I didn’t write a newsletter last week. Why? Because we were MOVING! Little did I know what a disruption to my life this would be. The building that we have been living in for the last three years was owned by a company who decided to sell to private investors, and in the selling of the joint, they forced everyone to move out so they could increase the rents by up to 50% (which was what ours was adjusted to). Thus, we have known for a while that we were going to have to move, but were secretly hoping that it wouldn’t happen.
I really do. I wish I had the capability to operate my body in a way that made movement into poetry. I have a bit of rhythm, but I certainly do not have any sense of body control that would give anyone the impression that I was a dancer. That’s unfortunate. My daughter, Harper, can dance, and I admire her for that. She has that kind of control of her body. I do not. Harper could have (and still could) dance professionally, but unfortunately, most opportunities like that that exist in North America are for things like the OKC Thundergirls, dancing during timeouts at basketball games. Although, I suppose there might be something fun in that, were it not for the ridiculous outfits that they make them wear.
Where did these thoughts come from, G? you might ask.
In which Randall P. Girdner tries and fails to articulate an idea…
Today, we went to the Louvre to see the Picasso exhibit.
For those of you who don’t know, yes, there is a Louvre in Abu Dhabi and it is absolutely one of the most gorgeous buildings that I have ever seen. Check it out…
I bought this issue of Justice League off a spinner-rack.
GENERAL THOUGHTS ON A RAINY SUNDAY WHERE ALL THE DAYS BLEND TOGETHER…
Man, I am BORED.
I’m so bored that I actually started reading books. That’s a frightening notion; the idea that I’m taking a physical thing and putting it into my hands and fighting the urge to pick up my phone and read shorter things is something that’s throwing me off a bit. What’s throwing me off even more is the simple notion that most of the world is not experiencing this. I guess it’s just a Middle East problem, but the truth of the matter is that most people around the western world barely have an inkling of the things that are happening here, other than the relatively minor annoyances of higher gas or gradually increasing food prices.
Goodness me, how time flies. I figured that it had been a while since the last Ridiculous Opinions, so I must update MY FANS on what is happening in my life at the moment.
But unfortunately, you’ve caught me in a down mood, my friends. Not all can be positive in the world of Randall P. Girdner and though I count my lucky stars every day for everything that I have, occasionally things catch up with you. You can outrun the weight of the world only for so long before your feet get caught in the quicksand of existence. Your footsteps drag a bit, your pace slows, and soon, you’re just stuck in the muck. That’s the way I woke up this morning and that feeling has not left me today.*
That’s right. I am writing this while lying on the floor of our hotel in the Chelsea District of London. I am lying on the floor of the hotel because I have pulled a muscle in my back and I may or may not have a herniated disc in my spine, but let me just tell you that the drugs that they’ve given very much make me feel like not very much is wrong in the world and everything is groovy.
Forgive the “old man” vibes of today’s newsletter, but I have to point out that U2 released a surprise album this week. U2 is my all-time favorite band, but the color of my fandom has changed over the last twenty or so years.
For the longest time, I have felt that U2 had basically sold out. The fire of being a band of poor rock and rollers vanished in the era of multimillionairedom and private jets. Everything that I liked about U2 just seemed to wither away over the years; they no longer sang about things that I related to, they no longer made music that seemed to be born from their bones. They just seemed to be making music in an eternal quest to be as relevant as they were in the late-eighties/early-nineties; stale, overbaked, and kind of sad. Not that there wasn’t any music of theirs that I liked during that time, but the feeling of relating to their message and the excitement of hearing something meaningful was long gone. They spent too long making music and in their attempt to do something to perfection, they baked all the life out of their music. Everything was much too calculated. Everything was stale. Everything was lifeless.
But this week, they released an EP called Days of Ash. They released it without any warning. There was no press, no build-up; they just released it. And alongside the album, they released a digital version of their fanclub magazine called Propaganda, which they haven’t made since the invention of the internet, really. I loved Propaganda in the 90s. It was a slick, well-designed glossy magazine that came with bonuses for those people who were members. I’ll never forget receiving my copy of their fan-club-only release of Melon way back when. It was an album of remixes of their songs, and though there wasn’t a single good one on the album, it was still mine and it was something that not everybody had, which was spectacular and something that true music fans would strive for…exclusivity. In today’s day and age, nothing is exclusive. It’s just out there for everybody. Time and distance are irrelevant on the internet. Everything is available, all the time.
I’ve never been much for celebrating Valentine’s Day (or as the more enlightened among us would refer to as Anna Howard Shaw Day), but on this occasion, let’s celebrate my wife, who is sitting across from me with the worst chest cold I have ever seen another human being have. Huzzah, Tracey! You are loved! Despite the phlegm!
A lot of you may or may not know this, but Tracey and I met way back in August of 1997 on our orientation day at Shanghai American School. It was my first ever trip overseas, while Tracey was a wily veteran of two-years overseas in Ecuador. We hit it off at a party at a long-gone establishment called The Long Bar, which is where the Ritz-Carlton is in Shanghai at the moment.
So on Thursday, I was looking through the upcoming movies playing here in the city and I saw that there was a special edition of The Shining playing in IMAX. This, of course, made me curious. Why was The Shining playing? Was this an anniversary? And why in IMAX? The movie was never filmed in IMAX!
I didn’t know what to expect, but I could not refuse the opportunity to see a Stanley Kubrick movie in an actual movie theater. In my life, I saw Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut in a theater, but those were the only opportunities to see Kubrick’s movies on the big screen. This was another chance!
I have spoken here at times about the notion of my views on cinema evolving over the years. I used to view the concept of digital cinematography and the ability to watch movies at home as the great democratizer of film. I loved that film was no longer an elitist notion and I scoffed at people like Christopher Nolan, who insisted that his movies only be shot on film. Snobbery! I would say as I clucked my tongue and tut-tutted at such high-minded nonsense. They simply want to gatekeep film!
Last week’s newsletter was a bit heavy in terms of subject matter, and though the events of the world have not changed in terms of the somewhat bleak direction we are currently headed, there are still areas where we need a little bit of light in our lives. Ideally, this newsletter would serve as one of those things, if only for the fact that you get to listen to my nonsensical ramblings once a week as I spout off my nonsense. So, let’s let this week be a bit more fun, shall we?
I have told you before about the film I wanted to make. Well, it looks like things are finally happening with that. In fact, we are currently in negotiations with a film company here in the city to make it actually happen. It’s pretty much a done deal, but I have to enter everything here with the caveat that all of these things could fall apart at any minute. Such is the way of making films, where it looks like everything is hunky-dory one minute and then people are ghosting you the next. I am fully-prepared for that to happen, but I can’t operate as if that is a given yet, so I continue to trudge along with the planning.
Well, there was lots of personal good news this weekend, but that doesn’t really matter at the moment. I was appalled last night to watch the video of the killing of Alex Pretti in Minnesota and I’m even more appalled at my inability to do anything about it.
I left the United States long ago. I haven’t lived there since I left in 1997. This was a choice made by me when I was a young man. I was a proud American when I left, filled with the vim and vigor of being a patriot (though a liberal patriot, even back then). The United States of America, despite its flaws, was my home country and we had done good in the world. All my life, I was led to believe that my country was the beacon for democracy around the world, that we were the leaders of the world, and that those that did not look up to our standard of living were merely ignorant.
But I was the ignorant one.
Meeting my wife was the best thing to ever happen to me, but let’s focus on one aspect of that right now. Tracey was Canadian. Like most ignorant people in the United States, I didn’t think much about Canada. I mean that literally…I didn’t think about Canada at all. Wasn’t it just a country up north that was little more than a vassal attachment to my own country? Wasn’t it just the 51st state?
My comic, Four Frontiers, debuted on Webtoon yesterday. Webtoon is the biggest online comics forum around, mainly created for manga comics. However, Four Frontiers has made its debut there, as Sandstorm Comics (the publisher) has decided to have a go at online comics. They’re doing it in a neat way, so it’s worth a look. You can find it at the link below:
The most IMPORTANT thing here is for you to actually go, so I can get my numbers up. Just read through the whole thing. It will take you five minutes. Get those numbers nice and high. If you have a Webtoons account, subscribe. It would be well worth your time. The more people go, the higher the numbers get, and the more likely they will be to let me write the sequel. Plus, I have a chip on my shoulder about numbers. Heh, heh.
Warning: Extremely obnoxious video. It’s funny because it’s true.
Last night, I spent the evening doing a few things with suno.ai. You see, some of you may or may not know this, but long ago, I used to write and record music. You’ll never get to hear any of this because the things that I wrote and recorded were tasteless and rude and made by someone who was, shall we say, less enlightened than the fully-formed man you see before you.
It’s a new year, ladies and gentlemen, so I thought I would go through this little quick newsletter to let you all know what projects I will be partaking in through the year with my fresh start.
As most of you know, I write every day. That will not change in the new year. I’m currently outlining an elaborate heist miniseries and working on the outline of a movie about astronauts and vampires that, when I type it out like that, sounds incredibly stupid. But let me just say that this is a phenomenal idea for a movie that I simply don’t have an ending for. Part of the writing process is brainstorming ways to navigate through the jungle of a story. I have 3/4ths of the movie outlined, with some pretty incredible sequences, but I need to figure out how to write a satisfying ending even though I don’t know what that should be. But really, this is how we work things out in our minds. I know that, with my own brain, the problem will get solved subconsciously. I have mastered the technique of solving plot problems while not working on them and trusting my brain to tell me what to do when I sit down to write. Surprisingly, it works well.
Let me tell you a story. It’s funny, but it’s also kind of sad and wonderful at the same time.
We had two stints in China. One in the late nineties (where Tracey and I first met) and once when we returned to China in 2008. When we moved to China at that time, we had a nanny for our girls. Her name was Gu Ping.
I have prejudiced feelings about foreigners that get local help with their children when they go overseas and I could go on long rants about how bougie it is to have a local follow parents around, pushing their kids in their stroller, feeding them their meals, and putting them to bed. Many overseas people outsource the work of being a parent to their nannies and I think it’s wrong. Plus, they raise some screwed up kids who have never been parented by their actual parents. However, I will save that editorial for another time.
We are currently ensconced in Hangzhou, where we are visiting my oldest daughter, who is working her first major job here in the city. It is so incredibly gratifying to see your daughter out in the world, doing her thing, and we are so proud of her.
Before we head to Shanghai tomorrow, I just have to comment on this country. Everything you’ve heard about China is all wrong. It’s amazing how western media will vilify a country. I’m not going to “both sides” the argument here, as there are just as many bad aspects to this country as their are to the country of my origin, so if you’re looking for me to point out the terrible things, then look elsewhere. There’s no shortage of crappy people out there on the internet that will be more than willing to give you the full scoop on all the awful things that China does, and the internet is full of that stuff. I’m no longer interested in it.
Last week, I wrote about being old, but feeling young. Above, you’ll see a picture of me being old. Yes, that’s me. Playing Santa. I’m playing Santa. Santa Claus.
This is actually my third year playing Santa for the school. I’m not really sure how it happened. They were desperate for a Santa that year and I had yet to shave when they asked, so I was like, “Sure.”
Some well-off parent at the school got me the nifty, old school costume there. I assume they were European, whoever did it, because there’s a real Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish vibe to the costume. I got measured for it and everything and they did NOT scrimp on the materials. I look great in it. And even better, I use my real beard, coloring it gray with some kind of god-awful spray, the scent of which lingers for several days. It completes the look.
It seems like an old man disease, and I suppose one would describe me as an older gentlemen, but I don’t feel like I’m an older gentlemen. In fact, I feel better than I probably have in the last ten years. But there are telltale signs that signal you’re getting older and they hit you when you least expect it.
This evening, I finished writing the script for my next big project, entitled Booth. I’ve mentioned it before, but in case you didn’t read that edition, it’s a film set entirely inside of a single booth at a restaurant. There are eight different stories that take place at this particular booth.
My goal with all of this was to actually write a movie that I could film. This has been a task that has haunted me for years. I’m good at writing movies that require a budget. I have written epic action and sci-fi. I’ve written horror films that take place in exotic locations. I’ve written movies with big casts. All of these goofy things that I’ve written were good from a conceptual standpoint, but very difficult to do on a low/minuscule budget. And all the time in my journals, I would keep coming back to the same idea: How can I write a movie that I can actually make?
I exist in the nether regions of the writing world. I am unpopular. I do not sell many books. In fact, I have one book that I’m sure has not sold a single copy. I mostly blame the readers of this particular newsletter, none of whom have purchased it. (I’ll give a free copy to anyone who can guess which one it is).
But then again, I am not unpopular either, which is a weird thing to say. I just push my books out there and see what happens. The other day, I was looking at the lifetime sales of ALL of my books that I have self-published and it turns out that I have sold almost five-thousand books in my lifetime. That’s pretty decent, actually, considering all of them, aside from my latest, Four Frontiers, have been entirely self-published. (Here’s a link to Four Frontiers, though it is only available in the Middle East at the moment…).
