Trump is Not the Root of the Trouble

Over at The Bulwark, a place for ‘Never Trumpers’ conservative to make their case from the right that Trump is a deranged, unstable, and terrible person to hold the office of the Presidency Charlie Sykes made this observation:

But in this case, the vector of this disease is not Twitter: the root of the malignancy is the president himself. Until we deal with Trump, everything else is just noise, because he is the bully pulpit.

I sympathize with Charlie. A political organization that he had believed in, devoted his adult life to, and fought for is now lead by a narcissistic man-baby throwing tantrums and feces at anything and anyone that displeases him, but Trump is not the root, he is not the cause, he is the end result of decades of ‘red meat’ cultivation by GOP heads that believed that they could always control the monster that they created, the GOP rabid base.

Trump did not, like Athena from Zeus’ forehead, spring fully formed during the Republican Primary but rather he grew in carefully cultivated ground. He grew in soil prepared with decades of racist attacks carefully coded to allow plausible deniability, in soil watered with attacks on expertise, in soil weeded of dissent and inconvenient facts, and in soil that was sheltered with illusionary morality providing its fruit of illegitimate righteousness.

The leaders of the GOP injected their base with steroids of hate, deploying state initiatives banning gay marriage, demonizing undocumented immigrant without ever truly addressing the big businesses that employ them, stood aside while the levers of power were deployed in endless investigations of political enemies, turned blind eyes to overtly racist and baseless attack on politicians of color all while cloaking their supporters with an armor of victimhood, asserting that they were the ‘true victims’ of untampered hate.

No, Trump is not the root cause he is the inevitable metastasized tumor of this untreated cancer.

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Monday Night Movie: The Big House (1930)

Surfing through the offerings on The Criterion Channel yesterday I landed on The Big House from 1930 as my evening’s entertainment.

With story and dialog credit to Frances Marion and her second Oscar nomination for writing The Big House is the source for many cinematic tropes found in later prison movies. The story is concerned with three principal characters, Kent, a new arrive at the prison, starting a ten-year sentence for man slaughter after he killed a pedestrian while driving drunk, Morgan a forger, and Butch an illiterate thug serving time for murder. While the film makes sociological points about the prison system including having the warden complain that society is happy to throw people into prison but unwilling to pay for it, it avoids pulling out a soap box but instead focuses on the nature of its central characters and how their time in prison reinforces or breaks their character.

Many scenes which would later become clichés in the sub-genre of prison movies are present here in this early ‘talkie.’ The food riot in the massive dinning hall, the full riot with bedding thrown from the upper levels of a massive cell block, the sharp concern among the inmates about ‘squealers,’ and so on though it is far from routine when the climax of a prison movies involves several tanks.

Running just under an hour and a half The Big House doesn’t waste time, there is no preamble and very little fat, something filmmakers today struggle to maintain. With visuals that were sometimes decades ahead of their time this movie remains an important and watchable piece from a time nearly a hundred years ago.

 

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I Went to the Movies!

San Diego has two drive-in theaters and both are now operating during the COVID-19 lock-down. Last night I went to the Santee Drive-In and watched the most recent iteration of The Invisible Man.

Universal Studios had planned to make an Invisible Man film as part of the Dark Universe Franchise series but the smoking crater left behand after the release of Tom Cruise’s The Mummy and the disappointing performance a few years earlier of Dracula Untold (2014) destroyed those plans as thoroughly as a snap from Thanos. This movie was produced by horror specialists Blumhouse and is quite the good film.

Written and directed by Leigh Whannell, The Invisible Man stars Elisabeth Moss as Cecilia Kass as a woman who has escaped the physical and mental abuse of her brilliant tech-bro husband Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen). Following her escape Cecilia grapples with the PTSD from her years in an abusive relationship and learns that Adrian has apparently killed himself but soon she becomes convinced that through his technological brilliance Adrian has faked his own death and is now tormenting her with some manner of invisibility. Friends and authorities are naturally quite skeptical of her assertions and dismiss them as stress induced mental illness leaving Cecilia to reclaim her life and her power alone.

The script is tight with nary a wasted beat or moment and the characters presented are smart and capable. Cecelia, though dealing with sever PTSD, keeps her head and shows a level of intelligence and cunning that is often rare for characters of horror cinema. (Though it was left to the teenager in the story to instruct Cecilia that you never use water to fight a grease fire.) Whannell’s direct sure and on target with even the use of jump-scares, where a sudden action or appearance in frame is used to startle the audience, motivated by character and logical plot developments. I can’t honestly judge the cinematography as the outdoor presentation ruined a number of darker sequences but other than that the film had a sharp, cold, modernist look that well suited the story and tone. The score was neither particularly memorable nor intrusive but support the scenes well without drawing excessing attention. The entire cast delivered competent performances but this movie lived or died on Moss as she carried the entire story and appeared in every scene as our sole viewpoint character. I can report that she excelled and gave us a credible, sympathetic, and ultimately strong character worthy of our support.

The Invisible Man (2020) is well worth the time and I look forward to seeing it again at home where I can enjoy the photography under better conditions. The unsuitability of the venue to films with dark sequences forced me to leave after the first feature as The Wretched promised substantial scenes at night or in deep darkness.

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No Post Trump GOP Part II

It is a presidential election year, the economy is in shambles, a pandemic ravages the US population, and the political partisanship is a mental pandemic that has infected out psyche for years.

Trump won the presidency with an electoral college victory from votes that total less than the number of Americans that have died from COVID-19 against an opponent that rightly or wrong carried 30 years of personal and political baggage into the contest with an electorate that had the erroneous sense that Trump simply couldn’t emerge victorious.

This time his opponent doesn’t spark the same visceral emotions, unemployment is skyrocketing, everyone knows he can win, and there is a clear record that Trump is incapable of making a pivot to being ‘presidential.’ There is every possibility that Trump will lose.

Setting aside the more fantastical result of a Trump defeat that he simply refuses to leave office and assuming the much more probable outcome that Biden is sworn in next year what happens next?

First off, Trump will insist and never move from the position that the election was ‘stolen.’ Illusionary and delusional claims of ‘voter fraud’ will be his constant whine. Because the GOP voting base is solidly behind him, they will pick up and echo these baseless conspiracies.

Because there is money to made in sky high rating, Fox News will make him a frequent feature in the broadcasts, keeping the base energized and watching.

In order to retain the support of the GOP voters that determine life and death in the primaries Republican Politicians will hew to, endorse, and legitimize all of his insane, nonsensical, and baseless charges of fraud, driving the party further into his ‘ideology.’ White nationalist will continue to gain power in the GOP and the ‘Never Trumpers’ will be as outcast of the Birchers once were.

This is the future of the National Republican Party for at least the next decade.

 

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Quick Hits

I’ve started outlining a new novel proposal. I have already stepped through the five acts and bullet pointed all the major beats, Now it is time to produce a prose document synopsizing the story and show that to my editor. It’s another dark cynical SF story.

Also, I am working my way, finally, through Netflix’s Marvel Limited series The Defenders but so far, and I have watched six out of eight episodes, I am far from impressed. The writing on this one fails to lock into the voice for the various characters and they instead feel like that they have the shape of the personalities but lack the depth. There has been a tendency, possibly created by time pressures, to go for the most obvious plot turn or bit of dialog. Several times I have mentally delivered the upcoming dialog before the character on screen actually utters it.

San Diego has recieve3d the go ahead from the State Government to move forward into loosening social distancing restrictions and Saturday I will be at Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore to sign stock of my novel Vulcan’s Forge.

 

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The Inadvertent Comedy of Creature with the Blue Hand

After hearing about the subgenre of films called Krimi on a documentary about Giallo my sweetie-wife and I decided that we needed to watch some of the German crime movies. She found one starring Klaus Kinski as twin brothers, one locked away in an asylum for a heinous murder and after his escape a series of grisly bizarre killings plague his noble English family.

Creature with the Blue Hand is a West German production, for the kids out there Germany used to be broken into two countries one democratic and one communist, based upon the novel The Blue Hand by Edgar Wallace. Sadly, the version on Fandor is not only dubbed but taken from a poor quality video

I really want to know what edition this image is from because nothing in the one watch was this clear.

recording of the film with washed out colors and some scenes so dark that’s it is impossible to discern what is actually transpiring on the screen. On its own Creature with the Blue Hand is a substandard feature, thin characterization, tropes that were tired in the 70s when it was produced, and resolutions to mysterious the repeatedly rely upon information not previously disclosed to the audience.

That said the movie does provide moments of unintentional hilarity.

For example, there is a scene where Dr. Mangrove, a corrupt and evil psychiatrist moves to a secret safe in his office. Really when I have a secret safe it is never going behind an oil painting. With the context of the scene you’d expect that he’s retrieving cash or some other valuable but what is pulled from the locked steel container is a live python with which he murders a disloyal member of his staff.

The other scene which burned into my memory in any other movie would have been placed for deliberate comedy but nothing in the presentation here suggests that the filmmakers were aware of the absurdity I am about to describe.

The heroic police inspector has finally figured out that Mangrove is a villain, but not the ‘Boss’ and after a brief struggle has thrown him to the floor in his asylum and gotten to drop on the thugs/staff with a pistol. Two of the thugs have taken Mangrove by the arms and are helping him to his feet while the others threaten the inspector with club. (Yes, they brought clubs to a gun fight.) The Heroic Inspector orders them to get their hands up, thrust his handgun forward to empathize the threat. They all throw their hands up, including the pair helping Dr Mangrove who tumbles right back down on his ass. There’s no cut to a shot of the outraged or indignant Mangrove to put a button on this comedic scene because they seemed to have truly missed that moment of slapstick.

I can’t say this is even a mediocre movie but we did get entertainment value from it just not what the filmmakers intended.

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Trump’s Obesity Should be Off the Table

Listen, I am far from any fan of the current narcissistic man-baby occupying the Presidency. In my opinion he is a conman, corrupt, dim-witted, mean, lying and morally reprehensible. The sooner he can be removed from this position and someone of general competence installed the better for this nation and yes for the world. The current pandemic illustrates perfectly why there is always someone to vote against and that the office of President of the Unites States of America is not place for On-The-Job training.

That said attacks on his weight are offensive and stupid. The man’s corruption and incompetence are a factor of his BMI. People who would consider themselves sensitive to marginalized communities will still, gleefully, share memes and gifs that are hurtful far beyond their target of the man-baby president. These attacks belittling him due to his size are no better and in my view equivalent to Trump’s mocking of a disabled reporter. Is that really the company you want to keep?

I also despise the food snobbery people direct at Trump and indirectly at others. Food is one of the purely personal pleasures in life. I’m not going to judge you by what you eat to make you happy and if that’s what you do to others then in that instance, you’re the asshole.

I’ll vote for a potted palm to get this cruel, petty, dishonest, conman out of the office but I will maintain my morality while I am doing it.

 

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Things Named Vulcan’s Forge

I titled my novel Vulcan’s Forge as a reference to the Roman god of fire and smithy because the McGuffin at the center of the sf/noir was capable of producing effects well beyond the character’s normal access. Of Course, I was aware that Star Trek had popularized Vulcan as an association with its particular alien species. In fact, I had expected that there might have been a push from the publishing house to re-title the novel and that would have been fine with me, I am generally not precious about my titles.

The book sailed through the editing and publication process without any ever suggesting or hinting that an alternative title should be explored and now I am discovering all the other things that are called Vulcan’s Forge.

Vulcan’s Forge 1998 a techno-thriller, that’s when you don’t want to be marketed as present day science-fiction a category invented by The Hunt of Red October, by Jack Du Brul.

Vulcan’s Forge a 1997 Star trek­ tie-in novel set a year after the events in the movie Star Trek: Generations.

Vulcan’s Forge a custom Jewelers located in Kansas City Missouri.

Vulcan’s Forge a thoroughbred racehorse from the 1940s.

 

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No Two Books Get Written the Same Way

Mind you that title isn’t referring to no two authors write their books the same way I am talking about that as an author myself each book follows its own unique process from concept to manuscript.

My editor recently told me that he’d like to see material that is closer in tone to Vulcan’s Forge than the military SF adventure I recently showed to him. I’m good with that, after all I did write Vulcan’s Forge and I understand the wisdom of keep a stylistic and tone consistency to help build a readership. So, I responded with a few ideas that had been bouncing around my head and he came back indicating which one at this point interested him the most.

Now, I’m drafting the outline for this book using my typical five act structure as a framework. Her, it is was good enough for old Bill Shakespeare it’s good enough for me.

As is typical for me the very act of outlining, in even the basic form, expands and deepens my concepts turning vague ideas into concrete story and plot elements.

But, it’s not the same process I used on other books. Sometimes I just write out a long prose document telling the basic story from front to back, leaving spots that I know are too thin that I will have to work out later. Sometimes I craft careful character studies and maps first and then start the outlining, and this time it’s numbered bulleted points for act of the five acts with a separate character files that grows as I explore the story and structure.

The point is when you attend a con or a writing workshop and someone tells you from on high that this is the ‘one way’ to write a story know that what they are passing is bunk. There isn’t one way for different writers and not even for the same writer. Experiment, investigate, and discover the way that works for you for the project at hand.

 

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It’s My Birthday

Today May 14 is my birthday and I feel pretty fine about that. I have friends and family for whom these events no longer happen and sop I know the blessing and privilege it is to have another go around our local star.

We’re here in the middle of a global pandemic with tens of thousands dead and more to come, our economy freefalling and our political world in utter chaos but I can also recognize that my life is going pretty damn well at the moment.

Six years ago, I transition from a contract, read ‘Temp’ worker to becoming a full Kaiser employee and this has hand down been the best place I have ever worked. My associated are good people and there aren’t any that I have personality conflicts with, I am well paid, and I have very good benefits.

Later this year will make 13 years married to my sweetie-wife and those have been good happy years.

March saw the publication of my first professional novel and I am working on a proposal for another book for this editor while waiting for a different house to finish evaluating my military SF book so artistically I have little to complain about.

Peak television and the explosion of streaming services along with the wonderful work done by people like Film Geeks San Diego and Horrible Imaginings film festival are doing wonders for broadening my exposure to interesting and challenging cinema expanding my horizon and making me a better artist.

All in all, I have to say that life is good.

 

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