Author Archives: David Thomas Peacock

“You’re only young once, but you can be immature forever.”

-Unknown

The brighter you are, the more you become aware that your mind can construct arguments for any point of view, which ends up devaluing all of them. The net effect is to end up not feeling bright at all, or rather, as if one is simply a very bright monkey. Which is probably true.

On the other hand, the simpler one is, the easier it becomes to see the world in black and white, with an easy “right or wrong” solution, thus reinforcing one’s absolute belief that they are indeed correct. The end result of this kind of thinking (which of course isn’t really thinking at all) is to feel quite smart.

One doesn’t have to look too hard to see this playing out in social media. Like everywhere. There’s a very dark irony here, no?

“Health-care workers aren’t quitting because they can’t handle their jobs. They’re quitting because they can’t handle being unable to do their jobs.”

– Ed Yong, “Why Healthcare Workers are Quitting in Droves,” The Atlantic

The whole point of punk was that you didn’t need anyone’s permission to make a racket and express yourself. Fuck the gatekeepers. Just do it. Want to start a band? Can’t play an instrument? Just get your mates together and fuck off!

Was most of it shite? Yeah, it was – but so what? Most of everything is shite anyway, isn’t it?

Surprisingly, however, some of it was good. Really good, in fact. There was a raw excitement, a palpable sense that this hadn’t been done before (not quite true, but let’s not digress). Out of this white-hot frenzy of youthful creation it turned out that craft wasn’t actually necessary to create art. Interesting, culture-shifting records were being made by people who had no qualifications except a burning desire to express something.

It turns out this is frowned upon in the writing world. There are unwritten but well understood standards as to what’s acceptable and what isn’t. “Bad” writing is frowned upon, something to be ashamed of. Craft and adhering to the traditions of “good” writing rules the day.

But why? Who says so?

Well, for starters, publishers and editors say so, and they are the gatekeepers in a world where the number of places to get published shrinks more every day.

Now, I’m a guy that likes craft. I love learning how to get better at something important to me, especially if it gives me more tools to create art. But I was a musician before becoming a writer, and I’m not sure I understand the disdain for writers who “don’t understand their craft.”

Craft isn’t everything. And here’s an uncomfortable news flash for those who think it is.

Sometimes, the angry punk with no craft at all is the one that comes up with an entirely new form of expression. Completely original because they had absolutely no idea what the fuck they were doing when they made it.

Where are those writers? Not saying that’s all I want to read, but I’m always game for something new. Who’s publishing the weird primitive shit?

Where are the punk writers?

“Fine.” Parky’s voice was rising in pitch, the words sounding as if each one was trying to overtake the next. “Everything’s fine!”

OK. Let me be clear. If I was made king of something or other, this word would immediately and forever be off-limits, verboten, finished. Use of it in any script, short story, or novel would result in punishment by death for even thinking it would be a good idea to write it down and have a character say it.

So, no – everything is not fine. In fact, it never was fine, and I’m quite confident it will never be fine at any point in the future.

So for God’s sake, give it a rest.

Note: please pass this on to someone else so the rest of the world can get the memo.

Fine stops here.

Jesus fucking Christ – I guess this is what it takes to get me back into a movie theater post COVID – a 3D release of George Romero’s 1978 Zombie masterpiece, Dawn of the Dead.

44 years ago I had my mind properly scrambled by seeing this film at The Park Square Cinema in Boston. So how did it hold up?

Quite well, actually, although my perspective has changed. In 1978, the over-the-top violence and gore probably made the biggest impression. Understandable, since there had never been anything remotely like it. I mean, Sam Peckinpah did squibs with gunshots, and Herschel Gordon Lewis did amateurish gore, but this? WTF!? With Tom Savini using his experience as a combat photographer in ‘Nam to ground the special effects in reality, this was disarming to say the least. And relentless. By the time you get to the disembowelments in the third reel, you’re already numb from exploding heads and chunks of stretchy flesh being bit off screaming humans by zombies that used to be their loved ones. Sheesh. Just writing that sounds disturbing.

But this time, that’s not what struck me. What really stood out was Romero’s richly layered script, an allegory rife with commentary on the shallowness of consumerism in a capitalist society. And of course, the age old question: If everything went away, how would the survivors cope? Watching this film one can’t help but think about what’s happening in Ukraine. My money says Romero has a lot of fans over there.

The other thing that struck me was his mastery of editing. He had a limited budget, which showed. But it was the script and his ability to tell the story through editing that makes this movie consistently rated as the greatest zombie film ever made.

Oh yeah. Let’s not forget fearlessness. Romero wasn’t afraid to go places no one had gone before, even under extreme pressure not to do so. When it became clear that the MPAA was going to give his film an X rating if he didn’t make draconian cuts, what did he do? He released it unrated in an environment where that meant many theaters wouldn’t show it! Talk about balls and having convictions about one’s art.

The 3D transfer was done in Korea, and they did a fantastic job. From a production standpoint, the film looks dated but still packs a punch. You have to understand that this was a regional filmmaker working in Pittsburgh with a budget of $640,000, so Hitchcock level craft was never going to happen. The cast, however, was uniformly great, and the films underlying message was clear.

To truly understand why some art is so great and influential, one has to understand it’s historical context. Charlie Parker and John Coltrane don’t sound so shocking today because they set the standard everyone copied. Romero was no different.

But if you understand the medium, when you land on ground zero, it’s a mindfuck.

Romero would laugh if he read this, but it’s the Citizen Kane of zombie movies. Dig it.

Kurt Vonnegut who once remarked that “the function of the artist is to make people like life better than they have before,” adding that “when I’ve been asked if I’ve ever seen that done. I say, ‘Yes, the Beatles did it.'”

What’s useful and what isn’t? Discerning the difference between legitimate and worthless critique can sometimes be challenging. For example, useless criticism may be mixed with legitimate observations — even though they came from the same source. Assuming you’ve already vetted this person as someone worth listening to, how do you tell the difference?

If the criticism comes from an emotional, viscerally negative response, it’s probably worthless. If it’s specific and observational, maybe you should listen and weigh it carefully. Figuring out how to tell the difference is part of getting better at whatever it is you’re trying to do.

The thing is, we all need criticism to improve.

After all, if we knew what we were doing wrong, we’d fix it ourselves. Good criticism helps us see what we are unable to discern on our own.

Discard it at your own peril.

What do you think? Of course, the first question to pop in your head would be, “Why is a robot putting on a cowboy hat?” but that quickly leads to a whole stream of other questions.

Like, was he designed to put on a cowboy hat? If so, to what purpose? Is it a fashion statement? Can robots have a sense of fashion? If so, why design them that way? Or has this particular robot achieved sentience and is now thinking on its own? If that’s the case, what might he think of next?

Holy shit, could I control this robot if he decides I’m a threat? And why am I referring to it as a “he”? Do robots even have a gender?

And if he or she has the agency to choose to put on a hat, what else do they have the agency to do?

Hmmm, maybe he’s the threat? Just to be safe, I better treat him with caution, even suspicion. He could be dangerous.

Come to think of it, why would a human put on a cowboy hat? I mean, unless they’re a cowboy? As a fashion statement, I guess.

He does look jaunty, even kind of handsome. Looks like he takes care of himself. I think he likes himself in a cowboy hat.

He knows he looks good in it.

It might be fun to have a beer with him.

Do robots drink beer?