Cussing is for [expletive deleted]

As a twenty-something who spends a lot of his time with other twenty-somethings and university students, I hear a lot of swearing. I hear it on television, in movies, and in daily conversation. I hear it so much that I barely even notice it anymore.

There are some contexts where I still notice it. For example, if someone who does not normally swear lets loose an inappropriate utterance, I'll take note. I won't be offended, just a little surprised. Same goes for swearing on television, when it happens in a particularly outlandish or unexpected situation. A weak example is any time Stewie Griffin swears in Family Guy. It stands out, in theory, because he's a baby (for those with the cultural knowledge of your average wood chip).

The only other time I notice swearing is when it pops up too much. We're all familiar with the kids who insist on dropping the f-bomb every other word. But that's not offensive. It's just annoying.

And that's the thing. In all of the above situations, those rare occasions when I will actually pause to take note of swearing, I'm never offended by the curse being uttered. Not in the slightest.

Now maybe that just makes me weird. Some desensitized monstrosity with a heart of stone. But I suspect most of my friends are on the same page. We've heard (and in most cases said) the full spectrum of swear words enough times that they don't even phase us. Not in the slightest.

The one exception is that word which starts with "c" and rhymes with "Look at that guy who just did that awesome, gravity defying stunt!" It is the last bastion of single word swearing. The only hold-out, single-syllable utterance which can still make most people cringe.

But what of the rest? Fuck, shit, and ass are all about as socially acceptable as driving an SUV. Hell, with rising concern about the environment they might even be more socially acceptable. You probably wouldn't break the words out at a business meeting, but if you did, I doubt you'd lose your job over it. Probably wouldn't even get talked to about it.

So why censor these words on television? Am I just out of touch with the rest of the world? Are there a lot of people who still care? Personally, I think swearing is unnecessary, and oftentimes lazy when it comes to writing. There are words which can have the same, or more impact, if you're willing to expand on your vocabulary and actually write. Still, if someone chooses to swear with any single-syllable curse word (except the aforementioned exception), I'm not sure who is going to seriously object to it.

Parents? Your kids already know the words. And it's your job to teach them not to say them.

Anyone else? I... I actually can't think of anyone else who could or should be offended by swearing.

So why are most swear words still taboo? To me, they just seem oh so bland.

In a Frenzy

This is going to be brief for reasons which I hope are obvious. I highly recommend that anyone interested in writing check out Script Frenzy; regardless of whether you like to write poetry, short stories, novels, screenplays or non-fiction.

The Frenzy, in a nutshell, is a challenge wherein you must write 100 pages of screenplay in 30 days. This year, the challenge month is April. Last year it was June. Who knows what next year holds. All I know is that it's fun, hectic, challenging, and forces the creatively inclined to actually sit down and do something.

So if you fancy yourself some sort of writer, check it out. Realize 100 pages in 6 days is too much. Forget about it for 10 months. And finally, join the frenzy next year.

Seriously.

But It's Plain to See That The Radio Still Sucks

I, like thousands of people the world over, walked into work this morning and turned on the radio. Others listened to it in the car on the way to work. Others just have it piped in over their heads; in the stores they visit; in the stores they work in; in their home because their neighbour has no sense of what qualifies as an acceptable volume to play music. Regardless of the how, where and when though, a lot of people listen to the radio.

My question is why?

When I tuned in this morning, I just couldn't take it. I'd heard this song too much, and I could guess what was coming next. So I just tuned back out.

When you first start listening to a radio station, I'll admit that you are exposed to a variety of new music. That lasts about a week, depending on frequency of listening and the particular radio station. After that point you won't just start to notice some overlap in the music played (you can easily find that in 6 hours of straight listening); you'll notice that there are only so many songs a station will play and that sooner or later you're going to hear all of them. Again, and again.

For example, does anyone here remember Gob? Specifically World According to Gob? I do. Brings about flashbacks to the halls of my high school. Well a few months ago I was listening to my radio station of choice (the one I find least offensive) and they played some Gob. It was fun. I enjoyed it. I actually quite like Gob. Thing is, every couple of days they'll play Gob again. So when I tuned to Live 88.5 in the car and Gob was playing, and my girlfriend turned to me and said, "Wow, I haven't heard this song in a while." I had heard it. A lot.

So what's up with the limited roster of repeats on the radio? I understand that it costs money to play songs on the radio, so perhaps it's a purely financial decision. And for a month or two I can understand that. But years? Come on guys. You can't throw ten new songs in with the fifty old ones you've been playing ad infinitum, then play those new songs every 2 hours, and expect me to not still be bored. Sure, the first play of a new song is cool. "Oh hey, I haven't heard this one yet." Then after drudging through the usual suspects it's on a second time, "Cool, this song is alright." By the end of the week I'm ready to print out the new song's lyrics a thousand times (once for every play on the radio) fashion the paper into a noose and hang myself.

And why can't people request new and interesting songs when they call into a station? You want to hear Freebird? Again? Piss off! It was on 20 minutes ago. Do you really have that limited a mental musical library? I do, but I have the courtesy to only listen to my favourites over and over again in private. I don't subject the world to it (with interspersed "witty" DJ banter, and ads). The kicker, of course, is that if you do have the gall to call in requesting something new and interesting (even if it is genre relevant, and probably something listeners would enjoy) you'll be lucky if the station even has the song.

Is there a radio station out there which pushes the boundaries? Which plays new and interesting music all the time? A station with a strict limit on the number of times they will play a song before they assume anyone who likes it has just bought the damn album? What if I want to listen to a radio station which will introduce me to new music instead of just replaying the same stuff I know I like (or at least did, before the 500th play)?

If it's just a matter of economics, someone please tell me so.

But if it's not... is there really no market for a radio station which doesn't just repeat the same songs over and over and over and over and over.....

(Title c.o. The Ataris - The Radio Still Sucks)

Retroactive Continuity

Retroactive continuity, for those who aren't aware, is "the deliberate changing of previously established facts in a work of serial fiction", according to the fine writers at Wikipedia. If we take a slightly broader interpretation of the term and include non-fiction, then this post was retconned. Which is to say, I posted one thing, and have now removed it and replaced it with this post on retconning.

In film, television, writing and any other type of serial fiction, retconning is bad. Plain and simple. Sure, it might open up interesting new paths for plot to develop. But it opens them by cheating. Taking the easy way out.

It is sloppy and it is lazy and if you really really wanted to take your character from his office job to the far flung reaches of space, don't retcon his father into a mad scientist who implanted a tracking device in his son at birth so that when the mad scientist transcended space and time he could transport his son with him. Everyone will wonder about the office worker's old father, the good carpenter who raised his son and forced him to go through university so he could get the rewarding and fulfilling job where he met his beautiful young wife.

Why don't you instead just make a smack-talking chihuahua from the planet Xorb pick the office worker at random and transport him to an alien world. Still need a mad scientist? Maybe the mad scientist just thinks the office worker is his son. Don't change the past. Come up with creative solutions for the future.

But that's just fiction. What about non-fiction? What about this blog post right here? Should I preserve the content of the original post, no matter how stupid or insipid or trite I think it is?

What if I make a spelling mistake? Should that error be preserved for all time? Or should I correct it? Or does it not matter either way?

I reckon that fixing unintentional errors is ok. Worth doing even. But removing and replacing whole posts? It strikes me as somewhat dishonest. Especially when part of the point of this blog is to let my writing evolve. Once my writing has improved, should I go back and clean out the archive? Wipe the slate clean? Leave behind only the writing which lives up to my personal standard, whatever that may be?

Again, I don't really have an answer, just questions. I'll be thinking about retconning non-fiction over the next little while, and will probably revisit it in another post. Until then, I guess I'll just think.

Social Boon, or Social Bane?

Facebook is a strange creation. It's a website for you, about you, by you. It has also been a gargantuan success. So now, with all this success, and the attention that follows, people have been lining up to analyze, accuse and otherwise question the new online social networking sensation.

A quick look at recent news about the website (c.o. Google News Search for "facebook") reveals a wealth of articles. The content of which ranges from the personal drama of the creators and owners of the site, to theories about the implications of the personal drama between users of the site. Frankly, I don't much care about the legal woes, etc. of the multimillionaire creator of facebook. But as a member of the site, I do care about the effects and implications of this particular type of social networking.

I'm not one to bash online socializing - or social networking - as the end of "natural", "healthy" socializing. Nor am I going to write a long piece yearning for the golden days when people just talked face to face, or just talked on the phone, or just didn't use facebook.

However, watching the first generation of online communicators raises certain questions in my mind. The specific concern (question?) I would like to raise today is about self-perception, and the effects facebook may, or may not have upon that.

Facebook is laid out like a combination between older social networking sites, and CNN. Your home page is a news feed, displaying up to the minute stories about you and your friends. Or should I say "friends"? Regardless, no generation in history has had this much access to this much information about the goings on of their friends and acquaintances so easily. And never before has it been presented in this way. Except, perhaps, in the most eccentric of small towns.

I can't help but wonder what impact this presentation has on people. A recent bout of online drama made me wonder if it doesn't inflate the ego; make everything seem like it has more meaning and more importance than it actually does. We're not used to seeing personal information displayed this way. But we are used to seeing important news in a similar way - on the web and with a similar layout.

I don't think that this changes our conscious perception, but rather I wonder if constantly seeing personal information this way gradually leads you to view yourself as some sort of celebrity. Perhaps that gives it more power than it actually has, but it makes the point. People are constantly managing their image, through the profile picture they choose, the applications they add and the status they display. And all this image managing, showing the world only what you want them to see can (at least in the theory I'm proposing) lead you to believe your own facebook press.

Here I think the celebrity analogy is more fitting. When people make Chuck Norris jokes, making Chuck Norris seem awesome, it's funny. Cute even. Bad ass perhaps. Maybe a bit of all three. But when Chuck Norris does it, everyone looks at him and goes, "Shit, he actually believes his own press." I wonder if facebook does the same thing.

I don't have an answer, because I'm not a psychologist (hell, I didn't even take psych courses in university). But the question remains. Does facebook over-inflate our sense of self-importance?

Or am I just a semi-self-aware narcissist with similarly self-centered friends?

Maybe both. Regardless, it probably won't be an issue in the future for one of two reasons. Either facebook and similar sites are a passing fad. Or the next generation will grow up with them, and their expectations will be adjusted accordingly (instead of seeing what was once reserved for the rich and famous, now applying to you and your pals).

Web Spotlight: Color Wars 2008

I was directed to Color Wars 2008 a few days ago, c.o. the website of troubadour extraordinaire Jonathan Coulton. As a product of the imagination of Ze Frank (the man behind the fantastic, and now defunct The Show), my interest was immediately piqued. Ever since The Show ended in March of last year, I've been eagerly awaiting Ze Frank's next big project. And here it is. And even if, as a Canadian, I'm baffled by the misspelling of the word colour, I'm intrigued.

So what exactly is Color Wars? Basically, it's a competition where a bunch of teams (represented by, gee? I wonder? Colours?) compete in a series of online challenges. This seems a natural evolution of The Show, where Frank would often try to engage viewers, challenging them to compose songs, submit videos of themselves, play a game a chess, and even write a whole episode. Color Wars simply takes Frank off of the digital stage, and places the emphasis solely on the onetime audience.

Whether or not this digital cultural phenomenon of user-created content has any longterm prospects, it remains interesting to watch. Contests so far have included the creation of Nerd Rap, photo duplication (where entrants try and recreate a picture of them as a child, with them at their current age), and, my current favourite, creating videos of people spinning with a broom 30 times, throwing said broom down and then jumping over it.

At just under a month old, Color Wars is still in its infancy, but it's already attracted enough attention - and participants - that I think it's going to be well worth watching to see what comes out of all the fun and games, aside from a good time for all involved.

So check it out, join a team or start your own, and join the world's first (?) online summer camp.

Film Retrospective: The Mist

Upon first watching The Mist, I was blown away. It was definitely one of the better movies I had watched recently. At the time, had I written a review, the film would have been rated a must see. And although the emotional impact of that first viewing lingers on, watching the film a second time lessened it.

A lot of the tension I felt when watching The Mist was a result of not knowing the ultimate fate of the cast of characters. So when watching it again, although it was still enjoyable to watch from a more technical point of view, the film was significantly less emotionally engaging. Which is to say, I still enjoyed watching the action/horror elements, and could better evaluate the varied character interactions (some of which still chill to the bone, notably any time Mrs. Carmody sermonized or even opened her mouth). However, I found the film wasn't schlock full of enough visceral thrills, or deep enough character interactions to really hold my attention. Perhaps the mix of action and dialogue intensive character-driven conflict prevented me from staying engaged, instead forcing me to constantly switch gears. Perhaps it was knowing everyone's fate which made me not care. Whatever happened, I just wasn't as engaged the second time around.

Is it still a good movie? Absolutely. Would I recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen it? Without a doubt. Is it worth dropping $20 to own a copy? No. The film is a one trick pony. You watch it once, enjoy it, and then archive it. You can get more out of it from subsequent viewings, but on a much more intellectual, film student level. The emotional ride which made the film worth seeing is all but gone the second time around.

Overall, I was disappointed with the second viewing, except for the gratitude I felt at having only rented it.

Make no mistake though: If you haven't watched The Mist yet, you should. The first viewing will be one you don't regret.

A Statement of Intent

A new day dawns somewhere over Eastern Asia, and so begins a new blog. What follows over the days, weeks, months and maybe even years to come will be a collection of my thoughts. Not thoughts on this morning's breakfast cereal, or what Cindy said at the last kegger, but rather thoughts on media, and, to a lesser extent, various issues facing the world today. So let this be, as the title more than merely implied, a statement of intent. Hold me to it.