Hello there friends! Some of you may have looked at my blog in the past weeks and thought, “Why the hell isn’t Jenny saying anything about [random awful thing happening my country right now].” Well, there’s a reason.
First of all, the speed at which the awful shit keeps happening is so fast, I simply couldn’t keep up with it here. While I finish one exhausting and terrible post, six other exhausting and terrible things will have taken place. I would be the blogging equivalent of Sisyphus, pushing a wrinkly orange rock that I don’t really want to think about, let alone touch.
Second, it seems like there’s nowhere anyone can go to escape the worldwide crises caused by our ridiculous conservative right. If this space can be one of those precious few spaces, then I’ll let it be. If things change in the future, they change, but for now, I’d like to spend at least a couple hours of my day writing frivolous stuff and sharing it with you guys, to give my eyeballs a rest from watching my country burn.
I am intensely vocal (some might say overly so) about politics on Twitter, so you can always find me there. No, really. Always. It’s like it’s plugged into my brain.
Moving on to a subject that’s less horrifying. Or more horrifying, depending on how you feel about my novels. Some time ago, I mentioned that I was writing an erotic romance about a screenwriter adapting the bestselling erotic novel of an egomaniacal author. I am pleased to report that, while it won’t release the first week of February as I had originally hoped, it is nearing completion. That said, it took a bit of a turn from an erotic romance to a contemporary romance, and then arrived somewhere in the valley between “novel with romantic elements” and “women’s fiction.” It has been a ride, let me tell you.
Because the content is so different from what I write as Abigail Barnette, Say Goodbye To Hollywood will be released as a Jenny Trout novel. And since this is Jenny Trout’s blog, here are some fun facts to gear you up for the book.
Does the egomaniacal author sound familiar? There’s no way I can pretend that the premise of the novel isn’t based on the rumored behind-the-scenes struggles with the adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey, but fictional author Lynn Baldwin isn’t a carbon copy of E.L. James. In fact, the only thing they have in common are similar career situations. Baldwin is an amalgamation of several literary divas I’ve met in my career. You can have fun guessing who inspired her personality.
You said you were done with Fifty Shades. Why write a book inspired by it? So much gossip swirled around about the making of the first movie that it was almost inescapable. Some bits that inform scenes in the novel were almost too ridiculous to be believed, so I knew they would make great fiction (although I suspect some of them were fiction to begin with). After I read Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan’s The Royal We, I realized that “write what you know” isn’t necessarily bad advice. In fact, it can make for really fun writing (and hopefully, reading)!
Are there going to be as many sex scenes as in the Neil and Sophie books? Nope. At this point, there are two sex scenes. This novel won’t be as long as the Neil and Sophie books, either. And don’t expect my usual May/December pairing.
You announced this project ages ago! Why has it taken so long? Burn out. Emotional and creative burn out. And it’s not like anything else I’ve written, so I’ve had to take my time, adapt my voice, and listen harder to characters I don’t know as well as my ongoing series casts.
So, when will it be out? I can only say soon. Until then, I’ll give you updates and maybe even share little bits until I can comfortably tell you when the book will be delivered.
That’s all the news that’s fit to print, at the moment.
In every generation, there is a chosen one. She alone is suffering from extreme vertigo, so please bear with her. She will also recap every episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer with an eye to the following themes:
Sex is the real villain of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer universe.
Giles is totally in love with Buffy.
Joyce is a fucking terrible parent.
Willow’s magic is utterly useless (this one won’t be an issue until season 2, when she gets a chance to become a witch)
Xander is a textbook Nice Guy.
The show isn’t as feminist as people claim.
All the monsters look like wieners.
If ambivalence to possible danger were an Olympic sport, Team Sunnydale would take the gold.
Angel is a dick.
Harmony is the strongest female character on the show.
Team sports are portrayed in an extremely negative light.
Some of this shit is racist as fuck.
Science and technology are not to be trusted.
Mental illness is stigmatized.
Only Willow can use a computer.
Buffy’s strength is flexible at the plot’s convenience.
Cheap laughs and desperate grabs at plot plausibility are made through Xenophobia.
Oz is the Anti-Xander
Spike is capable of love despite his lack of soul
Don’t freaking tell me the vampires don’t need to breathe because they’re constantly out of frickin’ breath.
The foreshadowing on this show is freaking amazing.
Smoking is evil.
Despite praise for its positive portrayal of non-straight sexualities, some of this shit is homophobic as fuck.
How do these kids know all these outdated references, anyway?
Technology is used inconsistently as per its convenience in the script.
Sunnydale residents are no longer shocked by supernatural attacks.
Casual rape dismissal/victim blaming a-go-go
Snyder believes Buffy is a demon or other evil entity.
The Scoobies kind of help turn Jonathan into a bad guy.
This show caters to the straight/bi female gaze like whoa.
Sunnydale General is the worst hospital in the world.
Faith is hyper-sexualized needlessly.
Slut shame!
The Watchers have no fucking clue what they’re doing.
Vampire bites, even very brief ones, are 99.8% fatal.
Economic inequality is humorized and oversimplified.
Have I missed any that were added in past recaps? Let me know in the comments. Even though I might forget that you mentioned it.
WARNING: Some people have mentioned they’re watching along with me, and that’s awesome, but I’ve seen the entire series already and I’ll probably mention things that happen in later seasons. So… you know, take that under consideration, if you’re a person who can’t enjoy something if you know future details about it.
What is even happening in this show? Something has to happen eventually, right? It’s not just all going to be vampires talking to each other and not doing anything until the very end of the season, is it?
Anyway, here’s the file, start it after the HBO logo/sound fade. If there’s any odd clicking, it’s because I was tethered to my computer for this one.
Okay, so we’re back on track and ready to rumble. The file is here, hit play when the HBO logo/sound fades. CW on this one for the murder of an adult entertainer and the fact that I deconstruct it in my rage at the end.
For months now, readers have talked about the problematic racial elements present in Divergent author Veronica Roth’s latest novel, Carve The Mark. Young Adult author Justina Ireland wrote about the damaging content in Carve The Mark and the now-postponed release The Continent. Readers on social media have carried on that conversation and as ARCs poured out into the world, some blogs even declined to include them in giveaways. Carve The Mark seemed poised to be the most problematic, rejected YA offering of 2017.
But Roth just had to go that little bit further.
In an interview with NPR, Roth explains that novel takes place in a world where once a person reaches adolescence, they receive a “gift” or special talent:
“Well, Cyra’s is that she experiences constant pain, and she can also give that pain to other people. So the theory is that the current, which is this kind of energy that is present in the galaxy, that it flows through each person and their personality is like a mold that shapes how it comes out. And for her, it would take a lot of psychoanalysis to figure out why she thinks that she’s worthy of pain and that others are worthy of pain but – so she’s basically experiencing, like, a supernatural form of chronic pain.”
Roth explains that she was inspired by friends who have endometriosis:
“And for me, the importance of it came from I had several friends who experienced chronic pain over, you know, like, a decade and were – had their pain underestimated by doctors, which statistically is more likely if you’re a woman by, like, a drastic degree. And they were eventually diagnosed with endometriosis. This is like a couple of people just in my immediate social circle. So I thought about them a lot, about how pain takes over your life and limits your potential and how difficult it can be to find someone who’ll take it seriously.”
As a woman disabled by chronic pain from Fibromyalgia, I can absolutely back up Roth’s assertion that it’s difficult to find someone who’ll take it seriously. From doctors to family members, from “we all have little aches and pains” to “you should try [suggestions ranging from quitting gluten or doing yoga],” chronic pain patients are at the mercy of a society that doesn’t quite know what to do with us. Many of us don’t have visible signs of disability (“You don’t look sick!”). Some of us use mobility aids (“Wheelchairs are for people who are actually handicapped!”). Some of us have employment outside the home (“If you can work, it can’t be that bad!”), but others are housebound (“You’d feel better if you got out more!”). Getting anyone to listen to us when we share the reality of our lives seems futile (“Why are you focusing on how bad you have it? Try to be more positive!”), and we often feel like we talk too much about our pain. Since our resources and physical energy are limited, it’s often easier to suck it up, suffer in silence, and let ignorance slide.
While many men suffer from chronic pain conditions, their challenges are often different from women’s. Western culture constantly equates women’s suffering with something positive. We’re “strong.” We’re “warriors.” We “fight.” But we’re never, no matter what our circumstances may be, allowed to resent that suffering or wish for it to end. That’s not attractive. It doesn’t fit the mold. It makes us depressingly human to those who value our martyrdom over our lives, our hopes, and our frustrations. We’re no longer inspirational, and if our pain can’t benefit or, in the case of Carve The Mark, entertain people who want to be allies to the disabled, it’s just a bummer.
I don’t know how Roth’s friends with endometriosis feel about their pain being appropriated to make Roth, an already famous and successful author, more money. I don’t care to know because their opinions don’t represent every person suffering from chronic pain and won’t excuse the harm Roth has caused by depicting chronic pain as a “gift.” Maybe Roth’s friends have had important, life-changing experiences after their diagnoses and feel that their pain really is a gift. But I would venture to suggest that, based on the social media responses to the interview, most people don’t share that view. The notion of suffering as a gift doesn’t make chronic pain patients feel better; it makes abled people feel better.
Our pain is not “supernatural.” It doesn’t embody us with special powers that we can use to heal a divided people. In fact, many women suffering from chronic pain conditions and other disabilities have lamented that we can’t be a part of the marches and protests scheduled for January 21st. Once again, women with disabilities will be left out of a movement that should include us and be derided as “slacktivists” because we can’t get out and physically march.
My chronic pain caused me to miss the first two years of my daughter’s life. Those memories have been lost in a haze of painkillers and cocktails of prescriptions that were meant to make me functional and only succeeded in robbing me of my life, my career, even my home. And now Veronic Roth has appropriated–for personal profit–my experience, her friends’ experiences, the experiences of millions of women who would do anything to be able to return their “gift.” We just can’t find the damn receipt.
But we have receipts on you, Veronica. Mountains and mountains of them. And gosh, we just don’t have the supernatural energy to climb over those to get to the bookstore on release day.
In every generation, there is a chosen one. She alone is suffering from extreme vertigo, so please bear with her. She will also recap every episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer with an eye to the following themes:
Sex is the real villain of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer universe.
Giles is totally in love with Buffy.
Joyce is a fucking terrible parent.
Willow’s magic is utterly useless (this one won’t be an issue until season 2, when she gets a chance to become a witch)
Xander is a textbook Nice Guy.
The show isn’t as feminist as people claim.
All the monsters look like wieners.
If ambivalence to possible danger were an Olympic sport, Team Sunnydale would take the gold.
Angel is a dick.
Harmony is the strongest female character on the show.
Team sports are portrayed in an extremely negative light.
Some of this shit is racist as fuck.
Science and technology are not to be trusted.
Mental illness is stigmatized.
Only Willow can use a computer.
Buffy’s strength is flexible at the plot’s convenience.
Cheap laughs and desperate grabs at plot plausibility are made through Xenophobia.
Oz is the Anti-Xander
Spike is capable of love despite his lack of soul
Don’t freaking tell me the vampires don’t need to breathe because they’re constantly out of frickin’ breath.
The foreshadowing on this show is freaking amazing.
Smoking is evil.
Despite praise for its positive portrayal of non-straight sexualities, some of this shit is homophobic as fuck.
How do these kids know all these outdated references, anyway?
Technology is used inconsistently as per its convenience in the script.
Sunnydale residents are no longer shocked by supernatural attacks.
Casual rape dismissal/victim blaming a-go-go
Snyder believes Buffy is a demon or other evil entity.
The Scoobies kind of help turn Jonathan into a bad guy.
This show caters to the straight/bi female gaze like whoa.
Sunnydale General is the worst hospital in the world.
Faith is hyper-sexualized needlessly.
Slut shame!
The Watchers have no fucking clue what they’re doing.
Vampire bites, even very brief ones, are 99.8% fatal.
Economic inequality is humorized and oversimplified.
Have I missed any that were added in past recaps? Let me know in the comments. Even though I might forget that you mentioned it.
WARNING: Some people have mentioned they’re watching along with me, and that’s awesome, but I’ve seen the entire series already and I’ll probably mention things that happen in later seasons. So… you know, take that under consideration, if you’re a person who can’t enjoy something if you know future details about it.
Okey-dokey, you know the drill! Download it here, start it when the HBO sound/logo fade. Don’t sweat about getting them lined up just right, because my brain and mouth certainly never do.
When people say, “2016 sucked!” and I say, “Yeah, fuck 2016, I hated it, too,” I am of course referring to hating how many people died and how shittily my country fucked its election into the poisoned, crumbling ground, but I’m also talking about the cancellation of ABC’s Galavant.
Now, let it be known from the start that I have never trusted ABC to make a good decision since I started watching television. Sure, they’ve got hits, but it’s their misses that define them in my pessimistic little heart. They let Steve Urkel become the focus of Family Matters and ruined the whole damn show (which was supposed to be about Harriet Winslow. Remember Harriet Winslow?). They cancelled Covington Cross, a medieval version of Bonanza that could have been great if they’d given it more of a shot and not sold its time slot to Ross Perrot (this is a true story). But their most recent egregious sin is the cancellation of its medieval musical sitcom epic.
Galavant is what would have happened if Mel Brooks had directed Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It’s packed to the brim with favorite medieval spoof conventions; peasants sing about coughing up blood, an evil king fantasizes about all the ways he’ll murder his sworn enemy, and a valiant hero who thinks way, way too much of himself sets off on a quest to save a damsel who isn’t all that interested in being saved, after all. Each episode is only a half-hour long, but they manage to pack them with enough story, silliness, and self-awareness for a full-length feature film.
But the best part of the show is the music. The condensed, snappy numbers are fully acknowledged in-universe; Galavant is set in a world where people sing their problems, arguments, and even passionate recaps of stuff that happened last week, and no one thinks it’s out of place. The songs are written by legendary Disney composer Alan Menken and Tangled lyricist Glenn Slater (whom I guess I now have to forgive for Love Never Dies), and while every single one of them is an irreplaceable gem, some are a little bit gemmy-er than others. So here, ranked low to high (from Madalena’s earrings to the Jewel of Valencia), is every musical number in Galavant.
Let it be known, however, that even though this list includes criticisms of the songs, in context they all work together to make pure, snarky, delightful magic. If you haven’t watched the show yet, put it on your to-watch list.
49. “Different Kind of Princess” A rock-and-roll princess who sings about not liking pink? This is a boring anthem for the Not-Like-Other-Girls girls out there. Plus, who puts in a line about unshaven armpits if the show isn’t willing to put an unshaven armpit on screen? It’s all or nothing, Galavant.
48. “Hey, Hey, We’re the Monks” (and its reprise) You’re going to write a song about monks who take a vow of singing and who are basically a boy band, but not write that number like a boy band song? Missed opportunity, Menken. Unless they were going for a Monkees joke that just didn’t translate due to not sounding anything like the Monkees at all. Guest star “Weird” Al tries to sell it, but I’m not buying.
47. “Comedy Gold” You’d think a song about teaching an unfunny person how to be funny would be, well, funnier. It’s basically a more murdery version of “Funny/The Duck Joke” from My Favorite Year.
46. “Stand Up” Musical criticism of action movie training sequence montages and their bombastic rock songs was funnier when Trey Parker and Matt Stone did it.
45. “Oy! What a Knight” Sung by Sid’s entire village, this is a standard Mel Brooks pastiche, complete with a tired joke about circumcision. Because you can’t have a comedy song sung by Jewish characters without mentioning the removal of foreskin, right?
44. “My Moment In The Sun” parts 1, 2, 3, 4 The running joke here is that the hero can never get to the last line of the song. Which is kind of a meh gag, considering how getting interrupted while singing is kind of Sid the squire’s thing. But hey, at least we get to hear Anthony Head sing.
43. “Goodnight My Friend” Musically similar to the superior “Goodbye”, this is your standard slow number that drags the end of the first act down. It’s still sweet, though.
42. “He Was There” and its reprise It’s really hard to make a tense relationship with a neglectful parent into a show-stopper, but bless them, they tried. Of course, I could be biased. Not because of my daddy issues, but because the role of Galavant’s father, originally played by my beloved Anthony Head, was recast for season two. And okay, maybe because of my daddy issues.
41. “Dance Until You Die” If Galavant had an equivalent to the Harry Potter franchise’s Wizard Rock, it would be this.
40. “A Real Life, Happily Ever After” For a romance as epic and satirical as the one between Galavant and Princess Isabella, this is oddly straightforward. It feels out of place with the other, less sentimental love songs we’ve grown to expect by the show’s end.
39. “A Day In Richard’s Life” After taking a potion from spiritual guide (and “herb” dealer) Xanax, King Richard is transported back to the day he became king. Though Ricky Gervais isn’t a great singer, it’s fun to watch a notorious skeptic sing about magic and mystical journeys.
38. “Time Is Of The Essence” Even though Galavant’s life hangs in the balance, healer Neo of Sporin takes his time in singing this frantic number. The rhythm of the vocal line recalls Alice In Wonderland‘s “I’m Late” and Company‘s “Not Getting Married Today.” Rapid fire, frantic lyrics are always a crowd pleaser in musical theatre.
37. “A Dark Season” Songs are often used to recap important exposition from past episodes, but “A Dark Season” prepares viewers for what’s to come in a bleak reprise of the season’s theme. It’s not really needed, though. It sets up a few visual gags, but on its own it’s really just telling us everything we already saw, much of it in the same episode.
36. “Will My Day Ever Come” A much better version of “Moment In The Sun.” Young King Richard duets with his disappointing older self in a pre-battle moment of doubt.
35. “Let’s Agree To Disagree” Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire’s famous “Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off” can hardly be improved, but “Let’s Agree To Disagree” comes close. All you have to do is swap out the dapper dancers for a crude, violent king and a vain, greedy queen and you’ve got a song that’s less about the pronunciation of “tomato” and more about crushing enemies and indulging in luxuries.
34. “Goodbye” If A Chorus Line and This Is Your Life abandoned their baby in a graveyard, it would grow up and write this near-death experience number.
33. “Togetherness (Reprise)” A more sincere ode to teamwork than the song it reprises, it makes up for its earnestness with the liberal application of pirates.
32. “Togetherness” Working together, wanting to kill each other, being friends, and falling in love don’t have to be mutually exclusive. By episode four, our heroic trio of Galavant, Sid, and Isabella are already tired of each other and we reap all the benefits in a catchy group number.
31. “If I Were A Jolly Blacksmith” This could either be a song about the simple life, or someone bullshitting his way through a job interview.
30. “Dwarves vs. Giants” In a fully ridiculous version of West Side Story‘s “Tonight Quintet,” rival gangs of short giants and tall dwarves prepare for battle. Cheeky nods to Stephen Sondheim’s influence on musical theatre are all over this series, but this is perhaps the most obvious (and hilarious) instance.
29. “Secret Mission” Sworn enemies endeavor to pull off a secret plot while trying to stay as quiet as possible. The fact that they’re drunk and singing loudly should be an obvious punchline, but it works, damnit, carried mostly by the chemistry between the actors.
28. “Lords of the Sea” I’ll admit it. This song is only this high on the list because it’s sung by Lord Grantham in an ankh earring and eyeliner. That alone is worth the price of my Netflix subscription.
27. “Galavant Recap” Just in case you forgot what happened in season two, the court jester belts out crucial exposition to patiently waiting warring armies in the middle of a dusty battlefield. It’s a much-welcomed reprise of the show’s stellar theme, which this viewer was missing terribly.
26. “Jackass In A Can” I feel like Menken can’t resist tavern scenes, and he plays to that strength here. Galavant learns through song what squires really think about their knights in a rousing number reminiscent of the Tangled duo’s “I’ve Got A Dream.”
25. “Finally” If I tried to quote just one lyric from this zombie-infused parody of Grease‘s “Summer Nights,” it would be…no, I can’t. Catchy pop numbers enthusiastically recounting tragically bad sex simply can’t be dissected so neatly.
24. “Love Is Strange” Everything that annoys you about the person you love, tallied up and sung in a heartfelt, somehow sweet duet.
23. “A Good Day To Die” and its reprise Things look bleak for our heroes, who prepare for battle not once, but twice, to this theme. The characters point out that it’s unlikely they’ll actually die since there’s a whole episode left to go (and they’re not on Game of Thrones), and it’s this self-awareness that pulls off the song and reels the audience in for the series finale.
22. “The Happiest Day of Your Life” Faced with an arranged marriage and an overzealous wedding planner, Princess Isabella mopes through this up-tempo rumba, until some dark magic turns her into the bridezilla you’ve always dreaded.
21. “What Am I Feeling?” Madalena’s cruel, cold-heart gets a shock when she realizes that she actually cares about something, and that’s the perfect time for a ballad about how shitty it is to have to care about things.
20. “I Don’t Like You” Is there anything more satisfying than two women singing bitchily at each other? In a non-Celine Dion/Barbara Streisand trying to out-sing each other way? On top of the clever lyrics, it sounds like a Spice Girls song, which is a double-checkmark in the “Pro” column.
19. “Season 2 Finale” “Weird” Al Yankovic returns to wrap up what will certainly be the end of the series, while leaving the door open for more plot, just in case. Since the fandom had a inkling that cancellation loomed, this song felt like a joyous celebration. “Look how far we came, being weird together,” it seemed to say, and cemented Galavant’s legacy as the absurd little show that could(ish).
18. “A New Season” It would have been easy enough to rehash the theme song from the first season, but the characters are far sicker of it than the audience could ever possibly be. When the title number causes pirates to voluntarily walk the plank, a change is in order. What better way for the cast to show their gratitude at the show’s surprise renewal than to give them a brand new opener to set the tone for their last, miraculous season? Bonus: The episode is titled “Suck It, Cancellation Bear.”
17. “She’ll Be Mine” This could have been a number cut from Monty Python’s Spamalot!. And I’m fine with that.
16. “Do the D’Dew” Even an angelic, pixie-cut-sporting Julie Andrews could have taught the Von Trapp children the Dark, Dark Evil Way with this one. The fact that it’s performed in part by stage legend Robert Lindsay doesn’t hurt, either.
15. “Off With His Shirt” Queer icon Kylie Minogue as the “Queen of all queens.” The tyrannical ruler of a gay bar takes our heroes captive in this season two disco number. You had me at “Kylie Minogue is the queen of a gay bar.” (Side note: after meeting while filming this scene, Kylie and Joshua Sasse are now engaged. Get it, Kylie.)
14. “Hero’s Journey” For a show as sarcastic and mocking as this one, “Hero’s Journey” is…well, it’s still sarcastic and mocking, but still oddly inspiring.
13. “As Good As It Gets” I could watch an entire show of just Gwendolyn and Chef. While the rest of the cast seems to be living in a Robin Hood: Men In Tights parody middle ages, this couple is surviving a Game of Thrones-esque feudal nightmare. This duet about their newly “upper-lower class” status includes nods to their lengthening tapeworms and a fancier way to cough up blood, yet somehow is still cheerful enough that you think their lot might not be so bad.
12. “I Love You (As Much As Someone Like Me Can Love Anyone) Sure, Queen Madalena is a malignant narcissist with sociopathic tendencies, but at least she owns it. Is there a better way to ask your ex to stay on as your boy toy than in a rousing tango number? If there is, I just won’t know what to believe in anymore.
11. “Build A New Tomorrow Here Today” Democracy laid painfully bare in under two-minutes, complete with up-tempo oppression of cheerfully marginalized citizens. It’s a toe-tappingly bleak earworm.
10. “No One But You” Queen Madalena’s ode to herself, sung to herself as she’s accompanied by a veritable choir of herself is Menken’s made-for-TV redo of “Gaston,” but somehow more egotistical.
9. “A Happy Ending For Us” Peasants plotting all the ways they could murder the upper class in a cheerful, Cole Porter-style duet probably wouldn’t work for any other musical, but here it fits in just right.
8. “Today We Rise” How “Do You Hear The People Sing” should have gone if Enjolras was being brutally honest with everyone.
7. “If I Could Share My Life With You” Basically “Sixteen Going On Seventeen” but about misery, plague, and infant mortality. A+
6. “The World’s Best Kiss” and its reprise If Galavant gets one thing right (shut your blasphemous mouth, it gets everything right), it’s the realistic expectations it sets for romance. Even though their first and only kiss was gross, awkward, and way too yeasty-tasting, it was at least memorable, if bittersweet.
5. “Love Makes The World Brand New” Love, as described by someone who’s never had a tender feeling a day in his life, sung in the voice of that guy at the bar who may or may not have killed somebody in the past and who may or may not kill again. Probably for fun.
4. “Maybe You’re Not the Worst Thing Ever” A quartet about not loving someone, not really liking them, either, but accepting that sometimes you just have to find something good about a seemingly irredeemable person, this is another Bizzaro love song from a romantically pessimistic fairytale.
3. “Serenade (Maybe You Won’t Die Alone)” This is what The Little Mermaid‘s Sebastian was really thinking while singing the sweet lyrics to “Kiss The Girl.” Menken pokes fun at his own work throughout the series, but this Mariachi matchmaking number is the most obvious and delightful instance.
2. “Galavant” (and all of its subsequent season one reprises) From the opening number of the entire series to a framing device utterly rejected after wearing out its welcome by season two, the first performance of the song lets viewers know exactly what they’re in for: a hero who’s a “fairytale cliche,” his fair maiden who has “cleavage you could throw a whole parade in,” and an evil king’s plot to marry her. The show is immediately self-aware in this audience-finding opener; by the end of the song, you’re either in or you’re out.
1. “My Dragon Pal and Me” Have you ever felt like the world was ganging up on you, and you needed someone to super believe in you? This is the song for you. Whenever you’re having a bad day, remember that if you have faith in yourself, you’ll one day watch your enemies writhe in pain, disemboweled by a dragon. In the end, isn’t that what we’re all really hoping for? The titular dragon, Tad Cooper, became a rallying symbol for fans who super believed in the show in the face of seemingly insurmountable ratings odds. And you know what? We all still super believe.
You can watch Galavant on Netflix, Hulu, Youtube, and Amazon Video, and I highly suggest you do so. Alan Menken has said he’d like to see a stage version in the future, so keep your fingers crossed and always, always super believe in Tad Cooper.
If you’re one of the rad people who pledged to me on Patreon, you might be wondering, “Wait, why didn’t my pledge to Jenny get charged this month?”
I quit Patreon.
Hear me out on this one. I haven’t forgotten the original reason for starting the Patreon in the first place. Some of you were asking how you could show your support and appreciation for the blog without buying my books (because they’re not your genre or for whatever reason that I totally get; I’m not required reading), and Patreon seemed like a good solution. For a while, it totally was.
But then it wasn’t. Not because of anything you did, or anything Patreon did. It’s what my mind did.
Remember on Monday, when I mentioned how I needed to start doing things without monetizing them? When I started this blog, it was because I was told I should. Publishers noticed that blogging was a thing, and of course this meant that authors had to do the thing, because it might make the publishers money. Blogging was touted as a marketing tool. You’d go to an industry conference and at least two panels would mention something about the importance of having a blog (this was pre-Twitter and Facebook, which is the new “what do you mean you don’t have [thing]?!” of writing conferences). So, I started a blog, and I didn’t really know what to do with it. It seemed like all anyone wanted authors to blog about was writing. We were supposed to take some of our writing time and use it to write about writing so that other writers could read it and it would help their writing.
Okay, so, some authors really, really love talking/reading/teaching about craft. One of my dear author friends is like this. I’ve never been inside her house, but my assumption is that her furniture is built entirely of books on craft. There’s nothing wrong with being into learning, and it would be silly of me to sit here and be like, “You don’t need to learn the craft and mechanics of storytelling!” because that’s bad advice. Of course you need to learn it. But when I read a book about writing, I’m hating it 100% of the time. So why the frick would I want to blog about it?
So basically all I did was blog stupid shit until one day it became relevant. That’s the key to blogging success, by the way. Just start doing a thing and never stop doing that thing until someone notices or you die an unappreciated genius.
I really enjoy blogging and putting stuff up here and talking to all you guys about it, but then I went and monetized it. Then it became a job. And I started to panic. Oh man, people were giving me money every month to do this. That meant there had to be some kind of value. And oh my god, what if I couldn’t deliver the next chapter of Biter (which I’m still working on and do plan to release) or The Afflicted (again, not abandoned, but shit happened last year)? What if I went a whole week without a post? What if I went a whole month without a recap?
So, there I was, panicky and burned out and trying not to panic because it would burn me out, but my burn out was making me panic. It was a nightmare and I locked up and wrote very little in the last quarter of the year. I decided, you know, I have to make a change.
Closing down my Patreon was the only way I could refresh my mind and my attitude toward blogging. It’s not that I didn’t appreciate you guys throwing your hard earned dollars at me. It’s just that it was making this space a job, when it used to be a fun thing. And while it definitely still benefits my job (because I have a built-in audience I can show my covers and tell my plans to), this was all so much more fun before I had that pressure.
So, to make a long story short
basically, I want blogging to be fun again and I can’t do that if someone is giving me money for it. So, thank you for your cash, I promise I spent it irresponsibly on shit that I didn’t need, and keep on rocking in the free world.
