Победа для России-матушки!

I just started this blog two weeks ago and in those two weeks I have had nearly 1,000 page views. That's roughly 70 views a day! Whoot! What's interesting is where these views are coming from.

Naturally the US is #1 because most of my friends are American. But out of nowhere, Russia takes #2 with 63 views! That's pretty incredible, especially considering that I don't know any Russians, don't speak Russian, and otherwise have no connection to Russia, aside from thinking that it's a really cool country. If you are one of the Russians who found my blog, why did you come here? Why do you keep coming back? Are you interested in writing or have a story to tell? I am really curious why you came here. Drop a comment! (and a translation if needed!)

Canada's in third. Hurray Canadians!

Vive la France, #4!

Likewise, #4 Ukraine. Again, I don't know any Ukrainians, never been to Ukraine, don't speak Ukrainian...so why are you here? Any writing, fighting Ukrainians out there? Drop a comment!

Thanks so much for coming to my blog, I will keep updating with more awesome content, update on new stories I am publishing! Thanks for the support, it means a lot to me! And if you feel like connecting with a fellow writer or just another adventurer in this life, leave a comment below!

Gary, Classy as a Sir

Here is a list of me from my least classy to most:

1/10. Grew a beard off a dare, at a tennis tournament's that's 100 degrees Farenheit and near 100% humidity.

2/10, being dragged out of bed to a Halloween party.

3/10 An inopportune moment catches me at my craziest. 

4/10 The beginning of my beard dare.

5/10. Climbing mountains.

6/10. Overlooking Caerphilly castle.

7/10. Graduating.

8/10. Wearing a beret in Paris.

9/10. Look at this international man of mystery.

10/10. My sister and I being Distinctive as hell.

Where Authors Have Been

It's always great to go to fascinating sites where great authors have been. I've been fortunate enough in my life to go to a few of these places.

One of, if not my favorite novel of all time, is The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. One of Dumas' great novels, it's a classic about Edmond, an innocent man who is thrown in prison by his best friend who has betrayed him to steal his fiancee. After seven years on this island prison just south of Marseille, Edmond escapes, finds a hidden treasure, and slowly plots his revenge against those who have wronged him. It's one of the all-time great book, and the Chateau is worth a visit if you are in the Marseille area.

                                                        The main prison
   

     
Marseille across the bay. The water is cold enough that it will kill a man before he reaches the city, and there are rocks you could be crushed against if the tide is high.


Bath is a pretty idyllic place. In England there's pretty much four cities (that I've found): Multicultural metropolises, small historic cities, quaint middle-of-nowhere towns, and Bath. Big cities in the UK like London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff and others are a hodgepodge of world cultures, the small historic cities are pretty touristy and have a McDonalds or at least a few UK chains (Tesco or The Slug and Lettuce), then there are the much-filmed, much-loved rural towns with a bunch of smiling, salt-of-the-earth people living in the boonies. Bath is one of the few places that has managed to retain a uniquely English culture. It isn't all genuine as there is a lot of touristy stuff, but it's not really tourism that sells Bath. Bath is the center of the Anglophile cult. Everything Victorian English is celebrated here, houses in the circuses (crescent-shaped 19th century apartments) are pristine, and despite appealing to tourists, it does manage to maintain its beauty.

Charles Dickens frequently visited Bath, and Jane Austen moved there when she was young. Though Jane apparently fainted when she heard her family was moving to Bath, her novels almost exclusively take place in an idyllic Victorian Britain, which has been lost everywhere throughout the UK except here.

The largest Circus.

The old Roman bath complex used by English aristocrats a hundred years ago.

Ireland is world famous for its writers, producing an astounding number of great writers. At the heart of Ireland's literature scene is Dublin.

I managed to see Oscar Wilde's house while I was there. Below is the park where he would walk in, which has a statue of him.

Perhaps the most famous Irish writer is James Joyce of Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake fame. I can just imagine him walking across the canals to his favorite pub.

Or visiting the famous Christchurch.

It's a treat to be in places that inspired previous writers to great works. It's inspiring just to be there, though I find that magic is a finite thing. Once a McDonald's is built next to it, it dissipates, but if you can find some obscure place you just might find something incredible.

Okay I Lied!

So it looks like I won't be able to post every day while I am on vacation in Canada. But I am having an awesome time and will be posting some great new content! Hanging out with super-cool friends and generally relaxing has been awesome, and Toronto is definitely in my top 3 favorite cities. If I had to rank them it would probably be:

1) London

2) Berkely/Oakland/San Francisco

3) Toronto

4) Paris
(My camera died when I was there, IN NAPOLEON'S TOMB! Oh well)

Off to Canada!

Hey everyone, I am off to Canada for 2 weeks! I fly out to Toronto to see some friends, then I take trains from Toronto to Vancouver. 2,100 miles, 3,400 kilometers across the Great Lakes, through the Rockies and out onto the Pacific coast. I'll try to keep updating this blog, but some days I will spend literally all day in trains. Expect epic pictures.

Office Shenanigans

The best way I know to survive office life: don't take it too seriously.

Someone stole my horse mug for a couple of days. I sent out a mass e-mail to try to find it. In the interim, a co-worker made me another horse cup.

                            I caught the thief and got my mug back! Now I have two horse mugs.

                                 My friend has a Batman action figure at her desk. I got bored.

Magical Travel Places #2

In Montpellier there is a giant rock near the train station with pipes cut inside it. It creates a slowly dripping fountain that's grown a heavy layer of moss. Winter 2012-13 was especially cold and the fountain froze.

                                                Also, the most rocking glasses shop in Bern.

Graffiti Around the World

Some of my favorite graffiti from my travels.

So cute! A cat from Toulouse.

From Toulouse as well.The French are so cultured. You can really tell they appreciate art. Also, the tagline on the top reads: "They came from Ireland, now they've conquered the planet," which sounds like the opening to a 1950s alien invasion movie. But with gingers, so even scarier...

Belfast. Some graffiti is definitely art.

I actually found these everywhere in Europe. If you keep your eyes open there are little alien graffiti everywhere.

             (I cheated a bit. I took a photo of this when I was in Rome, but couldn't find it, so I grabbed this from GoogleImages)
In Rome. Nobody really liked Pope Benedict, and would much rather have had Godzilla holding a balloon rule over them.

     I like to note the graffiti from different societies because it tells you more about them than what's on the surface. There's something great about taking time out from the touristy areas and museums and just walking the streets. You find incredible things.

Why I Love Anime

One of my all-time favorite video games is Wild Arms 2 for the Playstation. Most of you have probably never heard of it. It's a Japanese RPG which had an under the radar release in the US. Unfortunately, it had a low budget, and it came out for the Playstation at a time when the Playstation 2 debuted and Square Enix was looking to shock the gaming world with its graphic potential.

                       Wild Arms 2    vs    Final Fantasy X's pre-rendered animations

     Of course Wild Arms 2 got its butt handed to it by Final Fantasy X. FFX was as close to real life as anyone had ever seen at the time, and in WA2 you could see the individual pixels. But what it lacked in budget it made up for in heart. The gameplay was solid and creative, the soundtrack was beautiful and the story was nothing short of awesome.

     The story: a blue-haired boy named Ashley signs up to be a monster hunter when he is possessed by the lord of all darkness and evil. Brad is a war veteran turned wanted man with a robotic arm and a dog collar set to explode if he ever disobeys his orders. Lilka is a young sorceress that can alter reality. Tim is a fourteen year old pretty-boy who controls the Gods like pets on a leash. Kanon is an assassin whose body was ripped apart by monsters as a child and replaced by cybernetic parts. Marivel is a millenia old vampire that lives on a private island making giant robots. These six characters travel around the world on their giant robot dragon fighting magical terrorists and thwarting two reptilian thieves named 'Liz' and 'Ard.' 

     ...So, it's all you'd expect from a JRPG/anime. Complicated plot, kawaii girls in mini-skirts that control the universe, all that good stuff. But what makes this ridiculous plot work is the reason why I love anime: it plays it off completely seriously. Western media, namely Hollywood, almost acts like its ashamed of its own stories, to the point where nearly every movie, TV show, has to be wrapped in a layer of irony. Especially with the recent rise of bad movies with cult followings like The Room and Birdemic, Hollywood movies have been increasingly making movies that make fun of themselves. Anyone remember Jennifer's Body?

     Its not a surprise that this movie bombed. Aside from the fact that it is bad, here's a film that is supposedly a horror film, but then spends its entire trailer marketing itself as a godawful B-movie. Why? Because it was released around the same time that the 'bad movie' cult in America became huge, and this movie was trying to appeal to horror fans who thought they might like it, while at the same time appealing to the ever-growing market of cynical Millenials who go to movies to make fun of how much they suck.

     But Jennifer's Body is low-hanging fruit. What about the Marvel movies? I love superheros; alongside JRPGs, Anime and Fantasy novels they are pretty much my favorite thing. But I am starting to get sick of the Marvel movies because they are practically all the same. What separates them from their DC counterparts, it seems, is that Marvel is constantly making fun of itself. Characters like the Hulk mis-states his own catchphrase, Thor constantly gets run over by a minivan, and Tony Stark, Starlord and Black Widow are constantly firing off one-liners like they're trying out for The Tonight Show. Why? Well in part because a lot of Western media changes hands. Most films you see actually started out with an original script pitched to a studio; that's where you have the auteur writers with bold, clear ideas for movies. Then once it gets greenlit by producers they bring on other writers who 'fix it.' Then in post-production it gets handed off to 'punch-up' writers who write throwaway jokes. Have you ever watched a cartoon or film where off-screen characters yell jokes out of nowhere? That's punch-up, and even the great Patton Oswalt used to do it for easy money.

     By the time Western films get through this meat-grinder they end up being the bland, generic Hollywood things we all expect. Furthermore, so many Western films mock their own premise within the movie, in large part because the savvy, hip, established writers whose profession it is to take original ideas and turn then into something sleek and marketable very often do so by turning on their own premise and making fun of it. Western video games don't seem to be as bad, but because of Hollywood and other reasons, the US is a cynical culture and our media reflects it very heavily.

     Don't get me wrong, self-deprecation is great, and the Marvel characters can all be funny. But does everything in Western society have to be wrapped in a protective layer of irony? Does everything have to make fun of itself and point out how you can't take it too seriously because its afraid that the extremely bitter, jaded Millennial generation might hate it for trying and failing to be good while meanwhile hipsters flock to terrible things like Twilight, The Room and Fifty Shades of Grey? 

     The great thing about anime is that it seems to have a child-like optimism to it, even when dealing with serious subject matter. Eastern culture doesn't seem to be afraid to be what it is, and doesn't apologize for trying something ambitious. Of course, this means 90% of anime sucks because it isn't grounded in reality, and very often the auteur writers get to dictate the story lines (Akira Toriyama was with Dragonball all the way through GT and was able to have a large voice the whole time), while meanwhile the savvy Hollywood 'script-fixers' writers are mostly absent. But the 10% of ambitious animes that actually work like Ghost in the Shell, Fullmetal Alchemist, Samurai Champloo and Baccano! deserve to be put up next to Breaking Bad, Boardwalk Empire and The Wire. 

     What makes Wild Arms 2 work as a story is that even though the premise seems ridiculous, all the characters are so fleshed out that everything makes sense and has a reason to it. The reason the vampire Marivel lives alone on an island making giant robots is because she has lived for a thousand years, watching everyone she loved die. Grief-stricken, she lives alone away from all people. But of course, no one can be alone forever, so she starts developing robots to interact with. Hence, vampire Tony Stark.

  

     I could go on with each character; needless to say, they are all heavily developed, even Liz and Ard. Everyone has a backstory, everything is explained. Starting out, the game seems ridiculous, but as you learn more of the story and it 'pans out' you get to see that everything is connected in an intricate design. In this way, it's like Game of Thrones. In GOT there's resurrecting warriors, frozen zombies, killer shadows, and yet bitter, jaded American critics still treat it as a great human drama because every character is fleshed out and has real goals, dreams and ambitions.

     I was inspired by Wild Arms 2's bold story-telling and anime's like it. Irony is one of life's gems, and self-awareness can be great. But I'm sick of the cynicism that seems to taint so much of Western media. Japanese culture might be crazy at times, but it has a beautiful charm to it. Wild Arms 2 has an incredible story to it and its crazy enough to pursue it without apology. 

    Wild Arms 3 and 4 had the same crazy level of self-belief, and unfortunately they sucked. So self-confidence and lack of self-criticism has its downsides, and maybe Japanese shows/video games aren't as consistently good as Western ones, but I'd rather have two failures and a masterpiece than a handful of halfway decent products that were too afraid to try to be great. 

Rotary

Anyone want a FREE!, artistic, relaxing Android game? Did I mention it was free? And it's FREE! My digital artist friend took over 50 photos and put them together in a game called Rotary. You rotate the rings of the image to put it together. It has really cool photos, great music, it's relaxing, and it's in: English, francais, espagnol y italiano!





One of my photos in the game:

Check it out!

Game Day!

Some sporting events I attended around the world.

A University of Oregon Game:

Yay cheerleaders!

A football (er, soccer) game in Montpellier.

The fans were waving banners, beating drums, chanting and lighting flares in the stands. This is what happens when you don't distract people with cheerleaders!

 

A tennis tournament at Indian Wells, California.

Andy Murray.

Novak preparing to slam a ball.

Sharapova on the big screen.

A rugby game in Montpellier.

 The huddle.

It was 38 for Montpellier Herault, 6 for Paris St. Germain. By the end of the game the fans were chanting "Où sont les Parisiens" (Where are the Parisians?) because they sure didn't show up.

Cincinnati Masters tennis tournament women's finals getting rained out:

Soderling for the ladies:

Rafa