Michael Offutt's Blog, page 154

True Blood is one of the worst things on television that you should watch regularly

My really guilty pleasure is watching True Blood during the summer. This show is just plain awful and the writing is so bad. Yet, I enjoy it thoroughly. Here's the laundry list of things that you really should never do (from JUST one episode), but no one is telling Charlaine Harris or the makers of True Blood:

1) Half the cast got high on blood and then gave each other...piggy back rides.
2) They hired an awesome actor (Christopher Meloni) from the Law & Order series and then just gave him a few lines and killed him off.
3) We have vampire night vision. Why do we even need this?
4) We have another plot line still continuing from the past...you know, the fae one...where I guess we give bullsh*t lines to Sooki about her luminescence and how she's basically a battery and is gonna run out.
5) We have another plot line with a raging Ifrit or Efreet or some djinn thing chasing Belflour.
6) We have another plot line with Lafayette and former lover Jesus (who is now just a disembodied head with his lips sewn together). Oh and the same lip sewing happened to Lafayette who had the courage to spit in the face of the guy holding the gun on him but then didn't take the gun away.
7) We have another plot line with Lilith becoming real. Why did we need another cast member?
8) We have another plot line with Alcide challenging the wolf pack leader for supremacy. The other wolf leader is unworthy because he's a drug addict.
9) We have another plot line with humans using Barack Obama rubber masks to kill vampires. They call themselves a "hate group" and serve someone called "Dragon" but we don't know who that is yet. They managed to suck in Hoyt who is angry at Jessica for dumping him for Jason Stackhouse (his buddy). Sam Merlott is kind of in on this plot line and does a lot of sniffing and rolling around on the floor like a dog. It's bad acting, looks bad, and is just plain stupid.
10) We have another plot line with Tara as a vampire who is slowly de-icing Pam's heart. Somewhere in all of this, Tara's mom shows up and says she's married to a preacher now and that "she can't have no daughter who is strippin'! and bein' all vampire-like."
My head is spinning. How could the writers let all of these plotlines get out of control like this. Why are there now so many cast members in True Blood that I can't keep track of them? It's ridiculous.
But yeah...I'll be watching again on Sunday. So terrible, I know. I'm part of the problem.
True Blood is one of the worst things on television that you should watch regularly. If anything, it will tell you that 1) terrible makes CA$H and 2) If you want to have respect as a writer, don't do this sh*t in your stories. But then, you probably won't make #1.
Have a great Wednesday.

Why are you not watching Falling Skies?

I think that I was both grossed out and intrigued by Sunday's episode of "Falling Skies" (Season 2 Episode 7). To explain, my own novel SLIPSTREAM has spiders in it. However, nothing quite as graphic as this (but in the same vein--my spiders drill holes in people's heads):
Poor Jamil became a spider bag. He had dozens
 of these guys inside him while still alive. Horrific.The doctor, Lourdes, and Matt came across Jamil (Lourdes' boyfriend) who looked like he'd been attacked by something (all bloody and stuff). He was barely conscious and wouldn't let them open a door that had scratching on the other side. Thinking they'd get him upstairs to tend to his wounds, he suddenly started to deflate and spiders just poured out of his mouth. It was the creepiest thing I'd seen outside of an "Alien" movie or for that matter, outside that horrible Stephen King movie "The Mist".

Ben on Falling Skies. He's a brooding,
emotional teenager that blames himself
for everything bad that happens.So why were alien spiders attacking the Second Mass holed up in a hospital? Well in the first five minutes of the show, they captured one of the fish heads. An influential one that Karen and Ben refer to as "The Overlord". And the aliens weren't screwing around. They didn't really bargain. They executed a human right in front of the Second Mass barricade, sicked their robots at them from the other side, and then in came the spiders. Meanwhile Ben, who has both super strength and telepathy due to former alien implants, verified that the Overlord was terrified of the human rebellion.

I'm disappointed that Ben left the Second Mass at the end of the show to hoof it on the open road because I like Ben SO MUCH. However, it was an incredibly tender moment as Noah Wylie (who plays Tom) almost cried hugging his son. I love scenes like that. And Tom is an awesome father. In one crucial scene, the Overlord dropped Ben by inducing a kind of stroke in him and Tom pulled out his gun and shot The Overlord without hesitation (despite them needing this powerful alien to get information or to trade for their freedom as they were surrounded). I was like, "F*ck Yeah!" I hope that they follow Ben's journey and devote at least ten to fifteen minutes an episode to him until the season finale. Otherwise, they may use him as a deus ex machina to have him ride in and save the day on some alien technology when all seems lost.
Tom defending his middle son Ben and shooting the Overlord
for screwing with his son. THAT'S being a badass dad. Go Tom!I really think that "Falling Skies" is approaching the high water mark of excellence. I'm so glad that this show didn't get canceled in the first season. It has become a regular Sunday night, summertime edge-of-your-seat drama thriller set in an apocalyptic world that entertains me as much as "Breaking Bad"...and that says a lot.

So if you're a fan of science-fiction, why are you NOT watching "Falling Skies?"

The international space station is so cool

I want to share this beautiful video with you that I found on io9 last week. If you haven't seen it, turn your sound up and watch the view from the international space station in a video putting together time-lapse photos of Earth as you are likely to have never seen before.
And a reminder to those of you who like my television updates, the premiere of Alphas season two is on SyFy tonight! I can't wait.

LOVE ALPHAS OMG YES!

Have a great Monday. :)

Three of my favorite things on a Friday

The first of my favorite things was that I got to see a pre-screening of "The Dark Knight Rises" last night at 7:30 p.m. I will say nothing that could be considered a spoiler. However, I am going to give you five reasons to drop everything you are doing and go and see it now.

1) First off, see it in IMAX if you can. Christopher Nolan filmed half of it for IMAX and refused to go 3D on it because he feels that 3D is just a way to jack up ticket prices and not add anything to a film.

2) There's not as much C.G.I. as you might think. Nolan wanted this installment to be an epic. That meant having thousands of extras. All of those people you see clashing in the streets are not computer rendered. They really did close down entire streets in Manhattan to film this thing. The men hanging from the plane are also not computer generated. Just think about that when you go and see this movie.

3) The writing is excellent. I didn't feel wanting in any form at any point in the plot. I didn't walk out of the theater thinking..."hey this didn't make sense..." because it all made sense. Everything down to the last cut that you see.

4) Expect the unexpected. There's twists and turns that you never saw coming unless you try to meta-think the film and read online reviews. I found the unexpected to be delightful.

5) The villain is better than Heath Ledger in the Dark Knight. I never thought I'd say that, but Hardy's Bane is a masterpiece.
The second of my favorite things is I got a really nice review from a professional book blogger over at the Kimi-Chan Experience. Please stop by and read it if you have the time. She really made my day when she posted the review. Her blog focuses mostly on Yaoi which I think is awesome. There needs to be more Yaoi in the world.

You can find her blog HERE.
And the third of my favorite things is when bloggers do things for other bloggers. The one I'm highlighting today is blogger E.J. Wesley of The Open Vein. 

Beginning Thursday, July 26, at 9 PM EST, E.J. will be hosting an all new regular Twitter chat focusing on New Adult literature. Please check out the details at the link above. It honestly sounds like a great experience to learn more about New Adult literature.

Have a great weekend.

Welcome oh women of the world. You have now joined the ranks of masturbating men.

The very definition of guilty pleasure it seems is when you indulge in something that you know you shouldn't because it is inherently bad for you. In other words, you go and get that ice cream from Cold Stone Creamery or you eat that piece of raspberry cheesecake. You savor its incredible tasty goodness yet dread that you may get diabetes or in the least, your pants won't fit anymore in the morning.
When I take my Healthy Utah walk with my partner who is a 48-year-old single mother, she tells me about Fifty Shades of Grey and how she can't wait for her train ride because it means forty minutes of uninterrupted time with Christian Grey. She also says that she makes sure to hide the cover while she's on the train. I smirk to myself as I ask her how she likes the infamous "tampon sex" scene. For those of you who don't know what that is, here is the excerpt (it's rated-R so skip if you don't want your eyes seared out):

His breathing is ragged, matching mine.

“When did you start your period, Anastasia?” he asks out of the blue, gazing down at me.

“Err… yesterday,” I mumble in my highly aroused state.

“Good.” He releases me and turns me around.

“Hold on to the sink,” he orders and pulls my hips back again, like he did in the playroom, so I’m bending down.

He reaches between my legs and pulls on the blue string… what! And… a gently pulls my tampon out and tosses it into the nearby toilet. Holy fuck. Sweet mother of all… Jeez. And then he’s inside me… ah! Skin against skin… moving slowly at first… easily, testing me, pushing me… oh my. I grip on to the sink, panting, forcing myself back on him, feeling him inside me. Oh the sweet agony… his hands clasp my hips. He sets a punishing rhythm – in, out, and he reaches around and finds my clitoris, massaging me… oh jeez. I can feel myself quicken.

“That’s right, baby,” he rasps as he grinds into me, angling his hips, and it’s enough to send me flying, flying high.

Whoa… and I come, loudly, gripping for dear life onto the sink as I spiral down through my orgasm, everything spinning and clenching at once. He follows, clasping me tightly, his front on my back as he climaxes and calls my name like it’s a litany or a prayer.

“Oh, Ana!” His breathing is ragged in my ear, in perfect synergy with mine. “Oh, baby, will I ever get enough of you?” he whispers.

Will it always be like this? So overwhelming, so all-consuming, so bewildering and beguiling. I wanted to talk, but now I’m […]

The one sentence that my walking partner uses to describe this book is "it's so romantic". I just call it porn (and I have nothing against porn). But I think it's odd that so many people seem surprised that this kind of writing is out there. I've seen it for almost two decades now, have read quite a bit of it, and didn't think much of it. I actually thought of it as "low brow" writing myself. I have a few pornographic stories that I hide on my computer. I'm thinking that there might be a market for them now. Who knew, right? I mean, there was a time when I would never have admitted that I wrote those kinds of stories. The world is changing so much.

Nathan Bransford (some of you may have heard of him) wrote in a blog post about a topic called "Are we stripping modern books bare?" You can find it HERE . The general writing advice is that modern readers no longer have the attention span for diversions in plot and want things pared down to bare bones. That is how great writing is seen these days. Only here's the thing...the "great writers" like Franzen aren't "great" by most standards outside of universities because they don't outsell E.L. James or Stephanie Meyer. The measure of success is money right? Anyone that disagrees with me, answer this question: would you like to have a million dollars or a blue ribbon that says "first place?" If you can't have both, I'd take the million dollars.
Character driven stories are what's selling. So is your boy meets girl better than
other boy meets girl stories? For James, maybe it was the courage to incorporate
bondage. But now that this cat is out of the bag, the bar will need to be raised
further to get the same arousal. It's kind of like heroin addiction, right?So maybe the greatest advice really for any modern writer really has to do with the ultimate in "paring down" if you want to have a career as a writer and nothing else. I'm of course being snarky here. But there is something to be said about throwing out the plot. What I'm saying is that the things that REALLY sell seem to me to really have no story anymore. They are "character driven"...two words that mean the author admits, "I have no idea where this story is going." Two words that mean "I have no idea how to storyboard and don't care. My protag is just gonna 'bump' into things and stuff will just happen."

Sure, this is probably a "guilty pleasure" because filling shelves at a library with books that have no plot is probably overall bad for society as a whole. But without a socialized system in place to encourage writing of other kinds to flourish, that is (unfortunately) what we are going to get. A society that binges on fast food, watches Jersey Shore, and reads plotless sexy books.

I've read on numerous writer blogs the emphasis that readers want "character driven" stories. I think this means that they want you to start with a character, have no direction in mind, and just "pants" the hell out of the story until that character hooks up with someone else and they have sex (in YA it would need to be almost sex). But you need to draw in all the right words to raise the heat. I guess that's where the writer comes into play.

I'm not trying to slam writers who start out with a girl who then meets a guy and they get it on (Here's looking at you E.L. James). Or even worse...the writers who couldn't even invent a world of their own but just wrote fan fiction and changed some names. I guess the one thing that boggles my mind is why such trash is making so much money in the first place. Now don't get me wrong. I'm a HUGE consumer of trash. And I unabashedly admit "I like trash." I'll read trash, watch trash, all by myself or in front of people while nom noming on a jelly doughnut. I don't care. I'm really the kind of person that would read porn in front of someone holding up the magazine so you can see what I'm reading. I have no shame as far as that goes because I don't care what anyone thinks of me. But back to my question...

Maybe the reason this stuff makes so much money is because no one has an appreciation for something that is truly good, because "good things" have become so rare in today's society? Or maybe it's because pornography has remained particularly taboo for women to explore and finding it in a book allows them to indulge the guilty pleasure while remaining clean and prim for church on Sunday. I can look at porn on my computer whenever I want. But maybe other people in other lives would like to do so, but don't because of "restrictions" that their lifestyle enforces upon them.

Whatever the case, E.L. James' Fifty Shades of Grey is the flagship of guilty money makers of written pornography. It's utter trash, but it's the kind of utter trash that everyone wants. It's the kind that has clogged the hard drives of teenage boys for years. I don't understand it. Yet, I salute the women of the world who have joined the ranks of perverted, masturbating men.

It's about time.

The whole "Puritan"/"Scarlet Letter" thing left over from when America was founded centuries ago is finally gone. Now we just need more male strip clubs like the ones in Magic Mike in more cities, especially those found in Utah. Women...get out and support these. The future is yours.

Check out the animated tampon scene below. It's a preview of what you'll get in the movie adaptation.

What the heck is up with Tony Jaa?

My blogging friend Mathew MacNish asked me to beta read his wonderful manuscript Warrior Monks. Matt has done a ton of research on oriental philosophy, martial arts, and the weapons that ninjas, Shaolin monks, samurai, and Chinese kung-fu films have made famous. This all kind of triggered in me a resurgence of interest in the career of Tony Jaa.
If you don't know who Tony Jaa is, then shame on you. He exploded onto the American scene around 2007 with a hit movie called Ong Bak: The Thai Warrior. The movie was short on plot, but showcased Muay Thai like I had never seen before. Jaa can vertically jump two meters, land on people's shoulders, and walk on them. He really can do this stunt and he does it in the film. He could jump through a hoop at full break neck speed, do somersaults, and twirls, and vertical pushups on elephant tusks. If you have the time, please check out the action-packed clips I have embedded in this post. It's possible that after watching them, you too shall become a fan of Tony Jaa.
I saw his next film called The Protector and there's a scene in there where he breaks the bones of like fifty guys. There's also another scene done in one shot where he runs up a spiral building basically annihilating everyone that gets in his way. The guy was a one man wrecking crew, and I loved it.

So after reading Warrior Monks one evening, I flipped to the internet to find out what had happened to Tony Jaa and if he had anymore great films coming out.

I discovered that he left the film business and became a Buddhist monk in 2010.

Like...really? What the hell?
Who goes and does this in 2010? The guy is single, rich, handsome, had the world right there...probably could nail any woman that he wanted or afford anything that he desired. He was a living sex symbol, has legions of adoring fans in Thailand (his native country), and a movie career that was just starting to explode. Basically, he was getting enough "power" that he could make any movie that he wanted. And that probably goes for America too. Like he could come here and demand what he wanted in a script from Hollywood and they would green light it.
Maybe if I understood Buddhism more, then I could somehow relate to this scenario. But I have to say I'm disappointed. I wanted to see more action films from him.

So I guess this blog post is an open letter to Tony Jaa who will probably never read it anyway since he's in a monastery somewhere in Thailand and I can't imagine that there is internet or WiFi there.

Dear Tony Jaa, 

Please pull your head out of your ass and get back to making good movies. I wish you the best.
Your adoring fan, 

Michael Offutt XOXO

The Walking Dead Season 3 Four-Minute Trailer got my blood a pumping

Sunday night, AMC premiered the four-minute trailer to season 3 of the Walking Dead. It was previously shown at Comic Con in San Diego this weekend.

We see some Michonne action right off the bat using her katana to kill some zombies in a store. We also see the Governor in the town of Woodbury, Michonne asking for their weapons, and laying the foreshadowing that the Governor is evil by Michonne uttering the words, "I don't trust him."

And the clincher is seeing Merle with a knife wrapped to the stump of his right hand.

If you have the time, please watch the video. It's great.
Have a great Tuesday. #SoExcited for October. It's only twelve weeks away.

A recap of Breaking Bad season 5 episode 1

I was firmly planted on my seat Sunday night for the return of Breaking Bad. It's easily one of the finest if not best written show on television right now. Highlights from last night's episode:

1) I like how they left off pretty much at the same spot where the season finale called "Face Off" had ended. Walt's transformation into the bad guy is complete with the death of Gustavo. And any doubt that I had that Walt was responsible for the poisoning of Brock was brushed away when he threw away the Lily of the Valley plant. I mean, I really suspected that Walt was capable of this...of hurting an innocent child, but I wanted to think that this might have been a coincidence. That there was still some shred of the good Walt that we saw in season one. Nope. It's all gone. He is officially as evil as evil can get. I find myself in an odd place with Walt. He is as evil as any serial killer or any criminal mastermind, yet there is something about knowing his past that makes me root for him. I admire his cleverness. Is it wrong to admire evil when it is especially clever?
Aaron Paul plays Jesse Pinkman
2) Jesse Pinkman is coming into his own. He is confidant. It was his idea which they employed to destroy the hard drive on Gus' laptop which the police tagged as evidence and put into a very secure room. I never would have thought a magnet used in a junk yard could be used in this manner, but I guess if the magnetic field/source was strong enough, it could happen. I have seen first hand how magnets can destroy hard drives. Maybe Myth Busters will do an episode and examine whether or not this stunt would actually work. In any event, it makes for good television. I hope that Jesse becomes a source of light in this very dark show. Skyler has gone evil and accepted that she is the "Persephone" character who resides in the underworld with its ruler "Hades". I hope that by the series end (which happens this season), that Jesse decides to abandon Walt for a fate that actually has a future.

Mike Erhmantraut is a badass assassin3) Mike appears to be accepting the fact that Walt is now the King of Hell, or for that matter, is now a free agent since Gus is dead and so is the Cartel that controlled drugs to the southwest. It will be interesting to see the line this assassin chooses to walk. I know for a fact that wherever Mike does go, corpses will follow. He is as lethal as Walt is clever.

My Predictions:

Since this is the last season of Breaking Bad, I'm just going to say that I believe the villain of this season is going to be Walt's best friend Hank. He's the only one left. I think that the D.E.A. is going to expose Walt and that it will be Hank that puts him down. And this is so screwy because to say that Hank is a villain is so wrong. Hank is a hero. But since we have a villain as a protagonist, then the antagonist has got to be a good guy.

Anyway...so excited for Sundays. Right now I'm having to balance True Blood, The Newsroom, Breaking Bad, and Falling Skies all in one night. I love my DVR.

Have a great Monday.

Women of Foxwick by Cherie Reich

This week, I read Women of Foxwick by Cherie Reich. It's a short story fantasy collection featuring five women who reside in Cherie's magical world.

The blurb gives you a little information about each story so here it is:

Follow five women from Foxwick in this five-story fantasy collection.

A bard will lose her head, if she doesn't find the correct notes. A dragon seer must decide whether to betray her dragons or her fair kingdom. An assassin will journey to the Shadowlands to destroy Death. Twins are selected for the Mage Game, and a princess will journey to Valdale in search of the sorceress who can save Foxwick.

Once I started reading this book, I was hooked and read the whole thing in just a couple of hours.
My favorites in this collection were 1) the dragon seer story, 2) the lady death story, and 3) the twins in the mage game story. But all of them are superb. Those three though are the stuff from which movies are made.
The thing I liked about the dragon seer story was the dragon. The girl in it can communicate with it telepathically, and the dragon had a great personality. Plus you get to see two different kingdoms, get involved in some politics, and see what happens when you throw dragon eggs on the floor. Who doesn't love dragons? They're the backbone of fantasy.In the assassin story, I just liked the idea that someone could be so good at killing things that she could kill Death itself and inherit the office of the Grim Reaper. That was just really amazing.
And I liked the game aspect in the twins story because you got to see how two girls could get a dragon scale, a phoenix feather, and a unicorn hair. The solutions were very clever.

You do get recurring characters. What happens in one story can be reflected in the next. This is the common thread that unites this collection into a tour de force of Cherie's fantasy world, giving you a different location and different perspective with each new tale.
Finally, I want to add that this collection of fantasy tales could belong in anyone's collection. Young or old, kid to adult...anyone and everyone can enjoy them together or just by yourself in an airport terminal quietly reading. I give Cherie's fantasy collection five stars out of five. If I still played Dungeons & Dragons, I would want to have a game based in Foxwick. It was that real to me.
If you would like to buy Women of Foxwick for your very own, you can download it for the Kindle HERE for only $2.99. That's peanuts people! And I'm serious, these stories are worth it.
You can keep up with Cherie Reich at her website HERE.
And you can mark Women of Foxwick "To Read" on Goodreads HERE.

Starry Night

Below you will find a digital painting created by artist Alex Ruiz in an attempt to reinterpret Vincent Van Gogh's work "The Starry Night". I think it's stunning. CLICK TO MAKE BIGGER.
In reading about Van Gogh, I learned that he had a form of epilepsy that could descend upon him at random, cause him to black out, and when he woke...he would have no recollection of what occurred during the black out. People who have studied his life believe that he lived every day with the spectre of death hovering over him and that he stared at things and sought to capture them because he felt, it could be the last time he would ever see them.
In the book I was reading, Van Gogh would never have actually stood under the stars as Alex Ruiz would suggest in this painting. Rather, Van Gogh was committed to an asylum by his brother and wasn't allowed to go out at night. Instead, he would have stared out from his window at the night sky and then waited until morning before he could go to his workshop and paint what he saw.

In any event, the original, and this one by Ruiz, possess a certain magic to them.

Wouldn't you agree?