SoapBlox is the survivor in Progressive Political Media
Announcing Soapblox Entertainment, More of the Rants You’ve Come to Expect from Soapblox but with a Wider Reach
I apologize for my absence, as I’ve spent the summer reflecting on where the direction of this site should go. We are coming up on our 10 year anniversary this year and truth be told, 10 years ago, I had already purchased the domain and started working on the site (Hard to believe it was so long ago!). Though much has changed inside me and in the, LOL, blogosphere (do people still even use that awful term?) and I have decided, after grappling with this for many years, to make Soapblox more of a broad based society commentary blog and less about partisan politics.
I came to this through a profound internal struggle in dealing with the expected disappointment in the Democrats, the extreme corporatization of our public discourse and our entertainment, also I am growing a little bored of laughing at how unimaginably stupid the Republican Party and the conservative Tea Party movement has become. I will still do bits and pieces of partisan rancor, but I have never really had a strong relationship with the Democratic Party, they have always seemed like what people once called Republicans, and the modern Republicans just seem like village idiots in an expensive suit and a bribe in their pocket. The Tea Party folks are so stupid, most of them talk about the Founding Fathers but can’t accurately quote a single incident of the American Revolution. Remember when Palin thought Paul Revere (which in itself is mostly myth) was riding to warn the British of the 2nd Amendment, which not only makes no sense, the Constitution was over a decade away from being written! Oh and Rick Perry couldn’t remember the date, or THE CENTURY of the Declaration of Independence! He thought it was in the 1500s. More like 17 freaking 76!
Most of what gets the most hits around here is my broad based societal commentaries. You guys spoke and I have listened, so get ready for more of that.
Also, I am going to be expanding the Entertainment section, which has been coming for quite some time. I have been doing these stories for 10 years, so it should come as no shock, though here is the official spiel:
Movies, TV, Video Games and Music, with More of the Substance and Less of the Gossip or Celebrity BS.
Tastes’s Great! Less Filling!
“More entertainment”, you say? Why would anyone want to talk about movies, TV, music and video games in a market saturated with talking heads fixated on celebrity meltdowns, non-stop plugs and loud-mouthed You-Tubers spouting ignorant opinions in a desperate attempt to seem edgy and knowledgeable.
Well as a lover of movies, music, video games and, well… TV, I can tell you that my quest to find people who talk about the subjects I like are few and far between. Many of the people I like also blame “Liberal Hollywood” for everything , as if it were a real thing (it’s not, Hollywood is owned by multi-national conglomerates anyway that just so happen to be run by billionaire and millionaire douche bags who thing the biggest problem with America is the unfair taxation of capital gains, but don’t get me started) and often are simply just a tad too inexperienced to understand some of the finer points in life.
This is why I am starting Soapblox Entertainment. There is a real need to accurately and intelligently analyze the entertainment that surrounds us every day, from the crappiest of the obvious money grabs to the most pretentious of Indie films. From the most violent of Video Game First-Person Shooters to the most long-winded of Role Playing Games. From the latest Pop-Schlock former Disney Star’s new album to the greatest and deepest music in existence, and TV.
Hasn’t this been done to death?
Yes. Though as much as I wish that Perez Hilton would have killed the style, TMZ emerged later, and to this day it lives on in tabloid world. While they killed the artistic merit, in the already low-bar of celebrity gossip, there will always be a crowd for absolute bullshit, so it lives on in an evil undead state.
Those kinds of hi-jinx will be absent here, mainly because… we don’t care about Shia LeDouche’s latest meltdown. We don’t care about fights in the Jay Z-Once Estate. We don’t care about Miley Cyrus exploiting her sexuality. We don’t care about the Kardashians and their model citizenry.
Yet what about people who like movies, video games and music who also hate gossip? There is no shortage of reviews here, there and everywhere! There are even sites that discuss the ins and outs of the fictional worlds a show or movie is based in. They feature snide, smart ass writers who are almost as unlikable as the programs they write about, picking on low-hanging fruit or giving grades to the airing of a TV Show the night it comes out, because it needs it! What could we possibly add to this? All you can do these days is divide.
Why Divide When You Can Multiply!
This is going to be an intelligent, thoughtful analysis of media. We intend to attack TV the way Edward R. Morrow did. We intend to reign in Hollywood the way Siskel and Ebert did on content and nobody has on everything else. We intend to take on video games in a way that very few have: asking real questions about content that only avid gamers can ask. We intend to talk about music as if the latest pop god is just another flavor of the month and good music is proven, like a fine wine, with age, or should I say, history.
For that matter, I should mention, that all media will be treated this way. Which makes us very different. Even retro has been done to death these days. However they still do it like modern media. I have seen a 20 year old pan a classic movie with a rating system. Do you know why? Because he doesn’t know any better.
To quote a great line from the series Mad Men:
Roger: I bet there were people in the Bible walking around, complaining about “kids today.”
Don: Kids today, they have no one to look up to. ‘Cause they’re looking up to us.
New Edition
This is something I can’t do alone, so I enlisted the help of a new writer: Justin Marcus, a film school grad who grew up in the shadow of Hollywood film. We got along pretty well since I grew up the offspring of a major recording act. I have been talking to several other writers at this point as well (though, not just for Entertainment, to be sure), so get ready for some new voices around here.
This has come to fruition over many months of work, so I hope long time readers will keep an open mind while anyone that goes back nearly 10 years now, will already remember some early stuff that leaned in this direction. For the newbies: Welcome! For everyone, I hope that you will enjoy!
