Rest in peace, Glenn Frey.
The Eagle’s were great, man.
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January 18 – Farewell, Glenn (take it easy)
“You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”
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I don’t care how Jeff Lebowski feels about it, I’ve always loved The Eagles.
I was hiking along the Kansas River again this afternoon waiting for the sun to go down, hoping for some good color in the sky and some glassy reflections in the water. I looked at my phone and saw the notification from The Associated Press that The Eagles founding member Glenn Frey had passed away; he and drummer Don Henley formed the band in Los Angeles in the early 1970s, along with guitarist Bernie Leadon and bassist Randy Meisner. He passed away in New York in the company of loved ones. He was 67 years old.
It seems like a cruel joke to have so many beloved artists and musicians dying in such quick succession. Lemmie, Bowie, Rickman, and Frey are on a lot of minds right now, and the world seems a little colder knowing these people have left us. We’re all in the process of learning how to mourn in a way that we hadn’t a generation ago. Our rituals are changing, and social media is playing a significant role; it’s a magnificent engine that drives sad news into viral proportions in faster-than-light speed.
As with the previous deaths over the past week, I present you tonight not with a photograph of the day, but an illustration in commemoration of our friend. As with Bowie and Rickman, Frey will remain with us in our mix tapes and records, on the screen, and in our memories.
And I feel it important to echo what a friend of mine wrote earlier today:
“Someone needs to get a team of doctors to [keep an eye on] McCartney, Mick Jagger, Simon, and Taylor stat! We demand wellness checks!”
Now turn on the radio. Live in the fast lane or take it easy. Whichever makes you happy.
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January 17 – The Good Book
“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”
~Mark Twain
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I have a massive collection of books. A massive collection.
Like many of my ilk, I’ve looked back and realized that I have always been a collector. My younger self collected a wide variety of useless things, from wall posters and semiprecious stones (every family vacation had me on the lookout for rock shops) to previously-viewed VHS tapes and pogs (when those were in fashion – yeesh, how embarrassing). I continue to collect music, but the most obvious thing I collect, quite naturally, are photographs.
Thinking on it, I collected baseball cards even though I was never, ever a sports fan. Things went pretty sideways once I discovered that trading cards existed for comic books. Heck, my obsession even took me down the path of outright criminality; I got caught stealing Marvel Ultra trading cards at the local supermarket when I was probably twelve or thirteen. I was absolutely terrified by that experience, and painfully ashamed. I also survived and would you believe it, I didn’t steal cards any longer. Instead, I started collecting actual comic books.
The early 1990s were a wonderful time to get into comic books and, for twenty years, I’ve been waiting for those lovely creative people in Hollywood to tell some of those stories on the silver screen. The first major series I got into was an X-Men story-line called “Legion Quest,” in which Professor Charles Xavier’s son travels back in time to execute Magneto, thus preventing all of the damage Magneto has done in his lifetime. It’s another iteration of the “if you could go back in time and kill Hitler” thought experiment. I have always loved this about the X-Men stories. They’re thoughtful, and thought-provoking. Initially, the X-Men were a vehicle through which the authors discussed American prejudice, mirroring the experiences of ethnic minorities. Today, stories of exclusion and oppression also reflect the marriage equality movement. The world is always so quick to point at a group and shout “freaks!” And the X-Men, in these stories, are the freaks. It takes the anguish of real-life problems and de-contextualizes them, allowing us to think about these issues from a fresh perspective. It’s brilliant.
Hero stories are all morality plays in the end, and they’re infinitely more sophisticated than they might appear to be on the surface. It has been fun watching media like graphic novels and video games achieve the mantle of high art and experience legitimacy in the eyes of the wider public. Once upon a time, comic books were for kids and video games were nothing more than a waste of time (and yes, they still can be, so don’t get me wrong). The video game industry has now surpassed Hollywood in generated revenue, and graphic novels are now being made into feature length films.
Progress, ladies and gentlemen. The nerds have won, world. Deal with it.
The “Legion Quest” story-line was jam-packed with the what-if’s of time travel tales, and it laid the foundation for an even larger and monumentally engaging story: “The Age of Apocalypse.” I’m venturing to guess that this is what the next movie, “X-Men: Apocalypse,” will be presenting. It’s an exciting time to be a fan-boy, indeed!
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Needless to say, graphic novels also led to plain-old books. Large-print illustration books, art history books, some first-edition Steinbeck novels, throwaway Vampire Chronicles and Stephen King tomes, and hallowed American classics from the greats like Conrad, Faulkner, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald. Every move, from dorm room to apartment, apartment to house, city to city, has seen me lugging impossibly heavy twenty-eight gallon Rubbermaid containers stacked with books. I can’t seem to let them go, and I often will pluck a book off the shelf and thumb through it for inspiration. Hell, I rarely even sold my textbooks back in college.
The picture above is a studio photograph of a pocket bible. On the University of Arizona campus, probably my sophomore year, there was a day when a group of missionaries stood on damn-near every street corner, every intersection, and every entrance to the student union handing these things out. Green vinyl covers and tissue-thin pages. I took every single one that was offered to me as I crisscrossed the campus on my way to class – until there wasn’t any room left in my backpack. I probably made off with about thirty copies. I went immediately to task making art projects out of them, and a series of photographs like the one here. In retrospect, it was probably a little scandalous that I collected all of those books, but I don’t think the world is in short supply of King James Bibles.
I guess the jury’s out, but I’m banking on the Good Lord being as forgiving as they say.
So What’s With The Iran Nuclear Thing?
Primer: We all have that friend who appears to thrive on delivering bad news. There’s a good chance we might be that person. People love giving bad news. Negative information empowers the messenger. Giving bad news makes us feel important. The only reason why is because people listen. The information impacts people and exploits the recipient’s sense of decency to not respond ambivalently. This is what the news media has become. It tells us on a daily basis that violent crime is up, that terrorist threat levels are rising, that common household items will kill us. Bad news always grabs more attention.
A parade of talk radio personalities and editorialists know this. Once we’ve gotten used to seeing more and more negativity around us, we actually begin to actively seek it out. The more awful it is, the more we want it. This is why a myriad of misinformation has surrounded the arms deal with Iran. The truth is that world is not a vortex of despair, and the nuclear agreement with Iran has been, at least up to this point, successful.
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Saturday afternoon the Associated Press reported that Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary-general, is welcoming the implementation of the nuclear agreement reached with Iran in 2015. Iran has met all of the commitments outlined in the deal. According to his statement, Saturday’s achievement shows that “dialogue and patient diplomacy are the best ways to address worries about weapons proliferation.”
The optimistic view would be that Iran will continue to respect it’s commitments and that this agreement will remain unmolested. The hope is that cooperative dialogue will continue between Iran, the United States, and the five other world powers who negotiated the fifteen-year agreement. There is enhanced possibility for security and stability in a region that has been unstable, unpredictable, and antagonistic towards the west for decades.
Saturday afternoon, President Barak Obama signed an order to lift economic sanctions on Iran. This was done only after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) certified that Iran had met its obligations to curb its nuclear program. While this deal concretely deprives Iran of pathways to develop a nuclear arsenal, critics have been loud and steadfast in insisting that this agreement will have the opposite effect.
The administration’s case has been to open dialogue and delay Iran’s nuclear ambitions. In this, the administration has been successful. After decades of contention and lack of communication between governments, the United States is engaged in active, productive dialogue with the Republic of Iran. As President Obama expressed in his address Saturday, “A strong, confident America should advance our national security by engaging directly with the government of Iran.”
VIEW THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS HERE
There are material benefits, as well. Two thirds of Iran’s centrifuges have been removed. More than 98% of Iran’s nuclear stockpile has been shipped outside of it’s borders; it now holds less material needed to manufacture a single nuclear bomb. After decades of expansion, Iran’s material progress towards developing a nuclear arsenal hasn’t just been stopped, it has been reversed.
The most legitimate criticism cites the time-frame of the nuclear agreement; constraints on Tehran’s nuclear program will terminate after fifteen years. With the lifting of sanctions, it is expected that Iran’s economy will expand dramatically. Over $100 Billion dollars in assets that have been frozen overseas will be released back to Iran as a result of President Obama’s executive order. New oil, trade, and financial opportunities will empower Iran significantly over the next fifteen years, and there are fears that Iran will be in a better position to quickly and efficiently develop a nuclear arsenal once the deal expires. By that time, it is also possible that Iran’s economy would be strong enough to withstand reimposed sanctions and that it’s nuclear installations would be better protected; it is expected that Iran will increase its air defense systems with the help of Russia.
The clock is ticking. But the time-frame is concrete, comprehensible, and provides opportunities for world governments to develop strategies should diplomacy fail. Before the nuclear agreement, the global community had “it’s only a matter of time.” The anxiety generated by the unpredictable nature of Iran’s nuclear program buttressed the resolve of war hawks, and served to reinforce the idea that armed conflict would be the only solution. Nobody knows what Iran will look like in fifteen years, who it’s leaders may be, and what our relationship to their government will be like. In the interim, the United States will be in a better position to negotiate deals with Iran for the future, even after the nuclear deal expires, and maintain peaceful relations.
Misinformation has circulated that Iran will be allowed to select it’s own inspectors, allowing ample opportunity for corruption. These reports surfaced in August of 2015 and were refuted within hours by the IAEA. This did not stop radio hosts and media pundits from repeating this misinformation. This did not prevent a contingent of our political leadership from repeating this misinformation.
There are claims that the agreement protects Iran from punishment for future violations. The truth is that no aspect of the agreement prevents the United States from re-implementing sanctions should inspectors discover that Iran has violated the agreement.
A consensus of polls reflects that an overwhelming majority of American citizens support this deal, despite the near fifty-fifty divide we see on capital hill. When messages are tirelessly repeated on the airwaves, it does not make them any more factual. The call to arms from Netanyahu, Huckabee, Cruz, Kristol, et al, does not represent the attitude of the majority of Americans. These politicians, it would be important to note, were on the wrong side of history leading up to the conflict with Iraq, and there is no reason to believe that their aggressive posturing towards Iran is any more legitimate.
It is surprising that individuals often don’t take the advice they routinely give their children: use your words. Every opportunity should be made to exhaust dialogue and diplomacy with foreign governments before we commit our armed forces to lethal combat. No conflict has ever been as easy as our leadership has tried to pursued us it will be. The costs are always higher. The collateral damage is always greater. The lives lost are always much, much more.
Fallout – Stephen King’s “The Shining”
Today’s “Fallout” easter egg is a simple one, but it’s also one of my favorites.
To the uninitiated, there’s a location on the map in The Capital Wasteland where people have survived, barricaded behind a mountain of k-rails, slabs of salvaged pavement, and the walls of a lone surviving structure. Tenpenny Tower, a rotting spire of concrete named after it’s founding inhabitant, is a fortified settlement in the territories west of the Downtown DC ruins. Formerly a luxury hotel, it is the tallest surviving building on the map, with the Washington Memorial a likely second.
The residents of Tenpenny Tower are a collective of elitist snobs who, behind their reinforced concrete barricades and a well-armed security force, do not take a liking to the poor and hungry drifters who occasionally stumble across the dusty cracked monolith. Allistair Tenpenny only allows affluent and “cultured” individuals inside his hotel, prejudiced against the pour and against the ugly so-called “ghouls.”
For those of you who don’t know – and if you don’t, the why the heck are you even reading this?! – ghouls are humans who have been deformed due to exposure to high levels of radiation. Some ghouls are feral and will attack anybody on-sight, but there are underground societies of mentally acute ghouls. These are perfectly sound, rational human beings with a serious case of flesh-rot. Prejudice against them is rampant in settlements across the wastes because of their unsightly appearance and fears that they may become feral. Their presence in the “Fallout” universe is a clever way to inject themes of racial prejudice into the narrative without invoking actual real-world ethnicities.
(this is also one of the reasons I’m such a huge fan of “District 9”)
On the mid-floor apartments in Tenpenny, there’s a tricycle in the hallway, along with blood-stains on the walls and an overturned chair. This is a direct reference to Stanley Kubrick’s classic horror film “The Shining,” based on the novel by Stephen King. Midway through the film, Danny Torrence happens upon two little girls dressed in blue while riding his big-wheel through the corridors of the hotel. In a flash, Danny sees a murder scene with the two girls laying on the ground, butchered, with blood covering the walls and an upturned chair on the floor.
Little nods like this are everywhere in the “Fallout” universe, but this one is absolutely marvelous.
For ever, and ever, and ever…
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Bonus Game Fact: Emil Pagliarulo, lead game designer and lead writer on the “Fallout 3” project confirmed that Tenpenny Tower (and its associated game quest) was partially inspired by Fiddler’s Green, the skyscraper in George A. Romero’s “Land of the Dead.” The story line is similar enough, with arrogant elites inside, and ghoulish creatures outside, looking for a way in.
January 16 – Those “Creative Types” We Know…
Artists and egos go together like milk and cookies, now, don’t they? Where you find the one, you’re likely to find the other. It’s as though creative people are perpetually prepared to defend their work. And we all know what defensive personalities can do, don’t we? That’s right. They can lash out viciously like frightened wild animals. Bisbee boasts a wonderful arts scene in Southern Ariona, and that wouldn’t be a lie. But the happy-go-lucky vibe Bisbee also likes to boast about itself? Well, that’s not entirely correct. The fact is, the economy there is contracting and the town has gentrified significantly from the dirt-cheap 1960s of yore. Rents are higher, fewer dollars are flowing into the town, and there’s greater competition for a seat at the winner’s table. Sometimes there are hurt feelings when you struggle to promote your work, and sometimes you get thrown under the bus. Sometimes our melt-downs are very, painfully public.
That kind of thing happens in a small town, I guess.
During my tenure, I created enough problems for myself with this big old dumb mouth of mine. I’ve also quietly watched other peoples’ struggles unfold like a great big dusty rug on social media, ready for a thorough beating. We take our licks and hopefully learn something from the experience. We also discover who those people are that never seem to enter the arena, but always sit on the sidelines like carnival barkers, ready to cut you down to size, and ready to help fan the flames of a small conflict into a dangerous firestorm. Having a creative passion is something of a spectator sport, especially in a small town, but heck – criticism is part of the game, too.
People that can’t handle criticism should never pursue a career in the arts. Period.
In my humble opinion, when an artist is surrounded only by cheerleaders who celebrate each attempt as though it were the Mona Lisa itself? That’s absolutely freaking wonderful! We all need positive support. But it also means that the artist may be in the perfect position to experiment with something new, to try a new subject, style, venue, audience. The real danger of a town like Bisbee is that it’s such an incredibly small and insular place, and there are a lot of big fish. Things can get ugly when resources are scarce.
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I say all of this not to stoke the flames of malcontent. It appears as though the most recent round of conflict in the Bisbee art scene has played itself out (at least in social media). I say all of this in relation to the image above, made by a gentleman who used to live in the brick building on Brewery Gulch across from the dog park. That is, if anyone ever really recognized it as a dog park. At one point or another, I think I remember people jokingly referring to it as “parvo park,” which didn’t inspire much confidence. Nevertheless, the brick building was festooned with mesh wire, painted mannequins, Christmas lights, and other random, presumably “found” objects. Some viewed it as an eyesore, others loved it. Visitors could be seen taking pictures of it with their smartphones every weekend.
I can’t pick sides. I don’t know the whole story. I just know that the eccentric old beast who decorated that building doesn’t live in Bisbee any longer. He may have brought it upon himself, or maybe somebody just didn’t like the cut of his jib. The extent of my knowledge is that he was run out of town. The right mixture of hubris, ego, madness, creativity, and drugs will always yield interesting results – and I’m confident all of those elements were at play. When creative types collide, sparks fly.
It’s my understanding he lives in Jerome now and he’s happy there, so there’s that. I don’t miss the dog park, but I do kind of miss the crazy decorations on that old building.
Oh well. Time marches on.
Politicians – Willful Ignorance And Dangerous Oversimplification
“The regulation of anonymous and pseudonymous communications promises to be one of the most important and contentious Internet-related issues of the next decade.”
~ A. Michael Froomkin
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Yes, it’s primary season. We all know it and it’s difficult to escape the constant pandering, posturing, and promoting. Each candidate is trying to provide their best sales pitch to the greatest number of people. At this point in the race, we are in an information loop; with so many candidates on the GOP stage, we’re hearing the same messages on repeat. If you’ve watched one debate, that’s enough to understand what the candidates stand for.
Statements from these debates are dissected, scrutinized by newsrooms, and they’re stripped of context and converted into soundbites by radio personalities. During the GOP debate on Wednesday, each candidate spent a significant amount of time on outrage, on how President Obama has failed, and on what programs and executive orders they intend to eviscerate should they win the seat. What’s troubling about this is that very little time was committed to explaining precisely what they would do instead. It’s disconcerting, listening to ambitious political leaders pounding the podium and insisting on burning the building to the ground without explaining what they would build in its place. When fewer personalities cling desperately to the stage, perhaps we’ll be presented with a clearer picture.
One of Mr. Ben Carson’s statements stood out to me. It was emblematic of how truly uncombed the GOP’s philosophy has become. To call the GOP disconnected is a kindness; if their oversimplified statements are more calculated than they appear, there’s only one conclusion we can take from the debate: the GOP does not respect the intellect of its constituents.
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Midway through the GOP debate, Ben Carson connected two dots that any reasonable person should find outlandish:
“When you go to the Internet, you start reading an article and you go to the comment section. You cannot go five comments down before people are calling each other all manner of names. Where did that spirit come from in America? It does not come from our Judaeo-Christian roots, I can tell you that.”
The auditorium, predictably, erupted with applause. If we are to paraphrase his statement, though, it would appear to condemn America for falling into an attitude of meanness and contention, and the problem comes from prevailing secular attitudes that threaten to divorce America from is great religious traditions. I didn’t hear much discussion about this particular statement following the debate, but it clearly resounds with the Republican party and with GOP supporters. The implications are important.
First and foremost, Carson unwittingly evoked the parable of the invisible man, although he missed the point entirely. He also insisted that religion, specifically Christianity, is the panacea to help resurrect civility in the industrialized world. Like many in his cohort, Carson attempted to evoke a vision of a more civilized and cooperative American past, a 1950s pastiche of “simpler times.” The problem with that is that there has never in our history been a time of social perfection, and the ethnic strife and Cold War anxieties of mid-century America are the reality that “Leave It To Beaver” denies.
What Carson failed to realize is that anonymity is a problematic concept, and the lack of accountability that it promotes will almost always result in mischief. Bank robbers wear masks for a reason. White collar criminals are good at erasing their tracks. YouTube comment sections are rife with hateful rhetoric because nobody is held accountable for the words that stream anonymously from their fingertips. No amount of religion is going to change that.
What our leaders should be doing is promoting an atmosphere of accountability, not religious piety. They should not only preach from the pulpit of truth and transparency, but they should follow it up with sound legislation that reinforces that transparency. That is infinitely more American than insisting Christianity is the answer, than denying refugees because of their race or creed, than stripping regulation from the financial sector, of which every America citizen has a stake.
Watching politicians making broad statements about the decline of culture is offensive. Insisting on a monolithic one-shot solution – be it religion, a giant wall, or a fleet of gunships – is an unrealistic and dangerous lie. We need thinking leaders who do not pander to the lowest common denominator, but instead inspire greater conversation and comprehension of our status as a nation-state. Don’t tell me about how President Obama has failed. Tell me what you are going to do that is so much better. And while you’re at it, you had better tell me why.
Fallout – Howard Hughes And Mr. House
The House always wins.
A goodly number of “Fallout” fans play through “New Vegas” without ever noticing the incredibly striking parallels between the Vegas Strip’s monolithic figure – the reclusive pragmatist Robert Edwin House – and the real-world filmmaker and aviation magnate Howard Hughes. Looking at the image above, it’d be a stretch to call it a coincidence. Mr. House’s biography draws heavily on the life and career of Hughes in a wonderful homage to mid-century America.
Let’s take a look at a brief breakdown of their respective biographies.
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Robert House: Born to a wealthy tool magnate. He was orphaned at an early age and was cheated out of his inheritance. Despite this setback, he attended the Commonwealth Institute of Technology (inspired by MIT) and founded RobCo Industries, a robot manufacturing empire that plays a significant role throughout the “Fallout” series. His technical genius and prolific business skills made him a leading figure in aerospace engineering, Vegas Casinos & entertainment, and even reacquired the H&H Tool Company from his half-brother.
Mr. House survives the nuclear apocalypse in a cryogenic chamber of his own design. After two hundred years of preservation, however, he cannot risk leaving his isolation chamber; exposure to outside contaminants would prove deadly. He rules the whole of the New Vegas Strip remotely, using an army of security robots (securitrons) and has brokered treaties with regional tribes, who he has employed to repair and re-open The Strip.
In his corporate portrait (pictured above) we see Mr. House standing in front of one of his greatest robotic achievements, Liberty Prime, a building-sized robot designed to assist American troops in fighting the communist Chinese. Liberty Prime, known to anybody who has played “Fallout 3”, is central to the game’s plot. This portrait is a fun hint at the development and history of Liberty Prime that we don’t see until the follow-up game, “Fallout: New Vegas.”
Howard Hughes: Born to a successful inventor and businessman who founded the Hughes Tool Company in 1909. He demonstrated high aptitude in science and technology at a very young age. In particular, he become interested in engineering, building Houston’s first “wireless” radio transmitter at age 11. He used spare parts from a steam engine to make a motorized bicycle, took his first flying lesson at 14, and attended math & aeronautical engineering courses at Cal-Tech.
Both of Howard Hughes’ parents died when he was a teenager – his mother from complications of an ectopic pregnancy and his father from a heart attack. Hughes took his inheritance and became a Hollywood tycoon in the 1920s before forming the Hughes Aircraft Company. He broke several world air speed records, acquired and expanded Trans World Airlines, and revolutionized commercial air travel.
In later life, he began to evince symptoms of mental illness, including obsessive-compulsive disorder. He is remembered for eccentric behavior, impulsive spending, and an unhealthy obsession with germs. In November of 1966, Hughes traveled to Las Vegas and moved into the Desert Inn. He refused to leave the hotel and decided to purchase it in order to avoid conflict with the owners; he made the ninth-floor penthouse his personal residence. He subsequently purchased The Castaways, New Frontier, The Landmark Hotel and Casino, and The Sands.
He would be isolated for weeks at a time, handled common items with tissues to avoid contamination, and become obsessed with underground nuclear testing at he Nevada Test Site. He severely disapproved of nuclear testing, fearing exposure to radiation. Hughes is reported to have died on April 5, 1976, although no definitive record exists. He had suffered from severe malnutrition, likely the result of his obsession with microbes and infection, and a later autopsy stated kidney failure as the cause of death.
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Wealthy parents, tool companies, aerospace engineering, eccentricity, isolation, and fear of contamination. The script writers at Bethesda Game Studios paid strict attention to detail, straight down to the Howard Hughes initials for the game’s H&H Tool Company. Beyond that, Mr. House has a security robot named Jane; we later discover that Mr. House has an unusual attachment to the automaton. This computer companion is likely a reference to Jane Russell, a starlet who was under contract to Howard Hughes for a brief period of time and was also one of his lovers.
Mr. House also has a peculiar hobby collecting snow-globes. There is a good chance that this is a reference to the snow-globe in the opening scene of Orson Wells’ classic film “Citizen Kane.” While not one of Hughes’ films, it is considered an undeniable classic contemporaneous with Hughes’ own cinematic achievements. Additionally, “Citizen Kane” took it’s inspiration from another business tycoon: William Randolf Hearst.
Certainly, much more could be scribbled down about these two – and believe me, I am deeply fascinated with William Randolf Hearst – but these are the major points. It is this level of creativity, appreciation of history, and flat-out whimsy that makes these games so phenomenally fun, and the franchise so unprecedentedly successful. I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled for other interesting tidbits during my next play-through.
Cheers.
January 15 – On A Hill In Bisbee
“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.”
~Aristotle
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I decided to dig through the archives for today’s photograph. I have a mountain of pictures that not only haven’t been published, but have almost been forgotten. I like to sift through old files, look back on all the faces and scenery I’ve been blessed enough to photograph. When my motivation is languishing – when I’m feeling the impulse to create something but don’t know where to begin – going through old photographs always helps.
One of my favorite places in the whole world is the hilltop that overlooks Brewery Gulch and all of Old Bisbee. That old Arizona town is unspeakably picturesque. Years ago, I’ve been told, a local man – I wish I could recall his name – could be seen hauling materials, an armload at a time, up and down the rocky path that winds up the hill. And anybody who visits Bisbee eventually sees the big white cross on the hill. Most folks aren’t able to find the trail without being shown the way.
Local folks have added their own candles, keepsakes, statues, prayer flags and vials of water. A local woman placed her husband’s ashes up there. A small red dollhouse-sized memorial was fixed onto the hilltop when Derrick and Amy Ross – our Nowhere Man and Whiskey Girl – passed away a couple years ago. On the backside of the hill is a makeshift shrine for those who braved the desert heat in an attempt to cross into America. Toothbrushes, children’s shoes, baby bottles, rosaries, backpacks, sunglasses, and clothing have been collected and hung atop the rocks beneath the visage of the Guadalupe Virgin.
I hiked up there several times a week, not often running into other people. I never grew tired of the view. Just thinking about it, I can almost feel the sense of calm in the wind in the summertime, watching monsoon storms roll in from the distance. It is a very special place. I look forward to being there again soon.
How Gamers Won The Format War
We all know who was victorious; the war was won almost a decade ago. There was a time, though, when two forces were vying for market share in what would become the next physical home media format. In the end, it all came down to movie studio support and the consumer electronic industry. What many people don’t know is how hard-fought the battle actually was, and the fact that a little black box developed by Sony Computer Entertainment dealt the most significant blow.
The seeds of the burgeoning format war began much earlier, but those seeds only began to take root in the summer of 2005. A discussion began around this time to develop a unified format, and the format war began in earnest when HD-DVD approached the BDA (the Blu-ray Disc Association) to combine efforts in developing these new technologies. When Toshiba and the HD-DVD camp insisted on too many changes to the format developed by the BDA, nascent cooperation transformed overnight into outright competition.
Paramount and Warner – two studios who had initially expressed interest in HD-DVD – were the first major entities to frustrate the competing formats by abandoning exclusivity, opting rather to release titles in both formats. Netflix also chose ambivalence over risk, announcing intentions to make titles available in both formats. At this stage, Universal Studios was the only major studio that remained solely in the HD-DVD camp.
Both formats were showcased at the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show. HD-DVD appeared to have a significant time advantage, with an earlier release date by a two-month margin, but many tech-industry insiders lauded Blu-ray’s substantial capacity advantage. At the end of this run, there were a handful of malfunctions with both formats upon their initial release. HD-DVD hardware was recalled and Blu-ray titles presented atrocious film transfers and had significant audio playback issues. Replacements were ordered and film transfers had to be re-coded and discs replaced. These seem to be minor and forgivable missteps with first-gen products, but neither format gained significant foothold.
The true game changer? Gaming consoles.
In November 2006, Sony Computer Entertainment released the Playstation 3. Consumers balked at the $499 price-tag, the highest ever seen on a gaming console. They were also skeptical about the Playstation’s abilities as a Blu-ray player. Keep in mind that playing movies on a gaming console was a new and foreign concept. Playstation’s Blu-ray player ultimately proved to be the most affordable at that time, and out-performed other hardware options. The X-Box 360 – Microsoft’s competing console – required a $199 add-on to achieve what the Playstation had accomplished at the time of its release. The Playstation 3 outsold Microsoft’s add-on five-to-one. The impact of the Playstation 3 influenced the format wars magnificently.
During the lead-up to the Consumer Electronics Show in 2008, the two formats still appeared to be somewhat evenly matched, but many rumors abounded that major studios were preparing to drop the HD-DVD format. Just before the show, Warner dropped HD-DVD. Toshiba did not fire back in defense of their flagging product, but instead canceled their showcase altogether. After the Consumer Electronics Show Netflix, Best Buy, and Wal-Mart, all within a week of one another, also dropped HD-DVD.
The Playstation 3 and its owners are responsible for Blu-ray’s victory. Playstation 3 owners were buying Blu-ray movies. Their purchases accounted for a small fraction of home movie purchases, but it was enough to convince major movie studios that the Blu-ray format had the greatest potential. Additionally, the BDA was willing to offer anti-piracy features like BD+ and region coding, industry-protecting features that were left unaddressed by Toshiba. The intent of BD+ was written specifically to prevent unauthorized copies of Blu-ray discs and the playback of Blu-ray media on unauthorized devices. This technology, even today, has proved to stem the tide of pirated high-definition media compared to older formats like DVD.
Certainly, the competition between red (HD-DVD) and blue (Blu-ray) motivated improvements on the winning format. Many pieces of hardware, and a variety of major movie studios, preferred to remain purple during the competition, but one would inevitably win-out. Toshiba mounted a noteworthy effort, and forced the BDA to focus on transfer quality and authoring, intellectual property protections, and price reduction on hardware. Gamers and home-video film geeks responded to the BDA’s improvements and adopted the Blu-ray format, eventually closing the chapter on the debate between HD-DVD and Blu-ray.
Never underestimate the power of gamers. The video game industry has surmounted Hollywood in earned revenue, and the interactivity of game-based story-telling is catching the attention of a larger and larger number of consumers. This gaming industry, at this particular point in time, isn’t just ahead of the curve. It is the curve.
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