Wait . . . Dad?Hmm?
Does is hurt to get stoned?
Certainly not.
No, I mean, do you think it would hurt if you were turned to stone?
You can't turn to stone. You can freeze and turn to ice. You could burn and turn to ash, but you can't turn to stone. It's impossible to turn to stone.
But would it hurt?
Yes. No, wait, I mean no.
Why not.
Well, pain is just an electrical impulse from your nerves to your brain. And since you can't send electricity through stone, you wouldn't feel any pain.
Wait . . . Dad?
Yes?
Can you make me a smoothie?
Sure. Gimme a minute.
It may seem silly, in fact I know it's silly, but I love considering fantasy within the confines of reality. Little things like could elves really fire arrows that fast, but there aren't any elves, but if there were, then they'd be magical and could do anything, but could they really? And the answer of course, is yes and no.
Yes, elves could certainly shoot that fast. Humans can shoot that fast, look it up on YouTube, so of course elves could shoot that fast.
Can Evangaline Lilly shoot that fast? No. Then Tauriel shouldn't be able to and neither should Legolas, if you're into boys. And yet, and yet, I totally buy into the fact that Jennifer Lawrence can shoot that fast.
Why?
Better editing? Less intrusive CGI? No wigs. I mean, c'mon, how could you make an eight foot dragon look touchable and yet make Orlando Bloom look like a poorly rendered cartoon?
I don't know what it is about wigs that drive me crazy, but an actor in a wig, looks to me like an "actor" in a "wig". All I can think about is how itchy and uncomfortable that actor must have been all day long, and my suspended disbelief drops like a pain free stone.
And CGI just looks terrible. Go ahead and augment, but lighten the load. Less is more.
If you're gonna lie to me, make it a good lie, make it reasonable, ground it in reality, make it fair.
That's the word I've been thinking about. Fairness.
I've been thinking about it cause the Niners are going up against the Seahawks this upcoming weekend. I won't bore you with a lot of football speak, but even though I love Seattle, I really dislike their football team. And it's not because they're division rivals, though there's that, it's because I really hate the 12th Man.
Let me explain:
You see, the crowd at their home stadium is so loud that it makes it nearly impossible for the opposing team to call plays. I mean, unless you're the Eagles, the home field advantage is always a plus, but the Seahawks are something ridiculous like 26-1 in the last few seasons. It's an advantage so powerful that the crowd is referred to as the 12th Man (A football team has 11 players on the field, if you absolutely needed that reference, and the crowd makes twelve). They're also referred to as "The Legion of Boom", but calling the stadium "ThunderDome would be taking it too far.
Now, I'm not Pollyanna. Every team cheats and lies and steals and when it comes to competition with billions of dollars at stake, it would be downright stupid not to maximize every conceivable advantage. But, to me, it just doesn't feel right that their excellence is predicated not on how good they play, but how poorly the other team plays.
Getting in your opponents head is one thing. Using cryptography to decode your opponents play calling system, fine. Go ahead and rough the kicker a little bit, but hammering them with 126 decibels just doesn't feel right. It just doesn't feel fair.
I'm crazy, right?
Maybe just the very idea of that much screaming gives me the heebeegeebees. I don't like noise almost as much as I don't like wigs.
Truth is, the Seattle Seahawks are a good team, but are they better than the Niners? Most likely in Seattle, but anywhere else, who knows. If it's a lie, make it a good lie.
Which brings me, in a roundabout way, to an American Idol commercial I saw as the Legion of Boom was terrorizing the Saints.
Harry Connick Jr. said something about Idol being the place where superstars are born.
Which is about as unreasonable as an unpalatable lie can get.
First of all, Kelley Clarkson is pretty much the only Idol to move mountains. (Okay, I'll give you Jennifer Hudson for crossover appeal too.) But everyone else? Thousands of hours of air time, millions of eyes and ears reached, water cooler subjects for months, and the best Clay Aiken can do is hosting gigs that Ryan Seacrest turns down.
Now, granted, I can't watch it, cause I know first hand the pain of the anonymity of cattle calls and the agony of being ridiculed alone on an empty stage, but, you know, to each his own.
And a ton of my family and friends love those shows. Which is probably why I don't get invited to dinner very often.
But what boils my blood about the show and all of the shows like it, is that the truth behind those shows is actually pretty amazing, almost beautiful.
You see, no one in those shows are "Discovered"
They're sourced.
A&R people are sent across the country searching for solo artists who haven't broken yet. Private auditions are set up, contracts are signed, photo shoots, video shoots, hair and make-up, all done away from public view.
(Those cattle calls, along with the call backs are part of the marketing campaign selling the American Dream, and for the comic relief factor)
The discovered artists then get the best management and development that money can buy. They're handed a real career, boosted by massive exposure. Win or lose, they're sent touring across the globe, and if they're relatively smart with their cash, they'll never have to worry about health benefits again.
It's exactly the kind of business that the music industry should strive to be.
Finding good artists and using the machine to take them to the next level.
I would totally watch that show.
Cause I like my elves without spray tans, and my football on the field, and I'd like to believe that the journey of an artist has far more entertainment value than the hustling of lottery tickets.
And if I were to turn to stone, I don't need the pain, in fact,
I'd like to go out thinking how pretty Uma Thurman is tonight.
No comments:
Post a Comment