In a Land Without Dragons, Some Turn Lizards into Dragons

This is certainly going to be one of the more… different… pieces I’ve ever written for Needless Things. I’m usually fairly direct when it comes to things I’m writing about, but, at least right now, I’m being courteous about the matter. I’m not going to risk stirring up a hornets nest for someone/a group of people by addressing the matter directly and in detail. I will, it’s just going to have to wait a half dozen or so Thursdays before I can. In the meantime, I’m going to comment on various groups of people out there, sadly some in fandom, by discussing their mindset. Well, discussing might be the wrong word…

It might well be a version of what we’ve come to call First World Problems. Sadly, it’s a particular problem that ultimately doesn’t have the comical edge to it that Al manages to so successfully attach to so many of the others despite the seeming stupidity of it.

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Don’t Be a Donald

The Intruder (1962)

By 1962, Roger Corman was well on his way to creating the film resume that unfortunately earned him such nicknames as “The King of Schlock.” He’d found low budget success with such films as The Wasp Woman, A Bucket of Blood, Little Shop of Horrors, It Conquered the World, Sorority Girl, and Teenage Doll among others.

How much success had he found? It depends on what you consider successful. After being burned by the nature of the studio system, Corman struck out on his own to make the movies he wanted to make. None of them were the comparative financial successes that Star Wars, Jaws, or Avatar would be for others in later years. You certainly won’t find them regularly listed in the top ten or top twenty box office winners for the years in which his films were released. But, one thing Roger Corman could for longest time say about his films is that they earned a profit at the box office. For decades, Roger Corman could make a claim that few others in the business could; even those who had made far less than the 400+ films Roger Corman has directed and/or produced at this point. He could for a very long time say that he had made hundreds of films and never lost a dime on any of them.

Well, except for one film in 1962. It’s something of a shame that The Intruder was for decades the only film Roger Corman lost money on, because, in some ways, it was one of the best films he’d made at that point in his career.

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Freaked Out Friday: Guest Commentator

Well, here’s something I never thought I’d be doing. Today’s blogging and commentary duties included a last minute fill-in as a guest commentator on Peter David’s website for the weekly Freak Out Friday piece. For those unfamiliar with the regular commentary he started a while back, it’s basically a look at the week in Trump.

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Drowning the Dignity and Honor of the Office in a Swamp of His Own Making

“He’ll change.”

“He’ll grow into the office.”

“There are two Trumps. We’re seeing the primary and election Trump, but when if wins, then we’ll see Presidential Trump. He won’t be at all like this if he wins.”

These and other things were said by people who fall into one of three categories. They were said by the staggeringly ignorant or the wildly self-deceitful. These first two groups having in common an apparent ability to have ignored thirty-five-plus years of Donald Trump’s public words and actions. The third group knew full well who and what Donald Trump was, and the members of this third group were simply the deliberately disingenuous. Because the simple fact is that anyone who paid any attention to Donald Trump over the decades and had any functional brain cells in their head knew exactly how crass and how vulgar Donald Trump would be as President of the United States as well as how low Donald Trump would drag down the honor and dignity of that office.

Well, at least we thought we knew. Somehow, unbelievably, Donald Trump keeps managing to lower the bar beyond what even many of his critics predicted.

Another Example of Kneejerk Cries of “Mansplaining” Not Actually Helping Anything or Anyone

In online discussions, the term “mansplaining” is fast becoming nothing more than the same kind of copout in discussions that “TLDR” has long been used for. You often see it used by intellectually lazy or cowardly people who can’t defend an incorrect statement made when faced with facts and don’t have the integrity to simply say they got it wrong. But it’s also become a way to attempt to skew the argument from the very start or to attempt to create a situation where what’s being presented cannot be argued against. I’m not sure if that’s what Max Landis was attempting to do or not with his tweet, but either way it’s a shame as it undercuts a rather interesting possible discussion about the inspiration of an iconic character’s look and the occasional basic human failings when it comes to recollection of events.

I’m Sorry, But I (and others) Just Can’t Take You Seriously Anymore

Since the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States, I’ve gotten to the point where I simply can’t take the political observations and commentary of any number of people and groups seriously anymore. The specific reasons change from person to person, group to group, but they all create the same basic overall reasons as to why I can’t take the political observations and commentary of any number of people seriously these days. Your words and positions now- especially in the cases where your words and positions from the eight years prior to Trump’s election are public record–just end up making you look foolish and/or hypocritical to a degree that just makes me want to laugh at you.