Quick Flicks: Some Brief Words On Films I've Seen

I got a list of movies I've seen and I got thoughts on them.

POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD

The Wolf Of Wall Street (Quarter-Billions And Quailoods) 

I don't know how he keeps his suit so clean and organized with all that cocaine in his system.

I haven't seen many films, so if I call this the best movie of 2013, I'm probably undermining a lot of great work that came out this year like Gravity and 12 Years A Slave. The only other film I recall seeing that came out in 2013 was The World's End, and while I liked it, The Wolf Of Wall Street did something to me that immediately made me realize it was the better pick. This film shook me. It got into my head and it struck a cord with me. It made me want to ask my sister how she felt about it and elaborate on why she didn't like it. Even though I found myself understanding her view and agreeing with it, even though I felt that if I liked this movie, I would be a hypocrite for denouncing other films that have handled with similar matters and possibly stirring the same emotions, this was still my top favorite. While I can't consider it the absolute best of the year and neither can I even say that it's the best thing Martin Scorsese has done, it still is a great film in its own right. It certainly is another one of those "white collar crime" films which starts and ends the ways you expect it to, but what really takes it to a level that is beyond those films is the racy content. If you think the trailers were raunchy, you haven't even gotten a tenth of the kind of acts that occur in this movie. 

The debauchery in this film is beyond most films that involve a party-hungry rich prick, taking it to a level that could very well desensitize an innocent mind. This (seemingly) has it's down-side since it will make people think it's simple sensational tripe. "Oh look at these people, making the wild rich life so exciting and racy. How dare they think that us middle-class folk can't have the same amount of fun". Hell, I even thought of that. The film tricks you into forgetting the necessary cliche for a while. As you still watch it, thinking that all The Wolf Of Wall Street is doing is making you feel bad about not being rich, all the sordid fun that occurs starts to become too much. The glamour is lost...instead what resonates is this feeling of disgust. You aren't disgusted by the act of having a crazy party, you're disgusted by the act of having a crazy party every day. "White collar crime" films often drive this point of how greed can mess with a man, but The Wolf Of Wall Street takes this point and fills it with as many hookers and drugs it can fit on the screen. The overload of such content does cause cracks in the film and it certainly highlights the simplicity of the characters, but the comedy that comes out of the situations and just how hard this movie hits you with its twisted nature does its best to patch them up. If you don't like this film because it's too much sex and drugs, I won't hold it against you. If you think there are much better movies that handle similar ideas in this film, I'm sure I could think of a few that do. But this film, at the very least, is going to take your mind and throw it around, leaving it in places you didn't think you'd end up.

Planes, Trains And Automobiles (Most Realistic Depiction Of Airline Travel '68)

hawt twink-on-bear action xxx

Moving on to lighter territory, this was a film that helped me get better acquainted with the brilliance of late 60s, early-to-mid 70s comedy. In a way, the movie really benefits from also having Steve Martin be in the film. Why? Well, Steven Martin is one of the comedians who seemed to thrive in that era and I find his comedy to be very hit-or-miss. It's not so much to cheesy factor that throws me off more than the awkward way the delivery happens or the shaky pay-off. One movie that really showed this to me was The Jerk, a film that was on par with Beverly Hills Cop as the most average and weirdly paced comedies out there. The Producers wasn't much of a help, but we'll get to that later. I needed to see more of what made him a better comedian and what worked for comedy in that period of time, and I figured that Planes, Trains And Automobiles would do the trick because it was written by John Hudges, who still has a place as a great screenwriter. Turns out, I was goddamn right.

There have been many comedies that take the "ultimate misery" approach and it varies to degrees. I'd have to say that so far this is the one to look at for the best example of it done right. It takes the scenario to the right places so that it both hilarious and touching. John Candy, another great talent, works so well bouncing his energy off of the straight man attitude of Steve Martin. While some can consider the straight man to be a simple comedic element, Steve realizes the breaking points and uses them when necessary to create the response of a man who's become exhausted and enraged of everything falling down over him. Candy's quirks are hilarious, Martin trying to maintain sanity is done great and when the movie manages to slow down and have a serious, heart-felt moment, it's pulled off with a great sense of timing and finesse. It's oddly quite a feel-good movie even if what happens sounds like a complete nightmare to endure. The feeling that at the very least you're still alive to tell such a tale and return to a place of comfort in the end is certainly a sweet one, and this movie creates that atmosphere in the best way it can. 

The Breakfast Club (Emilio Estevez Was Andy Clark?)

I'm sure people relate to Bender the most on some level. Probably psychopathic...

It's fitting that I would segue from one Jon Hughes movie to another. The Breakfast Club is often considered a classic film by practically everyone and after watching it, it's pretty easy to see why that is. If there was something that this film really understood was the way that teenagers who don't truly believe in the cliques they're under feel about school. It shows how they are self-aware of their status and how they don't feel like they should be tied down to it simply because that's what school dictates. At the same time, it shows that there's not much choice that these kids have in terms of breaking from the constructs of school. The only thing the film missed is the feeling that even though you've seen examples of people not abiding to the stereotypes that were set on them, one must still continue to have those stereotypes in order to avoid being made a fool of in school. Though that could be something only a select group of people feel in school. Still, this film is timeless in the way that it reflects the minds of high-schoolers in the midst of their lives, and it allows you to either sympathize or relate to the the main five in the midst of detention. 

Zodiac (Why Do I Want To Watch Se7en Now?)

"This case better not hinge on what is tacked on to a bulletin board..."

I've been interested in this film for a while. The thing is that my interest wasn't all consuming, it didn't really motivate me enough to actively seek it. Though now that I've watched it, I feel like doing that wouldn't have been such a bad idea. It's quite an interesting thriller in the way that it handles it's pace. It's not too slow, but it's not too fast either. Usually it's one or the other, but I'm glad it made sure that it could capture the right speed. It just makes it easier to attract an audience. Though I will admit, the length of the film did kind of distract me, but it didn't drag despite it's length. If it did though, then I got distracted by Downey Jr. or Mark Ruffalo doing what they does best (which is either spouting sardonic quips or being a no-nonsense law-abiding tough-guy).  While some of the character development felt kind of empty, but it more than made up for it with the main character. 

See, when Downey Jr. or Ruffalo are on screen, they carry the film with one arm, which is fine, but it'll slip a bit out of their grasp. Gyllenhaal, meanwhile, will catch the film when it slips and hold it above his head. You see a lot more with how Gyllenhaal acts in the movie, and it's gripping to see just how further he slides as the case keeps getting more and more tangled. I read that there were people who complain it didn't have enough action, but I don't think it requires it. The film is about solving a cryptic series of crimes, and to properly have that feeling, you can't be blasting your guns all over the place. Or if you can, you have to be a little more far-fetched, which isn't what this film is. Zodiac is meant to be grounded by the reality of how time-consuming and stressful the case it's based on, and when it absorbs itself fully in that reality, it creates the mood for a mystery that draws its viewer in with each passing second. 

The Producers (The Thumbs Aren't Agreeing)

Zero Mostel: Long lost cousin of Rodney Dangerfield

Before I carry on with this, I just want to say that the Ulla gag must have been made up because the woman slept with Brooks and he said "Well, I gotta make some joke so that she can be in the film." Though I think it's funnier to think that he was tied to the bed and she was forcing him to think of something. That out of the way, this film must be a sign that I'm not as old-fashioned as my adolescence-and-modern-culture-hating side of me wants me to think I am. Indeed, I have had many a time where I've thought back to more vintage works and imagined myself having a ball in that time period. Then again, I think it was better that I wasn't in the 20s in the US because I would have almost ended up dead, so I suppose there has to be something that these modern times can bring. It's perhaps one hell of a hyperbole to say that The Producers is akin to racism and the worst financial crisis the world's ever faced, but it certainly reeks of it's time period.  There's nothing wrong with a film having elements that draw from the time that it was made, and The Producers certainly uses the factors properly at times. With the political incorrect nature, the over-the-top performances and even a dash of hippies, it certainly has me laughing at time. Other times though, the editing style turns me away and the gags sometimes end up falling flat either by the execution or the pay-off. By no means do I think the actors failed, they did their best, especially Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel. The writing, on the other hand, might have caused a few issues. Though, I feel that perhaps it could be a matter of a generational gap. I don't love this film, but I can't hate it. Because honestly, who can hate a film with an extravagant musical number of Hitler? 

Blade Runner (The Golden Ford Years)

Those eyes are quite something, I'll tell you what.

The state of sci-fi nowadays is a great enigma to me. I'm not sure if it's still doing well or if it's along the same ride of mediocrity that other genres nowadays seem to be on. Then again, I figure it has always been on that ride. Sci-fi can be a very creative genre, but the amount of thought that is needed for a project is usually difficult. You never know if you need more time or less, and because of that, it becomes more of a toss-up whether it'll work or not. Still, in the wave of sci-fi, certain oysters will wash ashore and bring forth the great pearls to admire and take note of. Blade Runner is most befitting to this, as it works not only as a sci-fi movie, but as a film noir as well. And, strangely enough, both of them need each other for this to be considered one of the best films out there, period. 

Without the sci-fi aspect, the film's ambiguity isn't set up right, which in turn makes the grey area seem less like an interesting aesthetic and more a display of sloppy writing. Without the noir aspect, the film would be a generic action film with a few nifty set-pieces thrown in for fun. They're so essential to helping each other out, that it manages to lay out elements for other films that want to combine the two genres and make a great film to boot. It's also very heart-warming despite it's gritty tones, and oddly enough, it doesn't come off as weird. The soundtrack and characters give way to show that there might be something beyond the mess that is the city. It's made stronger that the characters who give more way to that warmth are robots since the actors' performances are able to demonstrate the conflict of impulse vs reason that humans face while also showing that they are pieces of technology at their core. It's also the obvious ironic factor, but I believe the way the performance is pulled also helps it. Blade Runner is simply something someone has to see, because it really reflects how the world can be at times. A place filled with nonsense that occasionally comes by and touches you, whether you want it to or not. 

Paprika (I Don't Have A Witty Remark, I Was Too Busy Admiring The Animation)

All that we're missing here is a giant octopus, marshmellow people and a Miku-faced pizza.

It's perhaps an obvious reason nowadays as to why I was interested in Paprika. I heard someone compare it to Inception and I had to see why the two would be in the same sentence together. After watching Paprika, I feel that the best way to describe the two is that they're same brand of car, but they're going different routes. While they involve entering other people's dreams, creative action sequences and a plot that is seemingly confusing but actually a lot more basic, they take the concepts to different places. Inception focused more on implanting an idea into someone's head and centers around the issue the main character has which tampers with their mission. Paprika, instead, focuses more on the minds of various characters and delves into the idea of dreams reflecting our inner thoughts. Even though I've pointed out basic differences and could go into greater detail into why these two are sort of like apples and oranges to one another, if I had to recommend one of them over the other, I'd have to say that Paprika is the better film. It just took more advantage of it's concept. 

For every issue I had with Inception, Paprika had it figured out. Inception never really felt like it was a dream. It was sort of basic in its surrealism. I imagine that there was probably more in store but budget wouldn't allow it, but I still feel like there were ways they could have made it more dream-like. It may be cheating to say that Paprika did better in this front by allowing the imagination of the creators flow better since it's animation, but damn it, it did feel like I was in someone's dream! Inception tries to trick you into thinking there's a lot more going on when there isn't. I wouldn't mind that if the movie is good (which it is to some degree), but with the hype this movie gets for being "deep", especially at the time that I watched it, this has become a lot more of an annoyance. The weird thing about that is that I think I mixed up the way I was supposed to approach these movies. Inception was supposed to be the one I just had mindless fun with and Paprika was the one that I had to think more about. It may not be a lot, but Paprika has enough set-pieces and pieces of dialogue that make you think beyond all the pretty colors. You're still having a lot of fun while you're on the ride, but a while later, you'll think back to a previous scene and wonder what hidden symbolism lied there. It's basically the film version of a Sudoku. Simple at first, thought-provoking later on, enjoyable all around. 

Ghostbusters (Bill Murray Can Do No Wrong)

"You know what we're missing? A cool black guy."

I find it a bit weird that I'm talking about Ghostbusters around this time. It's not that it makes me feel old, it's just that the new year doesn't seem to go hand in hand with the comedic hijinks of a couple of paranormal investigators. It seems kind of futile to talk about Ghostbusters since everyone's watched it and given their own reasons to like it via the quotes. Really, there isn't much I can't say that is both positive and unique about the film. The Ghostbusters themselves are really hilarious, the effects are simply stunning, the comedy is spot-on and it's an all around fun ride. I could just finish with this, but somehow I feel like I can't. It's not because I feel obliged to regurgitate more of the praise that this film got. Rather, I feel like after I watched the movie, something seemed missing. I feel that, by watching this movie at an older age, I lose that experience I used to have with other movies. As funny as it is, a nostalgia factor greatly enhances an experience, both in positive ways and negative ones. The experience of seeing something that you liked before still being good is a great feeling, and it's made even better when there are jokes that you now understand and giggle at. By no means does that change my thoughts on the film, but I feel like it would have been nice to have had that with Ghostbusters. Maybe if I wait 20 years, I just might. 

Lost In Translation (Or "How Can I Hate A Movie That Starts With Scarlett Johansson's Ass?")

Hey, it could be worse...you could be in North Korea.

Whenever I think to myself, "what's a movie that I was disappointed by?", it takes me a while to come up with something. Even then, it feels like I'm not being true to myself. "Yeah, I didn't like this film," I think out-loud because I forgot that I can do that in my head, "but I didn't really come with many expectations so why would I be disappointed?". I suppose I took some bliss in that, feeling that I knew when a movie would suck or not building myself enough for a lackluster payoff. And along with that, I think some otherworldly force got tired of my inner smugness in this factor and threw in Lost In Translation to make me understand that feeling. I didn't want to hate this, because I love the two main actors and I love the cinematography. The setting seemed to work really well and the concept, while simple, is able to work. The harder I tried, the more faults I saw. Even though I loved the shots, they would drag on. While I don't try to get so pent up over long shots because of how that's supposed to create "atmosphere", it just felt like they hammered in that we're in a country where the two main characters find themselves unable to understand anything. 

While we're on the subject of things I love, why did they reduce Scarlett Johansson's dialogue to mostly giggling? It cheapens her role as a young character who's finding herself in a grey part of life. It shouldn't distract me, but it just took me out of the depth she had when she kept chuckling. Still, when I could put that aside, she did play the role quite well, and her chemistry with Bill Murray is...erm...FUCK! Alright, so I found the chemistry between her and Murray to be awkward...as a viewer. For a while I thought to myself, "Maybe they're trying to trick us with our initial perceptions of their relationship and instead having them end up like a father and a daughter." It makes sense, they seem so close to each other by the get go, she has little issue going out with him, she finds him to be a person of comfort and he pretty much cracks jokes in the same vein a silly dad would. That is until there's a few things that indicate that their relationship is meant to be more straight. So unless this film is written by an incest enthusiast, then they screwed up. 

The romantic conflicts the characters face also cause problems because you don't feel the conflict. In a work that involves a character already married being with another character who they've taken fancy to, a cornerstone of making it good is creating the tension in the character to go with this new character or stay to their old flame. With Scarlett Johansson's husband, the love is phoned in, while with Bill Murray's wife, you're surprised they haven't divorced yet. Both of their significant others remind me of Inez in Midnight In Paris, in that there is not only disinterest in the partner, but also greater interest in something that causes them to further distance themselves from their partner. Where as Midnight In Paris gave me a romantic environment, a role that Owen Wilson was not only good at but even had some depth to, Lost In Translation only gives me two great actors who's performances are damaged by the writing, editing and overall directors. Trust me, I wanted to love this movie with all my heart, but I can't bring myself to it.

The New Year's Resolution For This Blog

So we begin with a new year and I gotta say, that's good because I need to have something that can refresh this whole damn thing. See, I know that I haven't been able to make as many blogs as I wanted to in the year. I also know that there's things that you guys are in the dark about. And by you guys I mostly mean Dark Side because I think he's the only dedicated reader of the crap that I post here. So why do I lay out the program better now that the year has started.

First, a re-introduction. I'm DryChris. Amateur VA, actor, dice collector, writer, etc. I run this blog by myself I just post the things that I can, when I can. Lately I've been more active in places like Twitter (@GameJudgeTPS) and Tumblr (The Desk Of DryChris), though I also write for Teh Pwn Shop (http://www.tehpwnshop.com/) and I have a Wattpad (http://www.wattpad.com/user/TheDamnedNinja) for more creative works . I used to write for a site called Screwattack, but then I faded out of there, and I guess that came at the cost of alienating myself from a lot of cool folks who I used to write with. Then again, I did a shit job of really communicating with other people since I seemed to jump from site to site, making whatever acquiantances I could and getting swept up in thoughts, sites, and all other kinds of shit. I mainly did that because I much rather write in a better environment, and one that wasn't too limited. Screwattack was a gaming site, and I didn't always write about games. They had their successes, sure, but it felt better to make my own blog, hence this is why this is here. I don't really know my audience, and I'd certainly like to know who else is reading instead of guessing, but what can I do?

I forgot to mention that I fuck around Photoshop. A lot.

This blog has a very few amount of entries, I'm aware of that. Last year was the most active and even then it was just by one extra. Among those entries are things I'm proud of, and other things that I'm not. Hell, there's a few of those posts that were also posted on TPS, Screwattack, and Destructoid (along with another site). So for the most part this is kind of a collection of my writing work with the rare blog that is simply intended for this one and this one only. Among those posts is my most viewed blog entry which seems to be this one because I guess I struck a cord with other film noir enthusiasts.

I can talk more about the blog's history, but I want to get down to brass tacks and talk about its future. See, something that peeves me in general is that I have a lot in my mind, but it doesn't show at times that I do. Obviously it's because I have real life to attend to, but it's also a combination of procrastination, crashing from putting too much in my mind and most of all, motivation. Now I know I can't get it by begging people to look at my work, that shit doesn't fly. What I can do is maybe set a little goal of my own for the new year. And that goal is this.

By the end of 2014, I will have made a minimum of 52 blogs that are either reviews, interviews or miscellaneous pieces that delve into some topic.

That should be about one for each week of the year. It's certainly nothing as groundbreaking as the amount of blogs posted by a single person in other venues, but keep in mind that I've got life to deal with. That and I might have a story idea that goes to Wattpad. Or if the stars allign properly, I might have a video that goes to my Youtube channel (GameJudge). I'd rather try to aim for that minimum than try to go any more overboard. Also, some of the new ones might be on TPS and somewhere else, which might make this cheating, but I consider it "getting my work out there." As for length, I'll just try to make it a decent length so that it counts, but if I post something short, I won't count it. That will at least be good enough to keep this place relevant. This one doesn't count at all, of course, unless I make the limit 53 and say that I have 52 left. Some months you might get more posts, some you might get less, maybe you might not get anything at all. But my goal is simply to hit 52, not do one each week.

I don't know about the far future, but here's what you can expect sometime soon:

• A quick little blurb about movies I've seen recently
• A long overdue entry
• A two-parter list (which I'll count as one blog)
• A topic piece

That's all I got for now, so happy new year to you all and I hope you enjoy yourself! If you want to say anything to me, feel free to do it on my Twitter, Tumblr or even here. I'd love to hear anything that you feel about this. 

I certainly will need it.

Top 6 Albums Of 2013

2013 was certainly a weird year for me in terms of music. More and more I grew distant from the more "mainstream" crowd, but I didn't necessarily sink into the Bandcamp scene as well as I probably should have in the year. To be fair, I've mostly stuck around Breakbit, since it is my favorite place to go to for music. Even then, I suppose I don't truly represent what other Breakbit fans enjoy, so this list doesn't really represent a certain category of music enthuthiasts. No, rather, this list is simply what I enjoyed listening to the most from what I could get in the year. Without further ado, here's my picks in no particular order.

DR777's REAL

DR777 has constantly proved himself to be the most idiosyncratic among the most bizarre and experimental electronic music makers, and REAL is no exception. Here, he has managed to strengthen his sound, which is a weird combination of gritty hip-hop beats combined with relaxing sources. All the music sounds like they've been jolted with extra energy, as it progresses with a great sense of rhythm and style. You feel yourself moving to and fro' with each song, particularly the ones that have a calm opening. His choice of sources and the way he mangles with them is still as unique as ever, especially in songs like Real, Drop and Son. They just ooze with that feeling of being caught between having a good time and finding yourself stuck in a dream that's being controlled by someone else. This is probably the best album out there for people who want a YTP experience without those pesky visuals.

Vaervaf's Legshells

If there is one thing that I know for certain about Vaervaf is that he is nothing like I've ever seen before. His music certainly reflects that since it defies any sort of structure that one would expect from music. To say that Vaervaf is a Dadaist musician would both be accurate and completely crazy. For one, I'm not sure if one can really take his work so seriously to call it a subversion of standard music. And two, his music is not filled with hate against the medium. Rather, it is something that resembles a cult, lulling you into a sense of comfort, but also reaching itself under your skin. It is filled with love, but it's the kind of love that a victim gets for their captor once they've been with them for so long. The songs have an ability to possess you with it's violent glitch-like noises and it's soothing breaks that slowly slip into a cacophany of utter confusion. Also, the vocals just add to the cryptic nature that makes this such a fascinating listen. This album is simply a great example of the dissonance one feels when they see a work that makes no sense at all, yet manage to understand it with a great sense of depth.

Glue70's Points Of Interest

As I've said before, I owe a lot to glue70 when it comes to my tastes of music. What I failed to mention was that I also owe him a great deal of thanks for being something that I can look to when I feel as though I've lost faith in music. Points Of Interest shows me just how much passion can go into a single album, and just how much love a person can have for their craft. You can sense it in songs like Casin, Highway Broken and Quiet Mary Talking as they flow by with pinpoint accuracy. They simply sound like glue70 took his time to put all the pieces together properly. It's magnificent how he manages to combine older techniques with a newer flow, creating his own take on retro electronic music. The best part about this album is its simplicity. It's not trying to do anything extremely complicated, it is simply a well-made work that one can sit back and enjoy. With that, it succeeds because it doesn't distract itself and it strives to do its damn best to achieve its goal.

Eddache's Only Man

Now, this is an artist that I'm not really aware of...well not as much the previous three. I didn't really know what to think of this album considering Eddache's other works. On the one hand, it had promise since Bioshock is brimming with atmosphere. On the other, Eddache's mostly been associated with a more "upbeat" sort of attitude, especially considering what he works on. With that said, this album really does a great deal of justice to the game. He picks the right audio clips and the right times to play them, setting the mood properly. Masterpiece for example, shows the broken mind of Sander Cohen as well as his elaborate showmanship. The Bloody King is another great one, as it perfectly sums up the tour de force that is Andrew Ryan. The manipulation of the music is simply sublime, not only accentuating the emotions but also being able to create something of his own. Like glue70, it's a very basic concept, but the execution is done so well, it's a treat to hear.

chris†††'s frasierwave / Saint Pepsi's WORLD TOUR

Frasierwave and WORLD TOUR are a great summary of how my musical tastes were in 2013. That is to say, this was the year that I caught onto this movement called "vaporwave". I don't know why I got to this so late, but I'm glad it's still trucking through. It was incredibly hard to pick one or the other, so I decided to pick both of them because they captured different sides of the movement really well. I got into frasierwave earlier in the year, and I absolutely enjoyed chris†††'s style of glitchy edits and how he created an unreal setting with sources using such simple moves. It felt like there was something beyond the twisting of the music, something hidden, but I was too overwhelmed with the thoughts that came up that I ended up frozen, simply taking the work as if it were some elaborate painting. It really did feel like I was sitting in a nice, well-furbished psychologist's office with schizophrenia as the radio crooned by, with the development of the sound mirroring the analysis of one's psyche. Where frasierwave was more artistic, WORLD TOUR was able to feel more...I guess "mainstream". That is to say that it was more fitting to have this play for a crowd. SAINT PEPSI is able to make the elements of vaporwave work really well in a dance setting. Sometimes it feels like it's a new type of disco, since he's able to make the song bounce with the same groove. Other times, the slow and dragged out feeling of the music makes it play out like a modern slow dance. Both of them are two wonderful albums from two wonderful artists, and I thank them for introducing me to vaporwave.

An Interview With Jacob D. Seslek By Andrew Nonimus

(Artist's rendition of a man who looks similar to Jacob D. Seslek)

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. I am here today to talk to you about one of literary's greatest belated underground achievements. As you are aware about, Jacob D. Seslek was rushed to the hospital after having a heart-attack and died shortly afterwards. Seslek was known for having tenacity in the writing world, having 15 novels under his belt along with 20 collections of short shories, ranging from 15 to 30 per collection. His topics were usually varied such as his science-fiction western piece Forty Soldiers In Saturn, his satirical horror short series Cthulhu In Congress and his steampunk quantum picaresque antinovel Ticking Sideways In Paris. Since then, his most recent book The Man Who Shot Himself Backwards has been receiving countless accolades, being named "a new modern classic", and is currently being created into a movie starring Nicholas Kim Coppola as the lead protagonist. After reading over his acclaimed masterpiece for the seventh time, I remembered that I had met with the man for an interview. In fact, I was one of the only few, if not the only interviewer that managed to talk to him before he passed away. For your consideration, I give you an interview with Jacob D. Seslek.

Thank you for being able to talk to me on such short notice.

Huh? Who the hell are you?

I'm here to interview you, Mr. Seslek.

What, right here? Don't you think that's a bit stupid?

Now, now, I'm the one who supposed to be asking you the questions.

I get that, but can't this wait?

I feel that it would be better for the both of us if we did it right now.

Ugh, fine. Waiter, get my friend here the cheapest thing on the menu and a glass of tap water.

You sure know how to treat your guests.

You're lucky that I could even afford that, buster.

So, please tell me a little about yourself.

Well, alright. I was born in Oxnard, California on August 2, 1966.

Ah, you have the same date as James Baldwin and the year of J. J Abrams. Interesting how both seem to have some influence in your work.

I don't know much about either one of them, but okay. I grew up in a suburb, knew a lot of the people around the area. My best friends were Roderigo and Jerome, we played a lot of basketball and eventually played a little bit of NES when we were older. I had a few girlfriends in high school but nothing really stable. My parents were your typical sort, you know, kind but a pain in the ass when they needed to be. My old man would sometimes be a bit more of a pain, but without him I wouldn't be where I am now.

Fascinating. Did your father's abuse factor into when you wrote about the first boss of the protagonist in The Man Who Shot Himself Backwards who would belittle him but eventually give him a substantial paycheck at the end of each week?

Not really, but now that you mention it, I guess so. There's not much else to that piece of sh-

What about when you spoke about the challenges that races had to face with breaking through society's stigmas, particularly with the friends of the protagonist struggling so hard to achieve their goals?

My friends just had a little trouble with their goals. Roderigo really wanted to get good grades, and Jerome wanted to work with the community. I don't see what so crazy about that.

How about the impact that one of the love interests has on the protagonist, sending him into a spiral of excessive consumerism when he ultimately fails to be with her? I particularly liked the line "he felt as if all that was left was a hollow chamber filled with cold pieces that shattered when he held onto them" before he descends into madness.

Uh...you mean when he had to restock his fridge after he broke up with her? I was just talking about ice in that scene.

When did you start writing?

I was doing that since I was in 9th grade. I really grew to be fascinated by all those authors, from Bradbury to Fitzgerald, so I went along with it. Sure as hell was better than anything else that I had in mind...at least that's what I like to thin-

Is that the reason that The Man Who Shot Himself Backwards came to be, as a statement of resentment over a corporate position?

What? No! Having a desk job is aw-

Awful, I know. It's so powerful how you portray such a message, particularly with the protagonist waking up in a bed soaked by whiskey, turning the alarm away as he catches a faint reflection of what he's become.

You...you do know that he was hosting a party and someone spilled it on there? Plus, anyone waking up after such a crazy night isn't gonna have fun listening to that alarm.

Then how do you explain the reflection?

Someone drew dicks on his face, that's not something you want to stare at.

Wasn't that supposed to signify his possible bisexual nature?

How in the world did you come up with such a conclusion?!

The way the protagonist talks to his African-American friend alludes to this a lot

He saves the guy's life! Maybe it's a bit too much, but you treat the guy that does this with a shitload of respect. There is nothing else to it!

Isn't that counter-intuitive to your progressive message of the inclusion of the world and breaking away from the norm? Or were you using such an approach to deliver an inverted message as biting satire?

Oh god, the fucking book is just about a guy who has a few bad days working at a cubicle! We all have shitty work weeks!

Why do you hold such an aggressive attitude with the public?

Are you being serious right now? You think I'm fucking J.D Salinger here?

Well, clearly you must have it if you're treating me with such scorn.

I'm treating you with such scorn because you're wasting my time about a book I wrote so I could pay my goddamn rent. I spent two, maybe three weeks shitting this out, whilst the rest of my work ends up in the back of libraries. Where's any discussion about Silent Segregations,  a book dealing with urban racism? How about a little praise for the stories in Clutter In Blotters where I spent months making sense of trips I had on LSD. Or about The Fist With An Eye, the epic where people are stuck in modern retellings of Mayan myths? Do you know how much fucking research I had to connect Xbalanque to a man who watches CCTV? No, of course not. But you know what, I wouldn't mind that so much if you at least got what The Man Who Shot Himself Backwards was really about.

You mean to tell me that there is an alternate interpretation of a story you wrote?

Goddamn it, it was about striving forward, even if shit looks bad. At first I called the book that because it was cool, but then when I wrote the end, it made sense. Instead of the gun killing him, it just threw him back to the wall. And when he is knocked back, he sees his tie and sighs, looking to the ceiling, realizing that eventually it would be all right. Sure, his acts almost got him fired, but he still had good times and he recognizes that.

I thought that scene was him finding how inevitable it was for him to escape a career he hated and having to eventually march for-

Shut up! Look, I don't know why you came here, but I hope that neither you nor The Man Who Shot Himself Backwards become household names.

(This interview was conducted by the Pulitzer-Prize winning literary critic, Andrew Nonimus)

Breaking The Bits - Bye-Product And His Bi-Product

Hello and welcome once again to another Breaking The Bits, a very poorly maintained series of blogs talking about my favorite independent label. Today, I've decided to talk about an artist that I've grown to enjoy from Breakbit. That being Bye-Product. Bye-Product is another interesting character. I happened to know about Bye-Product by his EP, Biohazard. It was a relatively nice EP, it had a very alien feeling to it that I've now begun to admire and expect from musicians. I particularly found myself enjoying The World Is A Dark Sea not only for it's poetic title but for its poetic feeling. The song embodied the title perfectly and it really makes me happy to see a song that fits its title so tightly like that. I'll admit that I didn't think much else of him, not because I didn't like his work, but because other artists grabbed my interest and I hadn't seen much else of him at the site, save from his guest appearances on other albums. Then I decided to search him again and found that there was a lot more that he was willing to offer on his Bandcamp. It's also interesting to note that I found out that he actually has a lot of aliases, in fact Bye-Product isn't his main alias. As much as I enjoy his work, there was one in particular that really got my attention. Before I get to that, let's talk a little more about his music.

Now, like many artists on Breakbit, Bye-Product has the ability to make experimentation seem entertaining as the different choices and styles really add into the bizarre nature that draws me in as a listener. Each of these artists, I feel takes their experimentation in a different path of expression. mrSimon and glue70, for example, goes about experimentation as trying to combine the old with the new whilst being his own, with mrSimon leaning more on the nostalgic side where as glue70 goes for the new age approach. Orangy and Vaervaf care more about their own path and define themselves idiosyncratically with Orangy breaking the barriers between genres and Vaervaf destroying genres in general. Whilst each of these artists have the tendency to dip in with ideas that others put forward, they still maintain their image. That's all fine and dandy, but where exactly does this manage to relate to Bye-Product? Bye-Product, I believe, is sort of the man that tries it all and goes with his own path, still unsure of what holds forward to him. When you hear his music, you know there's something going for it, but it's a journey for both of them. It takes bits of what his world has and allows him to create something else out of it, much like how an artist should. The way he does it though it what makes him stand out.

The Chapter Albums (2011)

The Chapter Albums consist of three entries, Life, Death and Love, specifically in that order. All the subjects that are in the titles share the fact that they are very expansive material and widely talked about among others. Each cover shows an object that is covered completely by darkness, with Life being a man in a cap under two spotlights, Death being an out of focus full moon probably hidden behind something made of glass and Love having a disco ball covered with blue lights. I do like that feel, it adds a lot more mystery to the albums themselves and connects them all in a clever way. If I may go a bit farther with this, I think it represents how we seem to always be aware of these aspects in our minds but that in the grand scheme of it all, it's completely surrounded by ambiguity and is never given the proper answer. I find it perplexing that Death wouldn't be the end, but rather Love. I suppose it's to purposeful break the usual order or perhaps that Bye-Product just had them in that order arbitrarily.

Life is a very unfocused album in the sense that you wouldn't really think it's that tied to the subject matter. Each song seems to encompass something different than the last. You first have Fade In, which is just a drum solo edited weirdly and then it goes to Just Run Away From Here, which is aptly fitting because it sounds like a song you would play as you're running away. Then you have Nite Ride which is more softer, but then it moves to Accidents which is more trippy and somewhat unsettling in a good way instead of Bruse which seems more fitting to follow Nite Ride. I'm not sure what I can say about And An Era Ended, it's not sounding like the title and it's not evoking any real emotion. It does sound well though. It concludes with Cry Out Memories which is a fitting ending, since it leaves you puzzled but also intrigued. In fact, that's how the album can be described. Oddly, it's quite fitting to what life is. Confusing, but interesting.

Death is a little more structured, as most of the songs are tie-in more into what death can be. Underground, for example, sounds like the last bit before it all ends, which is odd since it's the beginning, but the end song Heart Falure echoes the same emotions only a lot more powerfully and somewhat subversive. Heart Falure sounds as if it's it's an attempt to bring Life back in, with the sounds of a more calmer and beautiful melody seeping in as it progresses until the slowdown indicates that it is staying back to the original theme. Car Accident could also be considered another "moment before death" tune as it shows the frantic energy of someone encountering a terrible death. Died is another track that's worth mentioning to the relation to the title because it seems to almost sound like the reaction that others have with someone dying, questioning fate in general. The other songs like Eighteen, Teenager Hipsters Like Me, Stab In The Dark don't really seem to make that much sense relating to the title. All sound good, each holding some sort of catchy beat that later gets altered, but none really take in the title. I could maybe argue the case for Teenager Hipsters Like Me perhaps mirroring the feel of how people think about the afterlife with it at first seeming like a clear answer but then turning into a barrage of unclear noise, but the rest not so much. It's still a solid album.

Love is a great conclusion because it does embody it's title very well with each entry. Warmth and Love Box have the tenderness of love down to a tee, Hot Jaz and Lush Lips get the friendly nature that helps in a relationship, Paranoid Love and Do The Right Thing capture the feeling of the thoughts that go by the minds of those who are in love and Sexual Favor is a somewhat psychedelic tune relating to the art of making love. Each song has it's own way of being soft and pleasant, leaving a nice feeling as you go through each track. It has it's moments of mood-breaking, particularly with Paranoid Love and Do The Right Thing, but it's nothing too striking. It's funny that this album isn't as vague with the motions as the other two, but perhaps it draws from a more simplistic, idealistic view of love. Yet, that approach makes the album work and sound organic.

Religion (2011)

Much like Life, Religion is somewhat unfocused, but unlike Life, Religion has a lot more songs and doesn't completely let the shift in mood from it's tracks detract from the title of the album. There are a good amount that fit with the title of religion particularly Feild Trip to Heven, πano, Raptured, WHAT'S THE GOOD WORD, Good Lord, Demonic Possession and Call Me Jesus (both this one and (George's [of The Brother's In Shit] "I KNEW JESUS BEFORE HE WENT MAINSTREAM" Mix) in particular). Those are the ones that usually capture more of the spirit of religious music, with epic choruses or somber samples encompassing the music. Mostly throughout the album, there is heavy reference to Christianity (though there is also a mix of others done with more subtlety), and judging by the hidden track, most of the music is meant as sort of a jab towards religion. It's hard to say whether it's done in good fun, or done with some other intent, perhaps to denounce it.

On the one hand, it's tossed around as if it's nothing and manages to be unfitting to titles like Sex Drugs and Allah which sounds more like a experimental mix and Jesus Is Pretty Gangster not really taking in either the Jesus part or the gangster part. Hell, there's just random songs like Bruce Springsteen (which sounds like harmonica lounge music) and Dubstep Shit that don't really have anything to do with the subject. At the same time, the songs sound like they're taking in the ideas of religious music and adapting it to a more modern setting, whilst at the same time, changing it with other techniques. It could also be that it's more of a deconstruction considering the aggressive tone of some of the songs, but it's hard to say for sure. It does feel like it's asking a lot of questions towards it, whatever those are I'm not certain of. It's got a lot of remixes in it too, which are done pretty well and generally speaking it's a memorable album.

Star (2012)

Star is much like Love in that there is a better focus based on the title. According to the info that is on the Bandcamp to this album, it is basically a compilation of different artists's and mashed together in a new and incomprehensible manner. So it's safe to say that the reason that it's called Star is because the songs that it samples are from very famous musicians rather than go with something a little more abstractly conceptual like his other works. There isn't really much else to dig deep into with this album in terms of  "meaning", and that's fine. What it does, it does well, and that's rearranging bits and pieces of other songs into something new and catchy. My favorites are Awards Lost, George Clooney and Blockbuster with each of them having a good sense of the energy that the want to channel and flowing well. It's decent enough and I think it would be a good album to start with if you want to get into his work.

chris††† (2013)

Now, there is a lot more of Bye-Product I can talk about. Gil, Dad's Camera, '98, .GIF, stab something, Cordless Soul Machine, and I'm sure there's some other stuff I missed. But I want to focus on chris††† because it was the one that made me enjoy Bye-Product's work the most. It is quite possibly some of the best surrealism music that I've heard, because it just manages to take similar sounds and tamper with them so majestically. It shows how strong Bye-Product's experimentation can go because it creates that atmosphere where you are not to expect anything and simply take in the mood. Every song really feels like a developed story that takes you somewhere and you don't know where that exactly is. Songs like blind lie, LUV and ビジネスウィーク sound like they might have a point, but you never try to focus where or not it means something more of if there really is a point, you just enjoy how the broken/altered record sound that resonates in the music takes you over. The addition of the album covers and the weird titles makes the music that much more cryptic. There may be some sort of a key that could reveal more of what it all means, it sure is framed in such a manner that it makes it seem as though something is greater at play, but you as the listener will never know for sure. It is the perfect representation of what Bye-Product is all about, an artist who embodies the confusing beauty and the hectic complexity of what our world is all about.

Let's Talk About The Animation/Live-Action Crossover

I'm going on record on here to tell you that my absolute favorite movie in the whole wide world is Who Framed Roger Rabbit. It may not be the very best film and it may be partly due to nostalgia clouding my judgment, but I still think that it holds a close place in my being as both a person and as a "creator". Whilst I would love to enjoy gushing about the movie as a whole, I would instead like to gush to you about what the movie is categorized to be, an animation/live-action crossover. What Who Framed Roger Rabbit managed to do was turn a simple special effect gimmick into a selling point for a story.  Back then, when you thought that cartoons and people were going to be in the same place, all you could think of was some Disney schmultz (ironic that I say that) or Gene Kelly in a sailor suit dancing with Jerry. It was never thought to be anything more than that. Who Framed Roger Rabbit put forward a concept of putting the skill of the brush with the skill of the flesh together as one whole structure and trying to cement concepts from both worlds so that they could gel together in a narrative instead of leaving to simple suspension of disbelief. That's not to say that the two being more mixed together wasn't happening back then. If one recounts The Three Caballeros, Donald Duck and two other feathered friends go about with more realistic fellows and senoritas. While I do find myself liking the movie, it wasn't done right. You knew that when you saw the drawings with the live-action, it didn't feel like the two were truly in sync. The premise didn't help since it wasn't very cemented and focused more on silly visuals.

Now it is true that the last bit does apply partially to Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but it had a point to why it did what it did. What made it so great wasn't that it was doing something new with such a combination but that it was doing something new with the way that they combined the live-action with the animation. The animation along with the live-action served to build up an atmosphere rather that one or the other being some sort of way to transition or serve as an effect. In the world, the animated characters which they call toons are considered actors and work on cartoons which is basically their movie/TV deals. Right there you see a role that is given to the animated portions and how it relates with the rest of the world around them. It also gives a sort of indication as to what the animated characters are capable as it gives you insight on how they function in the world. They're basically indestructible (which is why they're great for the slapstick) but when presented to a mixture of paint thinners and removers, they can be killed. In a very subtle way, they're giving the animation a biology to it and they indicate why it's there. The realism of how the toons were in the world certainly helped to drive this further as it shows that the animation is rooted in the story rather than a simple set piece. That sort of an animation/live-action crossover is brilliant and leads to an ample amount of possibilities. The problem? Well, it hasn't been that explored. 

Why could it be? Is it because of cost and tools? Well, if I believe that James Cameron can make Avatar (which is a CGI pseudo-version of the concept) with the amount of money that he did, I don't doubt that there is a possibility that the cost could maybe be overlooked. It's more within the interest of others in the concept. Sure, it could be an affordable venture to make the film, but is it going to get its money back? Most likely not. Only people interested in this sort of thing are losers like me. CGI animation, if it wanted to, could work as an animated/live-action crossover, but it's more used to add details or make things fly out without having to pay for the thing and the explosives to make it fly out (remember, you want to make your money back and more for a profit). So if say we wanted more traditional animation, then we might as well just shoot ourselves now. Not many people are thinking that the venture is worth it since people are forgetting now what that means. That's not to say there isn't a market for it, but it's very limited. With CGI though, we could have it looking more traditional and Flash also serves to be closer to that department. Both pose some problems, but it is capable to make the effect and make it work. Either way, there needs to be interest and it seems like there isn't. I can't say why, maybe it's the scarcity of seeing something rooted with the label of "animation/live-action crossover". It could also be of the troubles that two particular films made to the idea.

The first one is the R-rated wreck of Cool World. As much as I don't like this movie, the one thing that I'll give it credit for is adultizing cartoons. Ralph Bakshi being able to add more grit into animated movies is something that is to be respected considering every single flick that happens to be animated always falls into the "family-friendly" category. It did also have some interesting concepts, even if they sound stupid, such as a toon (or in the context of the movie, a doodle) having sex with a human and what would that bring as well as the extension of an artist's imagination when he/she sees it fully realized. The problem that was faced as with most bombs of Bakshi is that it was a very forced and clumsily handled insertion of the adult material. The logic that came from the world was not centered well enough and when animation would appear it was more so distracting in either its use or consistency. Now I don't mind that you don't fully see the potential of the effect realized in this movie as you did in WFRR, but the reasoning behind it wasn't clear and it failed to work. And I understand that cartoons don't need to make sense, but if you're going to mature the medium (even if it is a more exploitative way), you have to add more details to it or give more indication that there's no rules instead of staying in this bizarre middle-ground. As such, this movie not only gave the concept a bad name, but also gave the idea of maturing cartoons for the big screen a very slim chance. 

It's not to say it killed the idea dead in the water. When WB had to revamp one of their greatest franchises they figured why not add that guy from the Mummy, Dharma from Dharma and Greg and that guy who'd go on to remake the Pink Panther into the mix? That would go on to be Looney Tunes: Back In Action. I know that there was another WB revamp that involved those wacky toons meeting humans, but I don't speak of Space Jam here. Why? Well, Space Jam, while a fun movie, was terrible and centered more on a gimmick rather than being a satire. Looney Tunes: Back In Action was more of the opposite, basically mocking spy films, sci-fi and the Looney Tunes themselves. It also managed to have similar effects to WFRR, allowing for greater comedy to flow from it. If there was any film that could be considered as the follow up to the best animated/live-action crossover, it'd have to be this one. So...with that said...why did it flop? Was it competition? Well I guess, The Matrix Revolutions and Elf is a tough cookie to beat. But I think the greater issue came less with the idea and more with the presentation. The voice actors behind the toons did fine, the animation did fine, but the live-action portion seemed lukewarm. I'm not just saying that to rip on Brendan...well I kind of am, but even a guy as animated as Steve Martin didn't seem to be at his all when doing the film. That and I guess maybe it could have gone further. Less cultural references and more mocking of the genres would have worked for its benefit. If it doesn't manage to make it's money back, there's not much chance that Hollywood will do the same...

With both of these films being able to bring something to the table by one being more adult and another one using the animation to aid with parody, what they seem to have lacked is a better presentation and dedication. Don't get me wrong, the people that were working on both films seemed to have put a substantial amount of effort into the work. Or at the very least the animators did. The writers, actors and directors (to an extent) perhaps could have used more effort by structuring the worlds better. It really requires more attention to detail than one would think when you mix the two. Sure, it's easy to have something animated be superimposed on something real, but for it to have a point and a purpose takes time. WFRR knew that and tried to clean up the details as best as it could and keep consistent with what occurred in the world. It didn't side-track itself too much with the zany effects, it rather conserved that for when it was necessary for a joke or building the environment. Cool World did it in a drive-by manner and while in some cases that works, it doesn't help when you do it all the time. If you do that, you might as well make a mindless cartoon. Instead of simply spitting out references, it allowed for the references to be more built into the narrative. It also managed to satirize better by building both the parts that it could subvert for humor but maintain for drama and atmosphere. It might have been hard for Looney Tunes to do that, but What's Opera, Doc? managed to do that. If there isn't that sort of attention provided to the film, it loses the chance to be something truly great, and in this sort of genre, truly great is the minimum to break even. 

To fix this from an industrial standpoint obviously requires people to care both from the viewing aspect to the creating aspect. Real passion and energy helps to make this work. Even if people are that dedicated, it wouldn't hurt too much to find ways to cut costs. I'm not sure how that would work out, would it mean there's less action so that less cash is put towards how to create the effect that the cartoons are there in real life? Would it have to require a cheaper animation tool? Would you just need to hire a few actors? I'm not sure which one to go to, but if you find a way to reduce costs, breaking even becomes less of a stretch. Another way that it could do better is to make it more original. Rather than associate the animation with a famous brand like the Smurfs or Garfield, it should try to be more independent. This rings very true with CGI because a good chunk of those cartoons just look bizarre in 3D. That really seems to be the only major parts that could help it from the technical standpoint. We might have to wait a few years for this to take effect (if anyone was listening to this), and obviously the build-up to this idea will also take time. 

With all of that said, I'd like to tap into concepts that the animation/live-action crossovers could tap into. As stated above, there is the maturing of the animation allowing for the production to be more adult and being able to use animation as an extension of the satire (which also kind of happened with Enchanted, so don't say I didn't bring it up) along with the idea that the animation is a realized version of the imagination of one character. I'd like to tap into the last one because I don't think that Cool World really did what it should have with the concept. Art is a way to convey current emotion and to lose oneselves in their own fictional paradise. It also serves as a gateway to how one's mind works. Having the animation being able to exaggerate the emotions or ideas that the character holds true allows for them to analyze them and see if they are proper. It could also be a way of the character confronting the fears dead on or being absorbed in the madness that is caused by what the animation brings forth. The animation itself could also be more centered around the story. Most animation is considered very childish, goofy and silly, so having the animation try to become more serious with the world or try to bring more of the light-heartedness to a se-oh...well WFRR did it but it could be done in many other ways and lead to many other results. Filling in the details leads to a great amount of possibilities and there's probably more that are in store if one prods further (such as the animation being able to consume the reality of the person, the nature of the animation and the live action pretty much represent the same world in different ways, the animation changing as the world changes, etc.). 

I know that for a fact, very few people that are willing to carry this out into the film industry are going to do so. I'll be surprised/glad if any of them have come across this and actually say something about what I've written here. What I do know is that the idea of mixing animation with live-action can be much more than a gimmick. It has the potential to span out into the territory of great art and can reveal a lot of parts of humanity in a new and interesting light. Who Framed Roger Rabbit was proof of that and while Cool World and Looney Tunes Back In Action had it flaws, it showed that it could carry out those ideas and develop them to something greater. Both animation and live action film making require a lot of creativity, artistry and passion for them to succeed and to see both of them side by side, sharing that energy and putting it to the fullest that it can is something that I want to see again because it's beautiful to see it. It says to the audience that there is something more to the film than merely drawings over film. It says to them that both can make an experience and they can make it well. That one must maintain their imagination and use it in any way it can to help themselves. Maybe I'm just a fool to be overthinking this. Considering that there's such a thing as Smurfs 2...I most likely am. 

How Did Kevin James Get A Career?

Often there are questions in life that can be answered by embarking on a journey. It could be one of one's self, it could be a road trip where you encounter alien women or it could just be surfing the net constantly until the answer pops up by pressing "I'm feeling lucky" on Google. This is sort of all three, because this a question that has challenged many a mind. Sure, many have had difficulty figuring out the meaning of our existence, but their search of spirituality being able to provide meaning whilst also analyzing the known universes' wonders is somewhat pleasant, even if one comes to a grim conclusion. Mainly because it doesn't involve your mind feeling as though it's about to explode with the mere thought of realizing such an idea is plausible let alone delving deeper to understand it. I've worked with many good friends who once they've pondered this question, they've gone without sleep, without food and on the extreme cases, without water, wishing that something would come out and give them a sign that they would be graced with an answer, or at the very least a clue. Some have gone off the deep end, killing others and themselves, turning into twitching trainwrecks and cutting themselves to write messages of help with their own blood so that their adamant obsession with such a riddle will be cured. Nevertheless, I feel like I can take on this task because I have what remains of my fallen comrades and I am desensitized enough to take up such a mind-shattering perplexfest-of-a-question as this one. It won't be easy, but I don't have much of a choice on the matter, because my mind will not cease to dawn on the idea. So I sat down, looked at myself on the reflection of the computer and said:

How did Kevin James get a career?

First, before you go any further, don't repeat the phrase too much. This has been known to lead to spontaneous combustion, so make sure you're near any body of water if you're going to think about it. Even if you don't know who this man is, it's dangerous to say it. Still, I believe that I should inform you about who he is and show you his career growth to showcase why it would be asinine for one to think that he'd have one. Kevin James or as he's originally known as, Kevin George Knipfing, is a New York loveable lummox of a man who started his "career" as a comedian. A stand up comedian no less. Now, as is typical of stand up comedians, you're supposed to stand up in front of an audience and tell jokes to them in the hopes that you hear a wave of laughter coming towards you. That's the sign you're doing something right in the business. With Kevin James, you see some of his act and you think to yourself, "Hmm...I don't really see why I should be laughing". He's not downright grating mind you, at least not yet. As a comedian, he's more like a wannabe Chris Farley, both in the style and appearance, but even that's being a bit generous. Take a look at one of his stand up bits. You see he has a sense of energy resonating with him, but his content seems to be mixed in direction. The delivery feels unfocused and as if he's trying to be someone else. Not only that, but if you listen to the audience, they sound like they're humoring him more than genuinely laughing at his jokes.

If he continued to try in the field and actually grew to be more resonant in the comedy industry, maybe it would have sufficed that he would have what he has now. But he moreso seemed to jump into trying to do something on TV. That something being cameo in a few episodes Everybody Loves Raymond as Kevin and as a "character" named Doug Heffernan. Here we start to see why asking yourself "how did Kevin James get a career" is volatile. See, in the history of sitcoms, there's one that people often consider to be the pinnacle of below-mediocrity, and that is Everybody Loves Raymond. Why? Is it because it uses the age-old "idiot/ugly/fat guy gets smoking hot girl" trope? Is it because the characters are generally unlikeable? Perhaps it's because the only seemingly entertaining actor in the show is sidelined to being a bootlicking ball of envy? Well aside from all of them it's because the show lacks anything funny at all and abused the canned laughter tactic terribly much before the times of Big Bang Theory. It also seemed to kill the careers of the main cast, including the lead character, who decided to sell his soul to Blue Sky Studios so that his mediocrity could be entirely immortalized in ice. To imagine that Kevin James would be in such a production and still be a name that we'd know today is much more than a mere miracle. It's a conspiracy. For you see, instead of his career going nowhere and him perhaps trying to improve his standup to become credibly entertaining, he got a vague spin-off to that show called The King Of Queens. And by vague spinoff I mean that Doug Heffernan was in two episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond and he's apparently the lead in The King Of Queens.

Maybe I'm being harsh here, after all, when one makes the leap from stand up to sitcom, perhaps they do better. Jerry Seinfeld is great in standup, but in his eponymous show, he made comedy gold. Kevin James could possibly offer the same, can't he? I mean, he has Jerry Stiller, one of the actors in the Seinfeld show in his cast. Well, I'm sorry to report that The King Of Queens was nothing more than another "fat-husband-hot-wife" sitcom. I don't use this term to mean that all sitcoms that have a fat husband and an attractive wife turn out to be nothing more than lazy, terrible writing. I wouldn't even go as far to say that most of them do so. As much as it pains me to admit this, According To Jim had its fair share of amusing moments. It's just that there's a select amount of them (oddly enough one of them being According To Jim) that exemplify the terrible aspects of this set-up, and King Of Queens shows it in its most boring and lackluster of ways. Kevin James plays as a manchild for most of the time, and the wife is probably dealing with him more as a child than an actual partner, which makes the feeling of romance very contrived and incredibly wrong. That sliver of the possible comedic appeal he could have had as a stand up is thrown away at the very sight of this show. If his career died after the show, that would have been fine. Yes, he still had a semblance of a career, but it's short lived. There's many short fuse careers in entertainment. Unfortunately, he got into films.

His early career in films is nothing to really glimmer at, but once I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry hit the scene, there was something glaringly wrong about his rising star. In that, it rose alongside Adam Sandler at the time when he started to throw away any semblance of talent he harbored in exchange for killing brain cells and aspiring talents. Kevin James not only became worse with his comedy, but he also stooped down to the levels on Sandler (who by the way, basically ruined the original script of the film with his brand of "humor", so much to the point that one of the writers almost wanted to Alan Smithee his way out of the production). Much to the chagrin of audiences with sensible tastes in entertainment, this actually topped #1 in the box office and got some contrarian critics to call it a modern classic and hold it up to Brokeback Mountain. Yes, a movie with more gay stereotypes than an episode of Will and Grace and a yellowface Rob Schneider is being considered on par with Brokeback Mountain. What's worse is that Kevin James continued to live in films, with the so-so You Don't Mess With The Zohan, the "all-hope-is-lost" Paul Blart: Mall Cop, the homicide of comedy known as Grown Ups and Grown Ups 2, and his magnum opus of Zookeeper, where more of the comedy came out of people doing loops of the trailer instead of the film actually being funny.

So, if we were to look at this sanely, we'd see that his quality throughout his career has been abysmal and it should have been detached a long, long time ago. Yet it still lives, as if some sort of dark magic is keeping it alive. The question that I pose still remains unanswered, how did he get a career? If one considered how his career has maintained itself in the latter years (aka, right now), we'd be privy to say that Sandler is the one that has supported his trainwreck. It's not an absurd conclusion to come up with as Sandler has made maintaining on the entertainment scene by doing nothing but pure garbage seem like a fine art and most of James's "successes" in film do have Sandler sewn in through one means over the other. I don't think that's really what occurring here, because if that's the case, I'd have to believe that all the other imbeciles that were in Grown Ups are under the debt of Sandler as well, and they seem to be fairing fine. Besides, why would Sandler focus his energy on trying to ruin something that was never substantial enough to be ruined? With Dana Carvey, there was a funny beating heart inside of him that he could rip out and swallow. Kevin James has a beating heart, but it doesn't glow with the shine of comedy that is ripe for the massacring. It's more trying desperately to continue working even though it just wants to stop so that it no longer has to deal with the jokes that harbor in his talentless vessel of a body. In which case, what could be the cause of his success?

I recently searched both Kevin and James on Google as I was told to by one of my friends in the nuthouse. As I looked around, I found both names belonged to saints. Not only that, but both these saints were big with the concept of asceticism. Basically this meant that they wouldn't have any sexual activity or drink alcohol as they embark on a quest to find inner peace through spirituality. St. Kevin seemed to be the more radical version of this as in a folk song, he's claimed to have drowned a woman that was coming on to him, although that could just be the Irish trying to make another shanty for a night out at the pub. He was also known to live as a hermit, living amongst nature, sometimes sleeping on rocks and having little to eat, slowly gaining followers. St. James, on the other hand, was called James The Just and was one of the people that saw the risen Christ and was important to the Christians in Jerusalem. At first, this meant absolutely nothing to me, when I associated it to Kevin James. Both of these saints were devout in their religion (as any saint should be), and they have standards. Kevin James is nothing short of the antithesis of this. As I looked, I couldn't find anything else that could connect. I tried to tie Kevin Kline with James James, but there was no way that Otto West in A Fish Called Wanda could have anything to do with the man who wrote the Welsh national anthem. The only one that made the most sense was this connection, and even then, I found myself doubting the correlation.

Weeks went by where the only thing I'd eat was cardboard and invisible steak dinners served by my rabbit friend named Harvey, and I felt that soon I would be joining my friends in the looney bin. It was only until I slept for the first time in 20 days that it came to me in a dream. All I saw was that good-for-nothing hack praying in front of an Indian priest with a ying yang necklace. It was there that it came to me like a ton of bricks, which is pretty much how I felt after I woke up from that dream. As I took two full containers worth of Advil, I saw why Kevin James got lucky and won the lottery of being able to make money with no effort at all and getting a smoking gal to boot. Asceticism relies that a person undergoes certain conditions to achieve enlightenment and be whole in mind, body and soul. This is related to Buddhism and Hinduism. Both of these religions believe in the idea of karma; you do good, you receive good in return. It's very evident that if both did enough to be considered saints, they would obtain some sort of reward in return. Considering that both of these saints had to go through hardships, with Kevin having to overly-minimize his lifestyle and restrain from any sexual desire, and James having to be in charge of the Christians and the council in Jerusalem of all places, it would be expected that their reward should be ultimate enlightenment and standing alongside God to fully soak in the answer to all of the mysteries in the universe. In Hinduism though, the belief is that when one dies, they are reincarnated, and connecting itself with karma, if they do good, they are reincarnated as something better. So therefore their lifestyle that is much less demanding and their rewards are given to them more easily. What more could exemplify that as none other than Kevin James?!

If we truly think about it, his comedy has always been light-hearted and he's always had that sensibility of innocence and purity to him, much like the saints have. Sure, he participates in crass comedies and he's incredibly childish, but in truth, no matter how hate-filled someone makes a hyperbole directed to Kevin James, his bad movies have really never harmed anyone. In its own way, Zookeeper shows the principles of St. Kevin as he befriends the animals that are around him. St. Kevin is also redeemed for his celibacy and fasting by being able to become a glutton and getting it on with Steffiana de la Cruz enough to have three kids. Where does St. James come in to the mix? Well, if you watch Barnyard, you'll find that it shows the story of a cow (voiced by Kevin James, no doubt) eventually accepting responsibility and leading the animals in a barn after his father died. Not only does this sound like it might be Animal Farm for kids mixed with a bit of The Lion King, but it alludes to how St. James eventually became a bishop and gained prominence in the Christian religion. Only in St. James's case, it didn't involve coyotes or actors feeling ashamed after being in such a production. Where as St. James had to work hard to lead people that followed his religion properly and make critical decisions that would either serve him well or doom him forever, Kevin James doesn't have to worry about the implications of his choices as they seem to not have any setbacks to them at all. So the next time you find yourself cursing the name of Kevin James and finding yourself frustrated that he has a career, remember...in his past lives, he was a saint. And they need a reward for all the troubles they've had to endure.