Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Open letter to the Editor of Entertainment Weekly
Dear Editor,
Please cancel my subscription.
I have written countless unanswered letters to Entertainment Weekly begging for you to stop being the sole marketing vehicle behind the Twilight franchise. You have given two movies over 7 cover stories in just over one year. Just so we have a little perspective, all 6 Harry Potter movies have garnished a whopping 9 cover stories, and one of those nine was about the last book. So to recap Twilight = 7 cover stories in 15 months, Harry Potter = 8 cover stories in 8 years.
I painfully pushed my way through this latest Twilight "article": Team Twilight. I am sad to see your magazine reduced to such humiliating standards. Do you really believe that letting three actors prattle on for nine pages of print, covering such topics as muscles, hair, and all things celebrity is the best use of your space? I have never read anything by Karen Valby before, and I hope never to again. This is the most repugnant and lazy style of reporting I have ever read. It's as if Ms. Valby was nothing more than the dorky girl who was just barely holding in her excitement over being so close to these "celebrities". Her questions ranged from irrelevant; "What was it like to sit behind Mickey Rourke?" to idiotic "Here's your chance to say what is purely amazing about enormous fame?" What did she even contribute to the conversation? If you have to keep reporting on this poorly written barely-skirting-plagiary series of movies, then at least find a reporter who isn't... like... the biggest fan... like...ever!
Also, I find it interesting that your memory is painfully short. Your own reporter Jennifer Reece had this to say about the end of the Twilight stories: "...Breaking Dawn, when Meyer takes her supernatural love story several bizarre steps too far. ''I felt like — like I don't know what. Like this wasn't real. Like I was in some Goth version of a bad sitcom,' Jacob confides before he too is swept up in the narrative mayhem. So do we, Jacob. So do we." And then she gave the book a big fat D. As in: it sucked.
You printed this three weeks after giving Twilight the movie it's first cover story (an exclusive first look) and even though you know the end is a bomb, you have devoted unprecedented print space to these two movies. It almost makes me want to call shenanigans on you and the producers of the Twilight Saga. Are you somehow in bed together? I can think of no other reason you would lambaste something and point out it's amateur plot holes and shortcomings and then spend what must amount to millions in advertising dollars promoting the hell out of it. What exactly are you guys over there getting out of constantly selling these movies? If you think I am nutso, then I challenge you to find a single issue of Entertainment Weekly starting July 18th, 2009 in which you DO NOT promote these movies in some way.
I have asked repeatedly for you to cover things that people who actually love the art of film would want to read about (actor stories, development stories, method acting and the lunatics that do it, screenwriter stories, process stories, cinema history, location scouting, seeing like a cinematographer, the art and madness of making a movie, just to give you a few ideas). Yet you seem to have decided instead to head the TMZ route and become just another trashy magazine that covers mass amounts of pop culture while spending less and less print space on anything of substance or quality. You have gotten used to providing the basic minimum on original thinking and quality reporting and in many cases you just retype the studios' PR material and repackage it as your own, or at least that's how a lot of it comes off to me, your reader. Every week when I get the latest issue I am constantly disappointed. There is so little actual content. Now there is shopping, and outfits, and Twilight. If that is the direction that you have chosen, and you have no more originality to bring to the publishing world, than I refer back to my first sentence and request that you cancel my subscription.
I am a thirty-four year old gay man in the prime of your demographic. I have been a loyal reader since your inception and I am tired of having to suffer through articles written for and about the lowest common denominator. If you cant give me quality content, than after 19 years I am sorry to say, I am done reading you.
Shane J Kroll
krollsj@hotmail.com
Ps. I have also noticed that you have stopped including a staff list in your magazine and online. Is it shame?
Please cancel my subscription.
I have written countless unanswered letters to Entertainment Weekly begging for you to stop being the sole marketing vehicle behind the Twilight franchise. You have given two movies over 7 cover stories in just over one year. Just so we have a little perspective, all 6 Harry Potter movies have garnished a whopping 9 cover stories, and one of those nine was about the last book. So to recap Twilight = 7 cover stories in 15 months, Harry Potter = 8 cover stories in 8 years.
I painfully pushed my way through this latest Twilight "article": Team Twilight. I am sad to see your magazine reduced to such humiliating standards. Do you really believe that letting three actors prattle on for nine pages of print, covering such topics as muscles, hair, and all things celebrity is the best use of your space? I have never read anything by Karen Valby before, and I hope never to again. This is the most repugnant and lazy style of reporting I have ever read. It's as if Ms. Valby was nothing more than the dorky girl who was just barely holding in her excitement over being so close to these "celebrities". Her questions ranged from irrelevant; "What was it like to sit behind Mickey Rourke?" to idiotic "Here's your chance to say what is purely amazing about enormous fame?" What did she even contribute to the conversation? If you have to keep reporting on this poorly written barely-skirting-plagiary series of movies, then at least find a reporter who isn't... like... the biggest fan... like...ever!
Also, I find it interesting that your memory is painfully short. Your own reporter Jennifer Reece had this to say about the end of the Twilight stories: "...Breaking Dawn, when Meyer takes her supernatural love story several bizarre steps too far. ''I felt like — like I don't know what. Like this wasn't real. Like I was in some Goth version of a bad sitcom,' Jacob confides before he too is swept up in the narrative mayhem. So do we, Jacob. So do we." And then she gave the book a big fat D. As in: it sucked.
You printed this three weeks after giving Twilight the movie it's first cover story (an exclusive first look) and even though you know the end is a bomb, you have devoted unprecedented print space to these two movies. It almost makes me want to call shenanigans on you and the producers of the Twilight Saga. Are you somehow in bed together? I can think of no other reason you would lambaste something and point out it's amateur plot holes and shortcomings and then spend what must amount to millions in advertising dollars promoting the hell out of it. What exactly are you guys over there getting out of constantly selling these movies? If you think I am nutso, then I challenge you to find a single issue of Entertainment Weekly starting July 18th, 2009 in which you DO NOT promote these movies in some way.
I have asked repeatedly for you to cover things that people who actually love the art of film would want to read about (actor stories, development stories, method acting and the lunatics that do it, screenwriter stories, process stories, cinema history, location scouting, seeing like a cinematographer, the art and madness of making a movie, just to give you a few ideas). Yet you seem to have decided instead to head the TMZ route and become just another trashy magazine that covers mass amounts of pop culture while spending less and less print space on anything of substance or quality. You have gotten used to providing the basic minimum on original thinking and quality reporting and in many cases you just retype the studios' PR material and repackage it as your own, or at least that's how a lot of it comes off to me, your reader. Every week when I get the latest issue I am constantly disappointed. There is so little actual content. Now there is shopping, and outfits, and Twilight. If that is the direction that you have chosen, and you have no more originality to bring to the publishing world, than I refer back to my first sentence and request that you cancel my subscription.
I am a thirty-four year old gay man in the prime of your demographic. I have been a loyal reader since your inception and I am tired of having to suffer through articles written for and about the lowest common denominator. If you cant give me quality content, than after 19 years I am sorry to say, I am done reading you.
Shane J Kroll
krollsj@hotmail.com
Ps. I have also noticed that you have stopped including a staff list in your magazine and online. Is it shame?
Monday, November 9, 2009
How to argue without Logic...
Try talking to someone of "FAITH".
Anderson voted "Yes" in the Jesus Christ Poll. 11,137 people have already cast their vote.
Fri at 5:29pm via My Polls · · Like / Unlike · Vote!
Monday, September 21, 2009
Some fun at the park...
A few weeks ago Mother Mary Diva asked if Danny and I liked concerts... Before we could give the obvious answer she presented us with the opportunity to go with her to the Outsidelands Concert in Golden Gate Park. We went both Saturday and Sunday and had a blast... Here's a few pics.
My future husband and hang out buddy... the dreamy and quite silly Jason Mraz... Top big act of the weekend... Plus he reminds me of Steph because he played what she likes to call "Fun with Humans".
Lead singer Brandon Boyd of Incubus
The always dreamy Eddie Veder and Pearl Jam
Nice view while waiting to go home on day one.
This guy is also quite cute, and looks quite a bit like Tobey McGuire undercover. Conor Oberst has a sweet voice, but I thought the four guitars drowned it out a bit, but they got rocking once the set began. So cute though...
This is where we watched most of the Black Eyed Peas from... We went up closer to the stage, but the youngins started getting roudy... or what they call "dancing"... whatever it was I was tired of having hot boys spill beer on me so we made our way to the tent.
By far the best group of the entire show was a troupe called The Yard Dog Road Show. They were utterly unique and facinating to watch. They hooked me, and I went back for every show. It was like a shared orgasm between the group and the audience... yeah... that good.
In this tent... made just for them.
Closing out the weekend was Tenacious D. Jack Black is a funny guy. And his on stage break up/make up/song was hilarious. However, as his set was beginning the fog was rolling in off the sea and the sweaty hot weather turned chilly and dropped a good thirty degrees and I figured I could always just go home and rent the movie.
Amazing weekend all around. Thanks Mother Mary Diva!!!!Saturday, September 5, 2009
My misspent youth of Folly; part 2
The first time "gay" really became an issue was near the end of high school. I was pretty confident in my choice to accept homosexuality, and thanks to my parents I never looked at it being wrong. I did, however understand that being gay was not popular, and that it could be very dangerous around the wrong kind of people. I learned ways to hide it and mask it and use it to amuse all while skipping gaily around from school to school and therapist to therapist.
In my junior year I was hanging out with my neighbor Melissa in her spa with another girlfriend from drama class (Mariah?), when the ever wandering teenage minds led inevitably to the wonderful game of truth or dare... and yeah... it was my first truth... thanks Mellisa, you get the honor of being the first person I ever came out to. And (Maya?) your... uh... second.
My first crush that I ever came out to was a jock on the football team named Kevin Chapin. Oh god, even now, I think of him and that amazing square jaw, piercing eyes, a body that knew nothing of gravity and seemed to ripple with muscle as he bounced around. Yeah, I had it bad. I started getting to know him because I was (for some unexplainable teaching torture) the sports writer for the school paper. So I needed someone to explain what the rules were... and what you call that one thing... and whats with all the numbers your supposed to remember... bleh, football, I still dont get it.
Well during one of these phone call bull sessions it somehow came up that he had defended my heterosexuality to a couple of his team mates. Probably because I couldnt see his face I suddenly felt bold enough to say "thanks, that was decent of you man. But I am gay." I waited for what seemed like forever in my gay teen universe until he says "...oh yeah? You been cornholed yet?"
As any budding gay will tell you, we are nothing if not witty and quick on our feet... So my brilliant responce was "uhh.. yeah. well, um... actually yeah, I lost my virginity when I was twelve. To both the male and the female variety... no, not at the same time." He responded with a sentence that I have never forgotten because of how much it summed him and that entire friendship up "I'm not gay. I ask because I want you to know that my mind goes a lot further than my body ever will."
I saw him again at the 10 year reunion, he still had that spark. That little twinkle in his eye. He had gotten stocky and was a high school teacher in Flagstaff, Arizona. He married a beautiful and amazingly charming and conscience girl and they seemed happy. I wish him well and said lets keep in touch, but after two or three un-returned emails I gave up and chose to put that crush away.
In my junior year I was hanging out with my neighbor Melissa in her spa with another girlfriend from drama class (Mariah?), when the ever wandering teenage minds led inevitably to the wonderful game of truth or dare... and yeah... it was my first truth... thanks Mellisa, you get the honor of being the first person I ever came out to. And (Maya?) your... uh... second.
My first crush that I ever came out to was a jock on the football team named Kevin Chapin. Oh god, even now, I think of him and that amazing square jaw, piercing eyes, a body that knew nothing of gravity and seemed to ripple with muscle as he bounced around. Yeah, I had it bad. I started getting to know him because I was (for some unexplainable teaching torture) the sports writer for the school paper. So I needed someone to explain what the rules were... and what you call that one thing... and whats with all the numbers your supposed to remember... bleh, football, I still dont get it.
Well during one of these phone call bull sessions it somehow came up that he had defended my heterosexuality to a couple of his team mates. Probably because I couldnt see his face I suddenly felt bold enough to say "thanks, that was decent of you man. But I am gay." I waited for what seemed like forever in my gay teen universe until he says "...oh yeah? You been cornholed yet?"
As any budding gay will tell you, we are nothing if not witty and quick on our feet... So my brilliant responce was "uhh.. yeah. well, um... actually yeah, I lost my virginity when I was twelve. To both the male and the female variety... no, not at the same time." He responded with a sentence that I have never forgotten because of how much it summed him and that entire friendship up "I'm not gay. I ask because I want you to know that my mind goes a lot further than my body ever will."
I saw him again at the 10 year reunion, he still had that spark. That little twinkle in his eye. He had gotten stocky and was a high school teacher in Flagstaff, Arizona. He married a beautiful and amazingly charming and conscience girl and they seemed happy. I wish him well and said lets keep in touch, but after two or three un-returned emails I gave up and chose to put that crush away.
Friday, August 7, 2009
My misspent youth of folly; part 1
I came to understand what "gay" was pretty early on in life.
I remember having crushes on the boys in class as early as second grade. The only "first crush" that I can really remember to this day was a boy in my junior high school named Jake Crouch. He was on the wrestling team with my brother. I remember talking to him and both of us were so shy and quiet that it was amazing we got more than a few words out. Just when I thought I might be making my very first friend/crush the family moved away to California... I wrote him several letters, but I never heard from him again.
I was pretty lucky when it comes to the whole "gay" thing and my family. When I was three or four a therapist that my mom had taken me to, took her to the side and told her that he suspected that I might have homosexual tendencies and that he was going to work out a program for her to follow to try and dissuade me from becoming an active homosexual.
My mom looked at him with that look, and then she turned to me, playing with the toys on the floor and said "Shane, get your coat on sweetie, we're going to get some ice cream now." I of course was over joyed... I was three. The therapist tried to grasp what was going on, but my mom cut him short by saying "Thank you for your time, but we wont be returning. I love my son, just as he is, gay or not, and I wont expose him to you again. Good night." And out we went to the fabled 31 flavors, where I had my cone of pink bubblegum and was none the wiser.
So growing up, my parents always knew that I was gay. It wasnt a good/bad right/wrong fix/cure kind of conversation for them. It was an IS. Shane IS gay. Now, adjust our way of thinking so that we can be happy and raise him with love. Yeah... total hippies. Yes, we went to the John Lennon memorial at Red Rocks, yes, I remember it. Free from religion, yet still somehow learned all the moral lessons of life. Looking back, it was a pretty great way to grow up.
The "gay" issue never really was an issue for me in school early on because I changed schools so often. Following around the special ed program with my "emotional issues" meant that I had to go to a different school every year. I formed no childhood bonds. I had my family and my brother. Makes sense now that I always got along better with my mom and dads friends than anyone my age. It was who was around to talk to and learn from.
I remember having crushes on the boys in class as early as second grade. The only "first crush" that I can really remember to this day was a boy in my junior high school named Jake Crouch. He was on the wrestling team with my brother. I remember talking to him and both of us were so shy and quiet that it was amazing we got more than a few words out. Just when I thought I might be making my very first friend/crush the family moved away to California... I wrote him several letters, but I never heard from him again.
I was pretty lucky when it comes to the whole "gay" thing and my family. When I was three or four a therapist that my mom had taken me to, took her to the side and told her that he suspected that I might have homosexual tendencies and that he was going to work out a program for her to follow to try and dissuade me from becoming an active homosexual.
My mom looked at him with that look, and then she turned to me, playing with the toys on the floor and said "Shane, get your coat on sweetie, we're going to get some ice cream now." I of course was over joyed... I was three. The therapist tried to grasp what was going on, but my mom cut him short by saying "Thank you for your time, but we wont be returning. I love my son, just as he is, gay or not, and I wont expose him to you again. Good night." And out we went to the fabled 31 flavors, where I had my cone of pink bubblegum and was none the wiser.
So growing up, my parents always knew that I was gay. It wasnt a good/bad right/wrong fix/cure kind of conversation for them. It was an IS. Shane IS gay. Now, adjust our way of thinking so that we can be happy and raise him with love. Yeah... total hippies. Yes, we went to the John Lennon memorial at Red Rocks, yes, I remember it. Free from religion, yet still somehow learned all the moral lessons of life. Looking back, it was a pretty great way to grow up.
The "gay" issue never really was an issue for me in school early on because I changed schools so often. Following around the special ed program with my "emotional issues" meant that I had to go to a different school every year. I formed no childhood bonds. I had my family and my brother. Makes sense now that I always got along better with my mom and dads friends than anyone my age. It was who was around to talk to and learn from.
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I am sad for you that you don't care whether you live eternal life in hell or not. It gives you no hope and it just saddens my heart. Debbie
about an hour ago
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58 minutes ago
Religion is an excuse to not be responsible for your own life. "God will provide, Jesus will guide me, etc..." I am responsible for my life, not some fiction of imagination. I have made my mistakes and I have worked hard for my miracles. I am alive NOW, not after I die.
I'm sorry to have declined your offer of friendship, it is not a reflection on you personally. I just don't want Jesus crap on my page every day. I cant be engaged with an organization that consciously ignores fact, logic and reason, just so they don't have to reconcile reality and fantasy.
The ability to think for ourselves is one of the best parts of being human, and I'm sorry to say Christians do very little other than tell people that they are bad and wrong, and that only they are right and just. Any proof of that can be seen in all of your messages, and to be perfectly honest not only is it insulting but it just demonstrates your christian arrogance and one sided thinking. And personally I neither need nor do I want your phony christian sympathy. I don't fear for my soul, and you don't even know me.