It's Story Time (Part III)

This is the third part of my five part series involving story telling, the mediums of story telling and the reasons why I love them.

Why I love radio...
First off, when I say radio I'm talking about talk radio, not music radio. My only real experience with talk radio is National Public Radio (NPR) podcasts. Yes, back to the NPR I talk about so much. If you haven't read my past posts, I am absolutely in love with NPR podcasts.

I love talk radio because it's old school. Before television or movies there was radio. I actually just listened to a Radiolab episode completely devoted to the phenomenon of the radio adapted broadcast of "War of the Worlds". If you're not familiar with the story, "War of the Worlds" is originally a fictional novel about Martians coming down to earth and taking over the world. The radio program was adapted to seem like news broadcasts giving breaking news about activity on the surface of Mars and eventually the landing and take over of our little planet. Due to a series of events, people missed the disclaimer in the beginning telling listeners that the program was only an adaptation of a fictional story, so people started packing up there stuff and fleeing their homes in hopes to survive the Martian take over. So yes, I would have to say radio can as an unimaginable amount of influence maybe even more than its more visual counterparts.

So I have a pretty vivid imagination. I find myself listening to talk radio with vivid pictures in my head. Often, these images are more vivid than what I would probably see in a movie or on TV. It's an art for a radio host to describe a story in a way where you can feel like you're in the story. I was listening to a story about a boy and his friends breaking into an abandoned home in the middle of nowhere. I could see them breaking the window to open the latch. I could see the former owner's belongings old and dusty still sitting on tables and beds. I felt the eeriness leaking from the walls in this house purely from the words I heard coming out of a lips of a speaker on the other side of a microphone. I actually got shivers down my spine when the speaker said they never went into the basement because there was a couch propped up against the basement door as if to keep something from coming out and how one of the beds had some kind of dirt, poop or dried blood smeared all over it. Most NPR shows will add little sound effects to make things even more real in my mind. I actually had to stop listening to the old house story because I was driving home really late while listening. I'm not going to lie, I was pretty thoroughly freaked out. Even though the story itself isn't my story per se, the story I experience in my mind is unique to me. I was the director for this story and I presented it to an audience of one.

I don't want to repeat myself too often with my 'end of blog' suggestions but listen to NPR! It's awesome!

It's Story Time (Part II)

This is the second part of my five part series involving story telling mediums and why I love them.

Why I love TV shows...
TV shows are similar to movies. The things I love about movies for the most part carry over to what I love about shows. The biggest and most obvious difference is that the story is told over a much longer period of time. Even shows that only broadcast a handful of episodes get more time to story tell than most movies. This gives us as viewers a lot more time to understand the characters and get immersed in a more intricate story.

Like I said about movies, pace is a big factor in a good show. A single episode as well an entire season and the whole series as a whole should be paced well. I originally had this whole rant about how the show Heroes sucked, but I decided to tone it down a little. I just want to say, the first season sucked cause it was horribly paced. The first season of Prison Break is a great example of good pace. The season ends with a cliffhanger, but it's a great build up to that point. Every episode leaves you with just enough and gives you just enough.

I would consider the character development more important in shows than in movies. One of my favorite shows is The Office. Many people have a hard time getting into The Office now a day. Let me just say, you have to grow up with the characters from season one (maybe season two). If you like The Office, you'll probably understand it when I say you feel like part of the family if you were there from the beginning or at least close to it. Understanding each character's personality is critical in a lot of the situational humor which The Office thrives on. Another show I absolutely find "mind blowing" is Friday Night Lights. There are so many time my heart went out to a hurt fictional character living in Dillion Texas and so many times when I danced a celebratory dance in my room by myself for wins like when (SPOILER ALERT) the Panthers win the state champ behind their freshman QB Matt Seracen or when the East Dillion Lions defeated the West Dillion Panthers.

This is a little apart from the story telling aspect of shows, but I'm a huge fan of watching an entire season in a short period of time. I often find myself watching entire seasons either online or watching DVD/Bluray box sets. I'll tell myself I'll watch an episode before class or something and then I'll end up skipping all my classes for the day cause I can't help but watch the next episode and then the next and then the next and so on. If you've ever done this, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Hopefully none of my old coworkers find out, but one time I watched 10 episodes of Friday Night Lights from 8am almost nonstop to 5pm during work. Getting paid to watch Hulu is the everyone's dream job. I just get so caught up in the story I can't walk away.

I want to suggest everyone reading to at least watch one good show, get absorbed into the characters and the story, gain enemies and friends, fall in love and get your heart broken, BUT getting into a show is probably similar to getting addicted to crack cocaine or slot machines. It's ridiculously addicting and can seriously mess up your life. I credit TV shows to my placement on academic probation my sophomore year in college. If you're up to it, do it but be warned...

It's Story Time (Part I)

I was in my car today listening to a Radiolab NPR podcast when I got a sudden urge to blog. Radiolab along with many other NPR podcasts consist of numerous stories about interesting things told by interesting people. I was listening to one of these stories when I realized how much I love stories, which explains why I like a lot of other things. Whether the medium is movies, TV shows, radio, books or even videogames, I always have a blast getting immersed in a good story. I just want to explain why I love each of these story telling mediums, given that the story itself is of course a good one.

This will be the first of a 5 part series. In each I will give a rundown about why I love story telling in the mediums I mentioned before. I hope you enjoy this series and that you can appreciate stories and their tellings as much as I do.

Why I love movies...

I love movies because they are usually the most visually appeasing medium of story telling. The creation of a movie requires millions of dollars, so all the little details and minor things are almost always top notch. Although some movies are 3-4 hours long, that's still much less time to work with than most other story telling mediums. It's an art to portray an entire intricate story in such a short time.

I'm a movie buff and I try to pay attention to a lot of things that most people don't notice or don't care about. One of my favorite, and probably most subtle, factors of movies is the pace of the story. I get all irritated if the pace of a story isn't balanced, but at the same time if I find myself watching a well balanced movie I can really loose myself in the story. I'm also big on dialog. The Breakfast Club is a great example of this. The story is just about five high school kids stuck in Saturday detention together. Not a lot happens and it's definitely not graphically driven, but the dialog is so good that it blows me away every time.

I really like watching movies by myself. Yes, I go to theaters all by my lonesome and watch newly released movies. I love it. I'm on my own accord and I don't have to worry about anything but getting myself absorbed into the plot of the movie. Two of my favorite movies that I always find myself completely immersed in no matter how many times I watch them are The Shawshank Redemption and Fight Club.

I'll probably blog about this in more detail, but the quality of a lot of movies today are really lacking compared to older movies. I personally blame piracy for this mediocrity. I'll put that post on my to-do list once I'm finished with this series.

Movies can also appeal to everyone. Whether you like adventure, action, romance, horror, comedy, etc. you can enjoy a movie. So if you ever find yourself with a couple hours to spare. Look up movie times, find a Redbox, visit a Blockbuster, go online to Netflix.com and find a good quality movie and plop down on the couch or a comfy theater seat and loose yourself in a story.

On a side note regarding the Oscars, I liked Avatar but I also liked Hurt Locker. Yes, the Hurt Locker isn't for everyone, but it's a great story and the intensity was off the charts. I had a headache from the sometimes shaky camera and my constant teeth grinding from all the stress. They're two good movies, and everyone should stop complaining that Avatar should have won best picture. Did you know that a science fiction movie has never won best picture? Stop hating and just appreciate movies for what they are.

Sleepy Master

I just woke up from a one hour nap. Some of you are probably jealous right now, but a sixty minute nap means nothing to me. It'll only help me just scrap by tonight. Sleep is the life and death of me.

When I was a child I never took naps. I barely slept at all really. When I was still sleeping in a crib I would get tucked in and wait there for maybe five minutes. Then I proceeded to miraculously climb out of it on my own and crawl into my parents bed down the hall. There I would lie with my eyes closed and listen to late night Chinese game shows until I eventually drifted into a deep slumber.

Now when I say deep slumber, I mean DEEP SLUMBER. I was born in Los Angeles and lived there until I was ten. If you know anything about the west coast, you know they experience earthquakes. A lot of east coast people ask me what it's like to be in an earthquake. My response is pretty generic and consists of "the ground shakes...that's pretty much it." I don't have a lot of memories of being in earthquakes though because most of them were at night and I failed to be woken by any of them. One time my cousin was sleeping over and I found myself sleeping next to my sister's bookshelf on an inflatable mattress. There was an earthquake that night. Instead of waking me up and sparing me from the danger of the bookshelf falling on me in my sleep, my parents simply took some of my sister's trophies off the bookshelf and let me continue in my peaceful sleep.

I didn't start sleeping a lot till I was in high school. Getting up at 6:30-7:00am eventually wore me down and I started napping during the day. I was instantly hooked. My daily routine in high school generally consisted of going to school, doing all my homework as soon as I got home (one of the only routine things I was good about), taking a 3-5 hour nap, eat dinner, watch TV or play videogames, and then go back to sleep around 11pm. I got a lot of sleep in those days.

This carried on through high school and into college until I started my full-time co-op. I didn't really have time to nap and everyday I felt as if I was dying. Before this time period in my life I never drank coffee, but I couldn't help not drinking it at work cause I would just collapse after a couple hours in the office. Now that I’m not working I don’t drink coffee as regularly. I’m not a big fan.

A couple months ago I went to see a sleep doctor who suggested I take a sleep study. That's pretty much a night spent in the sleep clinic where they hook you up to a couple dozen electrodes and various other things to monitor what's going on with you while you sleep. I was sure that I had sleep apnea, but the results showed that I actually get better sleep than most people that take sleep studies. In one sense it's nice knowing I'm healthy, but on the other sense...I'm still tired everyday.

I try to deal with it, but it's hard to not nap less than several hours. I also snooze a lot. My old roommate counted seventeen snoozes when I was napping once. That's almost three hours of snoozing on top of the time I slept prior to that first alarm going off. BUT there is good news, sort of. I've found a way to take quick naps without feeling like crap afterward. I don't nap in my bed anymore, but I'll unroll my sleeping bag, grab a pillow and sleep on the floor instead. I'm always tired enough to fall asleep, but when my alarm clock wakes me up I'm uncomfortable enough to not be overwhelmed with the thought of going back to sleep. It's quite exciting to be entering the next chapter of my sleeping pattern.

Obviously sleep is an important element of my life and I wish the sleep I get were more satisfactory, but it isn’t. If you’re having similar problems as I am, I would suggest giving the sleeping bag naps a whirl. They’re not a 100% correction, but it’s better than living on like this. If you get good sleep, I envy you and hope that you cherish your sleep and appreciate it. You’ll never know how good you have it.