Author Archives: Bob Evans

Thoughts and Opinions on Donald Trump

Last year we started the summer silly season in American politics with the announcement by Donald J. Trump that he was running for president. This coincided with John Stewart leaving the daily, a bitter timing that I am sure was keenly felt, but here it is January 2016 and we are no longer laughing.

Trump has dominated the polls, debates, news, and conversation with his Presidential bit.

A lot of opinion cycles and time has been spent explaining the media mogul’s mastery of the political process. The ideas range from the mundane (it’s all just name recognition) to the far-fetched (He’s a plant by Hillary Clinton to make the Republican Party look bad.) These explanations in my opinion are all avoidance tactics, dodging the central fact that Trump has a commanding control of the primary nomination because of what he advocates not in spite of it.

Let’s take the Name Recognition argument first.

In m opinion name recognition in politics is like an aircraft carrier’s catapult; it will get you off the deck but it will not make you fly. Typically a name recognition candidate will crash shortly after announcing when the reality if the candidate collides with the idealized image of the candidate that existed the hazy ill-defined future before the announcement. This has not happened with Trump. As people see more and more of him, his support remains firm. This also discredits the ‘free media’ explanation, because again while he is getting tons of free exposure, nothing he says or does during that exposure undercuts his support. His message is not turning people off.

Jeb! Has put forth, at least once, the hypothesis that Trump is an enemy mole out to make the Republican Party look bad. The trouble with Jeb!’s argument is that Trump isn’t polling in the * range, but rather that he’s leading the national polls. If that support looks reflects badly on the party is is because 20-30 percent of the party enthusiastically support the positions and statement from Trump.

Another argument I have heard is that the exact things Trump says are unimportant, what really matters and why he is gaining such support is that he is paying attention to the issue that really matters to the base – immigration.

The trouble with that argument is that there has been plenty of pols talking tough on immigration long before Trump stood and announced that Mexico was sending criminals and rapists – and he assumed ‘a few’ good people – across our southern border. The Border Wall is a device/promise that has been around for a few elections. Talking tough is nothing new, Trump, despite his insistence, did not bring up an issue no one was talking about.

A corollary to the immigration issue argument is that Trump benefited from the tragic murder of a woman by a illegal immigrant. Correlation does not equal causation, because Trump rose in the polls after that incident does not mean it was because of that incident. Even if he did gain support because of it, that doesn’t explain how he maintained that support. (And there is simply NO good evidence that immigrant, legal, illegal, documented or undocumented are more criminally violent than the general population. Grabbing that case to prove your point is like pointing to a mass murderer’s use of an assault rifle to prove the need for their ban when so terribly few are ever used violently.)

The truth of the matter is that Trump has spewed from day one hateful, bigoted, xenophobic, and racist statements. These statement do not cost him support and it is increasingly evident that a significant portion of the conservative base endorse these ideas.

That is NOT to say that all, or even most, conservatives are racist, xenophobic bigots. The total non-Trump number far outnumber the Trump numbers . I do think that a lot of the ‘explanations’ that main on the right search for to dismiss Trump’s support is an attempt to ignore that fact that racism is selling in their party. That is a problem that will not go away with Trump eventual collapse – if he does collapse. It is a part of the Republican civil war and only time will tell us which faction wins in the end.

Share

2015: A Look Back

This is not review of the major newsworthy events, but a personal retrospective about the year now ending and the changes it wrought upon my life.

I have to say that 2015 has been a damn good year for me. Just about every aspect of my life is improved over this same point a year previous.

I have settled into my new jab nicely. The work is interesting enough to not quite get dull and helping people with their healthcare is not without emotional rewards. It helps that this job represents the highest level of base pay I have earned and promises to continue to grow.

Thanks to streaming services I have been introduced to new musical artists and my appreciation for Jazz, particularly Brazilian influenced Jazz, continues to grow. It should also be noted that the artists I fell in love with this year, Diana Krall and Caro Emerald I have purchased multiple albums because I am all about supporting the artists.

2015 proved to be a fun, engaging, and intelligent year at the movies. The Marvel Cinematic Universe provided new entries into the franchise that entertained and were worthy of cinemas viewing. The Martian proved that SF film don’t have to be dumb to be good and to be massive hits. Discovering Cinefix and MovieBob on youtube has expanded my horizons and deepened my understanding of film and story structure.

Two new short stories sales cheered my artistic side but of course the massive blow-out good news of the year was signing with Will Reeve at the Virginia Kidd Literary agency.

VKA has been a major agency in SF/Fantasy publishing for 50 years and gaining their trust, support, and representation has made a tremendous impact on me. Already we have one novel out of submission, Chris, my short story agent, has been fantastically helpful in getting my short form fiction into the hands of top editors and has been great partner in improving my short form work. Will is great to work with and I look forward to his reaction to my newest novel length effort.

I also finished a new novel this year, proving to myself that I can write to a deadline. (It was a self imposed deadline, more of a drill to practice for when publishers place that expectation upon me. Plotting to finished draft was about 5 months. Not too shabby.)

I remain very happily married to my sweetie-wife whose love and support made everything else in the year possible.

Here’s hoping the for 2016 the trajectory continues.

Share

Review: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Sorry for my prolonged absence this part of the year is the very busy time at my day job, six days a week, ten hour day are quite common. (I don’t even work retail, it boggles the mind.)
star-wars-7-trailerFor my first post in weeks here is my no spoilers review of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
First off let me say that Star Wars is back. This film vindicate my theory that J.J. is a far better fit for the Star Wars universe than he ever could hope to be for the Star Trek setting. The Force Awakens is fun, fast, and takes placed in the familiar lived-in look that permeated the frame in the original trilogy.
TFA takes place many years after the end of the original trilogy and starts off with new characters and new situations. In the years since the Rebellion’s victory over the Empire the victors have reestablished the Republic, but a number of system defied the Republic and have formed the New Order, a government that seems to follow the precepts of the Empire but does not claim a direct lineage. The Two government appear to be co-existing in a cold war sort of peace that is disturbed by a Resistance force with the New Order.
Non of that is spoiler and should have been clear in the film’s opening crawl, sadly it is not.
As I stated earlier the movie quickly reclaims the sense of fun, grandeur, and adventure that the original trilogy mined so well and that the prequel trilogy simply forget existed. The new characters are fun, interesting, and have more fascinating backstories that the original characters. The film has many callbacks to the original films, performing superior fan service.
The weaknesses of the movie really come down to two major points.
1) It is very much a retelling of A New Hope, much as Terminator 2 retold the story, and less well, of . Here is may be that Disney and the film makers are taking time to assure us that they know what Star Wars is supposed to be. If the next movie charts fresh territory then this film will be tonally perfect, if the next film is a remix of The Empire Strike Back, then the new series will be damaged goods. (Much as J.J. damaged Star Trek by remixing The Wrath of Kahn.)
2) There is an extended sequence involving bounty hunters and underworld criminals that is utterly unneeded. You cot has action and laughs and gag but it is waste of valuable screen time that could have been used exploring the characters and their situations.
Aside from those two points I think the film works and was a lot of fun to watch. Do see it and see it in a theater.

Share

Movie Review: Victor Frankenstein

1-Victor_Frankenstein_2015I have always been a fan of  Frankenstein, through the Universal series, the Hammer series, the novel, and various interpretations and derivatives this is a story I have enjoyed. Naturally a big budget version comes along my sweetie-wife and I made it a Thanksgiving event.

This time, the story has been transported to victorian England and we witness the event from the point of view of Igor. (There are occasional violations of the POV, but aside from the odd side trips everything is about what Igor sees and hears and his reactions.)

If you are going to see a film about the monster rampaging about you will be sorely disappointed. Like many recent versions, the script focuses on the characters and what drives them to such lengths of mad action. There are plenty of hat-tips to earlier productions and the novel. For example, you’ll find both the names Victor Frankenstein and Henry Frankenstein used as characters in the film. Also, Victor refers to himself as a modern Prometheus, which is not a reference to Ridley Scott’s terrible movie but the subtitle for Shelly’s original work. There is even a throwback to the Gene Wilder’s Young Frankenstein.

Andrew Scott plays a brilliant detective trying to piece together the events from the outside, and in in his performance I found he played a better ‘Sherlock Holms’ styled character than a Moriarty, which of course he plays in the BBC production Sherlock.

Sadly while the film has many fine performances and is well shot and produced the script is a bit of a muddle. The author didn’t seem to have a final version in his head for what story he wanted to tell. Elements come and go without much impact on each other and there is a love interest that seems to exist solely so the film can have a female character.

In the end I enjoyed watching it and I enjoyed the references for sharp fans of the material, but I can’t say it will become part of my collection. The plot is too unformed and there are too many elements that feel forced into the story.

Share

First Draft Done

So last weekend I completed the first draft on my latest novel-length project.  It has been an interesting journey, though not a terribly long one. Actual writing started on August 10 and finished Nov 15. Not too shabby for 80,800 words and primarily working just 5 days a week.

What are my thoughts here as the end of the first draft?

One, I’m happy I was able to pull of 80,000 in first person. While I have written several novel all of them have been in various flavors of 3rd person. This was my first attempt tp do a novel in the tight confines of first person. When I started I was far from confident I’d reach the goal.

Second, this book is an SF/Noir and to me one of the essential elements of noir is cynicism. At their hearts in my opinion noirs area bout flawed characters making poor decisions. They are about the desires that turn people bad. the vast majority of my fiction is not cynical and it was a challenge maintaining the outlook a noir required, but I believe that I did it.

Third, I am pleasantly surprised my the accuracy of my predictions. I outlined the novel, because I am a plotter, and estimated a word count of 80,000 words. The first draft landed at 80,850, so I was nearly 99% accurate in my length prediction.

Fourth, I like the book. I had fun writing it, it hit me on an emotional level, it even, lightly, touches on a few deeper themes such as how much do you owe your culture and how much does it owe you? I have no idea if another person on the planet will like it, but I am happy with the result.

My nerves continue to run high as this will be the first book my agent has seen from me after I signed with the agency. My short story agent has seen a number of pieces and I think it starting to get a sense for how I like all sorts of different kinds of stories and setting. For my book agent this will be a very different experience from the Hornblower in space that he read and enjoyed. That makes me very nervous.

 

Share

Of Pyramids, Granaries, and Creationism

Of late quite a bit of political talk has been about the beliefs of Dr. Ben Carson, a political neophyte and a leading candidate for the Republican nomination for POTUS. He’s stated unconventional and factually wrong positions such as that the Egyptian pyramids were built by the biblical Joseph to store grain. This is demonstrably wrong. He is also a creationist, disallowing evolution.

Now the current contest is for President of the United States of American and not the president of the Archeological Society or curator of the Darwin estate and trust, so does it matter that he holds these opinions. After all, I have said in the past that all religion look silly when viewed from the outside and shouldn’t we be respectful and tolerate of differing religious views?

Ben Carson the private citizen is one matter, Ben Carson the President is a different one. The critical issue here, to me at least, is that these are facts and his opinions demonstrably wrong. He is entitled to hold an opinion that are wrong on the facts, but it calls into question his ability to judge a situation.

When faced with facts that challenge a previously held opinion, if this opinion id important enough to him, it appears that he rejects reality for his already conceived stance. Puttering about on his ordinary life, this matters nothing to me, but as President he must be able to abandon a previously held opinion when the facts dictate. The world is a place that moves quickly and preconceived notions are rapidly destroyed by reality. Someone unable to make that critical adjustment simply does not have the temperament for the office.

There already a host of issues where people can have honest disagreements about what is best. There are tons of things where there is simply no clear unequivocal right and wrongs answers, but the most important element of wisdom is the understanding that you may be wrong in the beliefs that you hold and courage is being able to change to fit the new reality.

Dr Carson, and many others, fail that critical test.

Share

Halloween Horror Movies Final post

So I end my Halloween Horror Movies not with an obscure Italian production but an American classic that spawned an entire sub-genre of its own, Them!

1-them-poster-2One thing people know about monster movies of the 1950s is that there were plenty of giant bug movies. Nearly every variant of bug got enlarged and sent to wreak destruction on humanity, but they all follow the footsteps of the big budget production from Warner Brothers. Last week Them! debuted on blu-ray disc, sadly lacking in any real bonus material, just in time for Halloween.

Them! has always been one of my favorite 50’s monster movies, right up there with Creature From the Black Lagoon. The script and the director take their time building up to the reveal fo the giant bugs, and a serious attempt is made the ground the film in a realistic portrayal of events. The plot is not a straight-forward narrative, and there are plenty if surprises for the first time viewer, including right at the end a switch on just who the protagonists of the piece really is. There is not a last second scientific development that saves the day, but rather the dedicated work of lots of people racing against time. The adversary is far from unkillable, but possess advantages that with time will win the day for them.

Originally designed as a 3-D production the practical effects are some fo the best done during that decade and for the most part are still credible today. (It would be interesting if anyone had the money and interest to perform a retro-conversion to 3-D on this movie. I think most of the film would look fantastic in 3-D.)

If you are a fan of 50s monster movies and some how have not seent his, you need to correct that mistake.

 

Share

Halloween Horror Movies part II

1_planet-of-the-vampires-half-sheet-1965I continued my horror film watching this week with 1965’s Planet of The Vampires. This film is based on an Italian SF short story ‘A Night of 21 Hours,’ but sadly I have never found a translation of that piece. This movie was an international production with American, Italian, and Portuguese actors. I have read that each actor delivered their lines in their native tongue. The dubbing is so-so and the script suffered from heavy exposition and discordant elements, particularly in the final ending scenes of the film.

That said what make this film something I have watched several times if the lovely look created by Italian master Mario Bava. Even hampered by a tiny budget, Bava pulls off a film that that is colorful, stylish, and with impressive in-camera effects.

It is also a subject of vast speculation that this movie heavily influenced Ridley Scott when he directed Alien. From the massive alien skeletons, the landing sequence, the shape of the ships, and the atmospheric tone of the alien world, a great number of stylistic similarities exist between the two movies. (both this movie and It! The Terror From Beyond Space seem like the direct parents to Alien.)

The plot of Planet of The Vampires is rather straight forward. Two starships have arrived at an alien world investigating mysterious signals that may mean intelligent life. Landing on the planet goes badly and the crews find themselves facing threat not to just to their own lives but their homes as well.

Not a great movie but for an genre cinema a must see.

 

Share

Halloween Horror Movies part I

Here’s a quick post about movies I have been watching this week as part of a celebration of the season.

Up first City of the Living Dead (1980)

1-city_living_dead_posterAn Italian Zombie film made after George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead City of the Living Dead occupies a strange place in the zombie landscape. So many films copied Romero’s zombie take over of the world that it quickly became cliche. (Though still popular as seen in the hit tv show The Walking Dead.) City doesn’t go for the traditional Romero zombies not the traditional arc of action. Here there is a clear cause to the undead, a priest committing suicide in a cemetery, and a third act objective to resolve into a ‘happy ending.’ The film was made in Italy but is set in America. The dubbing is adequate and naming the doomed city Dunwich was a nice hat tip to Lovecraft, though nothing that occurs is inspired by his mythos.

Often discussed among fans of zombie movies is the subject which zombies are the worst to deal with. Romero’s original shamblers, Snyder fast runners, O’Bannon’s intelligent and nearly indestructible dead, but this movie presented one that is truly beyond them all. While they feed on the living, and even have a penchant for taking brains out directly through a skull, (the Italian films tend to be more graphic), these living dead unlike any other can teleport and kill you with a look. No crap, people end up very messily dead from zombie staring contests. They are easier to kill. (Impaling seems to be the required technique.) Plus the whole world ending plague can be averted if the right things are done to put king zombie — our transgressive priest – back in his place. Overall, I enjoyed the film but it is not on my buy list. You can stream it on Hulu.

Share