Leave it Alone

I started writing a blog about The Oscars, but I couldn’t bring myself to care about any of the winners all that much. I will say that in a lot of years I would be outraged that The Artist won over something that will ultimately be seen as a far greater movie, since you know…The Artist is all flash, and no substance, but you know… I look at the other movies nominated, and while I really liked The Descendants and Moneyball, it’s pretty difficult to argue that they’re much better than The Artist, so… congratulations Frenchies!

Of course, the Oscars did get me thinking about movies, and the nature of them, and whatnot, and they’ve convinced me to finally write my blog about my current biggest pet peeve in the realm of movie making.

Does anyone remember the absolutely insane fervor of May 1999 when the first Star Wars prequel was released? It was fucking CRAZY. Like… There were articles, and news items, and interviews. Rumor of a new trailer would sell out a theatre for some afternoon show of some horrible March release movie. I remember going to meet my friends for the Midnight show, and sitting in the theatre for hours. People were dressed up. Getting crazy. My friends were asking Star Wars trivia. It  was the first enormous midnight release movie, paving the way for every tween who stays up for days for Twilight.

I remember the lights going down, and the incredible electricity in the air. The palpable anticipation of the start of the movie many of these people had waited 18 years to see. The opening titles started “A long time ago…” and people went insane. It was so loud I remember involuntarily laughing at the whole business. It was like a rock concert.

Every light saber resulted in cheers. Every throwback reference resulted in knowing laughter. Every time we saw a character we’d come to love it was greeted with raucous applause. Every moment was met with baited breath.

When the final credits rolled, the place was like a madhouse. People were cheering and shouting and chanting “Show it again” and before I knew it, there were light saber fights in the aisles and people leaving the theatre and getting in line for the first showing in the morning, and all of the rest. It was a fucking sensation, and I was just as caught up in it as anyone else.

Nobody bothered to tell any of us how incredibly shitty it was.

It wouldn’t have mattered. We were too invested. We were too far down the rabbit hole of a sycophantic fugue state. We NEEDED it to be good. There was no way it would register otherwise.

That state must have lasted all Summer, because I am fairly certain I saw it 5 more times in the theater, and I loved it each time.

I ignored the discussions about how boring the politics were (“They set up what comes next”, I’d say). I paid little attention to the complaints about the acting of Jake Lloyd (“He’s just a little kid!”). I defended Jar Jar Binks against the onslaught of racial criticism (“Um… He’s funny!”)

Then, through all of the haze, I didn’t watch it again for 13 years.

In the meantime, I watched Attack of the Clones and found myself bored through a lot of it. I watched “Revenge of the Sith” and found myself groaning over the dialogue and the huge holes in logic and continuity.

I started questioning those movies more and more. The haze and excitement and anticipation started to diminish, and the harsh light of reality started beating down. Part of this, I have to believe, has to do with The Lord of the Rings. These were highly anticipated movies that absolutely killed it from beginning to end in terms of writing, acting, effects, and overall story telling. Arguably the fans of these books were as rabid as any George Lucas ever encountered, even if the volume wasn’t as high. As every LOTR fan left each film with a sense of pride and satisfaction, the true feelings of the Star Wars fans became more raw and haggard.

Then… to top it all off… I went to see the re-release of The Phantom Menace, hoping that the 3D would somehow bring it all together.

It didn’t.

That movie is fucking atrocious.

I’m sorry to say it. I believe I really did love it once upon a time, but either my tastes have matured, or the halcyon days of anticipation had truly clouded my thoughts (much like a Jedi).

The script is one of the worst I’ve ever heard. The acting, outside of Liam Neeson, is unbelievably bad. (Jake Lloyd, who at one time garnered defense is… completely indefensible. There had to have been better child actors out there. There had to have been. I can’t accept otherwise). The effects are great, that’s true, but there are too many. Back in the day, Lucas had to be creative to make visually interesting scenes. This movie makes him lean on the effects too much.  Let’s not even talk about how self-referential it all is… The totally Americanized sports announcing team might be the dumbest throw-in I’ve ever seen in a movie.

And then there’s Jar Jar. The problem with Jar Jar is that his character DOES serve a purpose, but my god… So offensive. I know that Lucas attributed a lot of the Jar Jar dialogue to his little kid, and maybe that’s true, but if it is… that little kid needs to do some self examination, because they are racist as shit.

Anyway… All of that, and I haven’t even articulated my pet peeve.

Despite all of the anticipation and excitement, nobody was sitting around waiting for another Star Wars movie. The story was done. Nobody really cared all that much about where Darth Vader came from, unless they were huge Star Wars fans, and they already knew. There was no clamoring until silly George Lucas announced he was working on the prequels. It was dead. It was resting. The most controversial thing to come up in the Star Wars universe was whether Lucas ruined the originals by doctoring them in the re-releases. Han shot first. So the fuck what?

So, without active demand, why in the world couldn’t he have made a better movie? The pressure was off. He could have had a damned contest for the best screen play and gotten 500 great scripts from all of those obsessive Star Wars fans who probably know the universe better than Lucas does at this point. He could have done literally anything he wanted to make the best possible version of that story, and instead we end up with damned “Mr. Tambo” Jar Jar Binks, and Jake Lloyd shouting “Yippee” like a youth from the 1960s. (Long time ago indeed).

That’s my pet peeve.

With no pressure, and no clamor, why in the hell can’t they make better unanticipated sequels?

I touched on it briefly during my movie recap for 2011… One of the reasons Pirates of the Caribbean was my worst movie of the year was due to this phenomenon.

The Pirates trilogy was over. They’d wrapped the story. There was no need or specific demand for more, and yet they pushed through another Jack Sparrow story without so much as a single story editor. Without even the teensiest bit of passion. It’s so disappointing when all semblance of guise is dropped, and the money grab we all know it to be is just bared to the world.

My other favorite example of this is the Indiana Jones Disaster of 2008.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade came out in 1989, and was pretty much universally loved by anyone that cared about those kinds of movies. It’s certainly my favorite one from start to finish. It’s still 100% watchable. And while there’d been rumors for years of another installment for years, the answer they always gave was “We’re always interested, but we’re really waiting for the perfect script.”

I wonder if they’re still waiting somewhere, because ALIENS? Are they fucking serious? I’m still furious. One of the most interesting and timeless things about the Indiana Jones movies is how neatly they intertwined religion, archeology, and mysticism. Throwing in fucking aliens stretches credulity. Giving Indy some dumbass, greaser son (played by one of the least likable actors in Hollywood) only weighed it down. Bringing back Karen Allen, looking bizarre, was just a bad choice.

Look.. I get that Harrison Ford isn’t getting any younger, so it makes sense that they had to account for that… except that they didn’t have to. They didn’t have to make it at all. So… why make something totally shitty?

The Hobbit is coming out soon. The first trailer got something like 8 bazillion hits on YouTube. Another movie where there was interest, but not necessarily demand. It’ll have been 9 years since Return of the King. Hopefully Peter Jackson recognizes the opportunity to come in and stick the landing.

I’ve heard rumors for years about another Ghostbusters movie. I can tell you that I’m not holding my breath, but if they do get it together, they better do it right. I have faith that they’ll wait til the right script comes along.

Anyway, this is my plea… If you don’t have to make a sequel (Twilight, Harry Potter, Hunger Games), then wait until you have good reason to make one. Don’t be Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” or Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull or Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. I’m begging you.

If you cared about the first ones, care about the others.

And since I can’t help myself, here’s a small observation on the Oscars.

The Artist won, making yet another Best Picture winner I was rooting against. I’ve been really actively following the Oscars for about 20 years, starting with Unforgiven’s win in 1993. Here are some personal opinion stats.

Of the Best Picture winners, I’ve only agreed with 6. (Unforgiven, Schindlers List, Braveheart, American Beauty, Return of the King, and No Country for Old Men).

I’ve actively disliked 4 (Titanic, Shakespeare in Love, The Artist, and Crash).

I’ve been outraged for various reasons (shut up, I’m dramatic) by 5 (Titanic, Shakespeare in Love, Crash, Chicago, and A Beautiful Mind).

My favorite film of the year has not even been nominated a few times… (50/50, Children of Men, Road to Perdition, Pan’s Labyrinth).

Some other thoughts…

There were some good years… The year The Departed beat Little Miss Sunshine. The year Million Dollar Baby beat The Aviator, Finding Neverland, and Sideways (Wow). The year Forrest Gump beat Quiz Show, Pulp Fiction, and Shawshank… (Holy…)

At least one year featured a winner that could arguably have been the WORST nominee:
Titanic beat out As Good as it Gets, The Full Monty, Good Will Hunting, and L.A. Confidential.

If I’m having a “BEST” Best Picture Winner of the Past 20 years, the Nominees are:

Unforgiven, Schindler’s List, Forrest Gump, Braveheart, The English Patient, Titanic, Shakespeare in Love, American Beauty, Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, Chicago, The Return of the King, Million Dollar Baby, Crash, The Departed, No Country for Old Men, Slumdog Millionaire, The Hurt Locker, The Kings Speech, and The Artist…

You know what… That’s for another blog. Stay tuned for the Best Picture Tournament.

It's Lin-Mazing! No..wait...

I think we can all agree. This is the best kind of word play.

What? Nobody likes a good pun anymore?

If you’re a sports fan, you’ve definitely heard of Jeremy Lin. The first Asian-American player in the NBA… or at least the first one anyone ever heard of… and nobody’d even heard of him a month ago.

That’s when Lin burst onto the scene, playing exceptionally well for an exceptionally disappointing New York Knicks team, and making the city of New York excited about something for once. (You know… aside from the perpetual contention of the Yankees, and the new Super Bowl champion Giants).

Good lord do people fucking love this Jeremy Lin character. And for whatever reason, they love him in the most twee way possible. It’s like a non-stop contest to see who can come up with the best play on words using his last name.

“All I do is Lin Lin Lin”

“Linderella Story”

“It’s Lin-Credible”

“Lin-spiring Story”

And of course, the most pervasive nonsense since Tebow-mania swept the country two whole months ago:

“Lin-Sanity”

Now, look… I love a pun as much as the next guy, but it’s getting a little out of hand with Jeremy Lin. People are looking to wedge as clever a pun as possible into every story, and sign, and t-shirt, and headline.

Whenever something like this happens in the media (the story, not the puns), the natural progression dictates that sooner or later someone will go too far.

After the Knicks suffered their first loss of the Jeremy Lin era, a loss where Lin had a subpar game (his first), the ESPN Headline read:

“Chink in the Armor”

That’s right. ESPN actually made a Chinese racial slur in an article about a Chinese athlete.

It’s kind of amazing that it got through at all, but the guy who wrote the headline (since fired) said he didn’t even think about it. That it was meant to be an innocent headline. And in fact, that’s at least vaguely plausible.  My buddy Alan mentioned having seen the headline, it not registering one way or the other, and moving on to a more interesting story.

Alan didn’t immediately look at it and gasp and say “Oh no he di’nt”, because in this case, the word “chink” has multiple meanings, and there’s literally only one context it would have been considered offensive. If you’re not geared to look for the epithet there, it’s very possible it just doesn’t register.

Of course, nobody believes that it was accidental. The writer rolled the dice that it would sneak by, because it was clever, and word play is apparently so fucking popular now. And make no mistake. It was clever. And as Aziz Ansari pointed out on Twitter, there is something kind of hardcore about the guy finding literally the WORST slur and making it a headline on ESPN.  I actually sort of wonder if the constant pun making has made some people feel like they have a little additional license to be loose with the language.

I was once accused by a guy I worked with of playing “Mental Chess”, because he thought I would say things that could be taken innocently or not, depending on the audience, and that I relished living in that zone. I can’t say he was altogether wrong. It sure seems to be where the ESPN writer is trying to reside. The only problem is that he’s a professional writer. He should have been fired even if it wasn’t intentional, because his job is to be a master of the language.

The situation leads me to a lot of questions…

Like… what if, instead of having a bad game, Lin had a great game. What if the headline was “Lin Finds Chink in Hornets Armor”? Would the guy have been fired then?

If Jeremy Lin was a black player, you could never call his fans the “Lin Mob” or tout a huge performance by saying “Jeremy Lin-ches the Heat”. No matter how positive the intent, the meaning of the words is too negative, but… If he were a black guy playing in a sport dominated by black athletes, the line gets a little further away

What if Michael Jordan  had a great defensive performance against Phoenix… Could you write “Jordan Blacks Out the Suns”?  Arguably yes, because Jordan being black isn’t the first thing anyone mentions. Race is barely part of the discussion.

When Justin Tuck, a black defensive end for the New York Giants hounded Tom Brady for the entirety of the Super Bowl,  could you write “Justin Tuck Spooks Brady”? It’s a little more obscure, sure, but as a slur it’s just as bad as “chink”… but I imagine that gets printed, without a problem, and without incident.  Again… Justin Tuck being black isn’t part of the discussion. The last time I looked, the NFL was comprised of about 70% black players.

It’s when someone does something unexpected that race comes into play, and the ice gets thinner.

Asians aren’t exactly known for being great NBA players, so his race becomes part of the conversation.  

Serena Williams should historically be known as a great tennis champion, but more likely she’s historically going to be known as the greatest black tennis champion. When she handily beat Lindsey Davenport 500 times, the headline every time could be “Serena Gives Lindsey a Whipping”, but I wonder if the opposite would have been acceptable. Can a white tennis player (the majority) be said to have whipped a black one?

Of course, these divisions still exist in small part because the parties all want them to. Sandy Koufax is often known as the greatest Jewish baseball player, and even though he hasn’t thrown a pitch in almost 50 years, every baseball loving Jew in America knows Sandy Koufax. They’re proud of him as being a shining representative of their people. Even still.. If, after his perfect game against the Cubs, the following headline appeared, I imagine there would have been big problems:

“Sandy Koufax Jews Down Cubs”

Can you imagine the uproar? It could be argued even that it’s a compliment. Like… Sandy Koufax implemented the talents of his race to mow down the cubs.

I wonder if it’s one of those things where if you’re on the inside, it’s okay to say…

Personally, though.. I don’t think it’s offensive because being called a Jew is supposedly offensive. I don’t think it’s offensive because Jeremy Lin’s people have traditionally been called Chinks derogatorily.

I think it’s offensive, because doesn’t it marginalize what Jeremy Lin is doing? Floyd Mayweather decided to chime in on the discussion and said something like “If Jeremy Lin was black, people wouldn’t be going so nuts about it”. Sadly… he’s probably right. At least partly.

(I especially hate it when Floyd Mayweather is right, because he’s just about the worst, and there’s even some other ickier parts to this particular situation since he spends most of his time on twitter trying to bait an Asian guy into fighting him…. But I digress.)

He’s right, because it wouldn’t be the sensational story it is. There likely wouldn’t be puns and the fervor.

What he’s wrong about is that the insanity doesn’t make Jeremy Lin a better basketball player. What he’s doing between the lines has nothing to do with his race. He’s just dominating compared to any standard. His performance would be remarkable if he was black, or white or whatever else.

So anyway ESPN took it to that place, and thus fucked themselves over, because they missed the mark. The better story isn’t that he’s Asian, so calling him Jeremy “The Asian Sensation” Lin is also sort of missing the mark . The story is that Jeremy Lin is playing like a fucking badass and nobody knew about the guy a month ago. That’s a story.

The goal, I believe, is to minimize race as a descriptor in any way. If people were all enlightened beings, words would just go back to being words. Chink would just be a dent or blemish. Fag would just be an English word for cigarette.

Of course.. There’s one other part to the story, and here’s where I’m certain to get myself into trouble.

Isn’t the point of all these puns to make people laugh? It’s FUN to be clever and witty and whatnot, and I think that occasionally you cross some lines for the sake of a joke.

Daniel Tosh says more offensive things literally every day. So does David Cross. Richard Pryor did too. So in a lot of ways the platform makes all the difference. If I call myself a comedian I can get away with a lot more than I can if I call myself a columnist. Just look at Jon Stewart, right?

Anyway, since I am equal opportunity, and I have this sort of desire to offend people, I’ve come up with some other potentially offensive headlines (I had a good time coming up with my examples I used earlier, so I may as well make it way worse, right?)

Alan and I have enjoyed making up vaguely ethnic alliterative nicknames for baseball players of Jewish or Canadian descent. We like these, because really those are the last 2 frontiers in terms of baseball ethnicity, and literally every time a player from one of those groups excels, his heritage is mentioned.

Here are some of my favorites…

For Jewish Baseball Players:
- The Joltin’ Jew
- The Hebrew Hammer
- The Levite Leviathan

For Jewish baseball players accused of steroid use:
- The Juicin’ Jew
- The Pharmaceutical Pharisee (Alan’s creation…and my favorite)

For Canadian baseball players:
- The Clubbin’ Canuck
- The Mashing Maple Leaf
- The Splinterin Saskatchewanian

BUH-DUM CHH!

A Disney (Ad)Venture

Hey Everyone!

The regularly scheduled blog post about some such nonsense, and my lack of ability to screen my own language will be coming later this week, but I wanted to take today’s blog to announce something extremely exciting!

In 2 weeks I will be launching my new blog adventure! A new blog dedicated expressly for Disney and the Disney lovers out there.

This is planned to be a sister blog to this site, so any Disney related blog will be linked on this page, and will appear in full on the new Disney blog.

I’m not ready to announce the name of the new endeavor yet, though I have created the blog URL for it, and we’re on track to start in a couple of weeks.

Why am I doing this?

Well… as any attention whore worth their salt, I love getting comments, especially those left by complete strangers who just happened by. In order to have more comments, I need more consistent readers. From everything I’ve read about gaining traffic on your blog, you need to specialize.

Don’t get me wrong… I love this blog. It is a ton of fun to write about all manner of things here, and not worrying about appealing to everyone. It’s very liberating. I have every intention of this remaining my primary blog where all of my thoughts on random things like parking and Jesus having Christmas stolen from him by those rude Jews, and whatever sports related thing nobody seems to care about.

Still… I crave feedback, and I crave attention (yeah… I admit it). The purpose of the Disney only blog is to create a space that features focused content, likely more PG language, and hopefully get more readers who have a passion for Disney and Disney parks.

It certainly remains to be seen how this will work. Whenever I’ve created offshoot blogs in the past, they were short-lived. Of course, that was mainly due to a lack of content, and I believe I’ve proven that there’s barely a limit to my willingness to discuss Disney ad-nauseum.

I hope to have regular segments;
Movie reviews… New ones when they come out, and old ones in between.

E-mail Debates

Polls

Park Plans

Ride Reviews

And, as they say, much much more.

Also exciting is that my friend, the incredibly talented Tony Doench will be designing a new version of the Beefy Muchacho, with Disney in mind. It’s going to be epic. He’s the artist behind the original iconic Muchacho image displayed on the header of this blog.

So there ya have it. I’m very excited for this new blogging endeavor. I hope to see everyone visit and enjoy the Disney-Exclusive content.  

Blog Failure

Here’s the blog where I finally break the internet by holding the mirror up to the mirror.

I’m always thinking about blog topics, especially now that I have the pressure of having to get at least one posted per week. About 2 weeks ago, I started noting how annoyed I was getting at commercials, and how they always seem to play into the same base desires of people. I found it insulting that they seemed to be saying that all women could be plied with chocolate and diamonds. That all men just wanted to avoid their women. That women’s problems were trivial enough that a good shopping trip could solve them. That men were essentially alcoholic morons.

I started thinking that I wanted to turn that observation into a blog entry. I’ve been working on it all week, and it never came together. It eventually became something weird about how people take the easy jokes instead of pushing themselves to be more creative.

There were points where I was writing whole television commercials and Jay Leno monologues and  I went into this whole long rant about this dude I used to work with who sang “Danny Boy” at me every day (because my name is Dan.)

The problem with this idea, is that it was just an idea. I didn’t have a real coherent concept behind it, so while I could come up with a couple of cute quips, I was basically doing what I was criticizing. There wasn’t any real insight to what I was writing, so I was just super rambling and unfocused. It never really came together

Of course, what is a blog if not hyper self aware, so I've decided to post the shitty, unfinished blog and let you all see a little bit of my process.

Here’s my blog about way too many things, while at the same time not being about enough. I can’t figure out how to say what I want in an entertaining way. I worked it over 4 or 5 times, and it still sucks, but hopefully that’s kind of interesting in itself.

In italics are the original blog. In regular type are my retrospective comments on said failed blog attempt.

#####

What compels us to take the easy road? I mean… aside from it being easy.

Here’s every commercial targeted at women on TV right now:

“Whoa ladies, chill the fuck out! Since you don’t have real problems, have this delicious chocolate! That should calm your simple little brain. “

“What’s that? The chocolate didn’t do the trick? How about everyone’s guilty pleasure… Shopping! Oh, don’t you worry about that job interview. Nothing can cure a shitty day like buying some shoes! Am I right?”

“Now that you’re bellies are full of chocolate, and your feet are swathed in soft, supple leather, it’s time for some kayaking… you know… since it’s your time of the month. So, put on some white pants and have a fucking ball!”

It’s right about here where I start to lose my train of thought. I mix up tampons and Valtrex. I got too amused with my fake lady commercials and I miss my own point.

It’s not just the ladies… Here’s every commercial targeted at men:

Hi Men… Women are the worst! Have a beer in your man cave while you plan your golf outing.

I toyed with “Hi Men, Women are the Worst!” and just leaving it at that. I think that would have been better.

You know who should be insulted most? Creativity.

The same products going back to the same tired wells over, and over, and over again.

Of course, it’s as much our fault as theirs… We all let them get away with it, by going to Facebook and posting about how we “Need… Chocolate….Now.” or “Just had a fight with [our] boss, so [we} bought some new shoes and [we’re] feeling better already.”

Weak examples. I’m not sure why I decided on these. I think I tried being vague so as not to point fingers at specific people.

I’d wanna say that we’re better than that, but maybe I’m not so sure. If we truly were better than that, we wouldn’t be bombarded with the lowest common denominator advertising.  Why are we not demanding more?

I get frustrated, though, because even though the creative option is right there for the taking, everyone reaches for the “low hanging fruit”. It’s just all so fucking lame and tired and easy.

I keep wanting to make a “Low hanging fruit” joke, but I never get around to it.

It’s not just advertising, though. There’s absolutely nothing I hate more than the guy who constantly makes the easiest joke. I dunno.. I’m a snob I guess. What fun is it to make the first joke that comes to your mind? It doesn’t take skill, or smarts, or timing to hear someone say something is “hard” and throw out a “that’s what she said”… It requires no more thought than saying the pledge of allegiance. We hear the key word, and our mouth starts moving before even considering the how fucking lazy it is... I admit it… I do it do, but I try not to. I try to let someone else take the easy joke.

Don’t worry… Someone will make the joke. You won’t be left hanging. You know these people. They laugh at their own jokes. They hear that my name is Dan, and they sing “Danny Boy” as a greeting. They speak in made-up accents, and use tired puns, and generally try working the room like it’s fucking 1964 in the Catskills. You get the idea that they walk around hearing the rimshots as they spew quotes from Anchorman.

I like this portion of the blog. It’s not at all what I planned to write, but I find it at least vaguely promising, conceptually. The douchebag who personifies the copier guy on SNL. Always saying the dumbest, easiest thing possible.

They watch Jay fucking Leno.

Once upon a time, I thought Jay Leno was funny… but then I  turned 12, and realized that if I read the newspaper, I could literally play Celebrity/Joke Book mad libs, and figure out his monologue every night.

What’s that? Lindsay Lohan does drugs? The joke becomes:

 “So…did you hear this new thing about Lindsay Lohan? Apparently her drug problem has gotten so bad, she was recently seen snorting Splenda. Yeah… Well.. She heard it was Diet Coke!”

This was originally a Whitney Houston joke, but after she died, I felt the need to change it. I guess mentioning that now sort of undercuts the gesture. Sorry..

It’s cute, but it’s not funny. It’s not clever. It’s an easy joke, but it’s not comedy.

So anyway… It’s no surprise that companies advertise to our stereotypes. We let them.

Longest digression ever? Perhaps.

Doritos thinks they’re being original by having a murdering dog bribe a man with chips, but really they’re just doing the whole “Men are dumb and are always swayed by their libido and their appetites” bit. Also falling into this category are the “Nationwide” commercials where the dumbasses conjure food and prostitutes by singing the jingle. GoDaddy thinks they’ll sell domain names simply based on the promise of Danica Patrick under-cleavage. Taco Bell constantly depicts morons who are so blinded by the desires of their stomachs that they can’t make it out of the car before eating their girlfriend’s Chalupa.

Another example of some sort of riff where I don’t really know what I’m saying, so I hope the volume and turn of phrase sort of masks that point. I do like the phrase “under-cleavage”a fair amount.

#####
And that’s where I stopped. I couldn’t figure out how to get back to the main idea. I wasn’t even still sure the main idea had enough meat to make a full blog out of it. Seems more like a short bit in a hacky stand-up special, which… kind of undercuts my point about taking the easy way, doesn’t it?

Like… Even my observations on taking the easy way were easy.

 It’s my preference to post blogs that are fully formed, and edited and gone over a few times, but sometimes it’s not in the cards. This week, I tried making a blog out of some half-baked ideas and unfocused thoughts, and I failed.  It’s kind of a bummer, but it is a part of the process.

Next week?

The Disney E-mails return for “Proposed Attractions” where I post a couple of original concepts for Disney attractions, and I poll the readers on the best one.