Ava-hontas

**SPOILER ALERT**
If you haven't seen Avatar yet, and you don't want the plot to potentially be ruined for you, stop reading now.
Still here?
OK, great.  Now we can point and laugh at the people who left.

So I went with my friend to see Avatar the other night. I really hadn't been dying to see it, but I decided to go see what all the fuss was about. After seeing it I decided all the fuss was about the special effects, which should surprise no one. It was one of the most visually stunning movies I have ever seen. The 3D was pretty cool, but I have to say after 2 1/2 hours of it I kind of had a headache and my eyes felt like they were trying to cross. I think it would have been equally cool without the 3D. It just felt gimmicky to me.  Also, the "Na'vi" looked a little like the illegitimate children of the Smurfs and Thundercats.

Now for the plot. Oh, the plot...where do I even start. It was very obvious that they blew all their money on effects and didn't have any left over for a script. I had the feeling I had watched this movie before. Apparently I am not the only one. I kept waiting for somebody to break into "Colors of the Wind". In all seriousness, if James Cameron doesn't get sued by Disney over this I will be a little surprised. Obviously they were just using the script to give them an excuse to show off their shiny new effects. Honestly, I would have preferred they just left the script off. It would have been better if they had just said, "Here's an hour of some cool looking stuff we came up with after we smoked some opium." No plot, just an hour flying around on the dragon things. Whatever they were called.  Don't even get me started on the tree-hugging, hippie crap.

A couple of other things that bugged me about the movie. First, why did "Pandora" look like a black-light putt-putt course at night? That was just ridiculous. Second, whoever the designer was that decided the subtitles should have been in "Papyrus" font should be drug out in the middle of the road and shot. I mean seriously, "Papyrus"? The only font that could have possibly been any worse would have been "Comic Sans". Or "Wingdings". Well, maybe "Wingdings" would have actually been better, because then I wouldn't have been able to read all the stupid, predictable crap they were saying.

Bottom line:
Visual effects- *****
Everything else- *

Thought this was cool

Discovered a cool website the other day: Ficly. It's a site designed to let you publish your works of fiction under a Creative Commons license. This isn't terribly unique I suppose, but the twist is that the works can be no longer than 1024 characters. Also, anyone can write prequels or sequels to what you publish. I thought it was a really interesting concept. I've got a couple of stories up there now (one of them will be familiar if you have been reading my blog for a while), and hope to have some more soon. You can see them here.

Read This Book

I just finished reading another awesome book, The Road by Cormac McCarthy. It's a post-apocalyptic story about a father and son traveling across a burnt-out USA. It's depressing heavy and disturbing, but man is it good. It's not very long (I read it in about 2 days), and it moves really quickly. I highly recommend it.

On an unrelated note, I am working on another short story. I hope to have it finished in the next week or so. Obviously I failed at this goal...

Who's Gonna Fill Those Shoes?

WOW, I don't even know where to begin.

My expectations for the BB King/Buddy Guy show last night were very high, which can be dangerous. Going in with high expectations can set you up for disappointment. This time, my expectations were nowhere near high enough.

Let me first say a little about the venue: The Ryman Auditorium. Even though I spent my first 15 years living in Nashville, I had never been inside the Ryman. Just being inside the place is an experience. When you look on the walls and see the autographed concert posters of all the people who have performed there, just in recent years it's an impressive list: Springsteen, Van Morrison, The Pretenders, etc. That's not to mention all the country music stars that roll through there on a regular basis.

A talk with one of the security guards gave me a little history of the place. It was built in 1892, and was originally a church. The concert seating is the original pews. They have been refinished, but otherwise completely original. That was pretty amazing to me. There are no bad seats anywhere in the place. It only holds around 2000, so even if you are at the back you are still pretty close. The acoustics are incredible. If you ever get a chance to see a show there I highly recommend it. Just a cool place to see a show.


Now about the show itself. One of the coolest things about this show to me was that it showcased two different styles of blues. Buddy Guy played more of the raw, gritty, what I would call Texas Blues. BB's style of blues is much more polished, but no less powerful. What gave BB's music that polish for me was his killer horn section, those guys were incredible. So, Buddy started the show off, and showed the energy and chops of someone half of his 72 years. He ripped through classic blues standards and some of his new stuff, and it was all mind-blowing. For me what was the most memorable part of his set was a cover of Muddy Waters' Hoochie Coochie Man. You can't beat that with a stick.


If I had only gotten to hear Buddy it would have been worth the price of admission without a doubt, but it just got better. BB King is blues. Nobody does it like him. Stevie Ray Vaughan once said something to the effect that he could play the baddest solo in the world, and BB could play one note and have him beat. BB's set was unique. He didn't just go through the songs like all the other concerts I've been to. He wove them into stories that he would tell about how things were when he was young, or how to treat your lady. It was like sitting in your living room listening to your grandaddy tell you stories...If your grandaddy was a legendary guitar player. BB may have lost a step in terms of vocal range, but his playing is still right on. When he hit the opening riff of The Thrill Is Gone I got chills. That was the highlight of the night for me.


Watching these two legends play was an unbelieveable experience. It was watching living history. These guys shaped blues music, and influenced, countless other artists from numerous other genres. Seeing them you realize how bubblegum, and vanilla most of today's music really is. I said most, not all. When I think of what the future of blues music (or music in general) will be when these guys are gone, I guess I have to ask the same question Buddy asked to start off the night.



Who's gonna fill those shoes?