Short Story Series: Chapter 1-The boy

The boy sat with his hands under his legs as the red splash of blood warmed his face. It smelt as always of hot metal, the small bit that got on his lips tasted as always of thick salt. He stared with cold black eyes as the man was beaten by the others, he didn’t mind as much today for the cold was more harsh than usual. They found the man while out on their most recent hunt. He had been cooking for an old woman in a single story shack two miles south. As always, they took them, but she had died on the way. The man coughed up blood with a familiar gurgling sound as the Wilds smashed his front teeth in with a piece of scrap metal. The boy cringed still at the crunching sounds. He minded less, it was more reflexive, like nails scrapping against a grainy surface. The Wilds would keep at it for hours, until the man stopped breathing or passed out. Then they would eat what they could and toss the rest. The boy hated the taste of it, but he was hungry, so hungry and the meat so warm. He was given the bones, the scraps left by the older Wilds, he was the youngest, the newest and least liked. His mother had been found on a hunt, had been taken while pregnant. His father, if alive would have been killed. If the boy had been a girl, he too would have been killed. Wilds had no need for women, aside from the initial encounter, he knew his mother had been raped before she was killed, he had some small memory. She had been allowed to live for a short time as a healer of sorts, but eventually upon refusal, the Wilds took what they wanted and killed her too. The boy thought he could still remember her face, but he was so young. He too was beaten as a child, forced on hunts when barely able to walk and left behind a number of times, but he always found his way back. He never thought to leave, he hated the cold. Hated the snow, hated the hunger, hated them.

The boy would be allowed to live because he would become a Wild one day, would help hunt, would kill, would fight. If he had not been an infant, he would have been killed most likely. He had never seen another child, wasn’t sure that there were any at all. Mostly the hunts found old men and women too weak to travel out of the mountains. The Wilds had been there forever the boy assumed. When he came to naming age, he too would be there forever. Forever in the cold, forever hunting and taking what he could from others; at least he was alive. Tomorrow there would be another hunt, as there was every day, the chances of finding anything were slim, there seemed to be less and less activity in the past months, perhaps there were less people now. He didn’t know where they came from, assumed they were seeking refuge from the south, from the desert. He didn’t know why, Wilds were short on words and even shorter with him. He did overhear two younger Wilds, both without wrinkles, talking about how this was supposed to be a refuge of sorts before. He assumed people thought this a place of safety, from what he did not know. It was not.

The camp consisted of five large huts and twenty or so Wilds including the boy. Most were grey and wrinkled but able bodied. When they got too old, they were killed but not eaten, the boy had seen this twice, once when he was still unable to speak and once recently. They were always slashed across the neck, bled out into a pan and burned. The blood was then spread across the camp. The result was a ring of red in the white snow which blanketed the landscape. It was a good death. He sometimes wished he were the old ones. Would not be eaten. Would not be cold. The boy had never seen land without snow, he knew of its existence only though knowledge of the desert. He wished he could see this land without water, this hot land. He knew he never would.

 The boy slept in the Wild Leader’s tent. For fear he assumed that he would be killed before being able to contribute. This man was by far the largest Wild, grey but not wrinkled. He had always been Leader, once the boy had seen him contested. Another large man, a young man. He had challenged the Leader before a meal demanding a larger share for having found the meat. The Leader had simply placed his shard of metal, sharpened on both sides with a small leather grip at the end of the three foot shaft, on the table as the younger man approached at speed. Still sitting on the ground, the Leader caught the younger man’s wrist as he thrust downward with his own metal shard toward the Leader’s skull. He swept the younger man’s legs while holding his wrist and mounted the fallen boy. Slowly he lowered the shard to the boy’s throat while being punched in the head by the boy’s free hand. Smiling, the Leader slowly pushed the shard through the boys neck, halting momentarily to cut though the bone and finally removing his head. Lifting the head above his mouth, the leader drank the falling blood for what seemed like several minutes. There had been no challenge since.

 The boy was awakened by a sharp pain in his side. The next youngest wild, a man with black hair pulled back and tied in a tail and a nose as sharp as his shard, was kicking him repeatedly. The body rolled forward to avoid the next kick but the sharp nosed man caught him with a fist in the back of his head causing the boy to see black for a second. The next second the boy dove at his attackers knees headfirst. The attacker fell backwards out of shock, the boy rarely fought back. Having knocked the man over, the boy pounced up like one of the wolves and bit down at the man’s exposed hand. He bit as hard as he could and drew blood as his teeth his the hard bone of the man’s thumb. Yelping the man threw the boy, who was a good two feet shorter into a nearby pole which supported the tent. The structure shook drawing a frightened look from the attacker as he feared the Leader’s entrance. “Time for the hunt,” he said exiting the tent. This method of awakening was common and the boy grabbed his gear together with a grin on his face, knowing he had won a small victory this morning.

YouTube Video Game Commentary

Recently I have been consumed by this section of the YouTubeverse. Occasionally it can be as fun to watch a video game as it is to play. Having grown up wholly steeped in video game culture, playing games since before I can remember and playing almost every day of my life, having this outlet to watch has been a real joy. I'm used to playing with friends over the webs but as we all get on in years, it seems less and less likely that gaming together with old pals can continue. For me there is something extremely entertaining about watching someone play a game and hearing them talk about the experience. It's similar to being in the same room as your buddy watching them play as you listen to them occasionally freak out and do generally strange things as they stare and talk at the screen. I'm talking specifically here about the "let's play" videos where a commentator goes through a game while narrating the experience. Typing it out I'm aware of how lame it sounds to watch someone play a game instead of just playing it yourself, but there is something oddly intimate about the experience, you almost feel like you are playing with this total stranger, and that to me is the real draw to the genre of videos. Basically my opinion is if you are a nerd, love video games and don't have witty friends to play with on your own, these commentators and channels are amazing. Here is a list of my three favorite YouTube commentators and why I love them so dearly.

Seananners- Guy (Adam) just makes me chuckle. He has a real lighthearted approach to commentary which I love, and when you hear/watch him play you can't help but remember that childhood glee we've all experienced at some point playing with friends online or playing your favorite game. He's got over 400 videos and most recently plays Chivalry, Trouble in Terrorist Town, and The Hidden. Adam started with CoD commentary which grew into some unique pseudo philosophical introspection about life and other topics which are insightful and worth a listen, usually most of the recent CoD videos contain this type on non game related commentary. By far my favorite channel in this genre, give it a look.

Uberhaxnova- Or Nova, just started watching his channel recently, specifically to watch his Happy Wheels series in which you experience uncontrollable chuckling at his complete and utter failure to play this game. He also plays tons of Minecraft, newer games like Chivalry, and shitty or hard games where he plays until rage quitting. I find his videos pretty entertaining especially when he starts heartily laughing at his own failure. Another perk of his channel is that you almost certainly will never run out of content as he has over 3,000 uploaded videos...waat. 

Dunkey- Possibly clinically insane, definitely hilarious (in small doses). Dunkey makes LoL videos, plays games with absurd commentary and develops catch phrases on the regular...Not even close baby! While his LoL videos may be what he's most known for, I personally love his playthroughs of older games like Mario 64 and most recently Megaman. He'll toss in a new game commentary like Dishonored, but all these videos share the same borderline psychopathic commentary that make Dunkey so damn endearing. Here's my personal favorite video which encapsulates his style.   

Bellflower: Dude, your Lord Humongous, dude you are fucking Lord Humongous, You Are Lord FUCKING HUMONGOUS

Welp, I watched Bellflower a couple times this past week. First off I love this movie, It's one of those films you feel is made specifically for you and that's a rare thing for me at least, I've really only felt this way about another indie flick called Box Elder, but for completely different reasons. This low budget film set in present day California is Actor/Director/Writer Evan Glodell's debut movie and it kicks ass. IMDB's synopsis states, "Two friends spend all their free time building flame-throwers and weapons of mass destruction in hopes that a global apocalypse will occur and clear the runway for their imaginary gang "Mother Medusa"." But, that's not really what this film is about or really what happens in it. This is a love story at its core. It's about first love, about meeting someone special and having this person morph the world in which you once lived. The story starts with, yes, two 20 some odd year "bros" blowing shit up and building a flamethrower out in some desolated CA location. Seemingly their only ambition is to go out get shit faced, then work on their post-apocalyptic gear, together.

Much of this story is a "love" story between these two characters, the seemingly blunt, honest, kind Woodrow and his overly verbose, outlandishly forward but altogether likable friend Aiden. They are lifelong friends having come up with the idea for building this flamethrower from watching a VHS recording of Mad Max too many times as kids and warping their minds as such. Later this same ambition leads them to building a car, a fucking sweet car called Medusa. This seemingly impenetrable relationship is threatened by the addition of an "honorary Medusa" in Milly. The story always seems to come back to these two friends and their unconditional love for one another.

Now for the first love aspect, where Milly enters Woodrow's life and completely distorts it both metaphorically and later physically. I don't want to spoil the movie so I will leave it at the fact that things begin spiraling out of control for all these characters, fitting in nicely to the post-apocalyptic backdrop of the whole story. The ending to this tale is something I have thought much about, something that is very ambiguous and in my opinion the strongest, most successfully ambitious aspect to the tale. At some point the narrator becomes somewhat unreliable in his narration and it is up to the viewer to put together what's being seen. I'm not even sure I understand what was really intended by Glodell, but I like what I came to the conclusion of nonetheless.

For me what made this movie transcend good and become great in my mind was the unique visual style and the soundtrack along with the honest albeit not great acting from all involved, particularly Tyler Dawson who plays Aiden. The visual style is something that just has to be experienced, Glodell built his own cameras to achieve a particular look, a look that is certainly unique in its grittiness and the whole film felt to me as though it was taking place somewhere slightly off, adding to the questionable series of events that dominate my memory of this film. The soundtrack is great, Ratatat and Santigold, you really can't beat it.

As a final note, I will leave my favorite scene from the film, this provides a great sample for the totality of the experience with Aiden narrating this movie's machismo and delusion perfectly. Lord Humongous. And yes there are things to not like about the movie such as the role women play in the film, and the characters generally disparaging actions toward them not to mention many practicalities that are overlooked such as where any money is coming from or why some characters behave as they do. These criticisms are dwarfed by the experience itself and how much fun I had watching every scene.

Overall, see this movie if you like dark indie films where dudes blow shit up and love Mad Max.

Hi, My Name is Matt

Let me paint you a quick picture. I'm a 20 something guy with too many interests and no real world skills. I'm a recent Master's grad finding it hard to settle into a career, a new place to live (Seattle), and generally being rather confused about life and such. I want to start this blog as a way of chronicling my search for a passion and really just to have a place to be weird and express myself. I'm sure I am not alone in my disillusionment with post education realities that follow graduation. You always hear the phrases, "Do what you love" and "Choose a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life". If only it were that simple internet quotes! I have a real fear of never finding what I truly love to do and chose a relatively practical major for grad school which has set me down a boring path I may never break free from. But I am a strong proponent of making the best of any situation, and really most things are about how you choose to perceive things. I am beginning to feel hopeless in my pursuit of a career, of a path to follow for the rest of my life, and think this could be that proactive outlet to help me through the process. It's basically my way of looking at who I am and what I like to do in a positive light.

So, what do I like? Well lots of stuffs. Mainly I find myself unhealthily drawn to various forms of entertainment; Books, Movies, Games...lots of games, Food, Writing, Astronomy. Woahh entertainment, real original...I know. But when i say I like these things, it's really more on the obsession level. I think what I'm going to do is write about recent experiences in these areas, reviews, recommendations  and just general commentary on the things I like to follow and do. Occasionally I might toss in a short story as I feel that may be where my true passion lies, talent notwithstanding.

Just to give a sort of picture of my entertainment palate, here are a few of my new and old favorites:

Books: Kingkiller Chronicles, Dark Tower Series, The Stand, The Road, Blood Meridian, Mistborn, I Am Legend, Song of Ice and Fire (minus the newest one because there is no way in hell I'm waiting 6 years to read the following instillation), Snow Crash, so basically Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Western, Horror, Violent.

Movies: Shit tons, see most new releases and am a Netflix and foreign film addict but most recently, Drive, Bellflower, Raid Redemption, Looper. Some old favorites include, 28 Days Later, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, I Saw the Devil, Descent, Moon, Sushine.

Games: Most recently, Guild Wars 2, Borderlands 2, The Witcher 2, Left for Dead 2, NBA 2k13. Old pals include, WoW, KOTOR, Elder Scrolls, Pokemon (whatever I would play it today if I had a Game Boy), LoL, Red Dead Redemption, so many more.

Food: Love the shit out of Yelp, try to go to places as often as possible and just moved to Seattle, so there's lots to do but so far Pasaeo is my favorite spot. Love beer also so might try to find that perfect IPA at some point depending on how hard SAD hits in the winter.

Writing: I have always been drawn to creative writing, ever since my first English class short story assignment in elementary school where I wrote a story about some sort of zombie apocalypse bordering dangerously close on the Resident Evil franchise premise. Since then I have taken creative writing classes throughout college and they were always my favorite class of the semester. I think i'm drawn to the process of creating a world and seeing how people react to what I give them to read. I would really like to pursue this avenue of creativity and see where it takes me if I take it seriously but fear my prose is lacking and doubt I have a voice yet.

Astronomy: This is really just more of an interest, I will watch anything astro related be it movie, documentary or tv. As a young lad I took great solace in contemplating the universe. As a non-religious person, I feel thinking about the universe, its structure and how beautiful everything is has given me something as close to spiritual as I can imagine.

This is essentially how I see myself and my interests as of today. I hope this space can become something special for me and anyone who shares similar interests and I look forward to adding content as I search for my passion and my niche place in the entertainment universe.