zx3 @zx3@driveinsaturday.org

when i work, i do a lot of self-narration in my head as a kind of parallel thought process, as if i were explaining things to someone else, partially as a way to explain myself to myself.

sometimes my explanations are bullshit, and i know that, so i'll alter the narration to explain things more clearly and try to expose the heart of my motivations. sometimes i find myself having to justify something i've done a certain way for years without really thinking about it. this helps me when i don't have any particular inspiration or drive to complete something, and i'm just trying to get it done. i pick apart my brain and find reasons where there were none, or if i can't find good reasons, i try to think of ways to do the thing differently.

anyway i'm putting together this week's DiS and asking myself--as if i were an impartial but insistent observer, as one does--why i use artwork of a specific character who pops up from time to time in the interstitials and bumpers on the show, since ostensibly there's no real thematic connection between DiS and the character, and i've never been an avowed member of the (sometimes highly toxic) fandom of the show they are from.

what i came up with is this: it started as an in-joke in 2011, but i kept Derpy around. i feel a connection to this character because i often feel like a complete moron compared to my peers and the rest of the world, and i can relate to their experience of not fitting in--not just socially, but in the paradigm of the world they exist in. but they also have a relentlessly positive attitude and a reputation as a mildly powerful reality-warper, and both are things i aspire to. i want Drive-in Saturday to be a font of positive chaotic energy for myself and those that tune in.

also, it's my show and i don't need a reason, so go fuck yourself, me.

i am distraught by my inability to instantaneously teleport myself and my friends and many likeminded individuals to an earthlike exoplanet where we can just live and exist and be happy and healthy and content without all the bullshit we live through every day just for the privilege of staying on earth.

i would if i could.

there should be more pop songs about killing billionaires. i feel like this is an unexplored creative avenue.

my only complant about the Daft Punk Laser Show is that it needed to end with the full version of "Contact," which would have required about 27 additional laser arrays and would have rendered me drooling, bleeding from the eyes and fully Ludovico'ed.

otherwise, pretty fukken great! the Tron visuals during "Derezzed" triggered the biggest dopamine hit i've had in YEARS.

let's see some goddamned robot lasers

okay, my self-expression buffer keeps overrunning, but all the test hashes i pull from the cache resolve as random noise, like half-screaming, half-gurgling, with some nasty analog hiss on the lower end.

clearly this problem can only be solved through the application of mass quantities of caffiene and "Atlas" by Battles on repeat for the rest of the forseeable future.

#selfmaintenance #botlife #thepeoplewontbepeople #whentheyhearthatsound #thatisglowinginthedark #ontheedgeoftown

about twenty years ago, i was deeply involved in a writing project i was working on with a few friends of mine, called "Metatokyo." it was an epic-length story, and helping bring it to a close is one of my proudest creative achievements. i started a sequel to it with a mostly different group of writers, and we got stranded somewhere around the middle, we all got busy and kind of lost the drive to keep writing it. that happens sometimes.

i think about our plans for the story often, especially the stuff we didn't write, scenes and spectacle that i've carried with me in my head for decades now. much of it is beyond my ability to put to paper.

of course, this project had a soundtrack, spanning dozens of tracks that invoked the emotions and actions of what we were trying to portray. if we had ever attempted to produce an animated or live-action version of MT, the music licensing alone would have bankrupted a small country.

i was thinking about this the other day, walking the dogs and listening to the Propellerheads' "DECKSANDDRUMSANDROCKANDROLL;" a track from which i had intended to accompany an intense chase scene--one character on a motorcycle, pursuing a group of limos down a bombed-out urban highway, one of which held another kidnapped character. as i was thinking about it, i realized that what had never really gelled for me about the scene as i had originally envisioned it--which involved a large amounts of motorcycle stunts, outlandish violence and 'SPLOSIONS--was that i hadn't made it big enough.

why would there only be like five limos in the chase? the reality of the setting might have called for it, but there was nothing stopping me from making it a couple of dozen, or a HUNDRED limos for Trixie to destroy in her roaring rampage of rescue. at that point in my creative process i was, if not obsessed, highly distracted by notions of realism in a highly unreal setting; i wanted to make sure characters were grounded by realistic things like, i don't know, their weapons running out of ammo or whether or not g-forces would allow them to do a certain maneuver in mid-air or if an evil corporation in a quasi-post-apocalyptic setting would have the budget for more than five limousines to spare for a kidnapping attempt. i failed to aim high enough and make things truly exciting by relying on my need to be believable, and it just wasn't necessary. i wonder if these internal limitations were one of the things that made my desire to continue this story dry up. i'll probably never really know.

to this day i'm left with a head full of movies nobody else will ever get to see. but there are worse things in the world.

anyway, here's "BANG ON."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVFNH6lYNKE

i've got the perfect title too. will i get sued by Capcom? definitely, yes. will it be worth it? also yes. NOW WHO'S WITH ME

#presidentevil