BROCKWILBUR.COM

Yeah, I'm probably not coming back here.

At least until the next Cannonball Read.

BrockWilbur.com

Toodles.

Varsity Demotion

Blogging has not gone super effectively here. Predictable, but I blame it on recent career developments sucking my time away. I've written up a dozen or so additional Cannonball Read reviews, but I've fallen so far behind that I'm going to throw in the towel. Next year I complete the Run...

As punishment, I've been demoted to The Junior Varsity. Conceived and edited by longtime collaborator Mike Placito, this is an entertainment themed blog we're writing with two friends. I'm required to post with much greater frequency, so look for me over there. Anything personal or that doesn't belong in their territory will be posted here.

We already covered the Conan fiasco, and I'm writing something new for the Super Bowl, so see you there.

Paranormal Frativity

Last week, I joined some friends at the Arclight for a preview screening of "Kick Ass" which looks fantastic. We wound up being late enough that the theater had just filled, so we were given tickets to see any other movie we wanted.  This first reason this was awesome: I got a ticket labeled "KICK ASS OVERFLOW", which all things considered, would be a better movie name. Secondly, this meant I could finally see Paranormal Activity in a theater.

I'd been avoiding Paranormal Activity, mostly because my viewing opportunities had been friends with screeners or downloaded copies, and I refused to watch a movie like this in someone's living room.

Loved the movie. It kept me up all night. Not from being frightened by the subject matter, but because if that's what you can do with $15k, then we are all huge failures. It's made $100 million in the U.S. and Canada alone. The math on that works out that they've made 6666.66 times their initial investment. Great. Now even the math of the film is terrifying.

Unlike "Blair Witch Project", I think the actors from this film have a shot at strong future careers. They absolutely carried it, and no matter what you thought of the overall film, they were two of the most interesting and "real" characters I've seen in a long time. Pretty good for two kids responding to a Craiglist post. They lucked out that Micah had work history as a camera man. Katie has a film coming out called "Walking Distance", although the European release title has been changed by the distributor to "Experimental Activity".

Director/writer Oren Peli has become the writer on the movie "Area 51", which was originally scripted by comic juggernaut Grant Morrison. Seems a strange move to replace an established writer with one that "retroscripted" his only movie. Will be fascinated to see how that plays out.

The most disturbing part of the movie for me was its commentary on modern masculinity. Hopefully without giving too much away, I'll tell you this couple is haunted by paranormal activity. Spoiler alert? Anyway, a big part of what brings this upon them is the boyfriend (Micah), whose attitude matches any dude-bro you know who thinks he can fix his household plumbing because he has access to the internet. Of course this doesn't go as planned, but Micah plows ahead anyway, denying outside help, because he has to prove he's a man.

Early on, this made me hate the character, until everything boiled to a head in a scene where Micah shouts at Katie about how he's the man of the house, and nothing is going to come into "my house and fuck with my girl". Around this point, I realized Micah was every third fraternity guy I've ever known, and it all made sense. Clearly he wasn't afraid of ghosts, because he too had gone through Hell Week, where an older frat brother had "ironically" smoked crack for the first time before hazing the pledges. Once you've seen the look in the crazed eyes of that blood-stained Polo wearing senior, you know you can handle anything.

While waiting in the line for the movie, I ran into an old fraternity brother from Chicago who I hadn't seen in two years. Doubtful this was coincidence.

Cannonball Read #1: Your Next-Door Neighbor Is A Dragon

Billed as a guidebook for internet subcultures, Zack Parsons' "Your Next-Door Neighbor Is A Dragon" is exactly the sort of book I'm prone to ignore.

It's 2009. The last book I read on the subject of the internet was in the mid-nineties, and it contained mostly theories on the direction the internet could take if it "caught on". And Moore's Law makes any printed evaluation of the internet instantly anachronistic. What about a book on weird internet subcultures? Again, it's 2009. My generation grew up mocking the bizarre forum posts of furries, voraphiles, and slash fiction writers. These concepts have little mileage left for shock value.

Thankfully, Parsons is uniquely qualified to approach the subject from a fresh perspective. As one of the main writers on SomethingAwful.com, he's spent the last decade mocking internet stupidity on a daily basis. Thinking back now, I realize my introduction to many of these subcultures came originally through his work (I'm positive SA's "Horrors Of Pornography" introduced me to vore). Rehashing the details of these lifestyles would bore his audience, so Parsons goes where his audience never would: the real world.

The result is a darkly absurd bit of gonzo journalism that I couldn't put down.

This is not a guide to the internet, as much as a foray into post-internet studies. For example, consider the improbable event that tomorrow morning you awake to the realization "I am a dragon." A mere decade ago, you may have sought psychological counseling or simply buried your feelings in the same dark recesses of your soul where you hide Crash Test Dummies trivia and your dreams of interpretive dance. You would have suffered a secret burden and lived in fear of discovery. It's 2009. Type "I am a dragon" into a search engine and you'll find hundreds of Dragonkin communities, where like-minded people/dragons will encourage you, provide support, and never call you a lunatic. These are your new friends and this is your new lifestyle.

In a world where any concept can easily find supporters, the horrifyingly improbable can flourish. Transition sentence here. Ron Paul. Point proven.

Parsons journeys across the country, observing the average day of people who inhabit the fringe. Tosh.0's Web Redemption uses a similar conceit, but Youtube stars exist because they crave attention, and therefore are exponentially less interesting than the reluctant subjects presented here. Some could never be accepted because their self image has no real world correlation, like the Dragons, and the super powered Elf who lives in a trailer park with his mother. Others exist merely to forward a message, like the neo-Nazi webmaster who floods local dating services with like-minded women to help grow the cause. Some are dangerous to others (a crazed religious militia) or want to help make the world a better place (the writer with VR 5/Alf/The Nanny slash fiction, or Ron Paul). Those only protecting themselves can find peril on the wastelands of the internet, as the chapter on cyberchondira shows: Self Diagnosed Aspergers, or "internet aspies", is a great way to be a dick but not have to accept responsibility.

The strength of the book comes from Parsons casting himself as the main character. After building a career on mocking e-losers from the safety of his laptop, he's now thrown into their midst. He gains some measure of understanding, and in rare moments can even feel emotional connections, but still serves his main purpose as voicing the reader's questions. Mostly "Why?". Subjects who have heard that question their entire lives develop intriguing logic to support their responses, and Parsons never hesitates to call bullshit. Unless it's funnier to play along.

This book is not a true story, but it is an excellent work of modern gonzo journalism. Just like Hunter S. Thompson, it's impossible to tell what's real and what isn't (mostly), but the ideas are all true, so what else matters? Each person featured has a real world equivalent, or is an amalgram of several Parsons researched. It is a fitting format for the subject matter, and allows a more accurate and relevant profile of subculture life than a biography of any real member, and assuredly more facts than the individual Wikipedia entries.

It's a comical edu-venture which paves the way for my e-dystopian future, where societal norms are governed by forum moderators and there's a Confurvative (furry + conservative) in the White House. I hope he's a huge purple kitten.

As the introduction says:

We know that the Internet isn't just perverse and obscene: it's actively creating crazy people. Isn't it great? It is like Caligula's brain swimming around in a fish tank. We don't want to jump in, but holy shit, we sure do love to tap on the glass.

Easily the best quote to use when starting a new blog.

Halloween Wrap-Up

Observations on three nights of Halloween celebration:

Don't wear make-up on a night you're just hitting up house parties. It will melt in the heat of packed apartments in West Hollywood. Also it makes eating difficult, and when your hosts have over twelve feet of party subs, they were depending on you to pitch in.

On a completely unrelated note...
SOCIAL CONTRACT: If you're throwing a crowded house party, and do not have air conditioning, you are contractually obliged to open all the windows. Your guests did not come to bake alive in their lobster costumes. If you refuse to open the windows, for fear of noise complaints from neighbors, then you are bad at partying. It's Halloween. Everyone gets a free pass. Although, you can apologize for this inconvenience by providing more party sub than your guests could possibly consume.

Sharks can only express the emotion of violence.

Halloween is ostensibly about girls putting on a costume, and then sexy hyphenating it. This doesn't mean you can't be clever. Observe "Zombee" at right. And also Nixon. Nixon is always hot.

Don't guess what someone's costume is. Or if you don't know, wait to see who they came with. Jackie O here had no idea what a "Dr. Girlfriend" was.

Another example: a girl in this same room thought I was The Joker and just gave up on my costume at the halfway point.

No matter how good your costume is, it will not win Best in Show at any party in Hollywood. You're up against the pros. One friend who works at Paramount borrowed the actual GI Joe power-suit from the new movie, complete with detachable faceplate. We are not worthy.

I ruined the night for a guy who came as Patrick Bateman (my costume from last year). Admittedly, we're both homicidal sociopaths in suits with paint that covers one half of our face, but I flip a coin and he smokes a cigar. We couldn't be more different.

A Very Good Place To Start

Cannonball Read is a Pajiba.com event where participants read and review a book each week. This year, everyone who completes the whole 52 week program has a donation made in their name to a very good cause.

I have books piling up that I haven't read. Thusly, it's time for a new blog. Welcome to Brock Party.