An Explanation

Hi. I suppose I should introduce myself and say what I'm doing here in this tiny, one-bedroom corner of the Internet that's annoyingly right next to laundry room. I'm Joe, and it'd be more beneficial to say what I've been than what I'm doing right now. I used to be the head of a foreign/independent/foreign film group in college, I used to be a film critic for a small Nebraska city (Yes, 27,000 is large for Nebraska, but on most portrayals of "small town" in television shows from Twin Peaks to........ uh, the 50 shows that tried to rip off Twin Peaks, the number is around 50,000), former intern for a now-defunct anime magazine, and other odds and ends. It's not really for bragging rights. I wasn't really all that and a bag of Kettle Cooked BBQ chips (I hate to product place, but they're so good) in most of these tasks, but it's more to establish my mindset. I love movies, I've dabbled in anime, and I think I go beyond a casual viewer in either.

I've always wanted to discuss these things at greater length than I've had the leisure to in my life. Not that I've been exceptionally busy or engaged in other things, but it seems there's never the right time to really talk the deeper meaning of things. That's not to mention I've found in my early 20s I have ADHD, so God or mother nature or chance puts a lot of pennies on the track of my train of thought. Writing's always seemed the most natural outlet, but even then, it takes me awhile to construct what I mean. This paragraph, for instance, took 20 minutes of milling about to reasonably assemble what I'm trying to say, and even then, I'm not happy with it as it currently stands and have to resist the urge to delete it all and start again.

My goal here is to open up my thoughts on various pieces of work from film to anime to other stuff I don't have much experience talking about (For instance, my fandom of abstract electronic artists Underworld. Much of their music creates images, moods, and moments from fragmented streams of thought that's extremely difficult to describe and even harder to discuss). What I hope is this will help bring together my inner thoughts in a more compact way, and hopefully bring myself together a little better as well. I had someone tell me once something along the lines of, "You are brave and you are intelligent. Unfortunately, you are never both at the same time." Wouldn't it be nice to be both simultaneously? And hopefully, I get some people I can discuss these things with. I'm not counting on it, but it could happen.

What I plan to start with is stuff I feel has been overlooked or simply not looked at at all. Hence the title "Entertainment from the Abyss" Now this isn't always going to be things I admire. There are sometimes good reasons why things get overlooked. Maybe later we'll get into more well known things (I was one of THOSE college students who had a million theories about David Lynch's Mulholland Dr., for instance), but for now, this is probably a good enough start so I don't bite off more than I can chew.

I probably had a few more reasons for this, but to quote Forrest Gump, "I just felt like running...."