Everywhere There’s Statues…
31 Days of Brannan – Day 4
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Today’s Playlist – Everywhere There’s Statues
Happy Fourth of July to all the US peeps out there!
There are three songs I am looking forward to (well hoping, actually) that Jay performs on this tour.
They are:
- Rob Me Blind (for sentimental reasons – see first day’s post)
- Denmark (for pretty much the same reasons as number one)
- Everywhere There’s Statues (today’s selection)
As we Yanks in the US celebrate the country’s founding, I was drawn to this song in particular. Jay muses with many things in this song, playing with common threads that no matter where you are in the world brings the question of what constitutes freedom front and center.
I love the imagery in this song. It is so poetic and riveting in both scope and appeal. It’s a mental floss moment in songwriting:
It’s like looking for hay in a stack of hypodermics
Shooting up grey through the cracks in the yellow brick road
And everywhere there’s statues with their arms open wide
Surrounded by fences that you, that you can’t get inside
That’s brilliant bloody writing, that is. Simplistic in nature yet evoking sentimental imagery that we can all commonly share. Four lines that have a great impact — questioning how we truly view the world and how we sadly often trade security for liberty in this day of casual terrorism. I can’t help thinking as we watch FIFA going on and the image of Cristo Redentor at the top of Mount Corcovado in Rio De Janeiro. Arms open wide (just as Jay calls to question) but there are so many oppressed peoples of the favelas there that will never find a path to a better life.
Heady words and a heady prospect. I often liken it to trying to explain the lofty goals as humans we set for ourselves only to fall well short of the mark. If we had to explain that to beings not from our world, an alien race per se, what would they see in our bold and charismatically infused words? Would they see the strive for that universal acceptance and utopian ideal? Or would they see us for the charlatans that many of us are? All words with very little bite to them?
The verse in the song that I love to sing along with kind of sums it up for me –
Sub-normal people do supernatural things
In a world full of demons with white feathered wings
I feel like I’m open hearted, but it’s a broken range we’re on
I know I’m not the only one asking where have all the cowboys gone
Can’t one of these cowboys come rescue me?
I need a little bit of rope n ride to keep me on my feet(to chorus)
I even allude to these lines of Jay’s in my first novel (coming soon) in that my world deals with the concept of Angels – the potential angelic ideal in all of us, and how sadly we often can’t bring ourselves to care enough to do something. Oh, we can acknowledge the horror, the inhumanity of it all, but how many of us are called to action to do something?
But it is Jay’s bridge in the song that carries the greatest emotional and reasoned impact in the song – for me, it elevates it and gives it its true power.
Face down on the hardwood floor
In one more empty corridor
I’m all alone in these halls
All is fair in love and war
If I can’t find an open door
Then I’ll start taking out walls
I’m face down on the hardwood floor
And not a soul with which to be
If this craving’s one to ignore
Then someone tell me what the fuck a soul is for
You go, Jay. I fucking love it when he kicks me in the emotive and mental parts all at the same time. This song is brilliant and works on so many levels. None the least of which is the orchestrated version on Rob Me Blind. I love the string arrangement in it. Very elegant touch in the final chorus – heightening the production value immensely from this little musical segue. Lovely arrangements, simply moving.
While Jay doesn’t travel with a band, because it would probably be a logistical nightmare for him as he does 99% of his work all by himself, I know I will have to supply the stirring string arrangement myself if he performs this one live. It’s how I’ll hear it in my head. This is bang on one of my absolute favorites songs of his.
I am a fan of his because his music makes me question, leads me to ponder, gives me a good mental flossing and prods me along to reevaluate how I see things. It’s like putting on glasses where things were simply so out of focus but you just plodded along anyway until you put them on and suddenly you realize the details in life you may have been missing all along.
Brilliant, brilliant work!
The Always, Then & Now Tour…
Sidebar: I bought my Deluxe Package from Jay Brannan’s store for the tour he’s embarking on now. The cost of the deluxe package is $40 and you get quite a bit for it. There are other packages as well. But that isn’t why I did it. I did it because I truly feel indebted to this man of words and music. I am enriched by his musical musings and experiences. I am emboldened to discover that I am not alone in my dreams and fears. And for that I will always support him and do what I can to spread the word.
The deluxe tour package from Jay Brannan’s merchandise store – get this or many other offerings from his site.
Please check out his site with links for his upcoming shows. I am definitely a late comer to the Brannan bandwagon whenever he pulls through my city. But now that I am going this year, I am making it a goal never to miss when he swings through town. I hope you take advantage of the opportunity as well. Also be sure to check out his web store at the following link.
Jay’s Website – jaybrannan.com
I wanna be a Casalinga…
31 Days of Brannan – Day 3
Today’s Playlist – ‘Casalinga’
(“Housewife” in Italia)
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So why the Italian version? Well, being a classically trained opera singer I sing quite a bit in Italian. I just loved that he sang it to an Italian audience in their own language. Such a lovely gesture.
To be honest, I wasn’t so sure what to pick this time around. Not because I ran out of steam about all things Brannan. No where near that – I swear. I can wax on about Jay’s body of work for quite some time and not tire of the subject matter (and I say that will every ounce of ‘non-stalker’ voice I can put to it). Just a very sincere fanboy.
No, I chose this because there is literally so many ways I can take this whole endeavor – my 31 Days of Brannan. You see, Brannan’s work touches on so many elements of a shared journey that as gay men we sort of have to work on making our own way. Not that everyone on the planet doesn’t have to do that to some degree, but for gay men, we have the whole pervasive perception by the straight world that we are swimming upstream – we push against the norm, we are outside the mainstream. Reminders at every turn of how much we are not like everyone else. Yet, we often have to use their terms, their metaphors to explain our world. It can be both challenging as it can be uplifting when we can draw parallels between our commonality with the mainstream world.
My hubby railed about this just today – two beefy looking guys getting married in one of those states that just got the ‘go-ahead’ to git ‘er done. That wasn’t what rattled the hubby’s cage. No, what did was that they were there in their flannel shirts (they looked like lumberjacks – big bear kinda men, but one of them had a typical wedding bouquet of flowers in his hand with long flowing ribbons). This irked my husband in more ways than one. Not because he wouldn’t deny anyone who wanted to do that, but because he felt that it was probably driven by gays having to pick up the definition of what was supposed to take place from their straight counterparts. Why were we defining ourselves by those standards? Aren’t we supposed to be defining it for ourselves? What our marriage equality will truly look like and how we’ll take those elements and make them our own. That’s what he was speaking to, and I got it. I did. But to each his own, I say.
This is a recurring motif throughout Housewife. The duality of wanting those ‘straight’ married bliss concepts but constantly challenging the listener to grapple with why a man would want to be a housewife and that there shouldn’t be anything wrong with it.
Simply put, there isn’t.
Even if the commonplace events Jay speaks of within the piece, mirror the experiences of our straight married counterparts. I just LOVE that Jay does this within his work. The double entendres, the witty bon mots, the dry sense of humor at times. I’ve always thought of him as a modern day bard. I don’t bandy that word around loosely either.
Brannan is a bard. Plain and simple. And I count myself lucky to live at a time when someone like him can come along and do what he does so brilliantly. To revel in the moment – as he creates.
I had the same giddiness back in the late seventies when I heard Donna Summer was gonna release another big selling album. As a gay teen boy I was all about Donna back in the day (withhold judgement as I met her and those horrible rumors about what was attributed to her were completely false – she was a very decent human being). Anyway, the giddy feeling I used to get whenever Donna was gonna drop some new project is EXACTLY what I feel when Jay announces he’s got something on the horizon. Total gay boy freak session for at least an hour – heady, and simply happy that something wonderful is about to come my way.
What I think is bang over the top in Housewife is that it works on so many levels. It holds up the banality of a relationship in a new romantic light (I mean, who really has that romantic gushy feeling about washing dishes – yet in Jay’s vision it is simply rendered and you can’t think of a more beautiful expression of devotion to the man you love. Unless of course, it’s doing his laundry which Jay is more than happy to acknowledge as an option on the table) — that even the most mundane of things have a beauty all on their own. It speaks of hopes and dreams, of sharing meals and a future. Things that I know I pondered myself from the time I could acknowledge my attraction to boys. I wanted those things in my life. Housewife’s greatest accomplishment is the simplicity in it’s threaded revelations of what it means to be in a loving and supportive relationship. One which when he reaches, you’re there. When you falter, he’s there.
The beauty of Brannan’s prose in this is that each element is simplistic and comforting all at the same time. It speaks (to my way of thinking at any rate)
Sure there was the whole sense of adventure in the relationship. That’s always the sexy part – or so you think if you’ve never been in one. What I love about Jay’s take on it is that its the longevity that the song speaks to – how valued those dreams are. Yeah, I definitely had those thoughts. Mostly it was the being close, of breathing him in. The simplest things were held far more magical qualities to them than any of the wildly erotic times. Okay, maybe that was not wholly true. I mean sex was definitely an important part of a new relationship – especially as a young man who sought the affections of another boy.
I wanted so many things in a man that I didn’t feel I had. Things that I admired in other boys (usually of the straight variety). Of course in my day if you were gay it was automatically assumed you were about as fey as they come. I never did fit into that mold, but I wasn’t a football playing hetero-acting stud either. Then again, I never really liked the whole ‘straight-acting’ moniker. Why is it that we have to appear to be anything other than what we are.
I think that this is what is at the emotive core of Housewife. Love that simply is. Love that endures, love to strive and hope for, to dream about and to push toward achieving.
Though I think it is in the simple repeated question of “what’s so wrong with that?” that is one of the most powerful tools within the song. Gently intoning and asking the audience to wrap your head around why making such a simple admission that you would want to take on the role of a Housewife holds no negativity, indeed it is probably one of the greatest gestures of love to find the exuberance in doing laundry, making guacamole or hell, even the desire to have his baby (which in this day and age may not be too far off a prospect).
This is one of the songs that truly gets me misty eyed when I hear it. It has every element of what I feel about my life with my own husband. There is no one else I’d rather wash dishes with or for, no one who I wouldn’t want to wash his clothes. His needs always come before my own. As mine do with him. He’s proven that to me time and again. So yeah, Housewife is a brilliant song, encapsulating and distilling for me all of the things I hold dear in my own relationship with my husband of 20 years. He is my best friend, the love of my life and the life of my love.
Yet it is Jay’s last words of Housewife that haunt me terribly, that never fail to make me a bit teary eyed. Knowing how Jay has commented in various live video performances and youtube postings about how lonely he feels at times, it tears me up that someone who brings such an emotive and creative light to my life via his work hasn’t found some of this for himself. I don’t know Jay. Being a performer of the stage since I was 8 and now coming up on my half-centennial mark, that is a number of years to put on a face and sell yourself to the masses. So I have to concede that I don’t know how much of his life is show and how much is an actual representation. My takeaway is that Jay is incredibly honest (insofar as he is willing to share – which seems to be quite a bit) about some of the intimate details (without being salacious) of his life. If that is the case, then I do hold out the day when he might alter the lines to let his audience know he has someone special and worthy of his love. Maybe even changing those last moments to reflect a change in status.
For someone who gives so much of himself, of sharing what he does with his social media accounts, I would be over the moon if there came a time when he would have what he speaks of in Housewife (if that’s what he truly wants). His work brings such an emotive and rich core into my world – substantiating and giving a creative voice to things I concern myself with, if only to know I’m not crazy, what I want is what Jay seems to echo – what everyone else seems to want.
Love, friendship, devotion – getting as much as you put into it and if you’re lucky, you just might get more than you bargained for. And life is sweet when you do.
The Always, Then & Now Tour…
Sidebar: I bought my Deluxe Package from Jay Brannan’s store for the tour he’s embarking on now. The cost of the deluxe package is $40 and you get quite a bit for it. There are other packages as well. But that isn’t why I did it. I did it because I truly feel indebted to this man of words and music. I am enriched by his musical musings and experiences. I am emboldened to discover that I am not alone in my dreams and fears. And for that I will always support him and do what I can to spread the word.
The deluxe tour package from Jay Brannan’s merchandise store – get this or many other offerings from his site.
Please check out his site with links for his upcoming shows. I am definitely a late comer to the Brannan bandwagon whenever he pulls through my city. But now that I am going this year, I am making it a goal never to miss when he swings through town. I hope you take advantage of the opportunity as well. Also be sure to check out his web store at the following link.
Jay’s Website – jaybrannan.com
GAME OVER… Game of Thrones and the Evolution of DeathPorn
The Rise of DeathPorn on Cable TV
So I let myself stew a bit over the last episode [The Mountain and the Viper] of Game of Thrones (GoT). And before anyone starts prepping their retort to this little missive, let me just state the obvious: after 4 seasons I am fully aware that this show is about the rise to power and how many people it corrupts and kills along the way. I get it. You DON’T have to remind me.
But here’s the rub for me: I need a story where I can invest myself in the characters. As a writer I want the drama they bring to the story. Martin’s cavalcade of death and power amongst the most despicable kingdoms in his imaginary world is gritty, it’s horrid, it’s sensual, it’s grueling, it’s beguiling, and it’s nothing short of porn.
Oberyn’s (Pedro Pascall) Viper wailing upon the Mountain.
Exhibitionist DEATHPORN. On a scale that might even leave the ancient Roman’s gob smacked.
Case in point: FULL DISCLOSURE TIME: Admittedly I haven’t read one of the books. So I’ll cop to that right from the get-go. To be honest I’ve been too busy writing my own stories to have the time to invest in his world.
BUT having watched the four seasons of the TV show I have come to the realization that I have very little interest in the lives of the people who inhabit Martin’s visually compelling literary universe. From the adverts at the time it had two of my favorite character actors in the show: Mark Addy and Sean Bean. They had me hooked with just these two actors being attached to the project. Well, there was Jason Momoa too.
I was a Jason fan from his stint on Stargate: Atlantis a few years back. I also saw picts of this Kit Harrington guy and he sorta filled the bill as a sexy lead so yeah, I was all in. I was really into the season and contemplated reading the books. I read quite fast so it wasn’t a far cry for me to just jump into the fray and compare with the series what was happening on screen. But I yielded from getting into the books because I wanted to give the TV series a chance. TV and film can be so far off the mark from the original source work (see my previous rant about that whole myth that Hollywood perpetuates all under the guise of the ‘creative process’). I wanted to let GoT the TV series stand on its own. So I watched. I was intrigued. I was stymied – yeah I said stymied (more people should use this word more often – they walk around in that mode – completely stymied over how this modern world truly operates and yet, they seem to use the wrong word to describe it). So yeah, stymied at the small regard Martin seemed to have for his characters.
And believe me, I get pathos. As a writer, I got pathos coming out my ass. But here in is the rub of Martin’s work. While imaginative, bombastic and challenging as it may seem – ultimately what does it serve? Certainly not a character study – as you don’t have any of them around long enough to warrant a true evaluation of them. You get, at best, smatterings of their truer personae. And this ultimately is the singular gift Martin offers for his readers/viewers. Smatterings. Snippets of the fuller beings they could become. Now, again, I concede that I haven’t actually read the work (and I don’t think I will after last week episode – but I’ll come to that anon).
So Ned Stark and the King were my main focus for season one. Joffrey was a right shit so I lost complete interest in his being the villain. Don’t get me wrong, I really liked the actor’s portrayal – I had nothing against him. It was the vehemence of the character that got to me. It was one dimensional – cardboard – all that was missing was the handlebar mustache (admittedly that would’ve been hard for Jack Gleeson to pull that costume effect off – but it was there in spirit). I grew bored with him as the season one baddie.
Joffrey the Bad
Say nothing of writing Mark Addy (a brilliant character actor, btw) off so quickly. So I’d lost one of my beloved actors even before the first season had grown cold. A few eps later and Ned got the whack job of his life. So now I was out both of the reasons that I even started to watch the show. I contemplated leaving it at this point – except something altogether surprising happened: I sort of fell in love (as a writer/actor) with Arya and Bran Stark, and Jon Snow. So I hung in there for season 2.
Then we had some interesting gay characters spring up here and there – but already I noticed a trend: Gay characters were nothing more than a trifling to show Martin had any depth as a craftsman, but he quickly disposed of them. It seemed (to this gay writer at any rate) that they were nothing more than a marketing ploy. No real staying power. This is a HUGE negative in my book. Martin doesn’t get props for inclusiveness if he can’t bother to keep them around – cause here’s the nitty gritty about being gay Mr. Martin – we learn very quickly how to survive in a very hostile world. Far craftier than most straights would ever grant us credit for. But of course, they have nothing to compare it to. They don’t have to live their lives in denial until they have some relative ease with which to feel they can be themselves with friends and loved ones. So yeah, a life undercover tends to make one far more careful with their actions. So some of those deaths were nothing to advance the plot. They were porn.
And herein lies the crux of Martin’s world. I liken it to a weekly gladiatorial viewing by the TV viewing masses to see who else gets offed in a given episode.
And just to be clear – here is the complete run down of deaths of the major (and some minor) characters: I Googled it and found one site that had the body count of characters from the series at 208!
So, let’s review that little nugget: 208 character deaths in a series that has only had 4 seasons thus far. Perhaps only Walking Dead could boast a higher body count.
And let’s not toss in that tired line that: it’s a story about how power corrupts man. Yeah, got the memo on that one. But this takes it to the nth degree, doesn’t it? And ultimately to what end? To just see who makes it out alive? That’s what we’ve devolved into? Not about what makes the character’s tick? Not about the interpersonal nuances between them all? A writer writes stories hoping against the odds that their characters will be embraced by their intended audience. Well, Martin has effectively (for this reader/writer/actor) done an ample job of doing the opposite. I have lost all care for any of his characters (though I still have a small degree of it left for Arya, Bran and Jon).
But the rest? Nada.
You know what did it? What broke the proverbial camels back for me? Oberyn’s death.
Oberyn and his man-whore. Sexual tensions ensue. Pedro NAILS it!
I thought – “Wow, now we have a VERY interesting character to deal with. He was crafty, ballsy (in ALL the right ways) and didn’t give a shit about what the Lannisters thought about him. I was TOTALLY in his camp. I was loving this guy from top to bottom – and what a nice bottom he had too! He was all over the map in ways that none of the other trapped characters were. He was sensual, he was certainly pan-sexual, but more importantly he was unpredictable. A HUGE smattering of gray in a very grey world. But his grey was fucking neon gray – gray you couldn’t look away from.
And now it too is gone.
More Oberyn man love… hella hawt!
And I am not lamenting it because Pascall is one fuckalicious hottie of an actor (though it’d be a close second), no, ultimately it is the interesting things that Oberyn could’ve brought to the table in the long run. But not in Martin’s world. In that world the great takeaway is don’t invest yourself in any of them. It’s just not worth your efforts. You’ll reap no reward for the telling.
There’s nothing on display in GoT other than great art direction, some decent (if at times, over the top) acting, and brilliant costumes. The plot and delivery of the story – very one dimensional. A shock and awe that has long since worn off. So he can kill off characters – what this says to me is that he can’t make them last. He doesn’t know what to do with them all. So like a rotund Rumpelstiltskin he churns out character after character. If you lose one – well don’t worry, I’ve got eight more that I’ll throw your way only to hack them to bits too.
So that’s my takeaway. Martin can create but ultimately he doesn’t know what to do with them other than full on deathporn. Which is really the worst kind.
I am reminded of a question my cinematic idol, Alfred Hitchcock, once posed with Psycho – What happened if the audience was fooled into thinking Marion is the main character only to kill her off early in the film and reveal the true main character as her killer? An interesting perspective on things. With Martin he’s taken it to pornographic levels of death, blood and mayhem – but not to great end. Really it’s quite sad. I mean, sure he’s laughing all the way to the bank, but I just can’t go there any more.
At least with Spartacus, I knew what I was in for. I got that it was about gladiatorial death sequences and that any moment could be your last. But with GoT, the rollercoaster ride only has one bump, one twist and you see them coming a mile down the road. Even when it’s a surprise (as it was with Oberyn) it really isn’t. Martin’s done it all before. Only this time – I’m out.
SPARTACUS – Some hot man on man lovin’ goin’ on. AND THEY LIVED to have an HEA!
I am not a deathporn fanatic. I want characters who we have to struggle with and against. None of Martin’s are worth it (with the exception of my trio). Even Daenyris has become a cardboard cut-out. A caricature of her once noble self. It’s a good thing Kahl Drogo got bumped off when he did. His wife has proven utterly boring at this point. A one-hit wonder – with dragons no less. The shock and awe and the carnage to come won’t keep me hanging on.
I wish there was more to hang my hat onto here. But ultimately on which hook do I hang it on? Which one can I trust? Some may say that that is the reason for watching the show. Yeah, not so for me.
Unlike Spartacus, which was admittedly just as gory, just as harsh, just as convoluted, at least you got some redemption for the investments you made into the characters. And the GAY COUPLE fucking lived to have their HEA (Happily Ever After)!! Fucking aces in my book! You NEVER see that in a action/adventure setting…
But with GoT? I just lost interest.
Game over… I’m out.
The truth is in the blood…
So given that the final season of True Blood is around the corner. I’ve been reminiscing about the difference between Charlaine Harris’ book series and the episodic version on our TV screens.
The Stackhouse Novels by Charlaine Harris
At first blush the main cast of characters seem to be front and center (with a few notable exceptions – that being Lafayette and the much more sub-dued Tara – arguably the TV series strongest and most interesting characters). This however is where we hit that proverbial argument (one of which I don’t always think is as valid as Hollyweird seems to make it): Books are different than TV/Film.
Lafayette and Jesus – I fuckin’ LOVED these two.
Yeah, the more I read, coupled with the fact that I have family that works in the film industry, I am not so sure of that as a creative premise at all. I think in most cases it is producers and directors wanting to make a splash on the shoulders of another author’s works. “Reimagining it for the masses over a different medium…” sort of thing.
It worked for the Harry Potter series, right? Eh, don’t get me started on that one… there were soooo many fucked up production decisions on that film iteration of the beloved books that I could spend an entire blog series just covering it all.
The brilliantly wonderful Daniel Radcliffe
And when David Heyman offered only that as a children’s series they didn’t feel they could ever stretch the films out to encompass the smaller story elements in the books because children were going to struggle to sit still longer than the ‘line in the sand’ at 2 hours and 30+ minutes they’d alloted for each installment in the series. Say nothing of the fact that these were the same children who were happily sitting in the Lord of the Rings movies that toppled at 3.5 hours long with apparent ease. Or given the fact that as the movies wore on (and those little tykes grew up) they should (according to Heyman’s implied theory) be able to handle a longer film. My point being that it was nothing short of a financial cop out. The story and it’s telling suffered because of poor plot line choices. Steve Kloves (the screenplay writer) did his best to keep an even keel scriptwise with input from Rowling herself (often cluing him into elements that were important far before the rest of the world knew what was going on). But alas, it was the story plot lines and the production team involved that sort of ruined the magic of that series for me.
Okay, I’ll cop to the fact that I own every single one of them. They’re my granddaugther’s favorite movies and books. So those films hold a different form of sentimentality for me. She was only one when the first one came out – and she was riveted even at that tender age. If you got in the way of the TV she’d skreech and in her babushka (the reference my family had for her baby talk as she tended to sound like an old Russian woman) way telling you on no uncertain terms to: “get the FUCK outta the way man, I am watching my flick!”
Der Hitlermort
I did like that they never lost sight of the whole blood business. Pure bloods vs. Muggles – yeah, so Third Reich in it’s reach and scope. I really liked that element in Rowling’s series.
Speaking of which – The Hobbit writers felt the NEED to insert a fucked up fake Elvish/Dwarf love thing? WHAT THE BLOODY FUCK? That singular addition to the tale fucking ruined the movies for me! You DON’T INSERT into literature you fucktards! You aren’t that bright to do so… something like that practically soured me on the whole fucking idea of movie options from novels.
The unwitting dwarf in the fiasco fake Elvish romance – a clusterfuck of an idea if I ever saw one.
Which brings me to the real analysis of this blog entry: True Blood.
Joe Manganiello as Alcede
In the books the world of Bon Temps and the fearsome but beloved Vamps are quite different. So different in fact, that the faeries play a larger role in the course of the series (and to set the record straight – I HATED the treatment of them by the writing staff of the HBO series – a mishmash of Disneyesque cum Burlesque twat-heads that I was only too happy to see them perish in the TV series. They were complete waste cases). But not in the books, the faeries are BAD ASSED. Even Eric Northman thinks twice about confronting them when Suki is in the hospital and her Faerie grandfather Niall is inbound. What the fuck happened to that element? Why toss your wad on these sappy faerie light versions of their fearsome counterparts in the books? I just didn’t get it.
The FUCKED UP fairies of True Blood
And I get it, dear reader, that you may wonder why I even care. Well I do because it matters. It matters because I am a writer. Not to say that i have lofty ideals that my stories will ever equate to a property that would get sold to a film/TV company. I can dream but I am a realist as well in that department.
So yeah, if fucking matters big time that they get it right.
There is one element that is fairly spot on between the books and series – Alexander Skarsgard portrayal of Eric Northman. From the moment Alexander makes is appearance in the show I was all “YES! YES! YES!” and I am over the fucking moon that he’s a Nord actor. Go for the blood. It was brilliant bloody casting.
The fucking over the top in all the RIGHT way – True Blood’s Alexander Skarsgard
Now, with the exception of Ryan Kwanten, Nelsan Ellis, Rutina Wesley, and Kristen Bauer van Straten , the rest of the cast is questionable. Not that the other actors are bad at their jobs. That’s not it at all. The actors perform admirably to the tasks given to them. It’s the writing that has sucked as the seasons have worn on to the point where it barely resembles the premise it started out with. These are writers who’s good ideas went out with the bath water around the second season. Coincidently, around the same time that the TV series started to really divert from the plotlines that Charlaine had in the books. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. I mean, it didn’t have to be a bad thing. But unfortunately, it was.
The differences between the two worlds were really starting to show. One element completely dropped from Harris’ books that I really loved in the novels? Bubba – Elvis as a goofy dumbed down lovable vampire with a penchant for kittens. Now THAT I would have loved to have seen. Hell, they could’ve even cast Michael St. Gerard (from the old Elvis bio pic) in the role.
So the takeaway from the TB fiasco, as I’ve come to call it? Whenever someone says they want to put a ‘twist’ on it, ‘shake it up a bit’ on a successful premise, then that really means – hey, we want to substantiate why we’re having to hire screenwriting hacks to reinvent the wheel because, hell, we’re just too imagined out to come up with a truly great premise ourselves so we’d rather bastardize your shit rather than put in the real work ourselves.
I mean it is possible, you know. Need I say ORPHAN BLACK? Now there’s a series that was created from ground up. But of course, it’s Canadian. Damned Canucks (and I happen to love Canucks… brilliant bastards that they are). But if anything, they show how it can be done. Just like we novelists do – with grit, determination, a little mental-elbow grease and guess what IMAGINATION. Something sorely lacking in Hollyweird.
Tatiana Maslany – the Meryl Streep of TV.
Sidebar: You know, I sorta have mixed feelings when I bash Hollywood with the ‘weird’ status. Mostly because for the most part I like their sense of equality when it comes to the gay community (in so far as it doesn’t extend (or rarely extends) to lead characters). But then they go completely off the rails with real imagination and creative bravado. They just seem to be apathetic to trying new things when it’s so much easier to option something in existence and ‘spin’ it, make our mark on it.
What the fuck-ever.
It’s all about the characters…with a little bit of craziness thrown in.
Author’s Note: This is a converted blog post. It originally was published on 04.22.14 @ 4:48pm, US Pacific
This post is laced with a fond remembrance on my part. There was an author whose books I’ve collected and cherished for sometime. Her name is Mercedes Lackey. As I build my own spin on the Viking Feigr myths and lore, I am reminded of another beloved series that is now coloring how I invent my own world. A world dominated by men. Well, men of a different sort (again, that would be just too human to see it solely in that light). But Mercedes Lackey’s hero (the one most beloved by me) Vanyel and his lover, Tylendel and how their love, though brief and intense, is strong enough to imprint itself upon the reader for the entire trilogy – when Vanyel is finally reunited with his one true love.
I had read several of her books (the woman writes like a fiend) and enjoyed them all. The reason I picked up her books were for the Magic Series which had a real bonafide GAY hero. And this was back in the early 90’s when it was fairly uncommon to find author’s investing in gay anything.
It centered on Mage-Herald named Vanyel (a sort of magical peacekeeper if you will) of an imaginary world. I loved this series. In my early twenties (I know that dates me just saying that) it was my go-to set of books. I’ve reread them more times than I care to count. Vanyel was my ultimate hero. Alas, his story was a rough one – Mercedes isn’t known for being kind to her characters – with a very bittersweet ending. But he left his mark upon that world by the time he takes his leave of it – with his and his one true love’s laughter ringing in your ears upon the wind.
Those books gave me hope. Not only as a reader/writer, but also that not to compromise on the vision you set forth. And that gay men can be heroes too. The lovely thing about Mercedes work is that her world was peppered with gay and lesbian characters long before the current M/M genre really took root. It is these books, more than any other, which guide my hand now.
True enough, Mercedes only hinted at the sexual liaisons between the men in her series. Like a made for TV movie, the camera sweeps away when the lovers have a tryst. Though oddly enough, now that I recall it, not when Vanyel is brutally raped by a very rough man in the third book. How odd that that one point was clearly and deftly put before the reader to illicit not any point of salaciousness, but rather anger and sorrow for what the hero endured before he was able to set things right – though ultimately through a very personal and final sacrifice.
I have several copies of these books. Some highlighted to hell and gone. Some torn from their bindings so I could put them in a larger paper where I could make lengthy notations of my own regarding elements I liked or things I would have liked to have seen. A real analysis of the work so I could understand it in both construction and tone.
While I certainly have thoughts about my world and how it will no doubt differ greatly from the tone of her series. The hero will be a homage of sorts to Vanyel. A character tucked safely within my heart. I friend that I find I want to revisit even now as I write this. Might just pick up the books again.
If you’ve not read them, I highly recommend that you do. Brilliant in scope and audacious for its reach during a time when gay characters didn’t drive the drama but at best were relegated to minor roles in another hero’s story – less than a sidekick, really.
Not Vanyel.
I remember you fondly my literary friend. I can only hope Sebastian Alexander Collins (for whom I’ve taken as a nom de plume to honor him), the main character Feigr in my upcoming Fae Wars story, will live up to that high bar you’ve set as a gay hero quite a while ago. Baz is my Vanyel. He is my go-to now. I know him best because of all my characters he is the first one I nurtured from a wisp of a thought. Tending to him off and on until, like Athena, he sprang forth from my head fully formed and very, very complex.
…and I wouldn’t have him any other way.