My kids are f*****

Chad Kultgen is the Bret Easton Ellis of the Facebook generation. His three novels are blunt and coarse, beating you to death with a hammer in regards to “the point.” The point being that the modern person is growing up unhappy, sexually frustrated, emotionally immature, and overall damaged. None of his works encapsulated this more than his third novel “Men, Women & Children”.

MW&C is technically broken into two groups. The first is the children of five families. They are about 13 or so in the eighth grade. They are bound to social networking with a furor. They are cliquish and submit to the popularity food chain. They are emotionally immature yet knowingly push each other into sexual situations they are not ready for in a game of petty one upmanship with their classmates. They think not of growing up at a normal pace. They want it all, and they want it now, fuck the emotional consequences later.

The parents are no better. They are stagnant and unhappy with their marriages. Most turn affairs in order to feel alive again. They are poor parents; most of the time they are negligent to their duties. When are they are there they give piss poor advice and their behavior in comparison’s to their kids comes off as hypocritical. They act differently then their kids but are common in one retrospect; no one is being an adult.

Going back to the kids, it is a marvel that anyone can consider to grow up normal in that environment. Two of the teen characters are actually the most well rounded of the groups and find solace in each other. So it is no surprise they are the ones punished and left unhappy at the end of the novel. Meanwhile, the other kids end the book in the process of making extremely bad decisions. One most take note that none of their bad behavior is discovered. They are not punished and they do not see the errors of their ways. Their behavior is in actuality CELEBRATED and ENCOURAGED by the world order that is presented. Something quite in rotten in Denmark indeed.

The point of all this rambling about Kultgen’s book is that this is presenting nothing new to me personally. I had seen myself warning signs of these trends when I was a teenager. I luckily steered away from most of it the negative influences and you know got to grow up somewhat normally. But the die seems to be cast for the new generations. Most will be spoiled and self absorbed and incapable of normal emotional connections. In closing it seems that my future sons and daughters are fucked. And for my kids, I apologize but there was nothing I could do. I hope for your future but it seems like instead of sun there shall be only overcast of grey.

But then again, perhaps not. One can hope. It is all one can do in this situation.

Until next time, fly high and fly well.

Update: SUPERFAIL

Just read that the supercommittee failed on the budget cuts so automatic cuts come Wednesday. Obama is PISSED. And he should be. Republicans can go on about not punishing "job creators" but I see through that bullshit. You just don't want your buddies to be taxed a little higher. Fuck that.

Shame on both sides, more so to the Republicans for not making this happen. The world is mocking us right now.

Shame I say.

Until next time, fly high and fly well.

SUPERFAIL

As the nation continues to watch the super committee fail spectacularly at making budget cuts before Wednesday, it strikes me again how broken our government is.

The entire system has been infested and poisoned by inaction, special interest, greed, and apathy. Politicians always complain that no one votes anyone. You cannot blame us for that when we it really feels that nothing changes. We all want change and reform from our government system and sometimes it looks like we will get it sometimes when we elect new people into office. But as if synchronized, evolution is stalled by the opposing forces to it and it we are once stuck in quicksand.

I don’t understand why there is so much resistance to change. When it comes to taxes, I want everyone to pay what they should. The rich have more, so they should pay more. Quit your bitching, and pay more. If you don’t want to live here and help bringing the country back to normal working order, fucking leave! If I’m willing to pay a little extra in order get rid of our deficit bit by bit you should too. You will be wealthy all your life. Most of us will scrape by our entire existence.

Washington is soaked in money and that is the problem. Government used to serve everyone. Now it seems to serve only those that have a fat checkbook and that is pathetic. Our founding fathers would kick our asses for running their system into the ground. They had more difficult problems then we do now since they were trying to keep a newborn country alive. And you know what? They are able to do it! So why is it so hard to get anything done anymore? And I when done, I mean stuff actually matters. Budget concerns, national security, ending the wars, things like that. Not making pizza a vegetable. Stop wasting our time and OUR FUCKING MONEY Washington. We pay you to make things better for everyone, not for you. Do your job, or you’ll be out of one VERY SOON.

Until next time, fly high and fly well.

I saw the Devil…and he looked just like me.

For anyone that knows my film tastes know I like horror films. They would also know that most of them don’t bother me. Part of it is being desensitized from seeing so many, part is because most horror movies don't really terrify me. The main reason horror movies don’t bother me is that fiction cannot be as horrific as fact. Movies don’t bother me. It’s what real life people do to each other that does.

So I would like to discuss what I consider one of the most horrifying movies of 2011. The Devil’s Double concerns Latif Yahia, who was forced to become the body double of Uday Hussein, Saddam’s coked out, psychotic son. Uday was a man that had no conscience, too much money, and immunity any prosecution for what he did because his father was in power.

I am never a person to wish ill on anyone, but there are certain people that you are just glad they are dead. Uday Hussein is one of those people. No matter our reasons for the Iraq War, I can at least say we took out a few monsters. Who knows how many people he would hurt if he was still alive today.

This a man who tortured his country’s soccer team when they didn’t win enough. He raped schoolgirls and tossed their bodies in the sea never to be found. He openly murdered with dozens of witnesses. Yet, nothing could be done about it because Dad was in power. His untouchable nature only increased his delusions and depraved nature.

Latif Yahia was an honorable man who was roped in Uday’s world and had take part of the man’s madness. He was able to escape after several years but he would never be the same. As for Uday, he survived several assassination attempts only to be taken out in 2003 along with his brother by U.S. forces.

Edmund Burke once said that “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” Well it took over two decades for something to be done about the Hussein family. And though the Hussein men are now gone from the world, there are numerous murderers that take their place all over the world.

So yeah, Freddy Kruger doesn’t bother me. He’s a joke compared to the real life monsters that populate our world.

Until next time, fly high and fly well.

Blu Ray Gouge

Blu-ray discs have been on the market for about 2 years now. I have about 20 of them right now. I am very case by case with buying them because they are expensive and not every movie deserves the extra cash. I only buy them for a few reasons.

1)If the movie has great cinematography that will look better with a sharper picture.

(E.G. Hanna, Kingdom of Heaven, The American)

2) If they are cheap

Benjamin Button Criterion for 10 bucks? I'm game.

3)If there is a 2 dollar difference between standard and blu-ray, and I know it's a good film I'll watch alot.

4)Or I have moviestop credit to offset the price point.

However, I have been noticing the studios have been packaging most releases with extra discs to jack up the price. DVD copies and digital copy discs. they are unnecessary and just piss off the smart consumer.

1)DVD copies. I bought the Blu-Ray for exactly that. If I wanted a DVD I would of just bought the fucking DVD!

2)Digital copies. This is a novel thing. Transfer films to portable devices like laptops and Ipods. I have yet to use any of mine. Does anybody really?

The studios might say they are giving consumers choice. I disagree. They are forcing this "choice" on consumers that don't want/need them. All for the almighty dollar. In a down economy that is shameful. Dump the superfluous and work on bringing the cost down. That's how to make consumers embrace you.

Until next time, fly high and fly well.

Letting dead men lie

In music, there are certain artists/bands that are defined by their lead performer. When that person dies, more often than not, the band dies with them. Nirvana is an oft used example as the aftermath of such tragedy.

However, there seems to be a growing trend of bringing back bands that had been presumed dead with their singers. Two recent examples include Sublime & Alice in Chains.

I wish to discuss the latter. Like Nirvana, AIC was a staple of the early 90's grunge music that remains iconic to this day. From a business standpoint, I can get using the AIC name to come back into the industry. Easier than starting from scratch.

What I cannot fathom however is how they chose to do nothing new vocally. They have taken two of their members and made themselves sound as close as possible to deceased singer Layne Staley. Hell even Drowning Pool which lost their first singer to heart problems didn't do that. They knew their friend was irreplaceable.

Lane Stanley was not a perfect person. He had a well known history with drugs that delayed the band from making new material. He even predicted his own death from his addictions. He was eventually killed by a speed ball overdose in 2002. But there could be no denial of the man's talent. His real life pain seemed to seep through the words he sang. You can tell this in hindsight but the proof is in the pudding. When he wails in "I Stay Away" for example, you can actually feel the man's loneliness. How lost he feels. That kind of emotion cannot be duplicated.

It would be like someone trying to start Nirvana again. There would be riots in the streets. So AIC, try something new on the next album. Let a dead man lie and be at peace. Stop pissing on the grave of the man you called your friend.

Until next time, fly high and fly well.