When you’ve reached that point in the relationship where you’re showing each other the bad fanart you did in college…

 

 

 

 

 

So when it comes to NChick episodes, the ones I end up liking the best are usually the ones I feel genuinely nostalgic for, not just the shit a vocal minority requested so I did it ahem Jem ahemahem.  But in that wave of nostalgia somehow I ended up on the “art” folder of my computer.  I use the word “art” loosely, as I… uh… well, there’s a reason I do funny Internet videos in pigtails and never went into animation or anything.

But as I was going through them I started showing them to Todd, and he showed me his (let’s just say his would surprise nobody), and he admitted difficulty reconciling the person he knew, pushing … 27, and the “Internet goon” who had made all these wonders.  And wonders they are, truly. A cautionary tale!  So let’s take a look back, shall we? A look back at:

My Bad College Fanart and Photoshops (and some Easter Eggs)

 

I recall that my then-roommate Tammy was driving through the Midtown Tunnel when she saw this billboard with one of the x-men folk, or all of them, I don’t know, for X-men 3, and it looked like they were all about to take the stage, or do an interview for Spin, or something. Thus…

We were doing a series of Darths at one point? I have no idea what inspired Darth Guido here, but to think, five years before Jersey Shore…

I also went through a phase where I felt the need to photoshop Vin Diesel’s face onto ALL OF THE THINGS.  No, Lincoln Memorial, Buddhist temple (no, really) NOTHING was sacred.

I find it odd that people say I “hate” Hercules. I was actually a pretty big Disney’s Hercules fan! Well… the TV show. I’d call myself a fan of the TV show.  The movie I like to pick apart because it’s so flimsy, but either way the universe Nella and I were completely enamored with in college- a spoof comedy based on Greek Mythology? What’s not to love?  Aww look at the three Disney brother gods taking a picture awwww…

That's Hecate's square inch of domain, it's... complicated.

Suffice to say for this one, we had this roleplaying thing going on where Elisa was Hades (the historical one, not the Disney one), Nella was Hymenaeus (look it up) and I was Hecate, and Hades had reduced my domain from the crossroads to a square inch of the crossroads.  Oh yeah. I drew fanart for roleplay characters, the one goddamn time I ever did an online roleplay. Who’s got two thumbs and goes to the cool school? This guy!

"Tonight, I'm fucking you."

Disney’s Beowulf; coming 2015.

That's right. I did Snakes on a Plane fanart.

I may have penned a song or two in ode to the snakes, too.  Wanna fight, mothafucka?

"Snakes on a Plane"

I… have no idea. Snakes on a plane, man. Snakes.

Woooooo upside-down!

Meme schmeme.

Well, they are the fates. I guess they would know.

Also, I have no idea who they’re talking to. Persephone, maybe? (“rape” in the CLASSICAL sense, you plebes!)

Or it could just be based on that meme from back in the day. Probably that.

I was blonde at one point.

Someday I will make you smile, Spike Lee! Someday!

Satan wishes you a HAPPY EASTER!

My friends and I, rather than doing the egg dye thing, developed a tradition of drawing very elaborate designs on easter eggs and painting them.  I had a tradition of the Greek god Hades- this was year 2: Goddess of Spring Hades!

"Please, leave me out of this."

Year 3: Greek Vase Hades

Year one, the Hades what started it. Actually what started it was a pin that Tammy got on a Disney cruise that looked just like this; we loved it so much we both painted it on eggs. Mine failed the least.

Those walls, that perspective, GENIUS!

Past my phantom fanfiction days and… well there was never a point in history where I could art properly, there was a tendency to write Erik the phantom, if not paired off with either Christine or some other chick, well, he adopts some gypsy child and becomes a daddy.  Illustrated thus. /genius

You know what that clown needs? Vin Diesel’s fuckin’ head on it, that’s what.

Some NYU students are better than other NYU students.

NYU had a “general studies” program for students who weren’t academically… up to par enough to get into the program they applied to, but from whom NYU wanted to extract money anyway.  We, the… everyone else, kind of looked down on them.

To be fair, the dumbest chick I ever met was in that program.  That makes my broad, sweeping generalization okay.

Besides, we in the College of Arts and Science needed SOMEONE to look down on.  I mean, besides Gallatin.

Evinrude

I… Erik needed a motorboat? No not THAT kind of motorboat, pervs…

I’m also quite sure that every phantom phan goes through a Greek mythology Hades/Persephone… thing. At least at one point.

....?

I kind of remember the context for this? I think I was parodying this other phantom fangirl who had like… space lions or something.

Oh, you laughed. Admit it.

Sting lives for this shit!

Vin Diesel will cut you… and cut his way into every picture!

Vin Diesel will replace every last member of Lord of the Rings!

EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.

ONE VIN TO RULE THEM ALL

I... I don't even know. This may have been the very day I learned to use Photoshop.

And look how far I’ve come!

 

 

So You Want To Die Young…

So I, like anyone who does what I do, often take jokes from other people.  I don’t know if everyone does the same, but I know Todd does, as he helps me write my episodes and I help him write his.  Well, “write” is a strong word, really if party A says something funny party B will write it down and either incorporate it into our script or not. In City of Angels I know it was a bit blurred- he helped me try to figure out Himmel, and a lot of the Nicolas Cage jokes.  The bit about pajamas was his, as well as sex being his favorite part of living.  Pears was mine. For “If I Die Young” I can claim a couple- “the touch the feel of satin, the fabric of our…” and of course the “You understand my pain, (shitty band)” gag.   Now, though Todd and I disagree on, well, most things, we really come together on how awful this song is, which I want to have a word on in non-video form because I’ve seen some people jump to the defense of the song.  If they like it, that’s their business, but I want to explore it a little more. He did leave out a couple things we’d talked about, which I wanted to touch on to really drive home how vapid this song is, the first of which being, how you tackle this subject right:

I don’t have much to add; I’ll let that speak for itself.

See, “If I Die Young” is an incredibly self-centered song, which is what disturbs me about it; to me, it’s really telling of the me-centric attitude our culture is taking, which is why I compare it to “Passage”, which never once mentions the dying person’s desires. I imagine that’s why “If I Die Young” is a hit and “Passage” is not, nor would it ever be.  “If I Die Young” is twee, romanticized and has a heavy set of blinders on.  It kind of reminds me of the romanticizing of tuberculosis in the 19th century, how you waste away to a frail thing that other people have to take care of but you leave a porcelain doll for a corpse that everyone can look at and contemplate. “Passage” is haunting, and has no agenda, save for the painful tragedy that dying young is.

Which brings me to point two: Clearly, this person does not know anyone who has died young. I have; I knew four.  None of them left behind cute corpses.

None of them were best friends or siblings; they were friends, in one case a student, or in the first case my best friend’s sister. She was four or five. I was eight, so I didn’t really care, having only the faintest concept of mortality at the time.  And I can say I didn’t get it, and if my best friend did she hid it well; we had no concept of what was going on, or that she wouldn’t pull through.  But I can say that that young death did tear that family apart, in many ways. That one was brain cancer.

The next three were more gruesome. Number one was James- I mentioned him in the TLC video. I won’t go into details, but he was murdered, and his body wasn’t found for weeks. It wasn’t an open casket. He was nineteen.

Then came JB- oddly enough the guy through whom I met my current roommate, Paco. He was hit by a car on Park avenue in Harlem, running from some muggers.  For a while we were fearful that he would become a white conservative rallying cry that his death was a hate crime, but the police shot that one down pretty quickly. An interesting example of no one giving a shit who he was, though they sure were quick to hop to use him for their horrible agenda. He was twenty.

Then was Sandy- I detail his death in a blog entry about a year ago. He died in a car accident between LA and Bakersfield. He was twenty.

Let me remind the reader that tragedy is not a contest.  You see this a lot in insecure people; when someone shares a story, someone else tries to negate their story with a tragedy of their own that’s even worse, to show that they have no right to feel the way they do.  My point’s not to out-sad anyone, my point is to drive home how simply un-romantic young death is. It is meaningless, it is painful, and it very rarely leaves behind a cute corpse that one can dress in satin and lay down in a bed of roses. How romantic!

No, young death is painful and usually violent. Anyone who would write a wistful, self-centered song like this… either doesn’t know the reality of what it does to people, how painful and meaningless it is, or just doesn’t care!

So my treatise is this; it’s bad enough to encourage the nuanced me-centric narcissism that is engulfing the globe, slowly and surely, but let’s not use a romantic young death as your vessel to get that idea across.  Trust me, young death is many things; romantic it ain’t.

You can see Todd’s review, here:

Before anyone says anything!

This I think is gonna be one of those deals where I’m gonna have to quietly ignore the comments sections on the TLC video for my own sanity, due to speculation on my sincerity at the end of the video and how I define addiction and alcoholism.  The first point is something I’ve had to deal with before with my documentary, and with that I laid myself out WAY more on the line so hey, at this point I’m used to people questioning the sincerity of it, or downright trolling it.  Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t terribly common, but it happens, and I think the major reason people shy away from the vulnerability of sharing sincere emotion is because it really kinda hurts when people question it.

On that point I’ll just say this; yeah, at this point in time, almost ten years after she died, it hits me more than it ever has.  I don’t know why this point in time is the hittin’ time, but there ya go.  I got weepy and emotional a LOT during the research of this beast. I didn’t even start to mention that the footage of Left Eye dying is floating around the nets and quite easy to find. No, really.

But on the point of alcoholism there seems to be much more dissent; as a longtime Loveline listener, I’ve always adhered to the Dr. Drew school of thought on the matter, and he consistently refers to addiction as a disease, including a genetic predisposition at that.  Having quite a bit of experience with alcoholics in my family and, hell, being a low level addict myself, yes, addiction is a disease, just like depression, just like bipolar disorder.  It is often a fatal disease, as Club 27 teaches us.

There was a LOT of my little ramble at the end that I cut out that makes it a bit less tenuous, and hell, that shit was hard to edit. But let me make this clear; no one who succumbs to addiction deserves ridicule.  One of the key prerequisites for addiction is a certain level of Shit one has gone through that feeds the addiction, be it unavailable parents or a shitty job or a history of sexual or physical abuse (that’s usually the most common)- no true addict has a happy life.

And Amy Winehouse is no exception.  Alcoholism never comes alone- it’s usually accompanied with a healthy dose of depression.  She was ill, whatever was wrong in her head, and for whatever reason she never had an incentive to turn her life around.  Most people who die from their addictions don’t.  But they don’t deserve ridicule; they just didn’t conquer those demons in time.

I must assume that anyone who looks down on addicts who died as weaklings who deserved it, well, they just haven’t been alive for very long.  Either that or they enjoy a good, healthy superiority complex.

That’s me being charitable.

Ethical Storytelling, or, Why I Did It

A couple of weeks ago I participated in a panel to benefit the lovely folks at Exhale, who helped me a very great deal during the production of my documentary.  I was asked to be on the panel because of the documentary (explained here), as, having put it out there and since it’s been doing pretty well, already won a couple of awards (/gloat) I was something of an expert on what it’s like to put an extremely personal story in a public space.  I hadn’t really thought of that, but the truth is, it is enlightening.

A lot of people ask me why I did it, why even bother doing something so personal so soon after it had happened, and especially letting the whole Internet in on your little secret.  Well, I suppose I had a lot of reasons.  I’ve had a few accusations of attention-seeking, a comment which I find awkward considering how mind-bendingly painful the whole process was; my TGWTG co-contributors can attest, I hardly spoke to anyone for the year between Kickassia and Suburban Knights because I was so wrapped up in production, and so overwhelmed and run down when I had down time. Of the new folks this year, the only people I had ever interacted with in the slightest was Lupa, and that only right before the shoot because by that point, the doc was done and I could finally decompress.

But it is painful; awkward, it makes me cringe. I can’t stand to watch it.  There are sound problems with the DVD I need to fix that I haven’t gotten around to because I just can’t stand to look at the thing.  This pressure is NOTHING compared to the pressure of the production; if being so vulnerable and open wasn’t enough, then there was the friction with the producers, the difficulty dealing with some of the subjects, the constant arguments with the babydaddy (we’ll call him Vindaloo, cause I’m racist like that).  It’s not that I’m ashamed of it; far from it, I think we did pretty well for the time and budget we had.  But I can’t stand watching it; there’s just too much me in there.

Pile all this on top of knowing how genuinely unempathetic some folks can be.  In a way, this really reinforced my resolve in terms of “why even do it in the first place?” – some people see vulnerability and attack it just because it’s there; I’ve had people say nasty things about me that clearly don’t give a fuck about the subject of abortion; they just see a vulnerability, and they attack it, because it makes them feel good.  They aren’t sociopaths, I might go out on a limb and say they aren’t really even bad people, but they are just that sad. And they definitely throw this vitriol at ladies who are much less thick-skinned than I.

So, why even do it in the first place?

Well, at first, it was to fill a gap; I saw a bunch of documentaries about abortion, none of them were from the point of view of someone who had one.  They had all been made by men.  And sorry, men, it’s all well and good for you to have an opinion on the matter, but you can’t really understand what it’s like because it’s a situation that will NEVER apply to you.  I did eventually find one called “Speak Out: I Had an abortion”, but it was less a documentary and more a series of testimonies.  I wanted to make a documentary with a beginning, middle and end, so I did.

But bringing it back to that concept of “ethical storytelling” which I learned more about at the panel, I think it was more that.  I wanted to do it to tell a story; I wanted people to see all sides of what it feels like, people who regret it, people who don’t, why they feel how they feel, etc.  This was important to me because it’s so common. I’m not exceptional; most of my closest female friends have had abortions, too (even the lesbian. wtf!).  It’s like when I hear friends saying “Well, I don’t know anyone personally who’s had one” (You do. Several.)  or similarly “I don’t know any rape victims, thankfully” (again, trust me, you do). It’s a common thing that no one feels comfortable talking about. That is why you don’t know.

The lady at the panel described “ethical storytelling” as sharing a story, perhaps a charged personal story, like one of rape, domestic abuse, abortion, in a truthful way, without a slant for an agenda.  Sure, I suppose “understand this thing better” could be considered an agenda, but in the case of abortion, without the intent of being on either a “pro-life” or “pro-choice” side.  Of course I think abortion should be legal, to me that’s not even up for debate. That is the farthest thing from my mind; if there’s any agenda, it would be to demystify these things that people feel so uncomfortable talking about, and that’s why I’ve been so open about it.  Yes, I’m kind of a public figure. Yes, I’ve got an audience and a future to consider, all of which will react differently and not perhaps favorably.  But this is something I don’t really wobble on.  I think knowing you’re in the right, regardless of what society or the weaker of mind might say, gives one some resolve that they might not feel otherwise, especially when speaking of something so sensitive.

The scary thing about it is once your story is out there, people will do with it what they will. Some will be inspired by it, others disgusted, others still will use it as an object of ridicule.  When you put your story out there, you have to be okay with this. No one will see your story in the same way, or even in the same way you do, and if you can’t accept that, then perhaps you’re not yet ready to share it.  I think I shared a part of my story (and only a part) as a method of coming to terms, and to be honest, I think it works. I don’t carry the pain with me that I did a year ago, or the regret.  I’m at peace with pretty much everything, the production, the  outcome, the reception (did I mention there might have been awards? /gloat…) even how my relationship with Vindaloo ended up.

I feel worlds away from that place now. New city, new relationship, I feel like a completely different person, with this thing behind me but not in that same place.  I don’t think I could say that had it not been for the story sharing.  The relationship is still quite new,  though he certainly knew about all this madness a long time before I met him because of my blog.  A long time before I even knew who he was, in fact (life is weird like that, at least for me). This was something that made me nervous in bringing up with anyone I might date, it having very much to do with painfully toxic relationship that was not with him.  What a fun thing to get into, huh?  You know about this, I know about this, plus God knows how many strangers! 

And what can I say about him, or anyone else who is a decent person?  For every one venomous insecure little asshat there are dozens of open, caring people out there. That isn’t to say that he thinks this (or any of the other little unsavory life experiences I have behind me) is awesome; just that he’s open to hearing it. He doesn’t shame, he doesn’t judge, and that, I think, is the best you can hope from anyone, and is also the best thing they can give.

(gloat the third; he is awesome. He makes me so goddamn happy. /end gloat)

It took my mom a long time to screw up the courage to watch it, but I was careful not to push. When she did, she was surprisingly calm about it, stating that it wasn’t at all what she expected (and meant that in a good way) and that she was glad that I did it.

In the doc Vindaloo and I don’t really go into specifics- we explain that it happened, when it happened, that it sucked, that we both felt differently about it, but not really what went down.  A part of me considered putting down in words what actually happened, and include that in the public space, but I think I realized that part of the reason I felt alright with the doc, no matter what people do with it, is that I didn’t give any more than I felt I could lose.  And the real details of what happened, our relationship, those are the parts I don’t want to let go.  This, I think, is an important lesson of story sharing; always keep something for yourself. Always.  But do not be ashamed, do not push it on people lest they react in a way that you might not be okay with, and don’t give more than you can afford to lose.

Inspiration: My only poem ever

Internet slander (well, libel, I suppose) for one such as I, coming from people who don’t know me, can be disheartening. It can also be quite amusing, as in the instance of this forum exchange someone linked to me on Twitter.  A quick google search done by someone else on Twitter revealed that there is indeed a poetry-espousing Lindsay Ellis somewhere out there on the Internet.  Unfortunately, it isn’t me; the only things I’m running right now are a facebook page, my twitter and of course this blog (which I fail at).

It got me thinking, though, and I do recall that I DID write one poem in my short little life. After digging through my hard drive, I found it, and I have to say I’m still quite proud of it.  It was inspired by the Child ballads, folk songs collected by one Mr. Child in England at some point in history (my details were a lot less fuzzy when I was in college. Which I failed at.)  I was very into Child ballads at the time because of their connection to Irish folk music.  With that, I wrote a Child ballad about the dorm room I shared at NYU on Broadway and 10th Street with one Nella Inserra; it, like many dorm rooms, smelled like unwashed ass.  I wrote it just before the end of the semester, as we said our tearful goodbye to the room.

So I bequeath to you my bad poetry of yore, Internet. I hope you enjoy. College dorms should never have carpet. For any reason.

 

The Room What Smells of Ass

The Poem by Lindsay Ellis © 2004

What to do, what to do, upon stepping in
to the heavily unventilated room
For this room it doth truly smell like ass
and my nostril it doth consume!

We know not why, said the two residents,
Why this assy smell doth be
But what can be done, if in our power
to possibly appease thee?

Anything, anything, just make the smell go
Does this smell come from thee?
From where does it come, know you this?
Do you nothing? How can this be?

Be it the dirty clothes, the garbage pales,
or perhaps the unwashed sheets?
Be it some rancid food which somehow makes
The smell your nostril greets?

Nay, think we, said the two roommates,
for this hath happened before,
Twas spilled milk on the carpet then,
and perhaps it is that once more.

Do something then, insisted the guest,
for the smell simply won’t pass!
What plan you then to do, roommates,
to this room that smells like ass?

We know not, said they, for the time before
Baking soda on the ground was layed,
But when up it was vacuumed, in the air it went
And it was in the air it stayed.

We could not breath, and everything reeked,
Of powder with a flowery scent
And when it settled, there was no escape;
Into every crack it went.

So little is there for us to do,
Do little though we may
We can do the laundry, we can take out the trash
But still the smell doth stay

Carpet may be a hindrance, said they
And ventilation, there is naught
But always some smell lingers here
And it bothers us quite a lot

And now upon departure’s threshold we stand,
And our little room we do watch
And we clean things out most manfully
Yet still it smells like crotch

And with us you stand, you saw with us
As the year did come and pass
But through it all, change though it did,
It always smelled like ass.

 

Bad Habit

When I was sixteen I decided to become a vegetarian. I read an essay by Moby about why he was a vegetarian, and that very day I decided to be a vegetarian, cold turkey. I now don’t even remember what the essay said, having only read it once, but it made sense at the time, and I haven’t had so much as a slice of ham since.

I woke up yesterday morning with a plague I’m fairly certain I acquired from Luke Mochrie. I slept a lot more than I intended to, and I think that had to do with the sickness, but despite the plague I nonetheless woke with a different outlook. I’m sure part of this had to do with an article I read from the Thought Catalog not long after getting up, and a conversation I had with my best friend, Elisa (I have two of those, for the record. BFFs, not Elisas), but I finally came to a resolution.

This self loathing crap is getting old, so I’m going to stop now.

Whenever people first meet me, people who’ve seen my webseries or my work at USC, are often surprised on how down on myself I am. Even Benzaie, last year in Reno, said to me that I seemed so confident online, how could I be so secretly self-effacing? Well the truth is it’s a combination of three traits; part realism, part arrogance, and part INCREDIBLE self-loathing that would put the great wildfires of California to shame, irrational and consuming. I won’t go into details, but as some of my TGWTG co-contributors might tell you, it can get pretty fuckin’ annoying to listen to my bitching, which while perhaps not baseless, is usually out-of-proportion.

The thing is, realism clashes with the self-loathing. This is the problem of being an online personality in the first place; realistically, criticism of what I do should only get to me when I see it as valid, and even then I should learn from it, not get upset. You’d think that after three years of doing this I’d have learned to tell the difference between valid criticism and trolling, negativity for the sake of bitching and constructive criticism, immaturity versus insight, but I feel like in a way I’ve gotten worse. That self loathing monster in my head tended to eschew every positive thing I heard, and even on a bad day the plurality of my feedback is positive, if not the majority. The good things bounce off my hard, rubber head and I soaked up negativity like a sponge, believing it! That’s the worst part. Not always; of course. Sometimes my shield of arrogance would fly up and deflect everything, and I would tell myself, “what do these idiots know? They’re just wrong.”

But Internet goings-on are superficial, I find the worst part of self-loathing manifests in the real world, specifically in your relationships. My relationships.

I wouldn’t say I’m attracted to “assholes”. None of the guys I’ve been with since I moved to California were bad people, even if there weren’t very good to me. I suppose the trend was more simply “emotionally unavailable”, the type of guy that isn’t a eeevil, per se, but my goodness did they treat me badly. Of the three that transcended into “boyfriend” status, however briefly, they all treated me very, very badly when it ended. I was a secret from at least SOMEONE for all three of them, always parents, sometimes EVERYONE. And in my self-loathing-addled brain, this made sense. After all, I am quite horrible in some way, right? Who wouldn’t want to keep me a secret?

Oh, and don’t get me wrong, I treated them badly, too. One of them pushed me into sex too soon. I can safely say that that relationship ended the worst, as my solution to this was to drink myself into submission. Bad idea, because I told him what’s what! Well, screamed him and punched him what’s what. The second got roughly two years of subconscious revege and mind games from me. I don’t know that I’ve ever fought with someone so much. Number three was just arrogant and disrespectful, and that’s what did our relationship in. That and he wasn’t the brightest. He was my rebound from number two. I liked him because he was pretty. Dumb, and pretty. But even that one wasn’t even willing to change his facebook status for me. He’d be judged for dating a white girl, after all, and if I couldn’t understand why he’d want to keep it on the down-low, then I just didn’t understand him.

So, yesterday, I decided I’m gonna break that habit. Because it’s exhausting. I can’t tell you how many relationships I’ve shot in the foot from the outset with that self-loathing, someone might meet me only to be turned off by how eager I am to prove how worthless I am. The only people who are drawn to you in that case are the ones who agree with you.

To me, it’s like the vegetarianism. A bit more complicated and more work, obviously, but ten years ago I made a decision to quit something cold turkey and stick with it, because it was the best thing to do for me. No more burgers, no more roast beef, no more self-loathing.

So to anyone reading this, I suggest you do the same. Self-hating thoughts are toxic and accomplish nothing. So identify them and purge them. Cold turkey. No reason not to do it right now and you have no excuse not to. You’ll be glad you did.

My week in Neverland, or how to avoid a BJ from Lindsay

Today I’m in Berkeley.  Yesterday I was in LA, and earlier yesterday I was in Chicago.  This is the first time I feel like I’ve been alone for a week, which for all intents and purposes it was, most of which being in Chicago with the people I work with and then jumping suddenly back into film land, on a five hour drive from LA to the Bay area with Ritvik, who knows NOTHING about the site, nor do I think he particularly gives a shit, so all my gossip fell on deaf ears.  I don’t think it’s any secret that a chunk of the TGWTG gang was in Chicago filming our third anniversary video.  I don’t think I’m supposed to disclose the content, but I can talk about what goes on and what it’s like, which seems to be the bulk of what people are interested in when they ask me about the Annual Gathering of the International Society of Manchildren.

This is the third year I’ve gone to this thing.  Honestly? This year was my favorite by far (though that may come as a surprise to some!).  I’m much less in on the loop of the TGWTG social circle than others, but there’s always a different air on each of these shoots.  What I found this year is that the general atmosphere was much more relaxed, less tense and less a feeling of X was trying to impress X.  In that way, this was the first year that it really felt like we were kind of a family, like everyone got along and we were all working towards something.  Yeah, some were like broken records; Benzaie wouldn’t stop bitching about sales tax (and he got a lot of shit for that) while I wouldn’t stop bitching about production stuff like camera work and permits (and I got some shit for that), and Lewis would not stop telling me “THAT FILM SCHOOL RUINED YOU!” (he eventually apologized for that. Thank you, Lewis. Sorry if I cockblocked your review) but it felt cohesive, and everyone seemed to feel relaxed and at home. It was nice, and I can honestly say this was the first time I’ve gone to one of these things were that was the case, at least for me.

Last year the shoot took place about two days before my pitch for my doc.  As such, I was VERY preoccupied, and didn’t interact with people as much as I could or should have. The year before that, however, well there were a LOT more people, and so was a lot more fragmented socially.  In the interest of tact, I won’t drop names (though I’m sure people can deduce of whom I speak), but there was one (former) contributor to the site who liked to spread… talk. I won’t call it lies, just talk.  We’ll call him Stan.  Stan really didn’t like me; I’m not sure why, because I never talk to him much at all. But he hid the fact that he didn’t like me from me very well, so much that when he was asked to leave the site I had quite a few people approach me and apologize for having avoided me at the brawl, listening to the things he said about me (and other producers) and believing them.  For instance, he approached Benzaie one day towards the end and announced “Dude, Lindsay’s totally fucking so-and-so” (we weren’t).  Ben, of all people, the least scandalizable Frenchman on the planet!  Like he was going to go, ”Sacre bleu! I’m pretty sure they’re not married!” and march down to my hotel room and bang on the door to stop this fornication this instant!

My favorite, though, Phelous told me about half way through this year’s shoot- I try to stay off too much of the gossip stream, because really, who cares, but this one I hadn’t heard (and apparently everyone else had)- that one some stream or podcast or something, someone had asked him what the worst part about going to Chicago for the brawl was, and his response was something to the tune of “having to dodge a blow job from Lindsay.”

…..huh.

Who would dodge a blow job? Like, no sir, no beej on the menu here! Me body is a temple.

Now that I’m gone I’m really kinda regretting not having done a dramatic reenactment.  Like this guy’s walking down the hallway, minding his own business. I’m around the corner, crouched, ready to spring into action, mouth open, hungry. Suddenly I jump from my hiding place, going for the gold, and he swerves his pelvis just in time, runs for cover while I pout, thwarted! Like “phew, dodged that bullet!”  That was the source of great comedy for a good chunk of the week, though I admit it still kinda haunts me in the back of my mind that for so many people, when there’s a girl they don’t like for no discernable reason, the clear solution to get other people to share that dislike is just to call her a slut. Hey, whatever works, right? You go, boy, no better way to earn people’s respect.

The shoot was a learning experience for everyone. It was also hard for many reasons, not the least of which the weather not always cooperating, the temperature and the fact that some of us weren’t wearing much.  I wasn’t that cold, but the dress I was wearing was REALLY restrictive and was totally fucked up by the end of it.  Holly was very wonderful about making sure we were taken care of.  I finally really got to know and spend time with people I’d met but never gotten to know, like Handsome Tom (and 8-bit Mickey!) and the wonderful Ed Glazer, who rose up to become a hero of sorts with the shoot, and both Lisa and Nella (who made their own way out to Chicago) were thrilled to get to go, and to feel so included in the group.  The new additions that came out this year like Lupa, Todd and Luke Mochrie were all wonderful to meet and hang out with, and brought a really good and positive (yes, positive!) energy to the crew.

Was the shoot hard? Eh, not really, though people with less production experience seemed to think so.  I think it’s all relative, some think it was some think it wasn’t.  But the important thing was whether it was worth it.  I’m sure some people will love it way more than Kickassia, some people will think it’s worse, and some will think it’s the same. The production value is about the same, at least on-set (for post production FX, that remains to be seen). It is most assuredly different writing-wise, so I’ll be curious to see how that flies.  But the important thing, for my part anyway, was did we have fun, and I don’t think a single person on the trip didn’t feel that it was worth it.  For my part this was my favorite shoot yet, and I look forward to even awesome-er next year.  And for you, the viewer, I hope we don’t disappoint.  We as producers don’t have a whole lot of say about what goes on screen and the writing, but we do all work really hard with what we’re given, and what we’re able to do.  So keep an eye out for the next great adventure of the online reviewer dorks, coming to an Internet near you in a couple of months!

And watch out for those errant unwanted BJs. I hear they can be rather unpleasant.

Late night thoughts on the impossible standards we put on female characters

It’s 3:30 AM.  Since this semester started and I have only night classes, my being awake at this hour is not unusual.  I’ve been working on Nostalgia Chick episodes that won’t come out for months. Not a bad thing; being “Nostalgia Chick” is my job, and will be my primary focus once I move back to New York.  But that’s not what I’m supposed to be doing; I’m supposed to be writing.

I’m taking this feature screenwriting class.  Writing anything is like having a root canal with only rootbeer as a local anesthetic, but I wasn’t always like this.  I’ve been outlining, trying to write, trying to figure out where I’m going with it, forming a dent in the shape of my head in the desk.  I had no idea how difficult this would be.  It’s not as though I can’t write, and write fast for that matter. At one point I was banging out Christian romance novels for spare change!  Writing Catholic Robot, albeit that screenplay was a grand total of six pages, was a breeze.  I’ve written a ton in my life!  But ultimately, what’s so difficult about this one?  Even if I can’t work up any passion for it, I should at least be able to phone it in, right?

Then I realized it; the main character is female.  Besides the aforementioned (totally phoned in) Christian romance novels, I’d never really written a female main character before.

That got me thinking about how we put pressure on ourselves when writing female characters as opposed to male characters, especially main characters.  In this case, it’s particularly difficult because I, like a fool, decided to write a period piece that takes place in early 19th century India, under the Bengal presidency. Beyond that it’s a story about gender roles.  Put in the rest of the rest of the restrictions I’ve placed on myself in the interest of not being cliche  (no love interest! no cross-dressing!) I have written myself into a corner by being afraid to write anything.

Readers, women especially, judge the hell out of female characters.  I may be no fan of the the Twilight um… saga is not the appropriate word for this thing… the Twilight fantasies of a repressed housewife that somehow got published, but it makes me kinda ill to see how much hate the main character gets when similar male mains probably won’t.  Take the main character for Dan Brown’s books.  Langdon, I think.  If possible, he has even less personality than Bella, but receives nowhere near as much vitriol.  It may be that those are targeted towards an older audience.  But then you look at The Hunger Games, which is much better thought out and better written, there are people, mostly female, still cry out “Mary Sue!”  We just can’t win.

I’ve heard plenty of men, some even approaching me, expressing nervousness about writing female characters.  This shouldn’t be an issue. You’re not writing about Hindus in 19th century Bengal, you’re just writing about women. You know, half the planet. The elusive “other half” should not be so elusive and mysterious, and yet it is.  For two reasons, in my humble opinion:

One:  the female point of view is wildly underrepresented in fiction aimed at general audiences (I’d wager at least 95% of main characters for general audience films are male- case in point, all Pixar films).  This means we grow up in a culture where almost the only female points of view we see are from… Disney. Eesh.

Two: the pressure you get from everyone else.  It seems like for most folks the attitude is, “why bother?” when it’s such a pain to write a main female character, not to mention in this world we live in of Hollywood tentpoles, no one is going to see Transformers if the main character happened to be female. Cause nobody goes to those movies for the robots.

But I digress; this isn’t about Hollywood, this is about my inability to put one word to the page confidently.

There are plenty of people like me who bitch and moan about the underrepresentation of women and minorities in fiction, but when it comes time to put my money where my mouth is, I find myself unable.  I’ll have to eventually, of course, or I will fail the course.  But I feel that this is another symptom of hypersensitivity; characters can’t just live and breathe naturally, if they’re female, no, they must be female first and character second, meaning that they have to serve their purpose in the greater culture rather than their purpose in the story.  They must be a STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER that is realistic and fair and does not represent the patriarchy or something.

Even after forcing out almost a thousand words in half an hour I still don’t know what to write.  See? I can write fast. But only when I’m openly being a hypocrite.

Thanks a lot, touchy liberal fiction-culture.  Now I’m too hyper-sensitized to even write my own gender.

What An Asshole

This entry doesn’t have much of a point. I usually try to have a point.  Today, fuck it. I might get my ass handed to me for this one, but oh well, I’m almost done with this school anyway.

One of the “perks” of going to the “top film school in the fucking universe” is that we get “industry professionals” to come in and tell us how little we know.  So yesterday in my [CLASS WITHHELD], we had this guy come in who is, admittedly, a very successful [SUBJECT] director.  We’ll call him Manly McAsshole.  He was basically an “if they mated” between Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs and The Situation. You just know he’s stared at himself in the mirror saying “I’d fuck me. I’d fuck me so hard” a time or two.  Then he takes off his armpit-stained wifebeater and flexes.

One of the first and most consistent points he had was how little we knew.  Fine.  We’re students, that’s why we’re here, to learn, and we don’t have as much industry experience as you do.  But he tried to use examples of personality, do you make mistakes?  He asks one girl what time she got up this morning, assuming she probably got up around noon.  She got up at eight to go to ballet class.  Was her head in the game, he asks? Yes, very much so.  Bad example, he moves onto another guy.  This guy hadn’t slept since the day before. Another bad example.  But the point is that he works hard, way harder than we do! And his work is important, because he often works with [NAME DROP BIG RAPPER] and [NAME DROP CRAZY BITCH].  When we are “kids” we can get away with making mistakes.  Because, you know, when you’re twenty you’re incapable of making mistakes that can have repercussions for the rest of your life.

This pissed me off because he assumed everyone in the room was a) an undergrad with b) no life experience. My friend, Matt, sitting next to me, used to teach in England.  He’s lived in several countries, and speaks several languages.  More than half the room were grad students. Some almost his age. One dumb bitch that I know of has children (to clarify, she’s not a dumb bitch because she has kids, she’s a dumb bitch because she’s a dumb bitch).

I… I just can’t even put it into words. My words are not aptly describing what an asshole this guy is.  I am frustrated with my literary impotence.

Another thing he did was congratulate himself on what a dumb, annoying fuck he was when he was in college. Firstly, he was too dumb to get into USC without getting his [ESTABLISHED HOLLYWOOD BIGSHOT] mother and [NAMEDROP PRODUCER] to write him recommendation letters.  Goddamn, what an entitled piece of shit.  Didn’t claw his way up from the no-connections bottom like we did.  He didn’t get along with any authority figures.  He watched weird shit and Fellini and shunned the Hollywood elite, and made weird fucking short films that everyone hated because they didn’t “get it”.  Not because, you know, they sucked.

He then proceeded to shit on his classmates who were more successful than he was.  This guy may have success, but he “makes shitty movies.”  This guy might have directed Brick, which was “alright” bit everything else he’s done is “complete shit.” But most of all, we should worship this motherfucker, because he “tells it like it is.”  And we won’t get that from anyone else in this town.

Yeah, “like it is” from your white male entitled Hollywood perspective, you useless piece of shit.

[NAMEDROP]

He talked for over two hours.  Matt and I kept looking at each other in horror, starting to wonder if it would end.  When we were finally, mercifully, allowed to go on a break, we were stunned into silence for a while, stumbling to the elevator before I blurted, “What an asshole!”  We bitched for a long time, walking away from the cinematic arts building for no other reason then to get away from the stink of Asshole.  The Situation, if you will.

I realized two things:

1) I couldn’t remember anyone I’d met who’d graduated from my program who wasn’t an entitled prick.

2) His success was contingent on his confidence and egotism.  A lot of people probably hated him for it.  But some people are drawn to arrogance, like moths to a flame, and eat that shit up.  He wasn’t that talented.  His videos are okay, but he had never done anything great.  His videos were firmly adequate at best. Firmly.

3) The entire class, especially aforementioned dumb bitch, ate that shit up.

My friend Matt does not like “USC people”.  One time I tried to get him to explain it to me, and he had a difficult time with it.  I get it now, though.  Dumb Bitch brought up the fact that each individual class at USC cost us nearly 500$ a pop.  I don’t think it’s quite that severe, but it’s still a sickening thought to think that not only for that money I was sat and condescended-to by an arrogant asshole who gets by in this business by virtue of his entitlement, but that I paid for it! Dumb Bitch was very happy with this thought; she considered this particular class “well worth the investment.”

I knew I was probably not going back to USC next semester, as it’s just to finish up critical studies requirements to get the expensive piece of paper (and I already have an expensive piece of paper in bloody cinema studies).  I don’t want to invest in the school anymore; I want to buy property while the gettin’s good.  My directing professor for my thesis, who is actually respected and successful without being an entitled prick whose mommy already works in the industry, told me that there wouldn’t be any harm in packing my things up and heading out and pimping my film rather than staying.  But this, oh god this, this confirmed it. I felt like Matt and I were the only people in the room who were aware of the tremendous asshole in front of you, god’s gift to the Jersey Shore. In the words of the great Will Ferrell in one of his greatest performances, “I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!”

I don’t mean to seem like I got nothing from USC; I got plenty. Plenty! I don’t know if it was worth the money, but I don’t regret it. That said, I’m done, if for no other reason I don’t want to get the brainworms like some of these people ostensibly have.  What an asshole.

Watch out, New York.

Some Internet existentialism- Internet passion

Warning: the following is an analogy:

In sound recording, both softwares and hardwares, there is a device called a limiter which compresses sound that goes over a certain frequency and volume.  It distorts the quality of the sound a bit but also makes sure it doesn’t peak.  I think the human brain has something similar in regard to one’s own ability to understand their own scope; how else could celebrities function? Known and adored by millions?  There is something you just kinda have to tune out about ideas like that; even when I first got a facebook group with some 200 photos of screencaps in it, carefully and lovingly selected. My friends took on the emotional burden of being freaked out; I just ignored it.

I am amazed at the response of support in the last few days for financial help to get our film out to festivals; what it was like is a different blog post altogether, but the fact that so many people displayed their generosity, both here and before I was filming, kinda puts my brain-limiter to the maximum to the point where my brain shorts out and starts looking at shiney fun things, like puppy, or Hyperbole and a Half. There is something in my deeply insecure brain that tells me, “the work I do online does not warrant this show of support. I do not deserve this.” Granted, I was very good at getting DVDs out in a timely fashion (albeit I did run out of covers for some, so some were just DVD-in-envelope which I found out after the fact might break in transit… sheeeyit) but when I have to print out shipping labels and see the reach I have, even for my extremely modest little Internet cewebrity, it is a bit overwhelming, just a touch.  Today I mailed to Austrailia, Japan, Singapore, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK and all over the US, just to name a few.  Despite the creation of the Facebook Page a few weeks ago I still have almost 700 un-responded-to friend requests, by this point out of sheer laziness and a little bit of guilt.  I think that little bit of guilt is what tinges everything I do when something positive or supportive comes my way as a result of my presence on the Internet; this little voice that says “I do not warrant this.”

In the negativity, the opposite is true.  I stopped reading the comments on the TGWTG site a long time ago because of the negativity. Idiot boys making comments on my appearance is one thing, but when people passionately pronounce their disdain for me; I don’t understand that either. I never meant to invoke passion in people, not by way of Internet review, anyway.  I don’t understand why it would come up; it’s just a little review of The Fifth Element, or My Little Pony, or whatever, for fucks sake.  Mild disinterest or dislike, sure, but passionate hatred? I feel like I’m failing a little bit if that continues to be the case with some viewers.  I’ve tried very hard to distance myself from the stylings of some of my colleagues, who seem to get off on the passion they invoke in others, hatred, support, or otherwise.

Dislike or disinterest is one thing; I’d say hatred makes up a small minority, as does obsessive stalker (which, let’s face it, I’d be even more uncomfortable with).  The majority of what I’ve seen is pleasant, sane, good-natured, level-headed and supportive.  I suppose what I’m trying to say is that, even though I asked for it, I’m still a bit shocked at the support I’ve gotten and the interest in the film, especially given the uncomfortable nature of the film that I made, but I’m not ungrateful.  One of the biggest hurdles I still have is learning to accept compliments and support when they’re given to me.

If I mailed you a DVD, I hope I don’t disappoint you; I had a very talented crew working for me. If you want one, check out this entry. If you do have one, feel free to show it to your friends, family, organizations that might be interested, but DO NOT post it online, as not only is that a copyright violation, it could screw over our chances of getting into the higher-up festivals. But using footage for fair use purposes i.e. criticism is obviously fine, as is writing up reviews (in fact, please do!)  I’m trying to be better about interacting with people I meet through the Internet and responding to them in kind; it’s all been a process of upping the threshold on that limiter.

But to anyone who has shown support for this, thank you.