Blackmoor Vituperative

If you are ever in a movie:

• Don’t mock the locals.
• Do not touch your ear when speaking on your HANDS-FREE earpierce.
• When sneaking, do not walk like a tap-dancing hunchback. It does not make you harder to see or hear.
• Do not send five people into obviously deadly danger to rescue one person. Four of them will die, along with the person you wanted to save.
• If someone asks who else you’ve told, say “I think it would be safer not to discuss that”. It’s not a lie. Also, they’re the villain.
• Always take the weapon with you.
• When the serial killer threatens to kill someone to force your cooperation, shoot them, right then. Don’t talk. Just shoot them. Immediately.
• Don’t stop attacking the villain until they stop breathing.
• Cut the villain’s head off immediately. Kick it away from the body.

Consider printing this out and carrying it with you, just in case.

In 2007, Meghan O’Hara created ten web comics devoted to the online game World of Warcraft. That web site disappeared before the end of the year, and I thought it was lost forever.

Some remain lost, including “Munter Aggro” and “Eloquence”, but some have been found. Here for your enjoyment is what I have been able to find of Meghan O’Hara’s Hammer of Grammar…

(These are thumbnails. They are links. Click them.)

[I enjoy doing this sort of thing, and I think I have an eye for it. If I were a bit more ambitious, I would try to do it as a “side hustle”.]

“Psychological warfare has a new meme for your approval, Your Majesty.”

“What is this, Klytus: some new form of torture?”

“Most amusing, Your Majesty. These are a form of propaganda used on the Earth.”

(Ming examines the image)

“Would you like to explain why there is a Frigian labour beast next to the exalted name of MING THE MERCILESS, or should I call for the bore worms now?”

“Of course, Your Majesty may do as he pleases in all things, and I embrace the opportunity to display my undying loyalty. But as it happens, that is the current year according to the reckoning of the people of the planet ‘Earth’. The animal is a symbol of strength, ruthlessness, and nobility. It is known locally as a ‘jumbo’.”

“What primitive creatures these Earthlings are. And the purpose of this image?”

“Why, to grant the Earthlings hope, Your Majesty.”

“Hope?”

“Hope that you will show mercy, Your Majesty.”

(Ming pauses, then slowly claps, exactly three times)

(laughing) “Well done, Klytus. I look forward to reports on the psychological damage.”

(chuckling) “Thank you, Your Majesty. HAIL MING!”

P.S.

Being an actor must be such a strange job. You wear what someone else picked out, stand where they say to stand, and say what they wrote for you to say. And yet, it is so much more difficult to do than that makes it sound (I have only had a couple of amateur performances in my past, but it was enough to learn that much).

Then (if it’s film or whatever), you spend days, weeks, months, traveling from city to city just to sit and repeat the same half-dozen sentences about it for “interview” after “interview”. (Do they even get paid for any of that?)

And then, when the product is complete, you bear the brunt of the blame for the end result, even though you just did what you were told to do.

And whether you even get the job in the first place is dependent on factors so far beyond your control that joining Scientology or Keith Raniere’s bonkers sex cult seem like good alternatives.

Show business, man. It ain’t for sissies. (I think Betty White said that, originally, but I may be mistaken.)

Elevator pitch: Doughy old white dude (DOWD ?) offers useful advice to young people, based on things that he learned while living this long — with the disclaimer that at any moment, what he suggests might be rendered distasteful, ludicrous, or simply impossible by the passage of time.

I’d call it ADVICE FROM THE PATRIARCHY.

Today’s advice: Sardines are the best fish for you. They are sustainably harvested, full of healthy stuff (one of the few natural foods with Vitamin D, just for example), and no risk of bad stuff that may come with larger fish (no risk of ciguatera, for example). And King Oscar has the best sardines.

They are not good for you if you have gout, sadly. But if you are so afflicted, I suspect that you already knew this.

Later…

“Advice From The Patriarchy … Because nothing says ‘privilege’ quite like offering unsolicited advice to an entire generation.”

See, I think that’s hilarious. But I suspect that the desired audience would not appreciate the joke.

For no particular reason, the song “Fame”, by Irene Cara, came into my mind today. Google tells me it was released in 1980: 42 years ago. I haven’t heard it in very nearly that long, but I recall it clearly, and I even recall the name of the singer.

That is just how hugely popular that song was… briefly. And then nothing. When’s the last time you thought of it? How strange that is. The fleeting popularity of fame, so to speak.

It’s not really my style of pop song, and I still haven’t seen the eponymous movie, but even I loved the song and sang along to it, at the time. Of course, I was in my early teens then, and a boy, so I could never actually tell anyone I loved that song. It would have been indistinguishable to wearing a “call me a ‘homo’ and push me down” sign. (I’m not gay, and was even less so then, thanks to adolescent hormones, but bullies don’t place a high value on accuracy. Hopefully, my own miserable teen years helped distract the bullies from actual gay kids.)

Anyway, that’s not what compelled me to write this post. I’m writing this post because I asked Google to “play ‘Fame’ by Irene Cara on YouTube, on ‘downstairs group'” (my downstairs speakers). And, obligingly, it did (Google can be… contrary, sometimes).

And then it played “YMCA”, by the Village People.

And THAT made me laugh out loud.

“I have absolutely no idea what we’re doing here, or what I’m doing here, or what this place is about. But I am determined to enjoy myself.”

I am contemplating writing a script to generate headlines for the news. Each day, it will randomly choose three of these:

[random number] dead and [random number] injured in mass shooting

Republicans in [random state] propose legislation to prevent off-white people from voting

[movie industry person #1] reveals that [movie industry person #2] was a jerk to them

[random number] dead and [2x random number] injured in mass shooting

Senate Republicans [random traitorous act]

[random country] extends state of emergency due to the pandemic

Republicans in [random state] propose legislation to deprive poor people of what little government support they still get

[music industry person] says something obnoxious and stupid

[2x random number] dead and [random number] injured in mass shooting

Republicans in [random state] stage protest against literally anything that might shorten the pandemic

Warner Brothers releases a new superhero movie, which earns hundreds of millions despite being terrible

Scientists say that the world is warming faster than anyone predicted, but there is still time to do something about it

[random Republican] compares a minor inconvenience to being a Jew in Nazi Germany

RiffTrax recently announced a soon-to-be-released riff of the Gumby movie. (Is it “a” Gumby movie? Did Gumby do more than one?) I asked if it was the actual movie, or if 10-20 minutes had been cut from it for the RiffTrax riff. No one seemed to know, but a number of “fans” complained that I would ask such a thing. “Good luck with that.” “Maybe RiffTrax isn’t for you.” “Maybe it’s time to move on.” etc.

I think these must be newer RiffTrax fans. That makes me happy (yay, new fans!), but also a little sad. Because you know, for about a decade, “is this the movie you say it is?” wasn’t even something you needed to ask. You could buy a riff knowing nothing else than it was from RiffTrax, and be happy you did. If they said they had riffed the movie, you could trust that it was true. “We don’t make movies: we make them funny.” Those were some good times.

Is it time to move on?

Someone in the above discussion said something like “they’ll survive without your ten dollars”, which got me thinking: how much have I been spending on this? I’ve been buying RiffTrax since the beginning (14 or 15 years, I think), but my current records only go back about six years. In the past six years, I have been supporting RiffTrax at the cost of $400 per year ($398.33, to be exact). I was happy to pay that, for all of those years… until this recent trend of selling incomplete riffs became the norm. And it is the norm, I am sad to admit: they have said point-blank that this is what they do now. It’s their livelihood, and they have to do what they think is best for the business. So I guess the question is if what they do now is still worth that much to me. And I think I have known this for a while, but I just didn’t want to admit it: it’s not.

Thank you, RiffTrax crew (and Film Crew, before that), for over a decade of good times. I wish you and your new fans nothing but the best.

P.S. They cut about 15 minutes from that Gumby movie.

Is good news even a thing anymore? Not “making the best of it” news. Not “people staving off doom for one more day” news. Not “here’s some trivia about some stranger’s personal life” news. Not “be thankful things aren’t even worse” news. Actual good news.

That would be nice.