The Supreme Linkbait
Want to make a page that gets thousands of hits from enraged liberals?
Step 1: Find a recent event where a minority has done something notable.
Step 2: Search Twitter to find, among literally millions of Tweets, the lowest idiots on the planet. They exist. They will always exist.
Step 3: Haul up those Tweets as evidence that “a lot” of people feel this way.
Step 4: Profit.
Next up: Use the same technique to prove that “a lot” of dumb liberals believe stupid shit published in The Daily Currant! As long as you keep your numbers vague and trawl for the worst behavior in humanity, you will always, always find it. And then people can believe that this is a serious world view as opposed to a handful of morons.
(Which is not to say that a case could not be made that “a lot” of people are racist about the new Miss America. Finding fifteen random Tweets does not make that case. And believing that fifteen Tweets on any topic proves a silent majority just shows a bias in your own thinking – a bias other sites are perfectly happy to exploit for outrage and clickbait.)
How Do You Win The Dog Poop Lottery?
I don’t think it will surprise anyone to find out our dog poops. And we take her for three daily walks, during which she poops twice.
I refer to being on a poop-laden walk as “Winning the Dog Poop Lottery.”
Gini disagrees. What you have won on the trip, she claims, is a bag of warm dog shit, and really that’s no prize. She claims she has won the lottery when she returns empty-handed.
What kind of lottery is that, say I? There’s no sane lottery where “not winning” is considered a prize. Sure, you have the occasional outliers like Shirley Jackson and the Vietnam drafts, but those are sufficient exceptions that nobody thinks of them. No, lotteries involve prizes, and you win them. This is a pretty crappy lottery – sorry – but you can’t claim victory when you don’t get a prize.
We’re at odds. I’ll say I won and she thinks that Shasta didn’t poop. She’ll say she lost and I think that Shasta didn’t poop.
So I turn to you, dear reader: What conditions define victory in the Dog Poop Lottery? Please phrase all answers in the form of an essay.
Purposely Vague Thoughts On Last Night's "Breaking Bad"
I have to write in vague terms, as my blog doesn’t have an easy “LJ-Cut” functionality to shield the unwitting from spoilers. Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to obfuscate things, as if you saw “Ozymandias,” you know what happened. Still, if you’re really avoidant (which is understandable), I’ll give you a bit to get out.
3….
2….
1…
Okay. It’s go time.
1) I wonder how much of Breaking Bad’s audience got that Walt’s call was a gift, not a mistake. He had to know what was happening on the other end of the line. I suspect some percentage of the audience thought, “Oh ho, Walt’s finally cracking!” – but not many, as I think that a) Breaking Bad’s audience is reasonably sophisticated, and b) Walt’s carefulness has been established. Though I love that the show is smart enough that they don’t drop an anvil to explain it.
2) The show is filled with Chekov’s blanks – which should be a cheat, but miraculously doesn’t feel like one. We’re all so tense by things that could go wrong in deadly ways – seatbelts! knives! struggles on kitchen floors! – and only a few of them turn out to matter. But at this point Breaking Bad will do anything to ratchet up the suspense, up to and including breaking the “normal” rules of drama which says if you hint at danger and don’t follow through it feels cheap. We’re so invested, any threat will do.
3) Marie gets flack, but really, she’s the only decent person (aside from Walt Jr.) left on the entire cast. What she did was actually kind, and caring, and concerned for the family as a whole. Considering how she could have just thrown them under the bus (assuming what she knew was true), her actual actions were commendable, given that Walt had gone out of his way to shit on her family.
4) I fucking love Todd. He’s like a young Mike: cheerful, doesn’t take anything personal, does his job. Some have said that Mike has heart, but we get to see Mike at the end of his career, trying to retire, with a granddaughter to even out his edges; I’m pretty sure some day Todd will deepen as well. The error is considering Todd to be at the end of his journey when really, he’s just starting out. And assuming that gentle, loving Mike didn’t do some pretty fucking despicable things when he was off-camera and young and hungry.
I don’t. Call me cynical.
Save The Cat!
Since Kameron Hurley recommended it, I read Save The Cat! – a succinct little book on screenwriting. Which I’d recommend, for certain values of “recommend.”
The thing is, it’s written by Blake Snyder, who has all of two credits to his name in the “screenwriting” business. On the other hand, he sold an amazing twelve screenplays on spec, often getting studios into bidding wars – which, of course, being Hollywood, they promptly spent millions to purchase and did nothing with. His biggest credit is a little comedy you may recall entitled “Stop, Or My Mom Will Shoot!”…
…a Sylvester Stallone movie that was notoriously bad. In fact, unlaughably so. It won awards as the worst movie of the year.
But hey! That’s so much better than the written talent of Syd Field, who didn’t have any major movies. And he’s the acknowledged master of the screenplay.
Thing is, Blake is mondo arrogant, discussing his rules as though they were the laws of fucking physics… but on one level, he’s right. He’s gotten way further than most screenwriters ever did. And are his screenplays masterpieces? Fuck no. But they’re more likely to sell than some eclectic film; if you’re looking to maximize your chances of success, well, most Hollywood guys aren’t going to want to rest a million bucks on some nobody’s experiment. No, they want formulas, and when Blake hammers home that you have your turn on page 25 and no further, he’s absolutely right.
For selling.
Quality’s a different matter.
That’s the eternal struggle in writing – you can probably make a nice living churning out very predictable stories that are satisfying on some level but never magnificent. Or you can shoot for magnificent and probably never succeed, but if you do then you’ll have figured out a rhythm that works for you. I mean, William Goldman is an enormously successful screenwriter who doubtlessly knows the rules, and utilizes them, but he doesn’t fetishize them in the way that Blake does. And his stuff is distinctly different.
But if you’re starting from scratch, what’s your best bet to make a living at this? Probably Blake. And what he touts is salable, commercial, and not at all very good… but it’s satisfying in a sort of hot dog way, where it ain’t fine cuisine but it’ll pass a Sunday afternoon if you’re not too picky.
I dunno. I’m looking at how my latest novel draft hits the notes, and I’m glad to find out that it actually is on-beat for a lot of them. Which makes the novel stronger, in a way. But if I wrote the novel to fit the formula, I’m pretty sure it’d be a crappy novel. That doesn’t make Blake’s advice any good, but you have to remember that his greatest creation was a B-movie that nobody much liked.
Is that his fault? The director, the actors, the producer all had a hand in it. But he sold to the type of director, producer, and actors who were yearning for his predictable ends.
He also made millions.
So was he a success or not?
My Space In The World
I got a very nice email from someone this morning telling me how my essay The Object of Dread helped her understand her relationships. And I’ve been blogging for long enough that I occasionally have people who’ve grown up on my advice, which is a little odd realizing some people have incorporated my thought patterns into their way of thinking. I hope it’s more helpful than harmful.
A long time ago, Cat Valente called me “The Garrison Keillor of LJ,” which is a title I’ve always been proud of, because I love Garrison’s voice – he tells stories, sometimes very harsh ones about loneliness and isolation, yet somehow makes them reassuring. But I realized what I think of myself as today:
The local newspaper’s columnist.
I’m not a big celebrity, not in the scheme of things, but in certain areas I’m very well-known. And I think that makes me a beloved columnist in a small-town newspaper, where it’s a part of the daily routine for folks to sit down, eat dinner, and open the paper to that Ferrett fellow’s page. Mostly they nod their head. Sometimes they’re outraged. Sometimes they’re even convinced.
And I’m not a big deal, not really. Go to New York, they haven’t heard of me, and Hollywood’s never come knocking. Every once in a while I get a piece reprinted in a national newspaper and it’s a little PR for a while, then it fades and I return to my sleepy burg.
It’s nice. It’s cozy. It’s not fame enough that I step outside and I’m barraged by paparrazzi, but I get fan mail about once a week (which is more than most people get in a lifetime), and people say nice things. I’m still mostly obscure, but the people who like me, like me, and that’s a lovely space to be.
I’m in my spot. Typing for you. And the deadlines come calling, and it’s hard work, but I couldn’t think of a lovelier neighborhood to live in. With a better bunch of people.