Unconscious Blogging: The Un-American Dream

Welcome back to another stream of unconscious blog entry by the one, the only, Jeff. What brought me here this evening with you all is a revelation I’ve had. I was watching a documentery (of which you will have to tune into our next radio show) which made me realize what I want to do with me life. I came to the realization that I am not living my life to my full potential. I’m not happy with where I am in life. A lot of which is just probably self conscious bullshit. BUT! I now know where I need to go to be truely happy. I am convinced that one day I will disappear from everyone I currently know in my life. This may sound depressing to some. But I know that this will lead to enlightenment. I have become so complaicent in my current situation, that I have no motivation to go out and be the person I know I can be. I don’t know when or where, but my dream is to now start saving up some start up money. Start up money for a brand new life. I envision that one day I will be gone from anyone that knows me. I will be gone from the state of Minnesota. The state which I have called home for my entire life. I will relocate to a coastal town or city. I will find a place to live and work. And from there, I will dictate who I really want to be. I decided that I will bring no earthly possesions. I will pack maybe a few changes of clothes. Otherwise, everything will be left in a storage garage. All of those possesions will be left behind, along with who my old self used to be. Is there a chance that I will go back to being who I currently am? Of course there is. However, I believe that the risk of change is worth that leap of faith. I just dream of a new beginning. A new chance to meet my full potential. A life void of depression, drinking and smoking. I dream of living a minimalistic life. Free of needing possesions and the newest greatest technology. I dream of being free of restraint. Is this all a pipe dream? Maybe. But I know that I intend to disappear. I know that I need to chase a dream. I know that I need to chase freedom. I know that I need to evolve who I am. I dream of being a better person. I dream of a better life. In the end, I dream of happiness. Something I have yet to fully experience in my current life.

Unconsciouss Blogging: The Walls of Jericho

Hello again everyone! Jeff here to spread the inner workings of my own mind. To start, if you haven’t read my first Unconsciouss Blogging post, you should at least read the first paragraph to prepare you for the ramblings that will consist of this post. Second, my last post was because of sleep deprivation. This one is more or less alcohol induced.

1:14 AM Central Daylight Savings Time

Now, the point of my logging in to post my thoughts this evening. This ties in a little to the previous post about what makes a movie watchable to the point you can’t turn it off. However, this time I am going to be concentrating on television. I recentlly tried to come up with a blog post about how we might be coming towards the end of a “Golden Age of Television”. In that post I pointed out shows like Weeds, Dexter and Breaking Bad are either coming to an end, or have already ended. I am an avid fan of all three shows, in fact, those three are my favorite shows I have ever seen in any format. I can’t recall any moment in the history of tv that we have had such amazing programming going on all at once. In addition to the afformentioned shows, there are also extremely popular/high quality shows such as; Mad Men, Sons of Anarchy and the Walking Dead. All are great shows in their own right (from what I’ve read/seen, I haven’t seen a whole lot of any of those shows). From what I do know of said shows though, I can’t see them going on for more than another two to three seasons. Their story arches just don’t merit an extended run. All of these shows have a beginning, middle and conclusion that can be forshadowed in the first season or two. And for the sake of the quality of those shows I hope that the writers realize this.

1:20 AM Central Daylight Savings Time

Now, to the point of what made me want to post tonight. There are plenty of (recent) instances where the writers/producers of shows didn’t have a firm grasp of how the story should go from beginning to end from the get go. Great examples are both Lost and Entourage. Those two shows were both amazing at their time of inception. However, both suffered from trying to get too much out of their initial concept. In the case of Entourage, I think that they had a perfect ending to the show done with in season five. Vince sees his career basically ended in the fictional film Smoke Jumpers and his failing to resurect his career. He in the end is bailed out by his best friend E. Vince gets a part in a fictional version of the Great Gatsby directed by Martin Scorcese. This was the perfect time to walk away from the show. Yet the producers felt the need to continue the benign story archs to generate more money. Instead, we see these writers have to overreach their comfort zone and introduce new elements to each character that seem forgein to most of the viewers. In the case of Lost, they had a clear vision of what to do with the first two episodes. They then spun that pilot into a very intriguing story line that had viewers captivated with questions about what each character was hididing in their past. However, instead of slowly answering said questions, they just added more into the equation. So much so, when it came to the series finale, I didn’t know what questions needed answering, and which ones were left for us mere mortals to deduce on our own. In the end of the run of that show, I just found myself unsatisfied. There is so much left to be discovered. This is almost a case of criminal neglience on the part of the show runners.

1:31 AM Central Daylight Savings Time

Of course there are the shows that ended far too soon. Shows that should have been given more of a chance. Ones that just weren’t able to connect with their audience until it was too late. Of the many examples (Deadwood, Arrested Development, Twin Peaks, The Black Donnelleys for example), I have found that the most agregious show ending way before it’s time is Jericho. The overall concept is simple enough. A small town reacts to a nuclear attack on the United States. However, there are so many other clever story lines that the producers added in. The least of which is the history and background of the lead character Jake. He was last seen in the town of Jericho five years before the events of the show. No one in the town (with the exception of maybe his direct family) knows where he went off to. He returens, and is the unlikely leader of this small town trying to deal with the aftermath of a nuclear attack on Denver (and later revealed to be much more of the country). In this basic story, there are several complex characters and back stories that needed to be explored (of which I will not go into to try and avoid spoilers). Not many of which are ones that you wouldn’t expect to see in the everyday life of citizens of a small town (with an exception or two). I think this is the main reason this show needed to run longer than it did. You can’t flesh out the accounts of normal people in two seasons (the approx. run of this program). It’s just not possible. Relationships evolve. People grow. It’s a very basic premise. In fact, it is one that Lost initially started to introduce to us in the pilot, but veered off into another extreme (and another, and another and another). I think that if Jericho came out before Lost, it would have been as popular, if not more than Lost ever was. But Lost trained our minds to expect a major life changing cliffhanger at the end of every episode, instead of growing with these characters. Lost used flashbacks to quickly unveil the background of each of the main characters, where Jericho used small contextitualized dialog to explain things. Jericho trusted (maybe wrongly) that the audience didn’t need the past shown to them to understand what each character was going through. Admittidly, in my initial journey through Jericho, I only watched most of the first season. I am currently going back (on netflix) and rewatching all of the old episodes I’ve seen and eventually venture into the second season. If my opinion changes in the coming days, I will let you all know. But until then, I will continue to champion this as a show that new its boundries, yet tested them every episode. It’s a show that relied on it’s acting to get it through it’s exposition and storyline. And it’s a show that should have been able to tell it’s whole story. Until the day I reach the season two finale, I will know I will hate the fact that I will not ultimatly find out what lies ahead for the people behind the walls of Jericho.

Unconscious Blogging

Okay, so I am taking our namesake pretty literally here. My issue is that I can’t sleep, and need something to take my mind off of my rambling thoughts. What better way to do that than to just throw them at the internet in a public forum? Now, seeing as this is just me sitting here and typing whatever thoughts I have in my head, I am going to keep this one very informal, and not edit/spell check this post at all. I’m also probably going to end up forgoing writing structure, such as correct punctuation, paragraphs and the sort.

See what I did there? New paragraph even though I just said I wasn’t going to be doing any of that nonsense! I mostly just looked at that first bit there as a disclaimer that I may or may not be interesting in this post. So let’s begin. As of right now it is 3:50 AM local time (central daylight savings that is). I can’t sleep. I’ve tried everything from just lying here with my eyes closed to watching really boring things I’ve seen a hundred times or so (Braveheart). The problem with that is, I always get caught up in the film. I know it front to back. I know what is going to happen and when it’s going to happen. However, I think this is a sign of a truely great film. No matter how many times you’ve seen it, you will stay with it and finish it to the end. These are the films that you stop and watch if you’re flippping through the channels on a lazy day off and watch, even if you have a copy of the movie sitting in your collectiion. Who cares about commercial breaks? Is this not a convienient time to get up and use the restroom? Or get yourself a snack? I find myself jumping on an internet connected device and surfing the world wide web. But as soon as those commercials are over, you are right back in for the ride for another 20 minutes until your next break. Now that I think about it, this is almost a preferred way of watching movies for me. This is assuming that the movie isn’t completely editted down until it’s just a bastardized version of the film I fell in love with. Sometimes though, edits add a new dimension to the movie watching experience. Take for instance the baseball classic Major League. That movie airs on Comedy Central at least once a month (yes, everytime I come across it, it stays on). That movie is even more hilarious with the edits for language. Can I come up with a specific example right now? NOPE. This is what happens when I’m sleep deprived. Back to my original point. Braveheart is a movie I threw in tonight for one of two reasons. It fits a discussion topic for this week’s Stream of Unconsciousness episode, and more importantly, it’s a film I enjoy, but wouldn’t say I love per se. It’s great, don’t get me wrong. I just wouldn’t say it’s a movie that is in my upper eschelon of films I’ve ever seen. So, what captivated me this watch through to keep me up all three hours of the movie? I’m not sure I can nail that one down to a specific reason. Was it because I haven’t watched it in probably over a year? Was it the story? Was it just my mood? Or was it just me coming down from a highly stressed night at work? I’m going to probably go with the combination of all of those factors. But first and foremost, it’s just a good movie. Again, not a favorite. Again, one I’ve seen multiple times. But there’s just something about it that captures me when I watch the film. As I think back on previous viewings, I can’t think of an instance of watching it where I didn’t complete the movie (unless I had other things that needed to get down such as work or previous plans).

4:07 AM Central Daylight Savings Time

Sorry to suddenly divert my attention to other matters. But I’m listening to some music whilst I blog here, and Thistle & Weeds by Mumford & Sons just came up. I don’t know if there’s a better band to come out into the mainstream music scene than this one. They are creative, smart, unique and just damn fun to listen to.

4:09 Central Daylight Savings Time

It’s finally happened! Eyelids are now heavy. Breathing slowing and becoming more steady. My mind is clreaing. I think I may actually be ready to sleep. If you’ve made it this far, congratulations. And welcome to my mind. This is not the last time a blog entry like this will occur. Very possible it will be the last one where a decent amount of alcohol isn’t involed though. Before I log off, I want to remind you to tune in to the show this monday! I will be going over my picks and how much I suck at predicting NFL outcomes. I’m sure we’ll be discussing the MLB playoffs. Ther’s also the ever entertaining second hour of the show, where almost ANYTHING can be discussed.

4:14 AM Central Daylight Savings Time

Time to sleep. Hopefully a lucidd dream is in my future. If you haven’t experienced one in your sleeping life, you are missing out. Just a dream, except you are fully aware of what is happening. The first time I experienced one, I noticed something just wasn’t adding up in my dream. Things just weren’t logical. How did I go from point A to point B instantly? Why can’t I read? Why is the light level never changing? I realized I was dreaming. This jarred me, and I woke up immediatly. After a few of these anomalys, I started staying in the dream a little longer. Eventually, I was in complete control of my dream world. It’s amazing! Definatly experience this if you can at some point.

4:18 AM Central Daylight Savings Time

Really don’e this time. Sleep well everyone, and have a pleasant day!

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

(-Jeff)

EDIT:

4:35 AM Central Daylight Savings Time

While the lights were going out in my head, a thought crept in that started to fester. I wonder how easy it is to search for us using google. Initially content with just the thought, I needed to do a search. I just typed in Stream of Unconsciousness. We are on page 22. It brings you to our ‘About’ page… that is all (for now)!