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The Drunken Odyssey

~ A Podcast About the Writing Life

The Drunken Odyssey

Monthly Archives: December 2015

The Curator of Schlock #115: Krampus

18 Friday Dec 2015

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Film, Horror, The Curator of Schlock

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The Curator of Schlock #115 by Jeff Shuster

Krampus

I liked it.

Krampus3

It’s that time again. No, I’m not referring to Christmas though that time is upon us. We’ve got another Star Wars movie coming out. Yeah. I suppose I’m supposed to be excited. Of course, I kind of gave up on Star Wars after I saw Attack of the Clones s. Yoda was fighting Count Dooky. They were having a big old light saber fight.  I heard someone in the back of the theater yell out “Kermit D. Frog!” It was at that moment that I knew Star Wars was over.

So … Krampus. John King wanted me to review a Christmas horror movie this year so I paid my six bucks on Tightwad Tuesday at the Frank Galleria and watched Krampus from director Michael Dougherty. It was good. Real good. So good I don’t even want to go into detail about what makes Krampus so good because you should go see it in the theater…right now!

It has a great cast featuring the likes of Toni Collette and David Koechner. The effects are fantastic, practical effects that bring to life killer jack-in-the-boxes,  teddy bears, and Christmas angels.

Krampus4

The movie is unsettling, but not in a bad way if that makes any sense. If it doesn’t, then just see the movie and see what I mean.

It’s about Krampus, the shadow of St. Nicholaus, or is he the inverse of St. Nicholas? The Anticlaus? Don’t wish for ill tidings on your family no matter how dysfunctional they are. You might just get dumped into a gingerbread-fueled nightmare. Did I mention the elves? Creepy as all get out!

Where does the Krampus come from? Who or what is he? I found a quote on Wikipedia from a Maurice Bruce:

There seems to be little doubt as to his true identity for, in no other form is the full regalia of the Horned God of the Witches so well preserved. The birch—apart from its phallic significance—may have a connection with the initiation rites of certain witch-covens; rites which entailed binding and scourging as a form of mock-death. The chains could have been introduced in a Christian attempt to ‘bind the Devil’ but again they could be a remnant of pagan initiation rites.

 Uhhhhhh. What is this? Santa Claus for devil worshippers? Why can’t they leave Christmas alone! I’ve read elsewhere that Krampus is a demon or Santa’s evil twin. I guess he punishes the bad kids while Santa rewards the good kids. This whole thing is German and you’d figure I’d have some clue about it considering my own ancestry.

Krampus6

So see Krampus. I did my best not spoil it for you guys. Hey, it beats giving Love Actually another whirl.

_______

Jeffrey Shuster 1

Photo by Leslie Salas

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, and episode 131) is an MFA candidate at the University of Central Florida.

21st Century Brontë #2: What’s in a Name?

17 Thursday Dec 2015

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in 21st Century Bronte

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21st Century Brontë #2 by Brontë Bettencourt

What’s in a Name?

In elementary school I had a best friend named Sarah who was also Guyanese. She always wore her curly hair in braided pigtails while I preferred a ponytail, but we were usually mistaken for one another with good reason. We constantly slept over each other’s house, playing videogames and reading Harry Potter aloud, alternating narrators whenever we reached a period in the text (even with names such as Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, which we thought was hilarious).

Yet the bullies of our school seemed to differentiate between us just fine, since I was picked on significantly more. So one Saturday on the way to Publix, I asked my mom if I could change my name to Sarah.

“But then there would be two Sarahs, and you two are different people. Brontë is a unique name,” Mom responded.

It took me a while to embrace my own uniqueness. Instead of coming up with my own crayon scribbles, I copied the girl’s next to me, which the teacher scolded me for. I can’t just copy. I have to come up with my own ideas and my own identity, and my own crayon scribbles.

So what does it mean to be a Brontë, this unique mystery of identity? This weirdling?

As a child, I thought that if I ever encountered another Brontë, we would have to fight to the death, winner posing triumphantly over a mangled corpse. I used to imagine this hypothetical Other Brontë leaping from the bushes, her hair parted to the right instead of the left.

When I tell my friends that Gabriella was originally going to be my name, they respond with, “Nah, I don’t see it. You’re totally a Brontë.”

In what way is that classification justified: by appearance, or personality?

If one looked up a documentary of a Brontë in her natural habitat, who would be there? Couldn’t a Gabriella be wearing skull jewelry and drawing stylistic anime on the side of a volcano, too?

Of course, I am named after the Brontë Sisters, three writers in the early 1800s.

The_Brontë_Sisters_by_Patrick_Branwell_Brontë_restored

Out of six siblings, these three were the most successful despite being women in a deeply patriarchal world. Their novels were daring.

One of the first statements that often gushes forth fafter I introduce myself: “I love Wuthering Heights,” as if I wrote the literary classic.

Does my shadow in the Florida sun look like a wooden silhouette shaped like a Brontë, which I imagine being ten feet tall and wearing the 19th century fashion?

Then again, I doubt at the time that any of the Brontë Sisters suspected that their novels would still be highly regarded and studied as far forward as 2016. Before they were publishing, they created and collaborated on fictional worlds while drawing inspiration from people in real life. This occurred as early as adolescence (if not earlier). Kingdoms such as Gondal and Angria came to life as maps were sketched, and Charlotte Brontë even drew the siblings stationed around the creation table, with their ideas framing the images.

To think, before the literary familial powerhouse came to be, they were surrounded by books, writing, and, well, roleplaying!

As for me, a more modern take I guess would be spending hours on the phone and online, hammering out goofy and elaborate scenarios derived from awesome shows like Yu Yu Hakusho, Fullmetal Alchemist, and South Park. I have hundreds of pages of role-play accumulated and salvaged through multiple hard drives, which will never be found by mortal eyes (I am doing humanity a favor). And maybe I do have a story with characters created over the course of my life, and that currently run amok in my Dungeons and Dragons 5e campaign.

So maybe I am Brontë-ing right.

Or it could mean absolutely nothing, because my life isn’t meant to exist for some grade, or another’s approval. Who seriously took the time to create an instruction guide for Brontës anyway? I have to keep in mind that the value of my craft shouldn’t solely exist in the monetary reward.

But it is nice to bask in the predetermined idea that a Wuthering Heights happened to exist within the store that my mom happened to walk in. A mere month before I was due, on a car ride from New York to Florida, she happened to be reading it.

Thanks Mom, for not naming me Gabriella, and thank the greater force at work who gave me the distinct X chromosomes, or else I would’ve been named Britain.

Really dodged a bullet there.

_______

21st Cen Bronté

Brontë Bettencourt (Episode 34) graduated from the University of Central Florida with a Bachelors in English Creative Writing. When she’s not writing or working, she is a full time Dungeon Master and Youtube connoisseur.

McMillan’s Codex #17: Call of Duty: Black Ops 3

16 Wednesday Dec 2015

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in McMillan's Codex

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McMillan’s Codex #17 By Charles McMillan

Call of Duty: Black Ops 3

When judging a series, we almost never consider the whole. We pick out the installments we find exceptional, and discarding the rest. Everyone says the Godfather movies are fantastic, but Part 2 will always be better than the first, and Part 3 is so bad most people politely pretend it doesn’t exist. The cultural significance of Star Wars needs no introduction, yet the entire prequel-half of the saga is given little to no regard when measured against the original trilogy.

The same could be said about video games where any Silent Hill game after 3 is considered refuse, and Call of Duty is no different. Since Modern Warfare 2, the franchise has struggled to find it’s footing and stay fresh. Standing apart from the core, however, the Black Ops games have explored broader themes in story over gameplay. Black Ops 3 is the most unique, but it is inevitably subject to comparison with the previous two.

CoDBO3.1

Describing gameplay in any Call of Duty game is redundant because they are so simple. You point and shoot at whatever you want to die, follow the waypoint to where the game needs you to go, and press a bottom prompt that appears on screen. Advanced Warfare was the first to introduce mechanics centered on the exo-suit, a mechanical apparatus that gave users enhanced speed and strength. In the grand scheme of things, the change was nothing special, but it indeed shook up the formula of a very standard series.

Like the former, Black Ops 3’s additions were also done in other games like Deus Ex and Crackdown. One of these changes is the Cyber Core, special attacks and enhancements you can perform in gameplay. They include the ability to hack robot enemies, explode grenades, and unleash a flurry of nano drones. The abilities are tailored to suit whatever play style the player desires. Martial enhancements make you a better fighter, while Chaos is for group-oriented damage, and Control is exactly that. The Cyber Core adds a new dimension to gameplay that helps set it apart and keep it within the game’s cyber-punk feel.

The aesthetic was the main draw for me when I saw the first trailer. Cyber-punk has always interested me. Its basic incarnation is a near-dystopia where technology has taken over all facets of life. A strong bleak tone permeates throughout many stories of the genre. Black Ops 3 images a world where over population and worsening weather conditions have wreaked havoc on the planet and its people, not to mention countless wars your character has a hand in fighting. It presents a setting where cyborg-soldiers and drone warfare is necessary in combatting new threats that rise from the chaos.

CoDBO3.2

One of these technologies is the direct neural interface (DNI), an implant in your character’s brain that allows you remote access to information, computers, and the Cyber Core. It is also the basis for the game’s strange and rather peculiar story that many traditional players will find disconcerting. Further explanation requires spoilers, so please skip to the third-to-last paragraph if you do not want to find out what happens.

The DNI is essentially an open port to the user’s memories, vision, and emotions. After an Operator team goes missing and sensitive CIA intelligence leaks to the world, you find out the team’s members were infected with a false-memory virus, a trope in cyber-punk that makes people forget or remember things that may or may never have happened. The game cleverly associates the phenomenon with PTSD.

The virus developed by accident during CIA-sponsored human experiments that would lead to the creation of the DNI. The subjects were linked to the laboratory’s artificial intelligence, which evolved to a self destructive state that not only destroyed the lab, but a large portion of Singapore. One component of the AI’s delusion is the concept of the Frozen Forest, a mythical place that those infected are constantly seeking. In reality, it was an element of hypnosis that a therapist in the lab used on the subjects to keep them relaxed. The subjects’ anguish and the AI’s naiveté formed the basis of the false memory virus.

Infected characters are faced with the constant realization they have done wrong, used by governments agencies and companies to kill and spread chaos. It opens their eyes to the truth while presenting a seemingly unattainable solution to coping with their anxiety. It makes for some interesting and strange moments where characters and the player hallucinate being in the Forest or a delusion created by the AI. They come to obsess over it, asking each other if they know what it means as they drive themselves toward oblivion. Strange does not begin to describe how the story turns out and for a Call of Duty game, it is more than welcome.

Stacked up against the rest of Black Ops, 3 has more in common with the first game in that its plot is linear. The only real agency the player has to affect the narrative is your choice of character gender. It is an interesting addition, but the lack of real involvement in how the story turns out was disappointing. I would assume the developers took to heart what they learned in the second game with choice and apply it better in the follow up. It would have set it more apart from Call of Duty and bring it into a realm of its own.

Another issue I find is that the world is never entirely fleshed out. The most you get is at the very beginning in the form of a montage of faux-news broadcasts talking about various crisies. There are no real visuals that tell you the history of the world or the state of its nations, which ought to play a big part when you are a clandestine wet-works team of the CIA. You are forced to make your own assumptions and I fear many players will not understand what is going on if they are not already familiar with the cyber-punk genre.

CoDBO3.3

On the fact it is the most otherworldly of the series, Black Ops 3 succeeds. Though not wholly original, the game is original in the context of Call of Duty, and strives to be as different as possible from the mainstream and achieves that in most unique way possible. If you are a fan of the series, prepare yourself for something unlike other.

Still, I wish the element of choice translated more to how the story played out.

_______

CT McMillan 1

C.T. McMillan (Episode 169) is a film critic and devout gamer.  He has a Bachelors for Creative Writing in Entertainment from Full Sail University.

 

On Top of It #9: Crap

14 Monday Dec 2015

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in On Top of It

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On Top of It #9 by Lisa Martens

Crap

As a New York college student who has moved nine times in ten years, I try to live light. I fail, but I try.

I love books, I can’t throw out gifts or cards, and well, to be honest, if I find the five of spades on the street, I just may keep it and hope I find the rest of the deck.

However, I recently did an odd job for a man who had so much stuff that it redefined the word crap for me.

Let me first explain that this man . . . let’s call him Tim . . . didn’t have a hoarding problem. I would never make light of something like that. Tim had once had a store that had gone under, and so he was transitioning from a brick-and-mortar space to an online Amazon store.

Tim. Had. Crap.

He had hundreds of items to put on sale: Obama sex dolls, animal key chains, bobblehead action figures, Wizard of Oz-inspired rubber ducks, zombie socks, mustache pacifiers, cookie cutters in the shape of fetuses, coin banks in the shape of bullets, fake belly buttons, candy g-strings, a mug that said “coffee makes me poop,” a ketchup costume for dogs, toilet bowl lip gloss, a zombie painting of the Mona Lisa . . . the list went on and on.

Pure crap.

Tim had a small apartment, so he paid to have his crap stored. He paid me to take or find photos of his crap, and then he paid me to list his crap online.

He wanted to use the money to fund his other projects, or maybe support his ex-wife or buy things for his new wife. Who knows.

But, and this was kind of a relief, Tim knew he had pointless crap. He wasn’t particularly passionate about the crap or his online store. He saw the crap as a way to generate some income and then, when it became apparent that absolutely no one wanted his crap, he tried to get rid of it online.

As I listed hundreds of these objects online, I thought about the needless accumulation of stuff, and also the lack of passion behind the business of crap. Sometimes I think people’s passion come across, even on the Internet, and the passion draws real people, real results. I saw Tim’s business and it was almost nice to see that his scheme to sell crap didn’t work. Because his heart wasn’t in it, my heart wasn’t in it.

Don’t trade your passion for crap, I think is the point I’m trying to make. You may have to deal with crap, but don’t deal with it in your spare time. Don’t give away all your time and space to fake belly buttons or Wizard of Oz-themed rubber ducks. Save room for the books you love, and for the holiday cards you’ll receive from family members who sort of have their shit together.

_______

Lisa Martens

Lisa Martens (Episode 22) currently lives in Harlem. In her past 10 years in New York, she has lived in a garage on Long Island, a living room in Hell’s Kitchen, the architecture building of CCNY, and on the couch of a startup. She grew up in New York, Costa Rica and Texas, and she’s still not sure which of these is home. She completed her MFA in Creative Writing from CCNY. Her thesis, What Grows in Heavy Rain, is available on Amazon. Check out her website here. Follow her on Instagram here.

Episode 183: Mary Karr!

13 Sunday Dec 2015

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode, Florida Literature, Memoir, Poetry

≈ 3 Comments

Episode 183 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

In this week’s episode, I interview Mary Karr,

Mary Karr

and share her talk at Miami Book Fair International 2015, plus I share a Miami Bookfair Event I was in, Tiffany Razzano’s Saved by the Sunshine State.

Tiffany Razzano

Tiffany Razzano ruling over The Swamp!

NOTES

Check out our latest video on our youtube channel: J.C. Sevcik’s farewell reading at the end of his residency at the Kerouac House.

 TEXTS DISCUSSED

The Art of MemoirSinners WelcomeMary Karr LitA Sky the Color of ChaosJuventudSofritoHello American Lady Creature


Episode 183 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

The Curator of Schlock #114: Ewoks (The Battle for Endor)

11 Friday Dec 2015

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Star Wars, The Curator of Schlock

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The Curator of Schlock #114 by Jeff Shuster

Star Wars: Ewoks: The Battle for Endor

(Not to be confused with The Battle of Endor)

Ewoks1

Was the world asking for another Ewoks movie? No! But we got one anyway. The movie starts with Cindel (Aubree Miller) and Wicket (Warwick Davis) walking through the grassy meadows of the moon Endor. I’m about one minute into this thing and Wicket is already eroding my last nerve. Part of the problem is Wicket can basically speak English now. Oh, and his lips move in this version. I think they gave him new eyes too and they creep me out because they’re dead like doll’s eyes. Cindel and Wicket having a conversation about how Cindel needs to leave with her family and go to human school. Wicket says all she needs to know how to do is eat gumdrops or something.

Ewoks2

Well, it looks like Cindel won’t be going back to school anytime soon since the Ewok village is being invaded by an army of Orcs with lasers. They murder Cindel’s mother and brother.

What is this? Game of Thrones!

Ewoks4

The Orcs kidnap a sleuth of Ewoks, burn the Ewok village to the ground, steal a magic spaceship battery from Cindel’s dad, and then shoot Cindel’s dad in back as he’s trying to escape. By the way, Cindel’’s dad is played by the same guy who played the principal in The Breakfast Club. Anyway, he tells Cindel that he’ll always be with her. Really? You’re bleeding out, dude.

Cindel gets kidnapped by the Orcs, obviously, and shoved into a cage with some Ewoks. She and Wicket manage to escape. They end up trapped in a cave somewhere.

wicket-cindel

Wicket fights a pterodactyl. The pterodactyl flies off with Cindel in its clutches. Wicket flies off after in a hand glider he builds, or discovers?

At this point I wonder if I have the flu.

Soon they befriend a giant rabbit-type critter that can run really fast like those vampires on True Blood. He brings him back to a hut in the middle of the forest. Cindel figures the three of them can live there for the rest of their lives.

You know, I don’t know how we went from Peter Cushing blowing up whole planets with his giant space station to talking teddy bears and jackrabbits! By the way, Jean Marsh plays an evil sorceress who is helping the Orc King try and solve the riddle of the star cruiser battery.

Ewoks3

The Orc King keeps going on about how he wants “More power!” Dude, it’s basically a car battery. Nothing to get excited about there unless he’s trying to juice up his power tools like Tim “The Toolman” Taylor.

Ewoks5

Did I mention that Wilford Brimley is in this? The Quaker Oats guy. He shows up at the hut, which we learn is his house, and he is quite the grumpy Gus. He kicks Wicket and Cindel out and proceeds to berate the jackrabbit, I think.

Cindel and Wicket bake some berry pies. I stopped watching at that point.

I’m sure the film ended with Wicket getting trapped in a wicker cage and set on fire. Cindel probably challenged the Orc King to mortal combat and drive a dagger through his skull. With their king defeated, Cindel becomes their Queen. You keep what you kill.

Five Things I Learned from Star Wars: Ewoks: The Battle for Endor

  1. There’s no point in trying to save your parents. George Lucas will just kill them off in the sequel.
  2. Wilford Brimley has no place in a Star Wars movie. (There, I said it.)
  3. Ewoks can overstay their welcome in the nexus of popular culture.
  4. Alien jackrabbits depress me.
  5.  The Chronicles of Riddick is better than Star Wars.

_______

Jeffrey Shuster 3

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, and episode 131) is an MFA candidate at the University of Central Florida.

The Lists #28: Egg Nog Recipe

10 Thursday Dec 2015

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Christmas, The Lists

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The Lists #27 by Patrick Jehle

 Egg Nog Recipe

Do ahead:

  1. Extirpate all memory of any beverage besides eggnog.

2. Also all hope.

3. Dull gag reflexes using fists, feet.

You are now ready to fashion eggnoggal refreshment:

4. Go to a place. Quest, schlep, endure.

5. Obtain nog.

6. Secure the nog.

7. Since whaleshark eggs hatch inside their mothers, these must be obtained the old-fashion way.

8. Be classy about it, all right?

9. Discard any incipient faces or fins. Save huge membranous yellow egg sac for garnish.

10. Beat eggs and cream until you begin to age at random.

11. Put the nog in. Put it in. Now. Before it’s too late.

12. Eggnog should be thick enough to prevent screams from escaping to the surface. Submerge whole cat to test.

13. Shit, this has nutmeg in it, doesn’t it? Just *forget* it at this point.

14. Chug nog. Nogchug.

15. Feel the warm eggal mixture swimming in your stomach.

16. Try to forget that you never, ever wanted this.

_______

Patrick Jehle

Patrick Jehle (Episode 16) is a writer from Brooklyn living in Chicago. Don’t let him in your kitchen.

21st Century Brontë #1: The Road So Far

10 Thursday Dec 2015

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in 21st Century Bronte

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21st Century Brontë #1 by Brontë Bettencourt

The Road So Far

As a child, I spent hours regurgitating cartoon scenarios to my Grandpa long after he wanted me to shut up.

B & Grandfather

I would not stop talking, and I’m sure at the age I didn’t speak because I had some greater wisdom, but because I was fascinated with words. I like juggling them on my tongue like mouthwash, finding the right word to fully punch a punch line or add gravity to a drop in tone, and being that observant is proof of that talent.

henry miller meme

To be honest, I don’t remember where I read that quotation. I’ve never read that pervert Henry Miller, but his words spoke to me decades after he passed away. According to him, my writing did not necessarily have to be good, because once I wrote a million words I would become a writer. My voice would matter.

I was the only kid in my school to earn a six on the writing portion of the statewide Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. But we all know that standardized testing is a lousy method of assessment.

Fast forward. I graduated UCF with a Bachelors in Creative Writing. I was the president of a thriving Anime and Japanese Culture club, as well as a chapter of the International English Honors Society, Sigma Tau Delta.

I am able support myself in a three bedroom apartment with two other friends, and minus the heavy shackle of student loans, I’m pretty decent with money thanks to my steady job working as a scheduler and coordinator for unemployment hearings. The pay gets me by, the hours are steady, and there is room for growth. One could ultimately be happy building their career in this company. Though not the job I intended to have once I graduated, it is a good first job.

When we marvel at the Rowlingesque fame and notoriety of a great author, a lot of us fail to see the gargantuan stress, insomnia, and compulsive, self-loathing-fueled revising that went into the books the great author had produced.

“You have to write a million words to find your voice as a writer,” Henry Miller says again. It’s not as simple as scribbling and re-scribbling the same idea on some detention room chalkboard that stretches into a purgatorial infinity. There’s impatience. Tears. Frustration of not finding the words. But a writer will keep limping forward, shoes on the wrong foot, up an icy mountain with the weight of their stories on their back, desperate to share with the world. Or a single reader.

What does it take for me to make it is a writer? What is considered making it? Getting published a few times? Being able to support myself by my words alone? Or maybe just being able to get over the hurtle of believing that everything I produce is an ungodly abomination?

Maybe writing is simply not giving up on your craft long after you’ve finished inflicting head trauma by pounding the words out of your skull. I assumed that eventually I would make it without defining what success meant. Instead I’m standing in a vast grassy field with a destination in mind, but lacking a map. This is why I quit playing Skyrim by the way: the immense freedom of the world was too shocking. (I also accidentally killed the first killable non-playable character, which scared me out of making other quick judgements). John King has gifted me with this blog, where I will ramble about books, videogames, anime, music, cartoons, and Dungeons & Dragons. The list seems immense, but it really boils down to a story.

My story.

 

_______

21st Cen Bronté

Brontë Bettencourt (Episode 34) graduated from the University of Central Florida with a Bachelors in English Creative Writing. When she’s not writing or working, she is a full time Dungeon Master and Youtube connoisseur.

McMillan’s Codex #16: On the Pill

09 Wednesday Dec 2015

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in McMillan's Codex

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McMillan’s Codex #16 By C.T. McMillan

On the Pill

The day Let’s Players are considered comedians is the day I lose what remains of my faith in humanity. I understand the appeal of people like PewDiePie or Markiplier, but a video of someone screaming like a toddler having a tantrum is not funny unless you are an idiot. Since Jackass, reactionary comedy has been the basis for a growing paradigm where a person’s reaction is enough to make people laugh. The difference here is that when Johnny Knoxville runs from a stampede of bulls, we laugh at the shock of someone doing something outrageous and subsequent pain he endures. There is craft behind his actions and effort to be as crazy as possible in the creativity of the stunt.

With PewDiePie, all he does is sit in front of his computer, plays a scary game, and screams. It is lazy comedy and the only reason people like it is because they do not posses the intellect to see how boring it is. Like anything on the Internet, some people do this comedy better than most and BroTeamPill is that minority.

Bro Team

Describing BroTeam’s comedy requires a brief summary of his Character persona as it complements the man himself.

The first videos were basically game reviews, most of them recent, but also obscure. The Character is a parody of the hardcore gamer, someone who takes everything seriously to the point of explosive anger. Runtimes average about two minutes of nigh incomprehensible shouting of offensive rhetoric, shocking subject matter, references, and some singing. To make a video, BroTeam plays a game and recuts the footage with his commentary as the Character. A lot of what is used includes video of glitches, bad animation, voice acting, or whatever he can use to make it funny or offensive.

The Character often takes pleasure in games about war or ones that allow him to kill people. His Syndicate video is rife with sexual innuendo with the game’s theme of cyborgs and mass murder of civilians. In Hitman: Absolution, a game that rewards you for precision, he went on several shooting sprees while speaking like a preacher freeing people from their flesh. His most outlandish video was Medal of Honor: Warfighter where he played a soldier obsessed with America that took sexual gratification from murder.

At times he will make up his own narrative and reinterpret games in his own twisted fashion. In Call of Cthulhu, he made the protagonist a liberal arts student who cuts himself, does drugs, and killss the residents of Innsmouth. Playing a bounty hunter in The Old Republic, he made the character a prostitute willing to solicit any money he can from anyone available. He also took Metro: Last Light and pretended he was a Production Assistant behind the scenes of a movie.

Bro Team 2

The basis of the Character is a style of comedy I have identified as ironic nihilism. The man, who now posts stream highlight videos, is very much opposite the Character. He does not care about games or what happens in them. Shooters are jokes to him as he causally runs through levels with abandon, disregarding the story, characters, and everything that people find meaning in. He also does not bother with social issues in gaming. Gamergate and women in games are punch lines, yet he claims no side of the argument. He operates on a level beyond any defining classification because he knows better than anyone that videogames, when compared to the real world, do not matter in the slightest.

It is this lack of recognition for the medium that allows BroTeam to work the way he does. He is free of conventional belief and standards many abide by. Thus, he is able to enjoy games in an ironic fashion because if he does not care about them, he can find the fun in even the worst titles. That is why he can play a broken mess like Raven’s Cry and laugh to the point of asphyxiation. The game Life is Strange is famous for its LGBT characters and BroTeam made a drinking game out of its dialog on three separate occasions. It is similar in many ways to people whom like The Room or Troll 2 because they are funny bad, yet he sees the good and bad in things utterly devoid of either.

The best comedians draw from their own misery for material. Steven Wright uses manic depression for his personality on stage. Louie C.K. and Larry David adapt their frustration with society and the minutia of life and family. BroTeam’s misery is well documented in many videos where he described his medical history in vivid detail. Playing Final Fantasy VII, he lamented the time he used to enjoyed games and reflected on the expectations of becoming an adult and finding out it is not at all what he thought. Alcoholism and insomnia further exacerbate his misery as he drinks to excess and stays up all night editing or playing games. And in those restless, drunken fits he will talk about all manner of things like bad writing, his living situation, and random things that do not make sense.

Bro Team 3.png

George Carlin is one of my most favorite comedians. He challenged the status quo and used it as a platform to make you question the world. I have yet to find a contemporary comedian that matches his style and my hopes are not high. In the realm of YouTube and videogames, comparing jabbering of man-children to a genius like that is a sign we have truly regressed into insanity. But out of this capitulation, BroTeamPill has shown a gamer personality can have meaning and actually put effort into their work. If only more people understood him like I do.

_______

CT McMillan 1

C.T. McMillan (Episode 169) is a film critic and devout gamer.  He has a Bachelors for Creative Writing in Entertainment from Full Sail University.

On Top of It #8: Beginning the Getaway

07 Monday Dec 2015

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in On Top of It

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On Top of It #8 by Lisa Martens

Beginning the Getaway

My grandma owns a small gated community in La Garita, Costa Rica. Since the infancy of my MFA days, I would brush my hair, gaze at the moon, and imagine hosting a writers’ retreat on my family’s property.

hourglass

Plenty of writers have visited us . . . some of whom had to play poker online to make ends meet, but what writer hasn’t taken on odd jobs? And so I wanted to see if there was any interest. I put out a survey in a writers’ Facebook group on November 30, my birthday. (You can wish me a happy birthday in the comments, thank you).

By December 1, I had 87 respondents. I couldn’t believe it! I had folks emailing me asking when the submission period would be, and if they could receive a scholarship. Some writers are offering to hook me up with connections. All seem passionate and eager to form a community. I was shocked, and it was the shot in the arm I needed.

Too often, we write in isolation. NaNoWriMo reminded me that while writing can be a solitary act, there is a community of us and we can all bond over the Internet and over our collective goals to reach people with my writing. Yep, I’m being sappy.

So it’s going to happen. January 2017, Costa Rica writers’ retreat! And possibly more if this proves successful. Here is a small list of things I have to do:

  1. Hire a lawyer on my $10/hour bookseller salary, just to cover liability issues . . .
  2. Create some kind of submission process and timeline
  3. Find a panel of writers to help comb through submissions
  4. Create an itinerary
  5. Find a reliable driver
  6. Yoga?
  7. Food? Allergies?
  8. We’ll have bonfires. Duh. Have to have bonfires.
  9. Exorcise the ghost who lives on my grandma’s property. Unless he helps with the writing.

But I think I can do it. If you’re interested in coming, serving on a panel, or just plain want to give me advice on how the hell to do this (I’ve never even planned a dinner party), please email me at lisaatnormas@gmail.com. That’s the email address I’m using specifically for planning writers’ retreats in Latin America.

Congratulations to anyone who achieved NaNoWriMo, and please take a few weeks to detox from whatever chemicals you used to get through it.

_______

Lisa Martens

Lisa Martens (Episode 22) currently lives in Harlem. In her past 10 years in New York, she has lived in a garage on Long Island, a living room in Hell’s Kitchen, the architecture building of CCNY, and on the couch of a startup. She grew up in New York, Costa Rica and Texas, and she’s still not sure which of these is home. She completed her MFA in Creative Writing from CCNY. Her thesis, What Grows in Heavy Rain, is available on Amazon. Check out her website here. Follow her on Instagram here.

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