Star Wars

well well, what to say. Quite a lot since my last post.
Hadn't been in the writing (right) mood for a while, so the posts on here slacked quite significantly.
I'm also realizing I haven't done any longform writing, academic or otherwise, in a really long time. So I'm even worse now than I was before, when I was saying "wow I need to get better at writing".
I'm afraid to go read my essays from back in college.
(back in college will still probably feel weird to say 6 months from now.)

Anyway, changes.
I started a job at Sirius XM.

I started a job at Sirius XM!
I'm a part-time board operator, currently doing phone screening and training on production and board-op. Short run through before I forget six months from now:
Screening for Freewheelin' on Road Dog Network. Meredith and Christ T cohosting, Ash on the boards. Noah producer, Christina Columbo guest host. Me and Christina bonded over wrestling today.
Also screening for the Focus Group on Saturdays, very very fun show. We drank proseco and ate oreos for the show before Christmas. John Nash and Tim ----- host. Me and John bonded over Star Wars. Barry on the boards.
Also screened for the Breitbart show with James and Angie, who are very fun and nice. Breitbart show is Tea Party bombast, so it's entertaining and terrifying. I'm glad its listeners seem to live far away from New York.
Now I'm training on the Today Show for production with Matt and Mike. Matt seems a lot like Kyle (my boss at 95.7), which is cool. A very knows-his-shit chill radio type.
Celebrity sightings: first off, my coworkers are Sway and Jim Norton. That's tight. I've walked past them both in the halls multiple times. Sightings: George Takei, Mario Cantone, Pusha T, Foals, Kurt Russel, Tarantino near miss, Tom Green, Judy Gold, Judah Friedlander.
Celebrity meetings: Nils Lofgren, Brian Kilmeade.

Anyways.
writing fuel has gone out a bit. Obviously I need more regular practice.
Star Wars.
Where to begin?
I grew up with Star Wars, though not in the way people who grew up with it when first came out did. I had the trilogy on VHS, before any of the "Specialized" crap but after some audio and visual restoration, so I feel like I had the best possible home viewing experience. I would watch it whenever I was home sick (along with Indiana Jones, and later LOTR), or whenever I felt like it. I grew up with the video games as well, especially Shadows of the Empire. I have a very vivid memory of being very young and waking up around 5am or some such, and deciding the best thing to do would be go downstairs wearing a blanket and play Shadows of the Empire until my family woke up. My Dad, a perennial early bird, woke up a little later and found me, and was more perplexed than mad. He was basically like "uh...well it's too early to be playing video games, go back upstairs and go to sleep."
Further Star Wars upbringing: I had (and still have) a book of illustrated Star Wars info and trivia, things like how C-3P0 works and lightsaber diagrams etc. Also copious Legos (tm), toys, AT-AT action figures etc.

Time for real soul baring? Luke Skywalker is figuratively and literally my hero. As in I love his heroic character and he's one of the heroes in all of media I most identify with and want to be like. That probably has a lot to do with growing up with him as the hero of Star Wars, an iconic and ever present influence on my life and interests. But I also think it's a perfectly written heroes journey, and one of the things I like most about the Original Trilogy (hereafter referred to as Star Wars, where the Prequels will be referred to as the Prequels, or not referred to at all). He changes drastically over the three movies, and within each movie. Even moreso than the other characters, who also develop.
I could probably write a whole other post (read: Essay) about Luke and a celebration of him, so I will. At some point.

The Force Awakens.
yes it does! Spoiler alert I guess. Go see it if you haven't. It is very very good. Great, even. Maybe not as good as Empire, but I'd say as good as A New Hope, and better than Jedi. Empire benefits from better pacing and amazing art direction/film direction. Force Awakens is also great in those realms, but suffers a bit under the weight of having to bridge the two series. Weirdly, it could definitely have some fat trimmed, but I also wanted it to be longer. I think the reason is that the new characters are great. Very great. Like, far surpassed my expectations great. I wanted to spend more time with them in their environments. Rey especially, I think she's the Luke of the new series (and seems to be written as such). Finn is very good, though I think could use a bit more characterization. I liked that the movie did a bait and switch of him supposedly being the new jedi, then having it be Rey, but I also think his character development suffered a bit for having to try to be the jedi candidate to the audience for most of the film. At first I thought Boyega's portrayal was too everyman, but I actually like how that developed, that from the start Finn is a fish out of water thrust into these situations he'd rather run from but eventually becomes a leader in.
Oscar Isaac as Poe Dameron is even better than I expected it to be. I thought he'd be all glowering or serious and dramatic, but instead he's smarmy and likeable and fun, which is great. Rey is 10/10.
BB-8 is 11/10.
Han and Chewie were great, Leia and C-3P0 were the right tone and amount, R2-D2 will obviously have more work to come. I predict R2 will bond with Rey while BB-8 goes back to Poe and by extension Finn.
Luke. The whole film I was like "we better see goddamn Luke in this film", then towards the end I was like "we won't but that's okay". Then at the very end I was like "oh my god this is perfect." That shot of him standing at the (beautiful Irish) cliff edge with the astral monk hair and beard, with the hair blowing the same way it did towards the beginning of a New Hope. It was like, damn, this really is Luke Skywalker. Which is what Rey was feeling, so great job J.J. Abrams.
Now the long 17 month wait until we finally get scenes of Luke training Rey, which I couldn't have imagined I would want so badly.
Very good movie.


Very long post. Not what I was expecting. Whatever writing fuel I ran out of was replenished once I got going about Star Wars I guess. I still could write pages and pages about it. I guess I'll finish by saying it's very nice to be able to grow up with Star Wars again. And this time it's new for everybody else too. Pretty cool.
Music! I have a few things  I could post, lately I've been into James Brown (still), ragtime piano and R&B oldies. But to keep it thematic, here's :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIjBl0T3q1Y
Han Solo and the Princess (Love Theme), from Empire Jazz, arranged by Ron Carter. May the Force be with you.