Ridiculous Opinions #210
Look, people…I’ll be the first to admit that things are pretty good for me (knock on wood). I can’t complain much. Mostly, my complaints stem from the fact that I’ve still got jet lag after getting back home and the fact that the watermelon juice that I just drank isn’t sitting well in my stomach as I write this. These are not horrible things, especially considering the state of the world at the moment. I trudge on.
I also produce this newsletter. Some of you read it; some of you do not. I did not create this newsletter to make money. It was created as a way to stay in touch with former students and it turned into something stranger over the last several years (we’re coming up on ten years soon…).
But as of today, I can now say that my newsletter DOES in fact make money, as I had my first, official, PAYING subscriber last week. So, shout out to TOO FOND OF BOOKS in my hometown of Tahlequah, Oklahoma. This spectacular, independent bookstore officially subscribed to the newsletter last week, giving me ACTUAL money for these fine words that I send out electronically each week. I don’t have any subscriber bonuses, so in lieu of that, I will give them a huge shout-out to the many subscribers that read this newsletter each week and say that I admire the fact that they have managed to successfully created an independent bookshop in a small town, in a time when people seem to have forgotten how to calm their brains to focus long enough to absorb the written word. If you’re not buying from a place like Too Fond of Books, then you’re contributing to the downfall of society.
*Note that you are all MORE THAN WELCOME to become a paying subscriber to my newsletter. Please don’t let anything stop you. I certainly don’t do this to make money. Maybe I’ll take the first four subscribers to the newsletter and make them an animal character in my Maurice comics…Yeah! That’s it! The next four people that subscribe will become a bit player in Maurice the Beaver.
Okay, now that that’s out of the way, here’s some other stuff.
School starts next week and let me simply say that, although every school has issues, my school certainly gives me a lot of leeway to do things the way I want. I have created a film program from scratch at this school and it is thriving. But they allow me to be creative as well.
Right now, I am working on five films, simultaneously, that will be shown at our first assembly. The first one is an introduction of our staff. I have staged it like the opening credits to a sitcom from the 80s. I liked it so much that I am going to actually film the first minute of the sitcom on Monday. The second film is a film noir movie introducing the new teachers to the school. It, too, has turned out well. We have a third film that some students are working on promoting service, and a fourth film promoting a play.
The last film that I was working on yesterday was a parody of home improvement shows, where we took our assistant superintendent and pretended that he was looking for a new school. We went out to the construction site to film it yesterday and it turned out pretty well. But it was 105 degrees while we were filming (though the heat index was 129), and I have to admit that the heat got to me a little bit. By the end of the day, I was wiped.
The last thing I’ll say is that I think that Barbie is the best movie that I’ve seen in a long time. Tracey and I spent the morning debating a few things about it, but I will say this: though the film has its flaws, the message behind it is an empowering one that I think is important for people to consider.
I have two daughters and as their father, I watched the movie and absorbed some things that have taken me a long time to truly understand. For me, the movie managed to catch lightning in a bottle. It is a solidly mainstream movie, made by an artist with real vision. But Greta Gerwig was also given absolute free-reign to say what she wanted to say with a property that, were the corporate overlords paying closer attention, probably would have been censored at some point.
The fact that Gerwig was able to talk about some of the things she put in the movie was a bit shocking to me. A corporation like Mattel probably sat back and thought, Oh, who cares? No one wants to see a Barbie movie anyway. Let her do what she wants. Gerwig managed to criticize both the corporation that financed the movie and the society in which we live and nobody said a word. In fact, her societal critique also managed to make a billion dollars at the box office since its release.
That’s not normal, and it’s probably not something that’s going to happen again any time soon. Mattel has already sat back and worked to figure out how they can do the same thing with the rest of their properties. They’ll probably get some indie filmmaker to figure out how to turn Slinky* into a movie and pray for success. But no matter how hard they try, they will never recreate this moment in history in their attempt to make money. This was a one-time situation. Go see the movie.
*Side Note & True Story: In 2015, someone in Hollywood once asked me to write a treatment for a Slinky movie and I wrote a one-page synopsis of ideas on how I would write it. I think I wrote this whole thing in about fifteen minutes, because I didn’t trust the guy. You can read my ideas below, which are taken verbatim from the pitch that I sent him.
I never heard back.
Slinky Movie. Several approaches…
1. One guy with a dream. Bob lives in a world where everyone plays with balls. Soccer balls, footballs, little red balls, basketballs. But Bob wants something different, so he invents the Slinky. Unfortunately, the people that make BALLS are well aware that people sometimes crave something different, and they decide to put Bob and his “Slinky” out of business. Thus, it is up to Bob to let the world now that there is something else out there besides BALLS. The goons at the Ball Company are not at all interested in letting him do such a thing.
2. A Naval Engineer in WW2 (Richard T. James, the original inventor of the Slinky) comes up with an idea for the Slinky while working on a ship in the South Pacific (this is fiction, of course). James wants to get his idea back to the States so that he can make money, but he and his shipmates have to survive WW2 first!
3. Billy Bibbins is on the farm and is one bored kid. No internet access, no video games, nothing. When he goes through his grandpa’s old items and finds an ancient, rusted Slinky, he asks his grandpa what it is. “You’ve never seen a Slinky before?” Billy says no. “Let me tell you how I got this Slinky…” What follows is the whirlwind, fantastical adventure of Billy Bibbins the 1st and his journey around the world with his Slinky. EVERYONE in history wanted this Slinky, but it was up to Billy’s grandfather to get it back to America. Pirates? Check. Dinosaurs? Check. Invading armies of intelligent chimpanzees? Check. An all-around adventure for boys AND girls. (Big Fish meets Lego Movie)
4. Aliens need technology. On a far-off planet exist a race of creatures that are fighting an intergalactic battle against a much larger, much more powerful adversary of aliens. When a scouting team of creatures arrives on planet Earth after their ship crashes, they discover the wondrous creation called “The Slinky”, the very item that they need to protect themselves from these intergalactic hordes. But can these aliens get this technology off the planet before the hordes find it for themselves? And how can two kids help them do this before it is too late?
