Your Questions Answered: What's Up With All the Blogging?

Anonymous asks:

Why do you keep blogging after all these years? What keeps you going? Do you like the attention?


Wow, tough questions from the crowd.

At the end of this month, I will mark my ten year anniversary of my first blog post.  In internet time, that's an eon.

What started me then is not why I'm doing it now, if I can even recall why I did it then.  Truthfully, the original League of Melbotis blog was more or less about having a one-to-many communication tool for myself when I'd moved to a place where I was far from people I knew, and had nobody to talk to (aside from Jamie), and pestering people with email had gone about as far as it could go.

Back then, blogging hadn't really taken the shape it has now of routine columns on single topics.  It was closer to journaling, in my opinion, but the public forum-ness of blogging meant a push and pull of having an audience that just writing for and to yourself won't ever have.

But why am I still doing it?

There are a lot of reasons.

I do believe writing continually has improved my ability to think critically.

I think.

Maybe.

Blogging routinely does mean I apply some thought to media and how that media is produced when I act as a consumer.  If reading that pondering is useful for others (ie: you), well...  I'm happy for you guys!  But I did figure out years and years ago that this works best if I do this for myself first, and if its of benefit to other people, that's a very nice thing, but it can't be my primary concern.

I write with myself as my primary audience, assuming there are other The League's out there.

And, it turns out, there are other people out there who have found a reason to return, even if their own voices are very different.  I do feel some responsibility to the great folks I've met or not met, who show up online and stick with me.  That's an honor.

In Aggieland

I'm in College Station, Texas until Friday night.  Before this gig, I had only been to College Station once before.  A family friend was a jeweler here, and this is where we got our wedding rings.  I'd driven through a lot during college while headed elsewhere, but with my UT sticker in the window of my car, I didn't want to linger too long in the gravity well of Texas A&M.

College Station is a Texas version of places like Happy Valley that exist mostly because there is a University there.  Otherwise they'd be small towns with a red light or two and maybe one cranky dog watching traffic go by like all the rest of the small towns you pass en route to College Station.

I'm here for a small, regional conference, and it seems like it should be fun.  This group doesn't do much socializing after hours, so it'll be back to hotel and work tomorrow night.  I'm always a fan of the post conference bar meet up, but I don't think that's in the cards if the last conference is any indication.

This hotel should be a nice place, an extended stay hotel with a small kitchen, about 50 square feet bigger than my efficiency in college, but without the charm I'd added to the place.  But, it's been noisy, and I can hear the upstairs folks walking around.  Not something I'm used to in a hotel, and it reminds me why I gave up on apartment living.

Anyway, I'm pretty busy, straight through the weekend, so I don't know what blogging I'll be up to.

I've been posting a lot, so, you know, go back and enjoy the previous posts you might have missed.

An Open Letter to The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences: An Idea for 2014

I tuned into the Oscars Sunday night for a few minutes to catch Adele sing Skyfall (a song I quite like in its own right), and ,later, accidentally at one point to hear Seth MacFarlane bomb on a joke about Rex Reed that really just beat around the bush taking a poke at Adele for being on the curvier side.  At this point, I turned off the Oscars.  And, no, I have no plans to watch next year.

Literally billions of people watch the telecast, clearly not caring that it's just absolutely miserable television, and I don't think I remember anyone being satisfied with a host since Billy Crystal was in his hey-day.  I have to assume Seth MacFarlane's sense of humor was a weird fit, just as whatever happened that year when James Franco and, I think, Anne Hathaway (is that right?) hosted.

I have no idea.  The last Oscars telecast I watched I believe was hosted by David Letterman.

But, Academy, I think I have your solution.  I know how to set this right.

In 2014, hire The Admiral as your host and show producer.  He's retired and he needs a project.

This man is TV gold

Conan's, Orange Julius, Sheep

The evening was looking pretty dull, I don't mind telling you. We had no plans. The hour grew late, and finally, somehow we settled on the faded glory of an Austin now receding into the distant past.

You can have your Paul Qui fancy-schmancy fusion bistros. Food is what reminds you of home, and I grew up in this town when we still had armadillo races as a form of local fun. And back then, we ate our pizza like we had nothing to live for. Conan's Pizza has only a few locations left after the expansion in the late 80's and contraction of the late 90's. They haven't redecorated since putting any of the Conan's in place, and they had a particular look back then that lingers to this day.

The Ms. Pac-Man machine is not there ironically

If you're wondering, why yes, they LOVE Conan the Barbarian.  You can't tell from the pic above, but most of the art is either Frazetta prints or Frazetta knock-offs.  Not too many other places would it seem like part of the tradition to eat under a Molly Hatchet album cover, but at Conan's, it's part of the ambiance.

The pizza you want to get there is called "The Savage".  Get it deep dish with a wheat crust or you're kind of just wasting everyone's time.  The Savage is literally every topping they've got.  You will absolutely feel sick after eating it.  But, let me stop you now and say, if you don't eat The Savage, neither I nor the staff nor other patrons of Conan's have any real reason to respect you.

On behalf of all tall people, if you don't like standing behind us at concerts: tough luck

I saw this comic strip thing today, and it's actually very good.  It's about the annoying things people do at concerts (ie: why I quit paying money to go to shows in my late 30's).

I'd point to number 5, "The Sun Blocking Giant" and I thought I'd clear something up.

The world was built for smaller people.  Most of you are those smaller people, and I appreciate that most of you attend shows and expect to basically be within a certain height range.  I know you think that there's some great advantage to being a bit taller, but in a world that mostly relies on your ability to be a jerk in a board room or your ability to manage java code to get ahead, being bred for being the lynchpin in a goon squad of some barbarian hoard doesn't really pay off so much.

I was 6'3" by the ninth grade, and somehow put on two more inches by the end of my freshman year of college.  I didn't measure myself in between.  Tall people don't really know nor really care about how tall they are.

Since I was a kid, I also like(d) live music and attending shows.  I live in Austin.  It's sort of a thing here.

The average bar in Austin that would host a show (let's say, Liberty Lunch or La Zona Rosa) had three zones:

1.  The area right by the stage with the cow-eyed fans pressing up against the stage because that made them bigger fans and let them sing the lyrics right back at the singer's face.

2.  The mid-range where most everyone else stood with elbow room enough to hold a beer and still lift it to their face without putting out someone else's eye.

3.  The place in the back where, for reasons that baffled me, people would huddle and shout over the music, like it was a huge inconvenience that there were all these speakers blaring music when they'd come out to this music venue for a quiet night of conversation.  Also, they're usually trashed.

The cartoon bemoans:

Worlds Collide: The Online Comic Book Course

For a long, long time, what I did for a living was "distance learning" which came to be called "eLearning".  Or, likely, now, "learning".

In 1997 I took a job as a camera operator and switch-room operator for a distance learning outfit in the College of Engineering at the University of Texas getting paid what seemed a king's ransom of something like $5.75 an hour.  At the time I was a Radio-Television-Film student looking for work that related to my dreams of working in movie or TV production,* and handling a camera - no matter how out of date - and working with audio and switching equipment - no matter how lo-fi - was a welcome change of pace from the hours behind the counter at Camelot Records selling copies of Blink 182 to perfectly nice people.

Somehow, upon graduation, I became the guy running the studio (they offered me insurance).  Mostly, back then, we were making duplicates of tapes of classes and mailing them (I KNOW), or hooking up with remote location via ISDN lines, satellite, or using some really, really early days video streaming that its best not to talk about.

End of a Long, Long Week

I had a very odd week, and I'm not able to focus my chi enough to get any blogging done today or really engage in social media.

Here's to hoping you kids are having a good one.

Happy Valentine's Day to Superman and Lois Lane

Well, it's Valentine's Day, and we're here to talk about the one thing we're an expert on:  ROMANCE.

Just think of The League as your shifty bellhop of love

Aside from my folks, I honestly think my earliest ideas about romance probably came from movies and cartoons, and, later, comics.  I mean, I remember watching Hart to Hart and thinking those two had a pretty ideal relationship, but I don't recall much from TV for adults that informed my ideas about how to actually pursue the ladies or what blossoming romance might look like.

The Leia/ Han relationship of Empire attempted to teach me a lot of things.

1.  Sometimes a bit of verbal combativeness is flirting
2.  Carrie Fischer looks great in a snowsuit
3.  You can find romance when stranded inside a giant spaceworm
4.  When you're ready to make your move, turn off the droids
5.  When it looks like all is lost and it's time to express how you really feel about each other, when she confesses in front of a bunch of strangers, that she loves you, always say "I know".  That shit is COOL.

As much as I appreciated Kirk using the Enterprise as his personal chick-magnet, he never really had an ongoing romance for more than episode or two, and maybe there's something to be learned from that.  Space Bros before Space Ladies.

I was always a little sad that Marion Ravenwood only appeared in one Indiana Jones movie, that is until recently.  She was the only leading lady who seemed like a good match (clearly, Willie Scott was not up to the task).

But, going back further, I do think the Superman movies did a good job of setting up the romance for a strange being from another world and a career gal in the big city.  Aside from Han and Leia, I think the pair I remember pulling for the most in movies from back in the day was Lois and Superman.  Despite all his, frankly, totally awesome powers, it seemed Clark Kent was no better around women than any of us, and could be jut as quickly and totally swept off his feet by a woman who isn't going to notice him until he drops a yacht in front of the police station.

So, "The Internship" is coming out - How was I involved?

This Vince Vaughn/ Owen Wilson comedy was filming last summer. I happened to be in the building where they were filming, but it wasn't at Google in the Bay Area. The scenes on the steps there? That's a sort of union-like building at Georgia Tech.



I was scheduled to give a presentation after lunch, and I was delayed thanks to the scene you see in the trailer with Aasif Mandvi talking about how lucky they are to be interning at Google.

It was weird.  You kind of forget that when they're filming a comedy, the scene is funny to the audience but not to the characters, so Mandvi was improvising and trying different things, but to a room full of stone faced people in beanies.

The director, meanwhile, was laughing behind the camera, but nobody on the crew looked even mildly amused.  So, do with that what you will.

I know this, because I got trapped watching the filming when I was coming back from the men's room and trying to re-enter the room where I was presenting.

I think we were supposed to sign an NDA about this, but I didn't sign jack.

If that 0.5 seconds film you see has a little extra juice, that's The League you sense there.

By the way, everything about this movie makes me feel incredibly old.

Also, Vince Vaughn is about my height, which was surprising.  But he's in much better shape, which was less surprising.

The Orson Scott Card Conundrum - Social Ideals and The Purchase of a Superman Comic

All right, here we go.

I don't really want to write this post, but it's about Superman, it's in the news, etc..

Famed Sci-Fi writer Orson Scott Card has some social views that are well known within the comics and sci-fi "communities".  Card has written some highly successful work such as the famed Ender's Game (which I haven't read), and started working in comics a bit with Ultimate Iron Man several years ago now (also - haven't read).

Specifically, Card takes issue with homosexuality and gay marriage.  He sits on the board of an organization that is more or less dedicated to opposing gay marriage in the US, the National Organization for Marriage.

Last week, when the new Adventures of Superman was announced, Card was listed among the writers, and (if you're keeping score), specifically, he was one of the creators associated with the project that made me blink a bit while reviewing the roster of talent.

Full disclosure:  I am fully in support of marriage rights for the LGBT community and believe that this is the civil rights issue of our generation.  Fundamentally, I believe in extending the same legal privileges to all consenting adults in a free society, and am against legal loopholes or half-measures that would place legal or social restrictions on someone based upon race, religion, gender or sexual orientation.  </ lefty boilerplate>

The questions then arise:

Here's a Random Thing I Did: Glenn Miller Orchestra in Austin

Lately a coffeehouse not so far from my house expanded into the next retail space over and opened the Strange Brew Lounge.  Jason pointed out the new venue to me, and a few weeks back I was driving to work and noticed they claimed they had the Glenn Miller Orchestra coming.

You might find yourself saying: "But, The League, Glenn Miller died in 1944!"
Indeed he did.

and thus, I payed to see an empty stage

But the orchestra played on!

The Glenn Miller Orchestra still plays around the country, with an all new line-up that probably refreshes quite frequently as they're on the road 48 weeks per year.

My pal Julia said she was interested, so we got us a pair of tickets, and we attended the 6:00 PM show.  (Seriously, they started promptly at 6:00.  It was crazy town.).

The venue is pretty great.  It's really intended for the singer/ songwriter scene Austin cultivates, but apparently the uncle of the owners of Strange Brew was once did arrangements for the Glenn Miller Orchestra, and so they decided to take a risk and book the band.

Things of Which I Am Now or was Once Afraid

Things I am afraid of with a 1 - 5 ranking system.  1 indicates "low anxiety", 5 indicates "high anxiety".  Failure of an item on this list does not mean I am fearless when it comes to that topic, it simply indicates that it is not something I worry about.  Example: lightning.  Yes, I know lightning strikes are harmful, but they just don't cause me much worry.  And my house got hit twice by lightning last year.


Heights - 3  
As a kid, I wasn't afraid of heights, then one day Jason yelled at me for playing too close to a ledge.  Ever since then, I sort of hyper-ventilate and get what I assume to be vertigo when I can see straight down more than 15 feet.


Eating bad shellfish - 2
I love shellfish.  I also have heard so many stories of what happens when you eat a bad clam that every new bite is filled with anxiety.  Still, clams and mussels are so delicious that I sweat my way through it and hope for the best.

Saying Good-Bye to Judy

In the early hours of January 1st, Jamie and Doug's mother passed here in Austin.  She'd had a stroke-like experience in August, and before Christmas, she suffered several more episodes.  We were lucky to have Doug and Kristen here in Austin with us, and we were together with Jamie's dad, Dick, throughout the very long days there at the end of the year.

This weekend we held the memorial for Judy in San Marcos, where she and Dick have lived since about October of 2008.  Prior to their move to Texas, Judy and Dick had lived for decades in Lawton, Oklahoma, where the McBrides still have a multitude of connections.

Of course the ceremony was extremely difficult, but as a reminder and celebration of Judy's life, and the many, many lives she touched - it was lovely to attend.  

I met Judy within a week or two of the start of my relationship with Jamie.  We were only twenty, and parental contact with the girl you're seeing at that age is something you don't necessarily want to dive into headfirst.  However, actually quite liking this girl and understanding already how close she was to her family meant that I figured I'd best not duck out when I had a chance to make a good first impression on the girlfriend's mother.

Who Was in Our Driveway When Google Maps Took a Satellite Picture?

A baffling photo.

Someone was in our driveway when the eagle-eyed satellites of Google Maps flew overhead and took a picture of our house.

That's definitely my car in the driveway, but I can't tell if that's Jamie's mom's car out front or not.

Judging from the light, it seems to be almost exactly noon when the picture was taken, and it seems it had been raining and was possibly last spring, based on the green of the trees.

At first I thought this was Jamie walking the dog, but she thought it looked like someone with a small child coming up behind.

I have no idea what's happening here in my driveway, but it looks like I was home for the picture.

I suppose we'll never know...

Star Trek Wars, Jenny Olsen, and so much I missed while I was on hiatus

A lot happened while I was out.  Presidential Inaugurations.  The Sixth Gun got optioned for a TV show.  I watched a handful of pretty good movies programmed by Eddie Muller on TCM.

Anyway, while I was out I guess people online put together than Jimmy Olsen will not be Jimmy Olsen, but Jenny Olsen in the movie, Man of Steel.  I am sure five years ago that would have launched a 3000 word column from me on why it would be better if WB would respect the history and we'd all be snarky and sneer knowingly at the studio people for making some bad decisions.  But...

Yeah, I guess I don't really have the energy to get worked up about it anymore.  The studio is going to do what the studio is going to do, and it's not like they won't get my ticket on opening day.  Or that the prior five Superman movies really did anything with Jimmy as a character.  In fact, he got more to do in Supergirl than in pretty much any other film.

Not without precedent

I will always like the Silver and Bronze Age Superman comics, I think Jack Larson was great, but I think I'm kind of past thinking Superman is any one, particular thing.  I have my opinions of what works and what doesn't, but the past decade around Superman has really been about DC and WB wrestlimg with what they think Superman is or can be.

Social Media Hiatus

Meh.  I can't do this anymore.

The internet has become too much.

We're going dark until next Friday.

No Blog.
No Twitter.
No Facebook for this site.
No Tumblr.

We're gonna live like it's 2002.

Email will remain functional.

SMOKE BOMB!

The League Plans on Attending a sort of Mini-High School Reunion

Apparently in Mid-March, the life of a young The League will come headlong with his shady, useless present.

Yes, my 20th high school reunion IS occurring this year.  No, I am not going.  I moved to the greater Houston area a couple of weeks prior to the beginning of my sophomore year of high school, and while I made some great life-long friends, it was not necessarily in a capacity strictly as a member of the Class of '93.  I'm just not that invested in seeing people I don't remember.

The winter of my sophomore year I quit the basketball team, auditioned for a play and wound up understudying several roles for our school's version of A Midsummer Night's Dream.*   So, for the next two years I stuck around the auditorium of dear old Klein Oak High.

I would eventually play parts in The Crucible, The Rimers of Eldritch, You Can't Take it With You, All My Sons, Rumors, and probably one or two things I'm forgetting.  I was, at best, unmemorable on stage.  And I don't think I want to know what people do remember.  Sadly, my requests to stage Frankenstein, so I could do something a 6'4" high school kid was suited for, went unheeded.

So, Golden Globes. amiright?

You either like award shows for the entertainment industry, or you do not.  I suppose this is true for both participants who have to go to these things, and for those of us who can opt out at home and not watch.

As a media consumer, you either value what an award for a member of the entertainment industry represents, or you do not.  This is also true for the folks who show up for a one-in-five chance of winning a kind of gaudy statue, as well as us, the viewing public.

I won't try to convince anyone to my viewpoint.  That way lies madness.  I don't watch awards shows, and I don't think much of the value of the awards.  I will confess that I am often interested to see what won some of the technical awards and categories such as "score", because it gives me something to consider if I've seen a movie.

This evening I turned on The Golden Globes just long enough to see Lena-what's-her-face win some award for her HBO program, Girls, which I've seen exactly five minutes of, felt terribly aware that the show was aimed at an audience which did not include me, felt I got where this show was headed, and got out before I got emotionally invested in actively disliking everything about the show and those involved.

Because of when I tuned in, all I know is that The Big Bang Theory has fallen from grace with the Hollywood Foreign Press as, this year, it was not funnier than Girls.  Is it possible Louie was not nominated?  Can you see why I can't take this seriously?

I made it for a whole of three minutes before Jamie saw me walking off with my laptop and just turned off the TV again.  I heard enough of Lena-what's-her-face's speech to recognize that it sounded like everyone else's speech.  It sounded like every television or movies award speech ever done that wasn't someone going crazy once they had a chance with a microphone and a massive, captive audience.  This was the banal, overstuffed speech where people who made a thing drop superlatives.

As a facebook friend said:  Dear Hollywood, stop saying it took courage to make your TV show/ movie.  It took money.

My very nice signed pic from Audrey Totter

On Saturday, an envelope arrived with a signed photo from Audrey Totter.  It also came with a signed note.  To put a point on it, while I knew it was coming, I'm still a bit stunned and I know these are items I'll have with me for the rest of my life.  I need to show them off here as so few of you will ever be in my living room.

I can't thank Eden and her family enough.  A truly unique and terrific experience and a very bright spot during a difficult week.

Coincidentally, Jason got me a Film Noir set that included Lady in the Lake for me for Christmas, so it's going to be Totter-Rama around my house this week.  We may need to re-watch Tension, too.

Tomorrow I return to work for the first time since before Christmas.  There's a lot to unpack in all that, so I'm trying not to think about it too much, and just get back to my desk and try to remember what it is I'm supposed to be doing at that desk.

But, that's it for the start of the week.  

You guys take care, and we will consider what regular programming looks like at the Signal Watch this week sometime.

Jamie's Mom Has Passed

It's with tremendous difficulty that I write this post.

About a week before Christmas, Jamie's mother entered the hospital.  Despite excellent care and the best efforts of the medical staff, Judy passed early this morning.  As I am sure I will be asked, Judy had suffered a stroke in August, and in the days before Christmas, she suffered another serious stroke which was followed by a couple of smaller episodes.

Many of you have followed Jamie and me for a long time on this site or the prior site where Judy often participated under the name "m-i-l" (mother-in-law), and some of you have met us or even met Judy at some point.  Or, you may have simply seen her name or photo here at the site.  

This is an extremely difficult time for us, and I hope you'll understand any internet silence that occurs during the next days or weeks.

Now isn't the time for an extended post, but I hope you'll take a moment today and think of Judy, Jamie, Doug and Dick.