Letter to the Governor re: DMV

Dear Gov. Schwarzenegger:

I recently had to go to my local DMV office, in person, to renew my vehicle registration.

It bears noting that the only reason I had to actually go to the office was because the DMV failed to send me my registration renewal notice, which contains the renewal identification number (RIN) necessary to renew a registration over the phone or online.  Luckily, I caught the mistake, but unfortunately I didn't catch it soon enough to afford me the luxury of making an appointment in advance.

Almost everything about my visit to the DMV was lame:

1) The building is ugly.  It obviously needs a complete makeover.  It has needed one since 1984.

2) It was super crowded, even though it was 10:00am on a weekday.  I barely found a spot in the parking lot.

3) I had to wait in line for over an hour just to get a number.

4) I had to wait again for my number to be called, after I had just waited!

5) The screen that displays what number was most recently called was on the fritz.

6) The woman who helped me was very nice.  But the actual "registration renewal" process took less than two minutes!  I handed her a check and she printed and handed me the new registration.  Two hours in line for a two minute transaction.

I am writing to ask you (or whoever's in charge): WHY DOES THE DMV SUCK SO BAD?  Do you make it miserable on purpose?  What could that purpose possibly be?  Are you not aware of how terrible it is?  Are you somehow shielded from the experience because you have an assistant who waits in line at the DMV for you?  It seems to me that no sensible person in a leadership position (such as yours) would look at the current state of the DMV and say, "Yep, this is fine.  Nothing needs to change here.  This is exactly the way it should be."

Now that you are aware of the situation, here are a few of my suggestions on how to improve it:

1) Make it possible for people to renew their registration online even if they didn't get the stupid renewal notice in the mail.

2) Double the number of DMV offices and employees.  At least do it for Los Angeles, please.  If that doesn't help, triple it.  The democrats will love it because you'll be "creating jobs."  Raise the tax on gasoline by 1/10th of a cent per gallon to pay for it.  People will thank you for rounding all of the gas prices up to the nearest cent.

3) Create some kind of "express line" system so that the wait time has some relationship to the complexity of the appointment.

4) Hire some fancy-schmancy consulting firm to take a hard look at the whole operation, and then do whatever they say.

Finally (and probably the best solution):

5) PRIVATIZE THE DMV - The profit motive provides an incentive for businesses to minimize costs and strive for good customer serivice.  Although this doesn't explain why the lines are always so long at the bank, they're still better than the DMV.

Frankly, I see no good reason why the DMV couldn't be privatized.  I know you'll agree with me that it's a brilliant idea.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Yours,

Matt Duffy
California Motorist

News & Entertainment

So I'm a member of the IGDA's Writers' SIG email list. (That is, an email list for the International [Video] Game Developers Association's Special Interest Group for Writers. It's basically a forum that invades your inbox every day).

Recently, an e-debate has been raging over the validity and relevance of game journalism websites/blogs. One guy thinks they're completely pointless, inane, and badly written; another guy says this is because "The priority of a games journalist, like any other journalist, is to produce something which people want to consume. That’s the harsh reality. News is an entertainment product."

Here's where I had to chime in:

The mentality that "news is merely a form of entertainment and always has been" is not only wrong, it's dangerous on multiple levels.

First, with regard to news: Freedom of information is the single most vital, most basic element of a free society. Real, truthful news is what separates us from the Fascists and the Communists. When journalists (Fox) lose sight of this, they commit a despicable evil.

Second, with regard to art: the notion of separating what's "True" from what's "entertainment" implicitly and unfairly denigrates our profession. Knowledge and wisdom come in many forms. Creative expression is no less important than factual information. A world without art is no better off than a world without news. Both news and entertainment media are (and should be) vehicles for Truth.

The idea that art /entertainment is somehow frivolous, fluff, or a luxury commodity makes me sick. If that's your attitude, please go do something else with your life, because you'll only get in the way while the rest of us are busy creating something meaningful.

Hypthetical Movie Pitch

[Editor's Note: This post is about the Hollywood feature development system. There's an upside and a downside to the pitching gauntlet which most projects have to run: it tends to favor films with a strong central idea or premise, which is good, but it also leaves little to no room for subtlety or complexity.

Sometimes people in Hollywood get to be so powerful, the studios assume their movies will be successful no matter what (which is indeed often the case). Such iconic filmmakers get a creative carte blanche, which also has an upside and a downside. The upside is these artists finally have the freedom to focus on making art instead of selling a successive series of pitches. The downside is that there's no mechanism to check bad ideas.

What follows is a hypothetical pitch for one of those movies. See if you can guess the movie's secret identity!]

SETTING

A major US city past her prime, full of old tenements, bombed-out factories, dark, looming skyscrapers, and stylized Art Deco / Art Nouveau relics. A shadow of her formerly proud self, the depressing, aging city is now practically overrun by post-industrial grime, corruption and lawlessness. Imagine Chicago or, more poetically, Pre-Giuliani "Manhattan below Fourteenth Street at eleven minutes past midnight on the coldest night in November." (--Dennis O'Neil)

THE HERO(ES)

The movie will confuse and baffle the audience by presenting them with two protagonists, one of whom is a red herring, and one of whom has a story arc and is actually well-rounded and interesting.

The title character will be the orphaned heir to a massive fortune who has decided to use his wealth to fight crime. By the beginning of the movie, his vigilantism has already won him the trust of local law enforcement. He wants to fight crime, but what he really needs is… to sacrifice himself for the greater good or something? His need will be unclear.

The true protagonist will be an ambitious DA and up-and-coming politician, a noble and likeable man who apparently wants to leave a legacy and make a name for himself by cleaning up the city, but who needs ideals to believe in and stand for, particularly Justice.

ACT ONE

First, we meet the villain. Hopefully this character will be played by an extremely talented actor so that no one will notice how badly written he is.

The movie will go out of its way to obscure the villain's background and motives. He will simply be portrayed as "crazy," "unpredictable," and "evil," so that nothing he does will need to make any sense. We can start by having him orchestrate a bank robbery and then turn around and kill everyone on his own team.

Throughout the movie, this "wild card" villain will present a device by which the audience's suspension of reason may be extrapolated infinitely outward. Thus, the audience will have no objections when we give the villain a deus ex machina ability to will into being elaborate terrorist plots with apparently no need for planning time, assistance from allies / henchmen, or access to funds and supplies. By further exploiting this "theme" of insane, unpredictable chaos, any laziness on the part of the screenwriters can be passed off as intentional and even brilliant.

Having established this villain, Act One goes on to introduce the title character and the protagonist. They get along right away. After a superfluous, preposterous action bit in which the title character goes to Hong Kong to apprehend a previously local criminal named Lau, the villain launches a terrorist campaign to force the title character to reveal his secret identity. The title character decides to fold like a Frenchman.

ACT TWO

The first half of Act Two will be dominated by a totally awesome action sequence. The setup: the protagonist takes one for the team by publically claiming HE is Spartacus, er, I mean, the title character's sought-after secret identity. What's really going on is the protagonist is using himself as bait to draw the villain out of hiding. Oh, and Commissioner Gordon has to fake his own death for some trumped-up reason. What follows is a super-badass, climactic, spectacular car chase / shootout. The apprehension of the villain, and the revelation that Gordon is still alive, should really goose audience expectations and set the high-water mark for the movie.

Having won the audience over, the writers and producers can go cash their checks and the whole thing can basically fall apart. The villain escapes from police custody by magically retro-engineering an agonizing decision regarding hostages and bombs (another recurring "theme"). In this case, the victims are the protagonist and his girlfriend. Who exactly kidnapped them and stuck them in rooms wired with explosives on opposite sides of the city will never be explained.

The distracted police force and title character panic and rush off, leaving this obviously dangerous psychopath in an unlocked interrogation room, without handcuffs, under the incompetent supervision of a single detective. We won't actually see the villain escape from this room, just some chaos in the main part of the station which he also magically retro-engineers to make his breakout seem slightly more plausible. He breaks Lau out too, along with himself, just for kicks.

Then there will be some big explosions. The protagonist's girlfriend dies and the protagonist is horribly disfigured. Then the villain kills his remaining allies, including the guy he just broke out of prison, for no sensible reason other than to reinforce for the audience how crazy and evil he is.

At this point, the villain will magically retro-engineer another massive terrorist scheme involving tons of explosives. This should have something to do with yet another plot contrivance centered on the title character's secret identity. During the ensuing chaos, the villain confronts the convalescent protagonist. (Note: the protagonist's injuries will be ridiculously cartoonish, in stark contrast to the gritty realism that otherwise characterizes the franchise.) Now robbed of both his want and his need, and because the audience will have no problem accepting that the villain's craziness can somehow rub off onto the protagonist during their brief encounter, the protagonist turns senseless, crazy and evil. He will demonstrate this drastic personality shift by a) displaying no interest in avenging himself and his girlfriend on the villain, and b) replacing his shattered notion of Justice with a coin that he flips to decide whether he kills people or not.

A big, pointless explosion marks the end of this act.

ACT THREE

Act Three opens with another cool action sequence involving yet another terrorist / hostage / bomb situation implausibly orchestrated by the villain.

Although the title character eventually thwarts the villain, the villain's plotline will remain completely unresolved. Ideally, instead of killing him, the title character will leave the villain literally hanging upside-down, presumably to go to jail (again) and break out (again).

At this point, the filmmakers can go, "Ha ha, audience! You thought this movie was about the title character and this villain? Joke's on you! That plotline doesn't even go anywhere!" Then the movie will keep going for like twenty more minutes.

The real protagonist dies a tragic hero, the victim of his own madness, and the title character honors his memory by sacrificing his own reputation (which was highly dubious anyway) and taking all the blame to honor the protagonist's memory and preserve the protagonist's image as a hero for the city -- in this way, the protagonists' wants and needs end up fulfilled!

THE END

[PS - Could you guess what movie it was? That's right, it wasKen Kwapis' Dunston Checks In, starring a chimp as Dunston, Jason Alexander as the villain, and featuring Paul Reubens in a wacky expanded cameo as Commissioner Gordon.]

Lenten Fasting

I recently got into a conversation that found me defending Lenten observance to a fellow Catholic.

Let me back up and clarify what is meant by "Catholic." The way I see it, Catholicism is both a pastime and a paradigm. Unlike some other forms of Christianity (and excepting the case of the convert), you’re born into Catholicism. So in the paradigm sense, either you is or you ain’t. In the pastime sense, I suppose, we need those modifiers like "lapsed" or "raised" or "practicing" to give others some sense of how into the whole deal we are.

I think our culture of indulgence has left little room for religious sacrifice. Americans like the idea of a God of Abundance and Plenty. If God loves us, the reasoning goes, why would He want us to cause ourselves to suffer? What could He possibly get out of it? The very word “sacrifice” conjures images of superstitious, cruel pagan murder rituals of the distant past. This was basically the anti-Lenten argument presented to me the other night: "Jesus doesn’t care if I give something up for Lent."

It seems unlikely to me that every major religion would include elements of sacrifice, fasting, deprivation, etc. unless these experiences had some sort of religious benefit. Now, I’m no theologian, but I present here my own personal take on the subject at this point in my lifelong spiritual journey (there’s that Catholic paradigm again): sacrifice isn’t something you do for God; rather, it’s something you do for yourself in the name of God.

In the case of Lenten observance, this amounts to establishing a reminder of sorts for oneself. I gave up fried food. Now, many times throughout the day, when I would normally have simply eaten something delicious, I must content myself instead with a brief moment of spiritual/religious awareness. The moment of spiritual/religious awareness is possible only because my sacrifice is performed in the name of God. If I were doing it for myself, I’d be dieting. My god would be my own health, or vanity, or self-loathing, or whatever other reason people have for dieting. My moment would be an awareness of my own ego. If I thought that would make me better off, I would do that.

When you discipline your desires, when you deprive yourself of something, it’s often followed by the realization that you don’t even need that thing and can get along perfectly fine without it. As a consequence, what you’re left with in the sacrificed object’s place (i.e., a moment of awareness) calls attention to the substitution and thereby further reinforces your faith in the thing you’re sacrificing for. Sacrifice in the name of the Lord strengthens our faith in Him. Isn’t that what you want?

If so, I wish you all a very solemn Lenten season.

The voice inside your head

Some people hear multiple voices in their heads. Those people are nuts.

But it’s perfectly normal to hear a single voice in your head, right? That’s just your inner monologue.

So how do you know it’s “yours”? Because it sounds like you?

Maybe it has to be yours by definition. Maybe that’s all you really are — a voice. In your own head. But are you not also your body? I suppose you are the sum of many things. You’re a pattern that arises from a number of individual components.

The voice in your head is therefore certainly a part of you. Would you be aware of it, though, if it were somebody else’s voice inside your head? It would still be “you” because it would be one of your several individual components, but it wouldn’t be you in the sense that you had control over it.

So perhaps a better definition of you, the essential you, is your will, the thing that controls the other things. So your body isn't really "you" because your body is subjugated to the control of your mind. The voice in your head, perhaps.

You know in cartoons where there’s a little angel and a little demon that whisper things into the main character’s ear? Maybe they're really onto something. What if you only have partial control over that voice? For example, when you listen to somebody else, aren't you giving control over to that person?

What if angels and demons, God and the Devil, are constantly invading your thoughts with suggestions and messages? Which brings me to this thought: how do you know God isn’t constantly in control of your inner voice? Or the Devil? Or both? What if your inner voice is actually a battlefield, and it’s ALWAYS under control of either God or the Devil? And these two powers are just duking it out inside your brain all the time…

Are you just a spectator? You certainly have a dog in this fight. So choose a side! The war in your brain will never end. This is the nature of all existence. Draw your sword and enter the fray.

Albums Of The Decade, 2000 - 2009

What a great decade for music! Below I present my “Albums of the Decade.” These aren’t necessarily the “best” or the “greatest” albums, but MY albums -- the albums that, for whatever reason, I ended up getting into the most.

In order to avoid repeating bands and artists, I have only ranked my favorite album for each act, and have listed other albums that probably would have made the list under a "See also:" section. I also threw album covers and blurbs for the top 20.

Happy New Year and may the next decade be even greater!

MATT DUFFY’S ALBUMS OF THE DECADE
2000 - 2009

50. HOT CHIP - Made In The Dark

49. FLEET FOXES – Fleet Foxes

48. SERVICIO DE LAVANDERÍA - Shakira

47. GIVE UP - Postal Service

46. JUSTIFIED - Justin Timberlake

45. LOVE AND THEFT - Bob Dylan

44. IN THE ZONE - Britney Spears

43. ¡SONIDO AMAZONICO! - Chicha Libre

42. SPIDERMAN OF THE RINGS - Dan Deacon

41. DISCOVERY - Daft Punk

40. RADIO BEMBA SOUND SYSTEM - Manu Chao
39. FLYING CLUB CUP - Beirut

38. BLACK HOLES & REVELATIONS - Muse

37. COME AWAY WITH ME - Nora Jones

36. MERRYWEATHER POST PAVILION - Animal Collective
(See also: FEELS)

35. LET GO - Avril Lavigne

34. I AM NOT AFRAID OF YOU AND I WILL BEAT YOUR ASS - Yo La Tengo
33. SMILE - Brian Wilson

32. RAISING SAND - Robert Plant and Alison Krauss

31. GREEN ALBUM - Weezer

30. VAMPIRE WEEKEND 29. BLACKLISTED - Neko Case
28. UNCLASSIFIED - Robert Randolph & The Family Band
27. SOULJACKER - Eels
26. CHANGING HORSES - Ben Kweller
(See also: ON MY WAY)

25. PERMISSION TO LAND - The Darkness

24. LOOK INTO THE EYEBALL - David Byrne
(See also: EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS WILL HAPPEN TODAY, GROWN BACKWARDS)

23. THE FORGOTTEN ARM - Aimee Mann
(See also: LOST IN SPACE, BACHELOR No. 2)

22. CHUTES TOO NARROW - Shins
(See also: O, INVERTED WORLD!)

21. SPEAKERBOXXX / THE LOVE BELOW - Outkast
(See also: STANKONIA)


20. YOSHIMI BATTLES THE PINK ROBOTS - The Flaming Lips (2002)
Close your eyes and try to remember how much this album blew your mind the first time you heard it.
(See also: FIGHT TEST EP, AT WAR WITH THE MYSTICS)


19. VOLUME ONE - She & Him (2008)
I generally hate actress-turned-singer albums, but this one really works. By the way, M. Ward is obviously completely in love with her.


18. REAL EMOTIONAL TRASH - Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks (2008)
I was never a huge Pavement fan, so the fact that this album grew on me so much caught me off guard.


17. ELEPHANT - The White Stripes (2003)
Those White Stripes albums are all basically the same, but this one has “Ball And A Biscuit.” Cheers, White Stripes. Couldn’t have done the decade without you!
(See also: DE STIJL, WHITE BLOOD CELLS, GET BEHIND ME SATAN)


16. FUNERAL - Arcade Fire (2004)
The album that saved rock music... again. Poor, pathetic rock. All hype surrounding this band was well-deserved, and they delivered on it with Neon Bible a few years later -- also, a great album. Crank up the volume on “Intervention” and I promise you will see God.
(See also: NEON BIBLE)


15. THE WIND - Warren Zevon (2003)
It’s real heavy, but at least he went out with his strongest work since Mr. Bad Example. R.I.P. (See also: LIFE’LL KILL YA, MY RIDE’S HERE)


14. I - Magnetic Fields (2004)
I think of it as the fourth volume of 69 Love Songs. I cried the first time I heard “I Don’t Love You Any More.” That guy Merritt can really write!
(See also: DISTORTION)


13. IS THIS IT? - The Strokes (2001)
I think we can all agree it was a great album. The other two were more of the same -- so, if you liked Is This It?, logic dictates you like the others also.
(See also: ROOM ON FIRE, FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF EARTH)


12. SEA CHANGE - Beck (2002)
Good-old, sentimental, Mutations-style Beck. Information (real drums!) is great, too -- a very close second. The other albums from this decade were pretty standard Beck fare... Güero has some good tunes.
(See also: THE INFORMATION, GÜERO)


11. HAS BEEN - William Shatner and Ben Folds (2004)
I can’t lie -- I love this album and listened to it many times in the last decade. What a tragedy that the predominantly non-autistic CD-buying audience dismissed it as a cult/novelty follow-up to Transformed Man (but who could blame them?). Shatner is poignant, fiery, vulnerable, hilarious, and beautifully complemented by Ben Folds’ musical arrangements and an all-star cast of guest vocalists.


10. A GHOST IS BORN - Wilco (2004)
Few bands ever achieve the cohesion required to produce the living studio alchemy heard here: a sonic journey through corny piano riffs, murky forests of noise, and some truly righteous jams. Tweedy channels John Lennon in his songwriting and vocals... his guitar is wild and otherworldly. Sky Blue Sky is probably the better album, but the raw personality of Ghost Is Born appeals to me more.
(See also: SKY BLUE SKY, YANKEE HOTEL FOXTROT)


9. ALL THAT YOU CAN’T LEAVE BEHIND - U2 (2000)
Credit U2 for doing their best imitation of themselves here. Don’t call it a comeback. It’s just Joshua Tree II, and let the ‘90s be stricken from the record. So what if they gave up on experimentation and growth? The songs are over-the-top, broad, sweeping, anthemic and cheesy. This from any other band would be intolerable, but because they’re U2, they pull it off.
(See also: NO LINE ON THE HORIZON, HOW TO DISMANTLE AN ATOMIC BOMB)


8. FROM A BASEMENT ON THE HILL - Elliott Smith (2004)
I had to have Elliott Smith on the list. And I like Figure 8 as much as the next guy -- but, man, it sure is wussy. Basement On A Hill, on the other hand, is edgy, crunchy, and much more fun to listen to. Ironically, it might never have sounded like it does if E.S. had lived to see its release. R.I.P.
(See also: FIGURE 8, NEW MOON)


7. THE EMINEM SHOW - Eminem (2002)
Undoubtedly one of the greatest lyrical geniuses of our time, this was my personal favorite of the great three-album oeuvre which also includes Slim Shady and Marshall Mathers.
(See also: THE MARSHALL MATHERS LP, ENCORE)


6. THE HAZARDS OF LOVE - The Decemberists (2009)
Musically, it’s a hard-hitting ‘70s throwback prog epic that opens all the stops. Then there’s the plot... sure, maybe the supernatural/tragic/Victorian theme doesn’t appeal to everybody -- but how many other supernatural/tragic/Victorian folk operas are there?
(See also: THE CRANE WIFE, PICARESQUE, CASTAWAYS & CUTOUTS)


5. ASTRONOMY FOR DOGS - The Aliens (2007)
A classic-rock tribute with a modern psychedelic twist, by the reincarnated Beta Band. The jams are homeruns, the slower bits brim with heart and soul, and everything flows together. So what if it runs a little long? “I am a robot man...”
(See also: LUNA)


4. ROCKIN’ THE SUBURBS – Ben Folds (2001)
I was shocked that this album didn’t make it onto more (read: all) of the mainstream “Top Album” lists. The production is intricate and flawless. Every song is a gem, even if Folds’ songwriting is real sappy at times. Still... I never get tired of listening to it.
(See also: BEN FOLDS LIVE, SONGS FOR SILVERMAN)


3. ALL THE ROADRUNNING - Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris (2006)
In Jim Chidley’s words, “The two sweetest sounds in the world are Knopfler’s guitar and Emmylou Harris’ voice.” I bet the songs would still be great even in the hands of complete hacks. Extra points for many fine solo albums by both artists, esp. Knopfler’s Shangri-La.
(See also: REAL LIVE ROADRUNNING) (See also: Knopfler: SHANGRI-LA, THE RAGPICKER’S DREAM, KILL TO GET CRIMSON, SAILING TO PHILADELPHIA, GET LUCKY) (See also: Harris: RED DIRT GIRL, STUMBLE INTO GRACE)


2. Radiohead albums, in this order: AMNESIAC, HAIL TO THE THIEF, KID A, IN RAINBOWS
Hail To The Thief is the best one, but Amnesiac meant more to me personally. The reasoning behind my unorthodoxed ranking of these albums is fodder for another post, perhaps.


1. KEEP IT TOGETHER - Guster (2003)
A true masterpiece pop album. Every song is brilliant. The structure and flow of the album are perfect. The band is at the peak of their talents: writing-wise, performance-wise and production-wise. And you can sing along to the whole thing! Full marks in all categories. Congrats for being number one, Guster!
(See also: GANGING UP ON THE SUN)

Venom on The Fray for their "Heartless" cover

I'm not a die-hard Kanye devotee -- to me, he's always been one of those artists that I'm willing to extend the benefit of the doubt, somebody on my Musical To-Do list who I imagine is probably talented enough to justify acquiring an appreciation for one of these days.

I had about as much exposure to the song "Heartless" as anybody else. Not such a bad song, right? It's not like I worship "Heartless" and get all giddy whenever it comes on. Just another one of the R&B singles you recognize.

Then I hear this on the radio:

WTF? Why does this exist? Who was sitting around and thought, "You know what the world needs? A shitty, smarmy, whimpy, extra-vanilla cover version of that one Kanye song." The Fray, apparently, is who. Apparently they're from Denver also, which compounds my venom with shame.

What audience out there would be glad that this exists? If you love the original, it's a disgrace. If you're indifferent to the original, it's irrelevant. If you hate the original, it's completely unneccesary.

Venom on you, The Fray. Maximum venom.