people to commit fraud. There's no more BS detector. It used to be that if you sounded like a girl and called in saying you were Ray or Steve, you could say "Yeah right" and they'd confess to lying. Now people get hormone treatments so you don't know what's real and what's a lie. Someone can pull fraud on you, claiming to be your wife, and now it doesn't matter what they sound like, because they can say it's a same sex marriage. 

The states that are smart have put in laws saying businesses can't talk to the spouse without customer consent.

Hee hee funny

 The worst episodes of any TV show are about comedy, and talking about what's funny. They're never funny. They're always cringe worthy. If it's set in a comedy club, and it's the center of the plot, it's not going to be good. The only time I've seen it work was the opening of Seinfeld, and one episode of the new Twilight zone, but the latter was a horror story.

Carnival games for dogs

 You know that game they have in arcades where you have a shelf, and tokens roll off the edge? They should make one of those with dog treats. They play with some kind of gadget at the base of the table and they either get a plastic chew toy or something they don't particularly like, so they keep going back to get the treat.

A lesson from sitcoms

 The Honeymooners spends huge amounts of time in one set. The actors make it work by verbal storytelling. There's a whole world we can only take their word about, but it works, and with nothing but words and a few cheap furniture pieces. This is the secret of effective theater. You don't need to spend huge amounts of money on special effects and set building if you have actors who can weave a good yarn with just their mouths.

Sports cars

 Why do people buy a car that can drive 180 miles an hour when they will only get to drive a maximum of 70? Also, do they realize that cops aim their radar guns toward your car first? Just a hunch, but that car with the stripes and racing fins probably isn't going the legal speed limit.

Here's an idea: Try leaving the house a half hour early for Junior's ballet practice.