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Sex sells. Apparently, it is the only thing that sells in mainstream media. In order to pitch a product you must be good looking. If you are a female you also need to look like you work out 17 hrs a day with occasional breaks for wild sexual activity that might be available on the internet. This is a fact of life as much as consumerism is a fact of life. The question is why?

When I first tackled the question I figured this phenomenon was a function of our biological imperative. As a species our primary function is to reproduce. We exist to breed and to breed with the best of our species, so the sales process in a way mirrors this search for biological continuance. However, there is a second theory for the prominence of sex in sales.

I believe that sexual interaction is often more about power than biological continuance or survival. We buy items in order to prove our power to others or to ourselves. The purpose of a Maserati is not to have a reliable car, but to have a reliable car that people look at and say, ‘wow, look what that person has’. In terms of sex, having sex or having access to sexual partners who are generally accepted as being attractive is a way of gaining that ‘wow, look’ response we all subconsciously laud.

We laud people more than things. Having people who other people want is more important than having stuff. Now here is the purchase power connection: If a beautiful person is linked to a product, it raises the profile and value of the product because the consumer subconsciously believes possessing the product in some way links them to the valued person.

Give the desk lady at the Ultra Star Cinema in Maricopa sixteen bucks and she’ll lead you back to theater #2 where there are several rows of special ‘D’ class seats. The seats are part of the D-box experience, a rumbling, shifting, shaking add-on that syncs to the action of the film. For my first D-box experience there was only one choice: Fast 6. By the time the film was over my mind was heavy with the films recurring message and my lips were curled with anticipation of the next chapter.

Fast 6 revisits the beginning of the Fast and Furious saga, reviving star Dominic Toretto’s (Vin Diesel) girlfriend, Leddy (Michelle Rodriguez) as a villain and part of an all-world mobile theft team. In order to get her back Toretto’s own crew teams up with the international cop (Duane ‘The Rock’ Johnson) who hunted them down last film.

Believe it or not, Fast 6 is a moral tale. The series is all about family and honor and code, much in the vein of Samurai movies. These Bushido operate to keep each other alive and to maintain that sense of strength and honor. They also work to make up for their mistakes. In that sense, Toretto and crew are classic heroes on Campbell’s eponymous journey. I wouldn’t mistake this tale for high art, but the main themes ring loud and true. Who goes to these movies for themes anyway? Fast is about cars, girls, and crashes and it delivers that at a pace unmatched by any of the previous films.

Fast 6 is pure action. It starts and ends with car chase scenes and throws in several hero vs. villain fights along the way. What worked best was the chemistry between Johnson (referred to as Samoan Thor) and Diesel. Both of these superstars can carry a film and watching them play off each other as equals and even reluctant friends felt entirely genuine.

I like films that build a world that makes sense. I don’t expect that world to be my world, and Fast 6 isn’t any realistic world whatsoever. It doesn’t matter to me as a viewer. So long as the world stays within the rules of the world, I’ll play along. I played along for 6 and was rewarded with an incredible post credits ending I never saw coming. That ending tells me I”ll play along for 7.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. I’m thinking about framing in a bookshelf to the makeshift ‘tree house’ I built for the kids last year. I want it to be a team project where the kids take a major role in the design. The goal is to see that space completed in a way that is cool and the kids can get behind. Now the ‘do it now’ guy in me wants to knock this out tomorrow, but I think significant planning from the beginning of this thing–blueprinting–all the way to completed construction will be more beneficial to the boys.

A long time ago (back in the first 200 blogs I believe) I mentioned that it is so much easier to destroy than to create. The same axiom holds true for consuming vs. creating. I spent the past week creating this wonderful Minecraft experience for my kids and they’re going to complete it in mere hours. As a writer I know this time deflation all too well. I take weeks or even months to create a thrilling novella and the average reader knocks it out in about the time it takes to clear a poop. While being able to distract and perhaps even educate someone for that long is quite rewarding, I do wish the time of consumption reflected the time of creation in a less fractional sense.

Realizing this conundrum has no real solution, I recognize it is infinitely important for me to enjoy the creation process as much if not more than the pleasure of knowing someone enjoyed your work. This idea of process is what I try to communicate most as a teacher, but I worry that process doesn’t matter to people nearly as much as I felt it did to people when I was a student. Sure, there was apathy then too, but process had purpose. Now purpose appears to be the reward, or in the corporate sense, the profit margin. Call it a sad side effect of capitalism.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. Maybe it is a sign of early onset Alzheimer’s, but I am at the point where big words just spring to mind to fit a situation without me really understanding what those words means other than knowing that they fit the situation. 

1. Once you’ve embraced any technology to the point where it is second nature to use that tech, you cease to understand how to function without that tech. We lived for a very long time before the wheel came along. Now we don’t know what we’d do without it or cellphones.
2. The Miami Heat should win the game tomorrow night. Should they lose, you can simply hand the trophy over to the Spurs. Of course, the Spurs are a very deserving team in their own right, so I wouldn’t be so sad about that. In fact it could trigger an 80 win season for team Lebron.
3. Online classes go so much better when you give students your full attention. I’ve been doing that this summer and the attentiveness is reflected in better student work. I also think they care more because they know someone is watching. On the other hand, attentiveness drives off the students who signed up for the online class to cash in a loan check and kickback. That isn’t so bad either.
4. My Ipod touch is practically bricked. Any Apple handheld device two generations behind the curve is unusable. This is how they keep up sales.
5. Money feels different when you’re older. When I was a kid $100 meant a universe of possibility. I thought I could never see that much cash in my hands. As a teen the magic number stretched to $200. Now I spend that on groceries and weekend hangouts with the kids.
6. Speaking of stretched, Roy Hibbert (Indiana Pacers) got himself in trouble for being ignorant. He indicated that he was being stretched out on D by the Heat and added the disclaimer, ‘No homo’ in order to remind folks of his sexual orientation. The immaturity cost him $75,000. To begin, that outpaces my teacher salary. Hibbert however made better than 13 million this season, so the fine was chump change to him. Perhaps the fine money should go to me, so I can help educate people about the social conditions that made him say what he said…
7. Speaking of social conditions, I am obsessed with Bar Rescue. The economic science the show employs to express how and why a bar is failing blows me away. It seems simple on the surface, but the depth of the research is absolutely intriguing. I think if I stop teaching I want to open a bar.
8. I think I need to strengthen my hands considerably. The number of joint and finger injuries I’ve endured over the last year is staggering. I skipped FB this morning because I didn’t want to risk injuring a bad joint further.
9. I think first drafts make terrible first impressions of a writer’s true skill, which doesn’t bode well for this blog. This is a constant first draft and a daily struggle to find both the motivation and the topic to continue. Of course with 1,120 straight days under my belt I see no need or impulse to stop.
10. I think that about covers it for the night.

 

1. My mac power supplies have been failing. The main mac is presently in the red with 31 minutes of service left. I cannot find a clear reason for the failures. I know that I started with three and now I am down to one.

2. The last episode of Orphan Black rolled by tonight and I am watching the replay as I type. Over the last week I’ve been bouncing between mainstream shows about cloning and time travel. Both concepts were once cutting edge sci fi and now they are commonplace. So, what is the next big concept?

I’m still digging into new TV shows. It becomes more hobby than obsession over the summer when I am trying to escape from kid fights. In those moments when I slip into my dusty bedroom and flip on the tube I want to see something that utterly removes me from my world and thrusts me violently into situations and problems I feel intrigued to be watching. Lately I’ve been watching Continuum. The Simon Barry-created police procedural stars Rachel Nichols and Lexa Doig. The latter actress is a sci-fi staple and perfectly cast as the main villain. The story intrigues and the science raises very interesting questions like, what happens if you change the past?

I’ve seen a lot of time travel tropes, key among them being the ‘if my parents die then I am toast’ trope. Nichols character, Kiera Cameron starts the series off by quipping on that old trope. In a matter of episodes we know (or we think we know) if she is right or wrong. I think that is the best part of the show for me. It seeks to challenge these tropes and show what happens when you mess with the past. Now this show is not Defiance, but it is holds your attention for a couple of episodes, which is sensible because every major plot point takes three or more episodes to fully develop. Given its isolated episodic nature (unlike say a Babylon 5), you can drop the show for a few episodes and pick it up when it gets good again without missing the key developments.

I’m going to record Continuum for the new season. I’m hoping it still has the potential to surprise me.

Literary tropes can be defined as ideas and metaphors that repeat over time. Much like memes, tropes are infectious and tend to create a standard. Watching the film The Watch last night and re-watching Star Trek: Into Darkness this afternoon helped me recognize some key sci-fi tropes that have defined the genre.

I spent the afternoon at the theater with The Maricopan. he hadn’t seen the new Star Trek movie, so I decided to take a second look. The film takes place early in the rebooted lore, after Starfleet has made contact with the Klingons but prior to hostilities between the two. I studied those interactions and thought long and hard about the games I’ve played and shows I watch. It seems there is a common trope there that includes war-driven alien races and insects that don’t know when to quit.

Ender’s game, Aliens, The Watch, Independence Day, Starcraft, Starship Troopers and many more all feature bug-like aliens bent on the destruction of mankind. These bugliens are a classic trope that reflect the inherent fear we have of colonization and infestation. Bugs are creatures we pick on, but what if the bugs not only outnumbered us (as they do) but were large enough to represent a significant threat?

The other threat is the war race. Not necessarily bug in origin, classic sci-fi and new alike feature a war-driven race. Star Trek has its Klingons, Mass Effect has its Krogan. All are the same concept–orcs or orclike creatures driven by competition.

These tropes are fresh in my mind as I design my fantasy novel. See, you need to know the past so that you do not repeat it.

Playing flag football this weekend one of the guys I play with quipped, ‘Soon they’re gonna call it the NFFL’. He figures the new rules point to a shift dictated by one person, the commissioner of the league. While I agree that the NFL changes do point towards a reduction of violence in a sport that dictates violence, I don’t think the change is about one person. The change is a weak gasp from an organization struggling to stay ahead of a shifting culture and not understanding how to do so.

Football is about violent collisions at high speeds, about the nimble players who can avoid those collisions, and the rugged players who survive them. Football is also about concussions and severe brain injury. The organization is working to keep players safe–or so they lead us to believe. While the suggested changes seem to lower the risk of head injury, there is nothing on the table to reduce the turf caused leg and knee injuries that ruin careers. I don’t mean to doubt their intent–clearly brain trauma is more damaging than a blown knee. I mean to suggest the effort is being forced by societal perceptions and perceived standards.

Football players are heroes in America. We don’t want to see our heroes degraded in the fashion of Muhammad Ali. We also don’t want the children who follow these heroes to place themselves in a situation where brain injury is a high likelihood.  Still, we don’t see this level of commitment to safety from Hockey (where fights are allowed to continue) and that could point to the leadership, as some suggest.

Ten minutes is not long enough to figure out what these societal cues are that are making the NFL need to be safer, but it is enough to notice that a safe game, at least in the way that is being suggested, is not football as I was raised to play. We can only wait and see what the game effects of the changes will be.

 

reflection of

Imagine for a moment you are a 17 yr old white girl walking home at night through your gated community. Suddenly there is a vehicle following you and the man in the vehicle is staring at you and whispering into his cell phone. You turn back and scream for the man to stop following you. He continues, so you get away from the road, moving into the grassy area between the houses. He gets out of his car and follows you. What happens next?

Change the variables of the story only slightly–make the white girl a black boy–and you have the story of Trayvon Martin. The victim, Martin did everything I suggested above, including leaving the scene. Did he call the cops? No. Did he run away? Yes, until chased. Cornered and alone Martin faced his attacker and wound up dead. That attacker called it a good shooting. That attacker claimed to be standing his ground, despite admitting he left his vehicle and pursued Martin on foot. Given the state of racial and gender politics in America, the attacker, Zimmerman, would have gotten the death penalty if he shot a white girl. He didn’t so for the longest time what he did wasn’t even a crime. Now it is a 2nd degree murder trial. Lets see how the media reacts.

About to embark on another summer semester. In essence that means my vacation is over until the 20th of July. No matter, I don’t seem to do well with free time on my hands anyhow. I don’t use the time for anything professionally constructive. No, I just sit around, eat chips, and play Minecraft. Having purpose is a big deal. While I don’t necessarily enjoy the non-stop responsibility, I realize that having it keeps me out of trouble.

I think as a parent I need to be thinking the same way. Those three Bengal cats I refer to as my children (or spawn) need structure and purpose less they result to random acts of violence and property destruction–my property of course. When I look around at the calmest people I know it is usually the ones who are working towards some high order goal. It may be the pursuit of a medal in the Spartan Race series, or the private quest for a satisfying body, or a husband, or a wife. It is the purpose that cements these few and puts them on the path to patient understanding.

I need to find that path quickly. Nobody wants to see me in jail for abandoning a screaming kid on the side of the road.