two
First Post
I hate movie and TV quotes
Period.
If you don't have anything better to say than to repeat some worn, not-that-funny-when-new joke or one-liner, just be quiet. Zip it, or to cut to the chase, shut up.
Under no circumstances are TV commercials worth discussing. I’ve often thought there were only two types of people in the world: those that think TV commercials occasionally funny and consequently a worthy conversational topic, and those that simply can’t consider such a thing without laughing – bitterly.
I’d rather hear somebody talking about a boring dream they had last night than repeat robotically a manufactured Hollywood verbal “punctuation” of a cheesy scene. Or even worse, simply ignore the process of maturation and continue to quote Monty Python well past the collegiate years. How can people not cringe when hearing these barnacled quotes? What are you going to do next, pray, bust out a kegger and cram for an impending final? Do you want to live in a rental apartment forever, with tin pots and pans and a mildewed Futon resting on pile carpet, while Led Zeppelin (inevitably Led Zeppelin) blares in the distance?
People, you are gaming with human beings, your friends (presumably), and they deserve more from you than stale leavings of pop culture, which in itself is simply voracious, taking all, and giving so very little… so very little. Humans are capable of so much, and at the same time are so often bereft, or distanced from one another (and themselves), and when a chance comes to connect, to throw something out that might link to something genuine, it’s a misfortune to crush any real hope of achieving this by expressing something NOT of yourself (for that is what this sort of incessant quoting represents, indicating a deep lack of understanding, or perhaps it’s simply an artifact of fear, fear of saying something that might reflect upon internals, and there is nothing as glossy an shiny and ultimately forgettable as pop culture superficiality) – it’s worse than that, it’s a tragedy, it’s heartbreaking, this self-inflicted wounding. Don’t cover yourself with another’s presumed humor. Don’t strap on multiplicities of pop culture references, armoring yourself against any real involvement, protecting against what? What is to be lost, if a Monty Python quote is repressed, suppressed, swallowed and buried and in its place: anything. Surely you have a sense of humor too, so express it. Surely we, as a group, can laugh together, we can make our own entertainment, we well-educated wealthy Westerners, we are capable of these basic social achievements. Aren’t we? Shouldn’t we, in fact, insist upon it? Isn’t anything not contributing to the cause, isn’t anything forcing us away from being individuals to be avoided at all costs? Do you want to be a gaming group like every third gaming group, with the Python quoter, the guy that needs to shower more often, and the Ph.D who makes everyone feel like they are not indulging in some throwback vice?
Some people take comfort, I suppose, in cleaving to the expected. Some people, I suppose, want to be nothing except that which is expected, that which the culture produces. I don’t want that, I don’t want that in the people around me, I don’t want to see it in anyone else either. I want a rejection of the glossy way out, the easy joke, the distancing quote, the soul-suppressing urge to huddle oneself away somewhere inside, using television and movies and sports and politics as scaffolding for what passes as conversation, as social intercourse, while all the same wrapping oneself in those plush, easily available nearly sacramental wraps – hey, did you see the highlights? Did you hear what Oprah said? Hit? Pah, it’s a wound, simply a flesh wound… I hear these things and think of a charnel house, of rot, of endless possibility consciously discarded. I don’t like it. It depresses me. Don’t speak if you don’t have something to say that is OF YOU, not reflects some scrap of you through the wretched mirror of television or movies. We don’t need more universal topics of conversation. What we desperately need is a way to communicate, simply, and honestly, both compassionately and with understanding.
Period.
If you don't have anything better to say than to repeat some worn, not-that-funny-when-new joke or one-liner, just be quiet. Zip it, or to cut to the chase, shut up.
Under no circumstances are TV commercials worth discussing. I’ve often thought there were only two types of people in the world: those that think TV commercials occasionally funny and consequently a worthy conversational topic, and those that simply can’t consider such a thing without laughing – bitterly.
I’d rather hear somebody talking about a boring dream they had last night than repeat robotically a manufactured Hollywood verbal “punctuation” of a cheesy scene. Or even worse, simply ignore the process of maturation and continue to quote Monty Python well past the collegiate years. How can people not cringe when hearing these barnacled quotes? What are you going to do next, pray, bust out a kegger and cram for an impending final? Do you want to live in a rental apartment forever, with tin pots and pans and a mildewed Futon resting on pile carpet, while Led Zeppelin (inevitably Led Zeppelin) blares in the distance?
People, you are gaming with human beings, your friends (presumably), and they deserve more from you than stale leavings of pop culture, which in itself is simply voracious, taking all, and giving so very little… so very little. Humans are capable of so much, and at the same time are so often bereft, or distanced from one another (and themselves), and when a chance comes to connect, to throw something out that might link to something genuine, it’s a misfortune to crush any real hope of achieving this by expressing something NOT of yourself (for that is what this sort of incessant quoting represents, indicating a deep lack of understanding, or perhaps it’s simply an artifact of fear, fear of saying something that might reflect upon internals, and there is nothing as glossy an shiny and ultimately forgettable as pop culture superficiality) – it’s worse than that, it’s a tragedy, it’s heartbreaking, this self-inflicted wounding. Don’t cover yourself with another’s presumed humor. Don’t strap on multiplicities of pop culture references, armoring yourself against any real involvement, protecting against what? What is to be lost, if a Monty Python quote is repressed, suppressed, swallowed and buried and in its place: anything. Surely you have a sense of humor too, so express it. Surely we, as a group, can laugh together, we can make our own entertainment, we well-educated wealthy Westerners, we are capable of these basic social achievements. Aren’t we? Shouldn’t we, in fact, insist upon it? Isn’t anything not contributing to the cause, isn’t anything forcing us away from being individuals to be avoided at all costs? Do you want to be a gaming group like every third gaming group, with the Python quoter, the guy that needs to shower more often, and the Ph.D who makes everyone feel like they are not indulging in some throwback vice?
Some people take comfort, I suppose, in cleaving to the expected. Some people, I suppose, want to be nothing except that which is expected, that which the culture produces. I don’t want that, I don’t want that in the people around me, I don’t want to see it in anyone else either. I want a rejection of the glossy way out, the easy joke, the distancing quote, the soul-suppressing urge to huddle oneself away somewhere inside, using television and movies and sports and politics as scaffolding for what passes as conversation, as social intercourse, while all the same wrapping oneself in those plush, easily available nearly sacramental wraps – hey, did you see the highlights? Did you hear what Oprah said? Hit? Pah, it’s a wound, simply a flesh wound… I hear these things and think of a charnel house, of rot, of endless possibility consciously discarded. I don’t like it. It depresses me. Don’t speak if you don’t have something to say that is OF YOU, not reflects some scrap of you through the wretched mirror of television or movies. We don’t need more universal topics of conversation. What we desperately need is a way to communicate, simply, and honestly, both compassionately and with understanding.
