Quick Reviews: Early 2025

   Hello and welcome back to Death to the Algorithm. While I try to keep up with all new stuff coming out, I don’t always make a video reviewing it. Sometimes I don’t like the thing or I just don’t have much to say about it. So instead of forcing myself to talk about a bunch of things and shit out mediocre videos every time I watch something, I figure I can periodically do a quick reviews video and lump them all together. So let’s get into it. I’m gonna break this up by medium. Let’s start with movies.

Movies

Peeping Tom/The Sniper: I got the Criterion release of this based solely on the fact that it’s directed by Micheal Powell of Powell & Pressburger fame. The movies they collaborated on were gorgeous so I took a chance and got this as a blind buy. It was a good call. This movie is both dark and colorful in a very cool way. I watched this and a movie called The Sniper pretty close to each other and it makes for a good double feature. Both are about killers obsessed with women to the point of needing to kill them, with varying levels of sympathy. Moral of the story is, there have always been incel weirdos. They’re just in charge now. Fuck.

I Am Cuba: Beautifully shot film directed by a Russian (the USSR kind) about Cuba just before its revolution. It uses alluring imagery to mask just how much shit and violence it takes to win a better world. This and the next film I’m gonna talk about were kind of research for me in these modern times we find ourselves swallowed by. Anyway, been wanting to see this one for a long time and it did not disappoint.

Army of Shadows: Another in my research for surviving fascism, this film has such a cool grimly look to it. The dower look to everything goes a long way to show just how hopeless things must have felt in Occupied France. If they weren’t speaking French, you’d think it was taking place in Seattle. The most distressing thing about this film is just how little time the resistance fighters had time to resist. They spent most of their effort killing each other. Aside from a radio smuggling and a messy jailbreak, they didn’t get much done. I think almost all the bodies that were dropped were resistance to other resistance. Bleak.

The Brutalist: A lot has been said about this one so I won’t go too long, unlike this movie. The more I thought about this movie, the less I liked it. There’s the weird AI use and the weirder Zionist stuff, but mostly it just another movie about an artist who thinks they have to suffer if they want to make art, the rich who take advantage of that attitude and that if they do suffer, they’ll be rewarded decades down the line with fame. Which is just an idea I don’t subscribe to as much anymore. The suffering part that is, the rich absolutely are always looking for people to fuck in every way they can. That said, Adrian Brody is great in it and I do love brutalist architecture, so it wasn’t a total loss. 

Captain America: Brave New World: I was gonna make a whole video on this, like I do with most MCU movies but there’s just not much to say. It seems to be getting hate on the internet but what else is new. The MCU might just be a victim of its own success. Now anything short of a two billion dollar masterpiece and people say it’s the worst thing ever. Oh well. This flick is average, which is fine. It’s got great action, but a pretty thin plot. It seems the whole evil plan The Leader had was to piss off Harrison Ford, which feels like it’s much easier to do than he made it look. The one thing that happened that really confused me was The Leader saying he had to get arrested to further his plan. Why? Bro, that’s a bad plan. I don’t know, seemed like a sloppy rewrite to wrap up his story. I’m excited for Adamantium and I love Carl Lumbey as Isaiah Bradley. Dare Devil and Thunderbolts are next but the real test is Fantastic Four. We will see.

Terri: I mostly watched this because it had Jacob Wysocki in it who I know from a bunch of Dropout stuff. There were a few other familiar faces as well which is surprising for something so low budget. Mostly a story about weird kids being fuck ups. Has a great monologue about just getting through life, which I’m a sucker for. I do not miss being a teen. We all knew someone like Chad. What a dick.

The Day The Earth Blew Up: I mean, give me one of these a year. It’s a crime that this is the first ever 2D animated Looney Tunes feature film. Give one of these to the folks who made Hundreds of Beavers. Go wild. In fact, my only criticism of this movies is it didn’t get zany enough. Go full 4th wall breaking, logic fracturing, absurdist with it. Anyway, get that parasite David Zazlov away from Looney Tunes, the blood sucking, fart huffing, penny pinching, little sniveling, mother- -unt.

That does it for movies but if you wanna keep up to date with me, I’m on Letterboxd at SydMonk. Let’s move on to shows!

Shows

Dune Prophecy: I love the new Dune movies, did not like this show. I can’t think of a single character I gave a shit about. Everyone was saying this was like Game of Thrones in space and that just made me glad that I never watched Game of Thrones.

Cunk on Life: If you’ve not watched the Cunk series of specials, stop watching this right now and go binge them. This is so up my alley to the point that I would have to pause the show to laugh. Not much to say other than it’s a must watch.

D20 Unsleeping City S1/StarStruck Odyssey: While working my real job, I’ve been listening to seasons of Dimension 20 that I’ve missed and am interested in. The latest of those have been The Unsleeping City Season One and Starstruck Odyssey. The Unsleeping City got me because I love New York City. Top three cities I’ve been to in my life, no doubt. I even tried to live there when I was 19, but that’s a whole other story. I love the idea of a secret city on to of the actual city and New York is style perfect setting for that. It’s like the comic Fables but without the Bill Willingham of it all (If you know, you know). Filled with great New York-isms and the story is pretty emotional too.

  Starstruck on the other hand was a laugh riot. As I mentioned in my Critical Role Campaign Three review, I love when a a D&D party is just a bunch of fuck ups and the absurdist space setting really lent itself to that. Knowing that it was created by Brennan Lee Mulligan’s mom, and learning more about his family history, makes me think he was bred in a lab to be who he is today. After I finished, I realized I wanted more of this universe, so now I have to go find the comic.

Invincible S3: This show is so good. I’ve only dipped into the comic but it’s hard to see how it could top the show. I’ll probably do a whole video on the show once it wraps up. The way they explore the idea that, with superhuman powers comes superhuman consequences and trauma, is so nuanced and interesting. Much more thought out and carefully done than others have explored the topic *cough*Zach Snyder*cough*. I mean, when a fight can level a city, the people in that city are gonna have feelings about that and the winner of that fight is gonna have some shit to work through after causing so much destruction. Anyway, can’t wait for more.

Books

Critical Role Art Book M9 Vol.2: Let’s move on to the books I’ve read recently, and  talk about a different D&D show, Critical Role. Specifically the art book for Mighty Nein Volume Two. I have all of the art books from Critical Role (ooohh, ahhhh) and have a fondness for the series as a whole. It feels like the bigger Critical Role has gotten, the less it’s able to directly interact with its fans, which is to be expected. But I’m glad they’ve continued at least printing the beautiful fan art in such well crafted tomes. There are a lot of gorgeous pieces in here and I also love all the extra goodies that came with the special edition, especially this coin. Very cool.

The Sound and The Fury: I give every book 100 pages to hook me and if it doesn’t, I give up and move on. I gave up on this one. The stream of consciousness thing is hit or miss with me. I just couldn’t follow it and the characters seemed like rich dickbags. I don’t know, maybe I’m just too dumb for this one.

Sucker: A pretty good read but I have never hated a main character more than in this book. Every interaction was transactional for him. He was so self centered he didn’t notice the obvious around him all the time. II’ve never rooted against a main character more.

A Red Death: The second of the Easy Rawlings stories. A fun detective novel but again hard to root for Easy. He’s a landlord who is working for the Feds to kill a union organizer. That’s a real Venn diagram of people I don’t like. But I couldn’t solve it by the end which makes it good in my book.

To Photograph Is To Learn To Die: A very heady book about why we make art, written in a way that feels like my thoughts. The basic idea is that, because we know we will die, we try to express the inexpressible in objects which seem more permanent. Very out there but good. This time it’s a Venn diagram of stuff I like, photography and thinking about dying.

Anarchism Today & The Last of The Hippies: Two books on anarchism and the fallout from the hippies. The first while the hippies were still fresh and trying to parse what they meant. Ultimately coming to the conclusion that they were undone by their lack of interest in theory or history. The later, from Penny Rimbaud of Crass, seeking alternatives to the hippies failures. 

Mother Night: A good early Vonnegut novel. Not as good as his later work but a short interesting read none the less. 

Comics

  Let’s move on to comics. There’s a lot here as I was trying to make my way through a giant pile, so I’ll try to keep it short.

Spider-Punk: I read a few disparate issues of this and loved it. I found the trades while I was recently in New York. It’s simple and not groundbreaking by any means, but I love how far out of their way they go to fit in punk song titles and references for kids who definitely don’t catch them. Great for your budding teens.

Athos in America: I love Jasons work and not just because we share a name. This was a more surreal series of stories than other works of his I’ve read, so it wasn’t as emotionally devastating, but I loved it all the same. Maybe I’ll do a whole Pitch Please episode on Jason, Seth and other cartoonist. Put that on the to do list.

Birdking Vol. 1: I picked this up because I love artist, Crom. This is Volume One of Three and it did the job. It hooked me. The world feels deep and strange and I want to dig in more so I gotta find Volume Two. It has a real Headlopers vibe and I love it.

Quiet Girl in a Noisy World: I bought this for my friend because I thought she would relate to it. After she read it, she had me read it because I guess I remind her of the boyfriend (also named Jason) in it. I’m a sucker for these slice of life comics so I enjoyed it. Get it for the anxious woman in your life.

Fante Bukowski: This is right up there with Fungirl for me for funniest comics I’ve ever read. This guy is such an idiot. A somehow lovable idiot, but an idiot all the same. It’s also depressingly relatable as I fear I was this guy in my teens and early 20’s just without the drinking. I can only apologize to anyone who knew me then.

Blubber: I’ve never seen so much dick sucking in a comic. It was honestly off putting. Do not recommend.

Superman Smashes The Klan: Man what a good Superman story. Even better that it’s based on an old radio serial. If you wanna raise your kids right, you’ll get them this book. It got me pumped for the new movie. I wish Superman was real and could smash a few fascist I know. 

The Absolute Universe: This is the biggest thing in comics right now so I doubt you need me to tell you how good they are. The way they can find new and exciting ways to tell stories with these characters that have been around for 100 years is amazing. It pushes the boundaries of the characters while highlighting what makes them great in the first place with the skill of master storytellers. It’s so good, I’ve been buying single issues and I’m a die hard trade waiter. Controversially, I think I might like Absolute Superman best. I just love the idea of union thug Superman. But all of them aesthetics gold so far. 

New DSTLRY: There are a bunch of new DSTLRY comics, so I’m just gonna rattle trough them quickly. The Big Burn, a heist in hell for your soul. What a concept. Like an Oceans movie but with eternal stakes. Time Waits seems is be a strange time travel story. As a Doctor Who nerd, I’m always game for some time travel. You Won’t Feel A Thing is from superstars Scott Snyder and Jock who did a book called Wytches together and this is shaping up to be just as terrifying. City Beneath Her Feet is one I was surprised by how much I liked it. Cool story of a normie sucked into the spy world for love but what really hooked me was this cool ass art. Warm Fusion might be the first DSTLRY book I dislike. Just too much going on and it didn’t hook me. Lastly, Spectregraph released it collection and hot damn what a good book. Really out there concept, fantastic surreal art and a perfect twist. All around great stuff here.

Music

  Haven’t listened to much music lately but here are a few highlights.

Mock Media: Found this band from a video of them covering Chappell Roan which I found funny. Very much in the linage of The Clash. I listened to their second record and it’s just a good time. I’d like to see them get a bit more of a punk edge in the future but maybe that’s just me.

Thermals: I’ve honestly been stuck in a bit of a musical rut lately and the album The Body, The Blood, The Machine is one of the record that’s been on repeat. This came out in the year I graduated and things were rough under dubya and only getting rougher but god damn if we didn’t have some good ass, fun punk rock. Gets me dancing every time.

Current Joys: This band has another record that’s been stuck on a loop for me called East My Love. Very different from Thermals. It’s a finely recorded folky rock record full of slower front porch jams. Heart tugging lyrics you can ugly sing to. A rare Dylan cover I don’t hate. A friend and I want to start a country/folk band and I heard this randomly and went damn, beat me to it. It’s just a really solid record. If you liked the latest MJ Lenderman record, you’ll dig this.

Thank: Another band I don’t remember how I came to them but the second I heard the song Woke Frasier from the album I Have a Physical Body That Can Be Harmed, I was all in. I don’t know what it is about Brits yelling over light industrial/noise that I love so much but damn if doesn’t work. This is for fans of groups like Gilla Band or Yard Act (who they may be label mates with?). It’s gonna make you feel tough. They also have a flavor of some of my favorite local bands here like my friends old band The Eeks or Ypsi cool doom guys King Under The Mountain. Anyway, give it a listen if you want to get ready for a fight.

JER: On a recent Bandcamp Friday, I picked this up and what’s to say other than, no one is pushing ska forward more than JER. It’s fun and bouncy while also talking about real shit. If you’ve watched any of their SkaTune Network videos, you know what you’re in for. A good time. 

Blowout bands: I went to the Hamtramck Blowout this year and saw a ton of performers while in a half awake state. Some highlights were deadsurf, a METZ-esque punk trio, Carbon Decoy, a krautrock/doom outfit that blew the roof off of Outer Limits, the lo-fi drum machine noise of Low Exposure, and the fun pop punk of Mango Star. One big highlight was my first time seeing Cult of Spaceskull who put on a show so wild I nearly shit. There were tons of good bands that I caught but because everyone was running on punk rock time, my carefully constructed schedule was thrown out of wack and I’m not sure who I saw. Good times though.

  And I think that does it for this round of quick reviews. Let me know if you check any of this out and recommend some stuff in the comments. Until next time, death to the algorithm.

Local Boy Done Good: A Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man Season One Review

   God this itches. *points to bandaid* Got bite by a gigantic spider. OH WAIT! *tries to TWIP* Damn. Well it was worth a shot. Too bad. I just watched Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man and wanted to give swinging a try. But at least I have this great show until then! Let’s talk about it.

  I want to start with something like a disclosure about this show. My friend, Jeff Trammell, was the head writer! I can’t describe how weird and cool it is to see your friends name in the opening credits of a Spider-Man cartoon. Every time I saw it, I was like, ‘Oh shit. I used to be in bad sketch videos with him.’. Jeff a few years ago won a place in the Nickelodeon internship program and, long story short, worked his ass off to end up writing another amazing show on Cartoon Network (RIP) called Craig of the Creek where he also got to hang out with the shows music composer (and one of my favorite musicians) Jeff Rosenstock. They played D&D together! So here’s a guy from my neck of the woods, around the same age, writing TWO amazing shows and hanging out with one of my musical favorites. He’s living my dream! A younger me might be filled with some kind of jealousy over this but I’m too old and have too many dead friends not to just be filled with (a probably unearned) since of pride in a hometown pal who done good. Congrats and here’s too many more years of success for Jeff!

  All my personal connections aside, I loved this show! Trust me, ask any of my friends that have dared to ask my opinion on something they’ve made, I’m not just saying that! The show as a whole was light and fun. Full of small but interesting twist on a well known character. The show is full of references and nods to Spider-Man and MCU lore and moments we all know so well but with just one simple change that makes it feel completely new. It just goes to show that, much like the Absolute Universe over at DC that I’ve been reading and loving or The Caped Crusader show, if you understand a character well enough, you can change it in ways that only make it better. You can change small but foundational things about a character you understand enough and not only will it not ruin what makes that character that character, it will highlight just how special they are. It’s truly a hard magic trick to pull off.

  My biggest worry going into this show was the choice of animation style. This cell shaded, computer generated style was something I had seen before, specifically in the DC animated film Super Sons, and absolutely hated it. I just looked cheap and really took me out of the story. Well I’m relived to see that in the intervening years, they seemed to have worked out the kinks because it worked so well for this very comic book inspired show. The cell shading in conjunction with the smooth computer animation and the ingenious use of comic book paneling, especially in action scenes, just gelled in a very satisfying way. It all did a great job of making this show feel like a comic come to life. Just goes to show, any choice you make can work if it’s motivated by what’s best for the show.

  As for the story, I loved the way the typical side characters we would expect have been remixed and shuffled with a cast of characters that gave an interesting fresh dynamic to Spider-Man. Some of these characters are deep pulls too. I had no idea who Nico was until a friend gave me the lowdown on her and now I’m even more excited to see what comes of her story. Aside from Nico, every character really felt deep and fully realized. The arc that Tombstone goes through especially captured me. A story about how, no matter how good the individual is, if they are trapped in a corrupt system, it will corrupt them by any means, surprise surprise, really got to my little anticapitalist heart. On top of all that, the final fight with the Venom Symbiote that looks suspiciously like Kraven is an excellent use of the Bootstrap Paradox, something I learned about as a massive Doctor Who fan. I love when a story perfectly loops back around and buttons up cleanly. 

  I’ve also been reading and enjoying the tie-in comic book which fills in the gap between the opening fight and the first day at school with a small stakes, fun story of Spider-Man learning the ropes. It’s in the middle of its run, which is good because, if I have any criticisms at all about the show, it would be that’s it’s too short. But that is how it goes in these streaming times. Gone are the days of twenty episode long shows that last. It’s amazing any show can fit so much story and get people so invested in such a short time. These are all circumstances outside the shows control but I can’t think of any other things I didn’t like about the show. Maybe if I’m really nitpicking, Scorpion was a bit one note. But that’s me really trying to find something I don’t like.

  But what about you? Did you have a big a blast as I did swinging around New York and saving the day? Are you friends with people who have done some cool stuff and want o bag about them? Leave it in the comments and then do all the liking and subscribing YouTube stuff. Until next time, death to the algorithm.

Eat The Gods! A Critical Role Campaign Three Review

  GOD IS DEAD! Or gods is dead. Gods are dead? Gods are…human? I don’t know. I don’t think Nietzsche was a Critter. That’s right Critical Role just wrapped up its third campaign and all signs are pointing towards big changes for their 10th year. I’ve been watching since the very beginning and I have a lot of thoughts, so let’s get into it.

  Like I said, I‘ve literally been watching Critical Role since that first poorly mic’d session ten years ago. I had been watching Felicia Days solo stream for awhile and when she announced Geek & Sundry would start a Twitch channel, I was all in. It kind of became a daily ritual for me at the time to just see what was on stream before heading to work. Geek & Sundry introduced me to a lot of folks I still follow to this day like Ify Nwadiwe & Erica Ishii who do a lot of stuff with Dropout, Heroes Reforged, and of course Critical Role.

  On Geek & Sundry there were people playing Rocket League, Magic The Gathering, HeroClicks, and all sorts of other stuff but I was most excited when a Dungeons & Dragons show appeared on the schedule. I had only had on brief experience of being around folks playing D&D and then promptly got in trouble with my religious mother (and not religious dad who suddenly cared about black magic out of nowhere) as my parents had fallen for the Satanic Panic BS. So I was forbade from gambling my immortal soul in my friends basement or local hobby shop. But a sure way to get me interested in something is to tell me not to do it. How could I resist a new show on a Twitch channel I already watched as they broadcast something I wasn’t allowed to participate in as a kid?

  So I tuned in day one and, despite bad audio and other onscreen jitters, I was hooked. You don’t need another person telling you how good Critical Role is but between the masterful DMing from Matthew Mercer and the obvious chemistry from the cast (well most of the cast), it was hard not to get hooked on this seemingly new way to tell a story. But I was as shocked as anyone, cast included, with just how many people loved it. Suddenly this thing I thought was only for the nerdiest of dorks was huge. What a time to be alive! I tuned in each week without fail, at least when there wasn’t a Marvel midnight premiere to get to. We really were living in a gold age of stuff that was extremely my shit. *sigh*

  As time when on, campaign one came to an emotional close. You could tell the actors had a deep connection to these characters and letting go was hard and scary. The same could be said for us in the audience. Latching on to Vox Machina was easy. They were architypal characters, your traditional good guy heroes, but they ran a kind of deep you only get from playing the same character for years. But everyone could feel the change coming both on and off air. Would they have lightning strike twice for a whole new set of characters? Turns out, yes because while everyone loved Vox Machina, what we really were attached to were the people making the show. A lesson Geek & Sundry learned the hard way when Critical Role broke off into its own thing.

  Campaign two brought with it many exciting changes. A whole new continent, new conflicts and lore, a completely new branch of magic, and most excitingly, new, darker and morally complex characters. These weren’t big broad heroes but broken people doing their best to heal and begrudgingly do what’s right. The danger was more amorphous and operating from the shadows. The stakes were high and not everyone made it out but their heroics didn’t lead to global fame. I loved the journey even if the end battle left me wanting more. 

  But that brings us to Campaign three. BIG SPOILERS AHEAD! I wish I could find it but while answering a question on their old aftershow, Liam once said something along the lines of “You can’t be an atheist in Exandria because you can see proof of the gods everywhere.” and I feel like Matt heard that and said “Bet.” and went home to create Ludinus. I love a villain that, as they explain the reasoning behind their seemingly hideous acts, you can’t help thinking, damn, they got a point. The theme throughout the campaign of questioning where authority comes from and who gets to wield it really speaks to me. I know, big shock, the anarchist likes the story of fighting the biggest authority figures of all, the gods, but it raises so many interesting questions. Just because you created something, does that give you authority over it in perpetuity? Even parents must eventually let their kids grow up and be their own selves. If you are backed up by something as powerful as a god, does that give you the right to exert your will on the world? And if you found the power to kill the gods, does that mean you have the right to push your will on others? Might supposedly makes right after all.

  These are the questions this new batch of characters had to deal with and what I found great about it is they didn’t come to a consensus on them until the last moment when they had no choice but to make a choice. Instead, they found a common ground, that if this power existed, Ludinus couldn’t have it, and worked on that. Then when the time came to make this ultimate decision, they had built up enough trust in each other that, even if they didn’t agree with the others choice, they trusted the person making the choice enough to know they were doing what they think is best, even if it wasn’t what they would do. It’s a beautiful lesson in praxis over theory and I know a few left wing groups that could learn that lesson. 

  I won’t break down the last, marathon episode myself, you can check out a channel like Luboffin for that, but I will say the 8 hours kind of flew by. The stakes could not of felt bigger than having a board room meeting with all the gods. Decisions were made that have me intrigued about the future of this fictional world. I can’t wait to see how Exandria deals with a world without gods and literal aliens being resettled. That always goes well here in the real world! I almost feel bad for Predathos after the natural 20 Laura rolled, forcing it into a life of starvation. But I bet some of the gods are dumb enough to think the threat has passed and will try to ascend again just to be eaten. It just might be a race to see who it will be. 

  As for the campaign as a whole, it took me a bit to get into it but once I did I was just as invested as I’ve always been. I loved the twist on classes some players took, especially Taliesin with his magically infused barbarian. Give me more Exandrian punks! This campaign did a great job connecting all that came before and telling a story of a world, not just a group of characters, and as I said before, asking big questions about the structure and origins of that world. 

  That all being said, I hope the next campaign is much more disconnected. I don’t want Critical Role to fall into the Star Wars trap of only exploring one small chunk of its history over and over. Maybe a story set far from all these places we’ve seen before. So no Vasselheim or Whitestone. Just a whole new part of the globe like most of Campaign two. After an Avengers Endgame level, three campaign crossover like this, it’d be nice to get some distance from it. I’d also like them to spend more time as low level fuck ups just getting into low stakes, yet silly scrapes. I’ve been watching Dimension 20’s StarStruck Odyssey and what I love about it is, even with an overarching story, they are just a gaggle of idiots most of the time and Critical Role could use some more of that. With Campaign three, it felt like we got right into the deep end with everyone’s backstories and we ended up with, even after four years, a lot of untugged threads. So I guess what I’m saying is, I’d like to see more side quest before the big bad comes calling. 

  As for the off screen future of Critical Role, there are also changes coming. For one, I’m almost positive they’ll be switching systems to Daggerheart, the system they created. It just makes the most sense since they have their own system and Hasbro/Wizards continues to be an awful company. Once the D&DBeyond sponsorship disappeared, the fact that Wizards didn’t immediately assign someone to keep that relationship healthy is one of the biggest fumbles I’ve seen since Jonathon Majors. But this is the company that let its relationship with the studio behind Baulder’s Gate 3 dry up as well, so I’m not surprised. All that being said though, I will miss D&D if they do switch. But maybe I’m just getting old and starting to fear change a little more. It’s been ten years of mostly good times but all the things I started watching from back then have disappeared or morphed into other things. Critical Role has been one of the few constant bright spots for me and a lot of others over a wild decade in the world and I hope we have many years ahead. I’m glad it’s still kicking after all these years but nothing last forever. Ugh, I’m making myself sad. Let’s wrap this up.

  What did you think of Campaign three? Favorite moments or characters? What do you think will come next in Critical Role Land? Let’s talk about it in the comments and as always, death to the algorithm. 

Make War For Kids Again! A Skeleton Crew Season 1 Review

   *playing with action figures*
  Oh! I didn’t see you there. I was just- uh- having a little fun. Much like they did on the first season of Skeleton Crew! Imagine that. A Star Wars show that’s fun! What a time to be alive. Let’s talk about it.

  Skeleton Crew is a fantastic new show set in the Star Wars universe starring Jude Law and, get this, some kids! That’s right, it’s obstensivly a kids show, Goonies style. That of course isn’t to say adults can’t love it, I sure did, but this show seems to try and get back to it’s Star Wars roots and move back toward their target demographic of kids and away from the toxic basement dwellers who throw a tantrum online every time a person who doesn’t look like me picks up a lightsaber. And boy howdy what a welcome move that is. This show was such a blast because of it. Seeing the very familiar Star Wars universe through, extremely sheltered, kids filled the story with heaps of wonder and whimsy that has been missing from Star Wars for some time. Don’t get me wrong, I love stuff like Andor that’s very adult and grounded or mythical shows like The Acolyte (see my review here), but sometimes it’s good just to have a silly adventure with no galactic consequences.

  In fact, one of this shows greatest strengths is just how little it has to do with the rest of the Star Wars universe. There were no shoehorned cameos, no characters from other shows or movies, no connective plot threads. If you’ve never gone out and seen yourself a Star War, you’ll understand like 95% of this show. This makes it the perfect gateway drug into the universe, which is why it’s so smart to aim it at kids and hook ‘em young. That’s drug dealing 101! There are still Easter eggs that lifelong fans will get but none of them are essential to the story and really just make for good, immersive story telling. That isn’t to say that the revel of The Supervisor as a giant computer wasn’t a little disappointing though, as I personally was hoping it would be Honda Oknocka, but I’m glad they aired on the side of keeping the show self contained in the end. 

  This is a total side tangent but, speaking of Easter eggs only the old heads will get, wasn’t great to see Jaleel White in something again? A lot of the TGIF stars I grew up watching either disappeared into the ether or turned into assholes so it feels great when one of them makes it out alive, reputation intact. I mean two thirds of the Home Improvement kids are locked up aren’t they? So yea, it was nice to see the original voice of Sonic The Hedgehog out there working and having fun. *sigh* Fuck I’m getting old. Anyway-

   I think my only real complaint with the show is how abruptly it ended. The finale cuts to credits almost the instant the action is over. I could have used a least a small epilogue scene, set maybe a week or so later, showing me the kids getting back to life and Atatin interfacing with the New Republic. Maybe even set up a season two. But unfortunately, in this nightmare age of streaming, even the best stuff is never guaranteed a next season, so maybe they wanted to keep the show self contained in a completely different sense to hedge their bets. If they are gonna do a season two, and I hope they do, they better act fast. Kids don’t stay kids long and I’d love to see these young talents reprise their role. Although, I have a pitch for Disney if they do decide to wait a few years. 

  So here’s what you do. You wait till these kids hit their teens, then have them come back as these characters but this time they have to save a new batch of kids that have gone missing. Maybe Wym, now in training to be an X-Wing pilot, rounds up the gang to hunt down the pirates that took the kids hostage to gain access to the mint. Could be fun!

  One thing this show has in common with something like Andor is it focuses on the oft overlooked section of the Star Wars universe, the average person. Living in a universe that’s full of space nazis who follow an emperor clone and light sword wielding religious zealots with magic powers must be stressful. The adventures of ordinary folks, and in this case kids, as they eek by and try to do the right thing in the face of absurd power is always thrilling and empowering to watch, even when it’s a zany pirate adventure. Fortunately for us, we don’t have the same problems they do……right?

  That is about where the similarities between the two shows end though and that gives me hope for Star Wars as a franchise. One of the great strengths of the MCU is that it can be molded into many different genres with a sprinkling of superheroes mixed in. For a long time, I thought the Star Wars universe wasn’t as malleable. But this show and shows like Visions have proved that wrong. Star Wars can do it all if you get the right creative teams at the helm. You can have your big mythological stories and your grounded political thrillers and your war film Clone Wars era stories (which I’m glad Filloni has started to move away from since, for a minute, every story happened in the same like 20 years), all set in the same universe and have it all work. Am I still excited for season 2 of Andor? Oh hell yea. Season one was one of my favorite Star Wars anything, probably topped only by The Last Jedi. But I’m also glad everything is not Andor. It’d get old real fast and it shows that the future of Star Wars is bright if it can tell many different types of stories. 

  But what did you think? Did you like Skeleton Crew? Are you excited for them to turn the whole show into a ride at Disneyland? Who do you wanna see in season two? Let me know in the comments below and like, subscribe and as always, dear to the algorithm. 

What To Do About Trump

  Hello. So this channel has so far been almost exclusively about nerd shit, movies and music because that’s the shit I like. And I wish we had built a world where I could just focus on that and have a good time, all the time. But that is not the world we live in. So, in the interest of clarity, I’m gonna lay it all out on front street. I’m an anarchistic. If you don’t know what that means (don’t worry there will be at least one video on it in the future all about it), to put it simply, I’m about as far left as you can get. I’m everything Fox News has warned your racist uncle about. So naturally, I’m not thrilled about another Trump term. Out of all the bad options, he’s the worst. But no president is ever gonna stop this channel from being a place that is explicitly antifacist, antiracist, pro queer, space for people who aren’t shitty. That’s the line in the sand, so if you can’t get behind that, fuck off. For those left (and I do mean left), let’s talk about what we are gonna do. 

  First off, I wanna talk to the liberals who might be here. And when I say liberal, I mean the centerist who are not revolutionary and would just like to see some reforms to the current system so we could “get back to the way things used to be”. I know you’re gong through it right now and I don’t want to dogpile. But your time is over. The system you are trying to save is the problem. The good times you want to go back to don’t exist and probably never really did, at least not for everyone. We have tried your way for at least as long as I’ve been alive and now we are here. An election every few years, reforms, and participation in a corrupt system will not save us. At most, electoral politics can gum up the works and slightly slow the march of fascism. The time for begging and asking nicely for a better world is over. We need to start building that world now, by any means.

  Where to start? Well if you knew me outside of this channel I think you’d be able to guess what I’m about to say. I’m a big union guy. You spend a disgusting amount of your life at work and I’m willing to bet, it’s far from a democratic arrangement. A union is the way to even out the power imbalance between you, your fellow workers and your bosses. I’m co-chair of agitprop for my branch of the Industrail Workers of The World. The IWW is a revolutionary union that is less focused on organizing a single trade and more in the business of training you to help organize everyone into one big union. So, I may be biased (and a bad Agitprop co-chair) but, I’d recommend joining up and becoming a Wobbly, but really any union is better than no union. It really is one of the front lines in the fight against capitalism and can have a huge impact if done well. So find one that works for you and start talking to your coworkers behind your bosses back.

  But a workplace union isn’t the only kind of union there is. If you’re one of the many, many, renters out there, you can also start a tenants union. It’s generally the same idea but instead of withholding your labor as leverage, you withhold your rent. Landlords are a parasite on society and we must do everything we can to starve them. Just like your boss makes money by exploiting your labor, your landlord makes money by exploiting your need to have shelter. If you need it to live (food, shelter, water, etc.), it shouldn’t cost money. These organizations, because they use one of the two languages a capitalist system understands, profit (the other being violence), makes it the other front line in the fight for a better world. 

  Both of these tactics have the same goal but also the same drawback. The end goal of course is to have such a build up of strikes that it leads to a general strike that starves the parasites of society enough to kill them off, so to speak. We have a saying in the organizing spaces. We are building a new world from the shell (or ashes) of the old. So all these disruptions and demands are not rooted in a general upheaval for the sake of chaos. Things need to drastically change, yes, but we aren’t trying to throw the baby out with the bathwater here. I only say this because I know for some, the idea of revolution or any change is scary. But all this organizing and marching and strikes are to demand that, the people who should benefit from and be in charge of the world we create are the people who do the work to create the world, us. 

  But something that is scarier than change, at least for a lot of folks I know, is the main drawback for all these tactics of organizing. That is that, you’re gonna have to talk to people. Not just online in your bubble but to your coworkers, your neighbors, strangers. We have to build genuine relationships with people. It’s the only way to figure out who has your back and who you can organize with. You can preach theory at people till the end of time but it is infinitely easier to build solidarity if you like each other. And on the flip side, much easier to dismiss and ignore folks that are strangers to you. You aren’t gonna like everyone or agree with everything others think. Some people are too far gone and I’m no hippie here to tell you that you just need to love them enough for them to change. But you won’t be able to make it through the coming years alone. So find your crowd. I don’t like it either. I’m a vampire loner type too. Why do you think I’m talking to you over the internet? But it’s gotta be done. This new world can only come about and last as a mass movement and mass movements need the masses.

  One thing I can already tell you about those conversations is you’re gonna find that most everyone is struggling. Being alive is too expensive and everyone is one missed check away from their life completely falling apart. This is where the next thing, and probably the most empowering thing, you can do comes in, mutual aid. The idea of a strike or any disruption to the delicate balance of their life is impossible when it could get you fired, evicted or worse. The powers that be have sent the last 50 years dismantling the social safety net so no one has the energy or inclination to do anything but survive. So we have to build our own support systems outside of the official systems and, to put it simply, take care of each other. Free food, rent parties, childcare, skill trades, tool sharing, transportation. All these things we can do for each other and make it easier for people to take risk. Capitalism has turned all these things and more into commodities that exist solely to turn profit. We need to do it because, to put it simply, it’s good to take care of people. I think you’ll find too that, after some initial awkwardness, you’ll find something all of us have been lacking in this modern age, community. So after talking to folks around you and figuring out what everyone needs, join or start a mutual aid network and start helping. All these years you’ve been giving your power away in the voting booth to people who do not give a single shit about you. Stop waiting for permission to build a better world and get out there. The less we rely on the power structures we have today, the less power they have. Like Tinkerbell, if we all stop applauding, they’ll die out.

  Most of this so far has been targeted at people shocked by the election result and searching for a different way forward. But now I want to talk to all the folks like me out there who have been radicals a long time. Look, I know it’s hard but this is not the time for a told you so’s or for any “I’m more left wing than you” dick measuring contest. No one wants to join a revolution full of self righteous pricks. I think all the late night host have proved we are not gonna lecture and ridicule our way out of this. No Reddit thread comment or sick subtweet is gonna destroy the fascist threat. We also have to accept not everyone is gonna read Marx and Lenin or Goldman and Kropotkin for that matter. It’s our job to know the theory so well that we can break it down in simple and effective strategies and messaging for folks who don’t want to read 170 year old dry ass tomes. FD Signifier has a great new video that I’ll link below that explains this better than I probably can but we must be making our own cool art, podcast and communities. We need to lead the masses to revolution but we gotta have fun doing it. Joy is in itself an act of resistance. So let’s wait until after we’ve stomped out the fascist to start telling the liberals that we could have had our better world 20 years earlier if they listened to us. For now, we got work to do.

  So in case you needed to know where me and this channel stand, this is it. I hold only a few simple maxims close to try and find my way through this increasingly hostile world. One, no one has the inherent right to rule over another. No kings, no presidents, no bosses. You are your own authority, so act like it. Two, all power should be limited and temporary. Power itself is illegitimate until proven legitimate. For example, say you wanted to fix the potholes in the street but only your neighbor Rick knows how. Everyone would come together and say, ok Rick, you’re in charge of fixing these potholes. Tell us what to do. Rick would be in charge but only to tell you how to fix the potholes and once they were fixed, Rick has no more authority. Instead of how we do this today which is beg the city to fix the potholes, no one does it, you run an expensive campaign to elect Rick to some position that can tell someone else to fix the potholes but he’s also in charge of a million other things for several years. The former seems like a better system to me. Third of my closely held beliefs, not my circus, not my monkeys. What I mean by that is, unless you’re funding me, fucking me or friends with me, what you get up to isn’t really my business. So if you’re gay or trans or religious or whatever, as long as it’s happening between consenting adults, not my business. 

  Lastly and really, most importantly for our discussion today is, if we are gonna have society and a human civilization, its purpose should not be profit. Civilizations purpose should be twofold. To alleviate human suffering and to maximize leisure. We are currently burning the planet and everything on it in the name of making a few already rich pricks even richer. This just doesn’t make sense. It has just never made sense to me that we use so much energy and ingenuity just to make money. With just a simple change, from profit to human wellbeing, we could solve so many problems. A green energy transition will be too expensive? Who cares! Automation and AI are gonna take my job? Good! One less thing I have to do. We don’t want to hurt the healthcare industry’s bottom line? That’s an insane thing to say in a world where we take care of people because they are people and not a profit margin. Since I was a kid, the fact that some have too much and some have nothing has never made sense. Why are we doing this society thing if it’s not to make it easier for everyone to have a good life? We have enough to feed, cloth and shelter everyone if we just stopped trying to make a buck while doing it. For me, that’s what it all boils down to. After all, the economy is a human invention. Why shouldn’t work for all humanity?

  Look, I‘m not gonna lie to you and say it’s all gonna be ok. It’s not. Things are gonna get much worse before they get better, if they get better at all. I’m an eternal pessimist. What keeps that pessimism from becoming nihilism is a healthy mix of spite and a love of humanity. Everything I talk about on this channel, art, music, games, food, has all come about because humans broke free of their existence to create something beautiful or silly or dumb. I would love for the world to become a place where everyone could take part in that creation. But if instead we continue down the path towards our demise, I’m at least gonna go down swinging.  In the description I’ll leave links to some stuff to help you get started. Until next time, death to the algorithm and death to fascism. See you in the streets.