Saturday, March 30, 2019

New and Recent Episodes of 'The Pop Culture Pub Podcast'

Available NOW

Annoying Things in Pop Culture (1)

This is definitely the first episode of a franchise topic, because there is so many things that annoy us: ANNOYING THINGS IN POP CULTURE. 
Hosts Chris Lockhart and Jason Roberts are joined on the show by Richard Rehder. Some of the points discussed include: Re-casting unnecessarily, bullying/toxic fandom, secrets in plot lines, lazy people, empty cities in animation, lens flares....

Available March 31st 
On this episode of 'The Pop Culture Pub Podcast' hosts Chris Lockhart and Jason Roberts are joined on the show by MD Jackson (from 'This Week from the Cave of Cool' podcast). They are discussing "Bad Guys" on this episode. They list off their Top 5 Bad Guys from pop culture and discuss the qualities that make a "good" bad guy.  


Sunday, March 24, 2019

The Troll Epidemic


Trolls always be trolling but to me it seems as if social media has gotten so much worse in the last year or two. I remember back in 2011 or so getting into a heated Facebook debate with a ‘friends’ husband over the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ being taught in public schools. It went from a simple comment of being ok with it to defending my place in society as a native man. Suffice to say that argument got heated and went into directions I was not expecting. But in the last year or so I’ve found myself more and more defending comments and statements I make no matter how innocent they may be. Anything you say now it seems people tear apart and spin to their own conclusions. It’s a sad epidemic and it has forced me to reconsider some “friendships” on social media and leave some groups as I am so sick of the negativity and bullying that occurs both to me and others I see.

I’ve always lived by the motto ‘Treat others the way you would want to be treated’. I do not like being bullied or ridiculed so I choose not to do that to others. Life is too short to be full of hate and vile. Why can’t we just all get along? I suppose the truth is it is human nature to want to upstage our neighbor, but that isn’t my style, that’s why I’ve chosen Buddhism. And I am going to be doing some “housekeeping” in regards to my social media friends and groups.

 

Nuff said?

Tuesday, March 19, 2019

A Learning Curve

Writing Update: 


I got my first rejection letter tonight. I submitted a short story to On Spec (a sci-fi short story magazine) and I was told my beginning paragraph was good and that it tugged at the heart strings. But I was also told I need copyediting as the rest of my story had punctuation errors. 


It was a punch to the gut for sure but then I reminded myself that Stephen King was rejected too when he was starting out. 


I enrolled in a ‘creative writing’ correspondence course. I’m hopeful this will help me to improve my work and someday be published by someone other than myself...and maybe get paid for it! 


My creative journey continues. 







Saturday, March 9, 2019

What to believe?


Bohemian Rhapsody (film):

It was a great film and I truly did enjoy it but it has received a lot of criticism for its loose portrayal of events and the ‘Queen’ timeline. But it has received a lot of criticism lately for its portrayal of Freddie Mercury and other people. The film portrays Freddie as being a ‘bad guy’ for breaking up the band for money in pursuing a solo career and his friendship with the movies villain Paul Prenter. The truth is Freddie never did break up the band, truth is he wasn’t the first one to have a solo career (Roger Taylor and Brian May both had solo albums before Freddie). And now the family of the films villain Paul Prenter are speaking out in an article for the Daily Mail:

 
MJ:
So I recently watched the HBO documentary ‘Leaving Neverland’ (all 4 hours of it and the Oprah special) and it took a few days to process it all. I have been a fan of Michael Jackson music all my life. ‘Thriller’ is on my Top 5 favorite albums of all time, I loved the ‘Captain EO’ ride at Disneyland and I always love listening to the ‘Jackson 5’ stuff. But like everyone else I heard all the strange tales surrounding the ‘King of Pop’ including his sleep overs with children, in particular young boys, and all the allegations he faced.
After watching the documentary I am still just as confused. The men in the film are very believable and tell some very chilling stories about what they went through.  But since the documentary was released a number of other reliable sources have come forward to cast doubts on the recollections and credibility of the documentary’s victims. So again I have my doubts, I’m not saying I don’t believe them I just don’t know what to believe.
But the bottom line is there was definitely some weird stuff going on with MJ during the 80’s and 90’s in regards to time spent with these boys and others. Why a grown man would in his 30’s+ want to sleep in the same room/bed as young boys? To me that just seems too weird and casts a shadow over MJ’s credibility.

Monday, March 4, 2019

Random Question of the day:

I posted the following on Facebook: what are your thoughts? 





Finding Neverland: A True Horror Story

I knew this documentary was coming and I’ve just started watching it. Already it’s scary to me to see this man who had so much power and what he used it for...





I’m interested to see Oprah’s take on this situation as she is doing a one hour special following the release of part 2 on HBO Monday night. 

Saturday, March 2, 2019

Done with Discovery: Talos 4 Don’t Go There





I've had my misgivings with ‘Star Trek Discovery’ since it is premiere in 2017 and I knew that going the prequel route was not a good idea. Star Trek had already tried this in 2001 with ‘Star Trek Enterprise’ and it was cancelled after four seasons. I think part of the problem with Enterprise was the fact that diehard fans were dropping off due to continuity issues. For example I stopped watching Enterprise during season three because of the whole Xindi war story. This alien race brought a small death star-like weapon that cut a strip through North America, and yet this was never mentioned or referenced in any of the 4 Star Trek series that came before Enterprise. So when Discovery was announced that it was going to be a prequel I knew there was going to be continuity issues. And the continuity issues have been numerous and dumbfounding to a lot of diehard fans such as myself. But what they're going to be doing next week is too much for me to handle and I am seriously done with this series. 

A story arc that has never been touched on or referenced since it originally aired on the original series has been Talos 4. The story with Talos 4 originally aired in the two-part episode ‘The Menagerie’, Which was the story of how Captain Christopher Pike ended up living the rest of his life on the planet. It's an arc that concluded and the residents of Talos 4 have never been seen or heard from since; now for some reason Star Trek Discovery is going back to Talos 4.





Why? Why must we go back to the storyline that was resolved over 50 years ago. Why must Star Trek Discovery continue to screw with continuity? I'm getting so sick of this happening with this series. I've stuck with it during season two because of Cadet Tilly, Saru, and Anson Mount (from ‘Hell on Wheels’) as Captain Pike. But in all honesty Sonique Martin Green and her character ‘Michael Burnham’ are terrible. It just blows my mind that this character committed an act of mutiny and now is somehow redeemed and continues to be a part of this crew? That just confuses me to no end. 





I've mentioned this before in my previous blog post but I feel the biggest problem plaguing this show is the fact that there is 21 producers working on it, eight of them are Executive Producers. Compare eight Executive producers on Star Trek Discovery to 3 Executive Producers on Star Trek The Next Generation at any given time. Clearly there are too many cooks in this kitchen who have no idea what the recipe is to create a good Star Trek series. And I've heard a few people use the argument that Rod Roddenberry is one of those Executive Producers and my retort is: who cares? Just because his father created the franchise doesn't mean he's an expert on that franchise. If you go back and watch the documentary he did a few years ago about his father you will see that he himself will admit he was not a Star Trek fan for many years. But just like a born-again Christian who's found Jesus and now goes around preaching the gospel to anyone who listened people seem to think that Rod Roddenberry is the second coming. Trust me folks he is not, no offence to him but just because he shares his father's last name doesn't make him an expert. 

And speaking of experts my question to CBS is why don't they bring in some Star Trek experts? For example they could ask Rick Berman on how to make a Star Trek series since he helped to produce and create 4 Star Trek series. Or maybe ask Michael and Denise Okuda for their input; they are after all the authors of the Star Trek Encyclopedia and the Star Trek Chronology books. Or maybe they could ask some Star Trek novelists such as Michael Jan Friedman or Peter David for their input. 

Lately I found watching ‘Discovery’ a chore to get through. For example on the last episode I actually fell asleep watching it as I was bored. When I awoke I went back and re-wound the last 10 or 15 minutes of the show so I could find out what I missed and that's when the whole Talos 4 reveal occurred. For me that was the final straw, that's when I came to the conclusion that I could no longer try to get through this series, I simply have to drop it. 

In all honesty this isn't the first time that I've dropped a Star Trek series. As I mentioned earlier I was not a big fan of Star Trek Enterprise in its third season and I never watched it. I came back in season four because I was reading very positive things about it and the episodes that I did watch I really enjoyed, and I really felt that they were going in a better direction with the series but unfortunately it was canceled. I even stopped watching Star Trek Voyager halfway through its third season. I came back periodically for the remainder of the Voyager run but ever so periodically. In all honesty I've probably only watched half of the Star Trek Voyager episodes. My reasons for not being a fan of Voyager are numerous and could probably take up its own blog post but suffice to say I really liked the actors on that series; I just wasn't a fan of the premise, the writing, and the direction it ultimately took. 

In 2019 thankfully we have an alternative to Star Trek Discovery and it is called ‘The Orville’. It really does feel like what a Star Trek series should be. It's funny, it's lighthearted, the characters are relatable, and it is more of a ‘positive vision of the future’ than Discovery is. I found that in its second season it has matured and become a better show unlike its current Star Trek counterpart. So I'll be sticking with ‘The Orville’ for the for seeable future which I hope will be many seasons to come. 





And I do have my fingers crossed for the Captain Picard series that is supposed to be later in 2019. Patrick Stewart is a very talented actor and a very smart man, and I really don't believe he would get involved with a TV series if it wasn't going to be of high quality, so I'm very hopeful for that series. Also that series is going to be a sequel to Star Trek Nemesis rather than another prequel to Star Trek The Original Series. Enough for the prequel's already, we need to quit making trips to the well; sequel is where it's at.