New gag panel -- Public Radio

New comic -- "On Meeting Al Pacino"

3 1/2 black & white pages, magazine dimensions.

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Trollfoon Central

"Send me your tired, your poor, your huddled Trollfoons yearning to breathe free..."

Morris Berman has a problem.

The Shock of the New (Hollywood)

In which I stand revealed (or do I?) as an Old Fogey, after a Viewing of Will Ferrell and Zach Galifinakis in "The Campaign"

I was telling some friends lately (though they might not have been paying much attention...) that I was shocked, shocked I tell you, after a sojourn away from most Hollywood pap, when I tried to dip my toes in the water again, to find just how much filthier that water was.

Specifically, I watched the Will Ferrell/ Zach Galifinakis comedy "The Campaign." And yes, I found it a bit "shocking" and disturbing, actually. It made me feel like an old fogey, to have my tender sensibilities offended by some piece of mainstream drek... Plus, I've enjoyed Will Ferrell's work in the past, so it was kind of a surprise for that reason as well.

And I did actually enjoy most of the movie. There were just a few scenes here and there, that seemed almost designed to undercut any pleasure one might take in the rest of the movie. To exaggerate to make a point, it would be like if you were expecting a sweet G-rated story and there were a few awkwardly shoehorned-in scenes where the characters suddenly lapse into explicit pornographic activities. Well, that's sort of how I felt watching The Campaign, although on a much narrower spectrum of course. ...

The Latest Thing in Guru-dom

Of Gurus, Self-Promotion and Image Crafting

Part I:  I Enjoy Positing -- Do You?

Let me posit two kinds of people: the Gurus, and everybody else.

Actually, heck, let's make it three since that's such an appealing number, and toss in the Official Conventional Wisdom Arbiters (OCWA, as Morris Berman would be quick to point out, were he here. Of course he's tending to his own self-proclaimed obscure blog, though he's got nothing on me in the Obscure Blog Dept. (OBD) I'm sure.)

Or maybe they are the FARMers:  Fatuous A**holes Retailing Malarkey. Choose your own acronym. The point is they are the official word from on high, the appointed (by who?) Voice of Reason, that the "Lamestream Media" (haha good one) listens to above all others... The credentialed yahoos who run this joint, can you dig it.

And let's give them their due. They have an impressive edifice of tomfoolery called the Academy that wanks around with particle accelerators and such, and it can't all be just for show.

Respect. Word. Word to the particle accelerators. Nuc-u-ler reactors too. And Whatnot.

But this story is really about the Gurus...

Arts & Entertainment Off the Beaten Track

There are some great TV shows out there (the "new golden age" etc.).. and there are lots of movies that aren't so great... but you probably watch them anyway. Because it's a thing to watch movies, and what can you do. Just take what they give you, that's all you can do. And sure, some of them aren't *that* bad, I could be persuaded of that.

Okay, what else are you consuming... FaceBook, random internet stuff, Pinterest, Reddit I guess.. I don't really know the specifics, but I do know that while that stuff is all a lot of fun, it is also a bit shallow if taken to extremes. Just melts into a wall of empty fluff if you binge on it.

Videogames, some of you play videogames. I'm sure there is some good stuff there at least in terms of the craft of the things, and the challenging puzzles you must solve, as well as the aesthetics of it. But, I will just go ahead anyway and paint with a broad uninformed brush, and say I bet it's still a lot like movies... They can't escape all that corporate influence in their DNA, all that MONEY that goes into getting them made.

That's the bottom line with all this stuff we've mentioned so far, it all comes out of a very cloistered environment. Thousands of brilliant dudes (and dudettes, they try their best to find female nerds, I know) make this stuff, and it's really really good, in a way... HOWEVER. At the end of the day, about 6 or 7 princelings sit atop these Hollywood Fun Factories, signing off on every project and making damn sure it fits their "agenda." Whatever the **** that agenda may be.

Oh, you didn't know they had an agenda? Yep. I could tell you about the Agenda. But let's not get into all of that. Let me just ask you to CONSIDER... maybe in baby steps, start small... CONSIDER getting off their reservation to some degree...