The Rabbit Hole

Something that puts fannishness into perspective? Looking at things others are obviously fans of--that, in fact, I might be a fan of--and the merchandise associated therewith that is too ridiculous to be compatible with reality. Exhibit A: a "swim like Michael Phelps" Kinect game. I am a fan of Michael Phelps (....'s body), but this is pushing it. How much garbage do you expect his fans to swallow?

...which is "Hello, Ms. Pot, have you met my friend, the much-maligned Mr. Kettle?" talk that I ought to wink out of existence in a fit of cosmic irony, or something, given my earlier reaction to The Avengers trailer being released. I did promise to be more coherent, eventually, on that. (The other post is and will remain a CAPSLOCK paradise, I warn you.) Here's what I have to say, now that I can be marginally less giddy.

-For a movie that has only just finished wrapping, they've got some decent CGI shots already done. The Hulk is looking, well, Hulkish, but more The Incredible Hulk-ish than Hulk-ish, which is acceptable. There were lazers and some lightning for Thor. All of which could stand to be improved, obviously, but that they have that much is impressive. I mean, it could be a warning that they're rushing things--they have a trailer online seven months before the movie premieres, which is only about four months earlier than Captain America did--but I choose to have faith.

-They explained "the Avengers"! By which I mean the name, which, since moonlightalice brought it up--"What, exactly, are they avenging?"--has not failed to bother me. Stupid smart people with their words and things mucking up perfectly good superhero team names!

-Nine Inch Nails in the trailer: On the one hand, LOVE IT. "We're in this Together" is one of my favorite tracks from my favorite NIN album ever, The Fragile. The Downward Spiral is the most famous/commercially successful NIN album, but The Fragile kicks its ass in every way that matters. The songs are better, they make you feel more and more strongly ways about stuff, the entire album flows better, start-to-finish, and it is artistic while still being incredibly catchy. I'm a piss-poor music critic, but The Fragile is an album about which I get worked up, so it's good. "We're in this Together" is even used passably well in the start of the trailer. On the other hand, it's used incredibly poorly towards the end, with the twisted dialogue of the chorus being made into rah-rah nonsense. I mean, shoe-horning in the words "we're in this together now" to play over the images of the Avengers is just too on-the-nose. The riffs also don't work as well as a closer--it's too unfinished a sound. Maybe that's just me and me knowing that that riff is in the middle of the song. But they needed to transition it better.

-I see that Joss Whedon and Robert Downey Jr. go together like peanut butter and chocolate. Some of the lines felt a little forced, though. I worry about that. Joss' best lines don't go hand-in-hand with action scenes a lot of the time.

There. I said some things that didn't amount to typed flailing. I'm proud of me.

I'm skiving off studying for a little bit to revisit a meme I shouldn't have let die, seeing as it's so much fun. Let's see, where was I?

Day 01 - A favorite song
Day 02 - A song that makes you happy
Day 03 - A song that makes you sad
Day 04 - A song that reminds you of someone
Day 05 - A song that reminds you of somewhere
Day 06 - A song that reminds you of a certain event
( Read more... )

I am old. I'm not, but I totally feel it. I don't enjoy the sort of "cutting loose" that people my age do. I don't drink to excess to have a good time. (A margarita here or there to the point of being buzzed is as far as Trinity goes these days--I did my heavy drinking for one lifetime, thank you.) I do not do drugs or have any interest in trying them. I don't run around like a maniac. I just...it's not worth the effort or the consequences, man. I've even lost interest in any temporary body-mod things like dying my freakin' hair, that's how old I am.

So I go to a concert, right? And I am probably younger than 75% of the crowd, but I feel like I'm too old to be there. Because the crowd is full of people doing all those things that I don't feel add to my enjoyment of the music or the moment. They're smoking like five-alarm fires and drinking to drown whole schools of fish and moshing like paranoid meth-heads on a bender. I just--I don't need that bullshit to have a fucking fabulous time at a concert by one of my favorite bands. In fact, my fucking fabulous time was seriously shortened by fuckers doing those things and not giving a shit (or being too incapacitated by overpriced, shitty beer to notice) that they were killing the natural high the rest of us old-young people were able to get from just some goddamned loud music with total fannish abandon.

I was there in the crowd for, max, two hours, and my lungs burned. I've never had that happen, and I sat behind some guys ten years ago at a concert who smuggled a giant bong and two gallon-sized bags of pot and smoked the entire fucking thing. I have even smoked cigarettes and not had my trachea seize up in agony as the cells lining it DIED. I couldn't even finish the concert because I was grouchy, in severe pulmonary pain, and in constant fear that the fuckheads in the impromptu mosh pit that opened next to me were going to get another notion to just start charging my way again.

I think I'm too old for this shit. Or, I guess, I should say, that I'm too old to see any concert unless I'm assigned a fucking seat and it's indoors in a state where smoking indoors is tantamount to assault with a deadly weapon (which it fucking is). I don't think it will even matter as there is hardly any single band I follow any more that I would spend concert-ticket money on.

(Concert was good, don't get me wrong. My best pictures--such as they are--are here. Luckily, with time, the annoyance I felt will fade, but the thrill will stay with me.)