Old Stories, New Genres

***OLD STORIES, NEW GENRES***

Ever since watching and reviewing Jackie Brown and The Hateful Eight, I made it my mission to do the same thing for all of Quentin Tarantino’s movies. One of those movies I plan on watching happens to be Django Unchained. You’ve already heard the name Quentin Tarantino and are probably expecting some controversy to come with these movies. You wouldn’t be wrong no matter what the movie was, but it’s especially true for Django Unchained. Fellow director Spike Lee vowed not to watch it, because, “Slavery was not a spaghetti western. It was a holocaust.” Nobody in their right mind would ever dispute how horrible black slavery was. But that’s not why we’re gathered here today, my dearly beloveds.

Looking at old stories through the lens of a new genre happens to be what most successful storytellers do for a living. In the case of Django Unchained, Quentin Tarantino did indeed turn slavery into a spaghetti western. Ever since watching The Hateful Eight (which is definitely a western, but I’m not sure if it’s a spaghetti western), I’ve had a weird fascination with the genre. Hell, a few weeks ago, I wrote a southern metal song called Spaghetti Western, which you can check out on all of my social media pages (Blogger, Deviant Art, Face Book, and Good Reads). Cheap plug aside, Quentin Tarantino meant no ill will when he made Django Unchained. He gets a lot of heat for being insensitive, but the movies he directs take place in times and locations where insensitivity was the norm. Even in modern day dramas, he has characters using racial slurs, because it’s realistic of their characters, not because he’s a bigoted jerk.

But Quentin Tarantino movies are just one example of what I’m talking about today. Remember all of the talk about SJW’s “ruining” the Star Wars franchise? Well, I hate to break it to you guys, but Star Wars was always about social justice. It’s literally about rebels fighting against a totalitarian government. There are many instances of that happening all throughout history. Star Wars just happened to look at those moments through a science fiction lens with cool light saber battles and Storm Troopers who can’t shoot straight. It was true for A New Hope (which came out in the late 70’s) and it’s still true today. The message hasn’t changed. The complaints have.

And just to show you guys how serious I am about this brand of creative fuel, if any of you know anything horrible about my past and want to look at those life moments through the lens of a new genre, I’d be thrilled to read what you’ve got. You know something about me being bullied in my freshman year of high school? Let’s turn that shit into an epic fantasy! I wouldn’t mind fighting against orc and ogre bullies with a battleaxe or a claymore. What about the time I first started having schizophrenic symptoms? Let’s turn it into…whatever the hell The Matrix is! Hell, I was probably living in The Matrix the whole time I was hallucinating. What about the time I got suspended from college for writing an angry poem about my geology teacher? Is there any way to turn that into wrestling fiction? A spaghetti western? A space opera? Cyberpunk? Actually, cyberpunk would be closer to the truth since I was dumb enough back then to post my poem on the internet.

I understand that Spike Lee is proud of his heritage as well he should be. He should fight for the greater good. He should be an inspiration to all. But picking fights with Quentin Tarantino when he hasn’t even seen the damn movie? Not cool. That won’t help his image in the slightest. Like I said before, I haven’t watched Django Unchained yet, but I desperately want to as part of my quest to fairly review all of Quentin Tarantino’s movies. The key word in that last sentence was fairly, as in I want to give them a chance before I harshly judge them. Does he constantly lay golden eggs? No. Are there parts of his movies worth criticizing? Absolutely. But I can’t make those criticisms until after I see the movie. Even if I DNF the damn thing somewhere in the middle, that’s better than jumping to conclusions any day of the week.

What about you guys? Are there any old stories you want to see through a new genre? Should the Final Fight franchise be told through prehistoric times? Should the Star Wars franchise be told through medieval fantasy? Me personally, I’ve always wanted to see the Gundam franchise get a medieval fantasy reboot. One of the giant robots could be a paladin. Two of them could be smaller robots piloted by goblin twins. Space travel would still be possible and goddamn, does that open up a whole universe of possibilities with storylines and creative fuel. Yes, this was a real idea I had back in my teens. I never followed through on it, because…reasons? Now that I think about it, I’d still like to try this idea out someday, but I can’t use the word Gundam unless I want the copyright whores to strangle my ass in court. But what about you guys? Got any genre remixes you’d like to see?

I’m Garrison Kelly! Until next time, try to enjoy the daylight! Hey, there’s another idea! I could retell Tales From the Dark Side episodes through a medieval fantasy lens! Maybe for once it wouldn’t be so fucking hokey that way! Woo-hoo! Yeah!

***BEAUTIFUL MONSTER***

So…I haven’t been very faithful with updates from this novella I’m working on, so here goes nothing. I finished the most recent rewrite back in July, but I didn’t pay for Hollow Hills to critique it until early November. I got my critiques back at the beginning of December. Goddamn, do I have a lot of work ahead of me. The world needs to be fleshed out, the battle and sex scenes need to be toned down, and most importantly…the protagonists have to STOP CRYING ALL THE FUCKING TIME! Okay, Marie Krepps didn’t put it in those words. Plus, I’m prone to exaggeration. But the sentiment is the same. I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me before Beautiful Monster is ready for the public. I don’t have a due date for when it’ll be officially published. I thought it would have been this year, but I was too optimistic. And if you think I’ve got a lot to do for Beautiful Monster, just remember…I still have Emilio & Marigold in the chamber!

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“Who do you think you are? You’ve now gone much too far. Out of the ashes a clear light will shine. A power like the sun, but the heat is all mine. Blinding to all those too close to the light. I’ll bury your souls in the dark of the night. Underground you’ll make no sound. Got nowhere left to go. Things begin, but then they end. The truth it hurts to know. I watch with wonder as you go under. Words to the unwise. The story’s ending and I’m attending the scene of your demise. I bring the darkness. I am the thunder. I come from Hell and I’ll pull you under. I’ll make you feel the wrath of my ways. I’ll make it real. I’ll be your end of days.”

-Baron Corbin’s WWE Theme Music-

***POST-SCRIPT***

Don’t let the lyrics fool you. I’m still abstaining from watching WWE due to their awful programming and I’m not regretting it. Last week on Friday Night Smackdown, Baron Corbin smothered Roman Reigns in dog food. Get it? Because Roman Reigns calls himself The Big Dog? Woof, woof? Hahahahaha…haha…ha…Fuck this company.

Perfectionism vs. Word Vomit

***PERFECTIONISM VS. WORD VOMIT***

If you’re a budding author, you’ve probably heard this piece of advice before: “Write every day. It doesn’t matter if it’s carefully chiseled out or the worst thing written in the history of the world. Let the editors take care of your mistakes.” A lot of professional authors say this and for a lot of rookies this advice works. This is just my preference, but this particular piece of advice doesn’t work for me.

If I write something, I want it to be golden from the start. While it’s true that no first draft is perfect the first time around, I at least want to try to make it into the best thing I can. This is why I don’t write everyday: because there are some days where my brain is so foggy that I can’t produce that perfect piece of writing. To my way of thinking, if I can’t be good at what I do, then what’s the point? Do my editors really want to go through the nightmare of cleaning up my messes?

If you’ve ever seen my drawings before, you would ask why I don’t take the perfectionism route with them given their weird quality. Yes, it’s true that my drawings don’t always look like golden goose eggs. But that doesn’t mean I don’t try. That’s the important thing for me: while I’ll never be 100% perfect, I at least have to try my hardest. Editing will be much easier if I actually make an effort to produce a good piece of art.

But like I said earlier, this approach to art doesn’t work for everybody, but it works for me. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I used to have a huge ego back in my college days. It’s true: even the smallest criticisms would make me retreat into my safe place, and this was in my late teens and early twenties. When my creative nonfiction teacher asked the class, “How many people here don’t think their own writing sucks?” I was the only person who raised my hand. Of course, my big ego didn’t match up with my writing skills at the time, because I wasn’t a diehard reader yet. Instead of having high self-esteem, I was arrogant, both of which are two separate things.

As I got older, I realized that being overly arrogant was a terrible approach to writing, because I desperately needed to let my critics into my inner circle in order to get better. That’s when I reached out to Second Draft Critique Services (a subdivision of Writer’s Digest) for help. Of course, their services were quite expensive, so I could only submit short stories. I was nervous at first, but when I actually read their critiques, I was confident that I could make chicken salad out of chicken shit. That’s the difference between arrogance and self-esteem: arrogance means you’re the king of the world and self-esteem means you believe you can grow from anything.

But if it’s true that I don’t have a massively inflated ego anymore, why do I still feel the need to be a perfectionist? I guess the easy answer would be that old habits die hard. Then again, if I didn’t believe in myself at least a little, I wouldn’t be writing in today’s world. I’ve had my fair share of evil criticisms and it would have been easy to give into those people. But being stubborn and full of fire got me through those hard times. Only years later did I realize that positivity and kindness were the answers, not hatred and anger.

So it stands to reason that if I write word vomit as opposed to the perfect product, I would have sufficient self-esteem to believe that I can fix it and make it shine. I’ll grant you that, but consider this: if I write the perfect product, I won’t have nearly as much work to do when the time comes to edit. Editing can either mean a few grammar corrections or a complete overhaul of the story. To make the process less intimidating either way, I take the perfectionist approach to my writing.

I know full well that first drafts will always have mistakes. The current first draft versions of “Watch You Burn” and “Filter Feeder” read like acid trips. While being on drugs may or may not be a heavenly experience (I wouldn’t know), that’s not the feeling I want to give my readers. It may work for Pink Floyd’s music, but not me. I’m not Roger Waters or David Gilmour no matter how hard I try to be.

There’s another thing that I try to practice: not using other artists’ transgressions as excuses to do them myself. I watched Pulp Fiction as a teenager, so my very first movie script “Pumping Filter” had a bunch of swearing, violence, and racial slurs, all of which didn’t need to be there. Because it could never have been perfect, I abandoned the script altogether. Another example would be me listening to Immortal Technique’s music and thinking it’s okay to use homophobic slurs in my poetry. If you want to use creative fuel, make sure you analyze it first and run it through your mental filters. Because I couldn’t do that just yet, many of my hateful poems are no longer in my archives. Thank god.

So now the question of the day is, are you a perfectionist yourself or do you allow your writing to truly be a first draft? I’d love to hear other opinions on this subject whether you agree with me or not. We’ve got ears, say cheers!

***WEEKLY SHORT STORY CONTESTS AND COMPANY***

When my brain finally agrees to cooperate with me, I’ll write something for the “snow man” prompt called “The Theomancer”. It goes like this:

CHARACTERS:

1. Krimson, Red Ninja
2. Yeti, Mummy Giant
3. Seven, Prophet of Sevenism

PROMPT CONFORMITY: There are snowmen all over The Frigid Highlands, each of them with creepy decorations.

SYNOPSIS: The true identity of Krimson is unknown, but he is believed to be an emissary of the Raven Strike Society. They are a secret organization of atheists dedicated to disproving the beliefs of Sevenism, the religion of choice for oppressive authority figures in this dystopian fantasy world. Krimson ventures to the Frigid Highlands to assassinate Yeti, the gatekeeper to Seven’s paradise. The battle between these two warriors is fierce and intense, but Krimson is determined to get answers and revenge from Lord Seven himself. The red ninja is believed to be a deity in human form, which is why he’s having moderate success against Yeti in the first place.

FUN FACT: This story draws inspiration from the Mortal Kombat and WCW franchises from the 1990’s. Krimson is a red palette swap of MK ninjas Sub-Zero and Scorpion while Yeti is the direct theft of a WCW wrestler of the same name. Seven is also taken from a former WCW wrestler, this time one of the alter egos of Dustin Rhodes. All I needed was an excuse to use the title “Theomancer” and now I have a reasonable story idea.

***TWITTER WAR OF THE DAY***

TWITTER TROLL: You’re a professional wrestler. Lift some weights or do sit-ups. Good God!

BARON CORBIN: It’s your girl’s fault. She keeps bringing cookies over late at night.

WWE NXT

TITLE: WWE NXT

GENRE: Professional Wrestling

RATING: TV-PG for mild violence

GRADE: A+

If you follow the yearly Wrestling Observer Newsletter awards like I do, you would have seen that the award for Best Weekly Television Show in 2013 was WWE NXT. You know why it won that prestigious award? Because when it comes to professional wrestling, there’s only one way to describe WWE NXT: bullshit-free television. That means there are no goofy stunt doubles, no tyrannical authority figures, no cranky divas, and no ridiculous endings to otherwise good matches. You want to know what wrestling is all about? WWE NXT is your answer. It can be all yours if you purchase the WWE Network for only…come on, people, what is it? It’s only $9.99 a month!

NXT is supposed to be the training grounds for wrestlers and divas who want to be featured on WWE Raw and Smackdown, the company’s two flagship shows. Judging from the way these “rookies” wrestle, it looks like they’ve spent their whole lives training. For many of the wrestlers, this couldn’t be closer to the truth.

Sami Zayn is a high-flying technical wizard who wrestled all over the world. Tyson Kidd is the final graduate of the infamous Hart Dungeon and knows how to cripple his opponents inside that ring. Tyler Breeze is arrogant and self-serving, but his own high-flying style justifies his otherwise obnoxious gimmick. Adrian Neville is called “The Man Gravity Forgot” for a reason: because every time he flies around the ring or even does a ground move, it looks like he’s in outer space. Four kick-ass wrestlers who always put on five-star matches whenever they’re in the ring. In fact, they downright steal the show. But these are just the main-eventers of NXT.

Even the wrestlers who haven’t been doing it for quite as long don’t show their inexperience very often. Bull Dempsey’s wrestling career started in 2006 and he fights like a 300-lb. wrecking ball, smashing and bruising everyone in his path. Charlotte’s career started in 2012, but she has so much going for her already: she trained under her father Ric Flair (a two-time WWE Hall of Famer and 16-time World Champion), she’s over six feet tall and is built like a powerhouse, and she had quite possibly the match of the year in 2014 against Natalya (daughter of Jim Neidhart) to win the NXT Women’s Championship. Anybody else that needs mentioning? How about Baron Corbin, a seven-foot juggernaut who squashed CJ Parker in his first match, which is a difficult feat in and of itself. Let me put it this way: when Pinocchio does another Geico commercial where he’s a motivational speaker, his nose won’t grow when he says NXT wrestlers have lots of potential.

Professional wrestling gets a lot of crap these days for being “gay porn” or “a redneck soap opera”. WWE NXT is quickly proving those two slurs to be wrong. The wrestlers are awesome to watch in the ring. The storylines are believable and are therefore easy to sit through. The commentary team isn’t constantly at each other’s throats nor are they trying to make corny jokes all the time. Like I said before, WWE NXT is bullshit-free television. If you want to make a layman into a believer, show them a random episode from this weekly series. Or if you really want to put your best foot forward, show him or her one of the two-hour specials. Bottom line: I can’t picture Triple H or Stephanie McMahon referring to the NXT staff as “B+ players” anytime soon.