Can You See the Real Me Doctor?

This last Sunday I started a project I have been thinking about.  I'm going to start watching more Criterion Collection films.  Thankfully Hulu has a large collection (minus some of the more recent American films) so after spending 30 minutes just flipping through their holdings I selected Quadrophenia (1979).  I was at first dubious of watching a disco-era 1979 movie about loosely based on the 1973 The Who rock opera.  Thankfully this was no BeeGees Sgt. Peppers.  The performances were great and captured the teenage wasteland quite beautifully.

Phil Daniels, who played lead character Jimmy Cooper with a certain aplomb.  In certain ways his character reminds me of  Shakespeare's Hamlet and Salinger's Holden Caulfield who is more a figure largely shaped by others while yearning to be something different or larger until too late.

Like other teen, coming of age movies there are familiar tropes.  Parents still don't understand, social subcultures conflict, and a lead character out of step with his or her peers.  That said, the film has an endearing quality.  I felt for Jimmy despite him doing some stuff that made him a part of the problem and despite of his declarations of not being a follower, for most of the film he remains so.  Still I felt his heartbreak in his relationship with a girl, his place in the world, his parents.  And yes, The Who soundtrack and Detroit R&B classics provided a great feel to the film.

Well Recommended.

After watching Quadrophenia, I decided to take a change on another British 70's film, the 1978 cult film Jubilee.  I honestly gave the film 60 minutes and it just didn't grab me despite it's VERY heavy punk rock influence.   I did enjoy seeing some important punk figures "try" to act, but the film felt to blunt in trying to "say" something.   It DID have me jonesing to listen to some Adam Ant so I guess it wasn't all bad.

High Five Fridays

I'm going to introduce a weekly column called High Five Fridays in which I'll list five things that interested me this week.

1. Richard Blanco's "One Today"  -Blanco's poem that he recited at President Obama's Inauguration really affected me.  I loved the way his words took me on a uniquely American journey.  I loved his imagery and story.  I will definitely be taking a look at his other poems and books.

2. Looper -I finally sat and watched Looper on Blu-ray.  While I ALWAYS forget "that kid from 3rd Rock From the Sun's name" (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), I thought he did a great turn in acting as a young Bruce Willis.  Time Travel movies always gets haters and lots of my friends either LOVED this film or HATED it.  For me, I enjoyed it and was entertained.  My favorite time travel move remains TimeCrimes but hey my tastes differ, I DID watch Hot Tub Time Machine at least three times!

3. Justified -I've been a big fan of Justified through three seasons, and am now three episodes into the new season.  I'm really enjoying it.  Lots of plot turns and an overarching mystery so far.  Looking forward to see all the various plots collide together.

4.  Indestructible Hulk -I am so glad Dave at my local comics book store Heroes recommended this book to me.  Mark Waid has a long history in comics, but in the past few years he has been firing on all cylinders. After Ed Brubaker's great run on Daredevil, Waid  injected new life into the book.  Now on Indestructible Hulk (which is a horrible title, IMHO), Waid just might redefine both Bruce banner's and the Hulk's role in the Marvel Universe.  I'm not a huge fan of Leinil Francis Yu's art, which I find a little hard to follow in action scenes, but the story is fantastic!

5. NickelNickelNine.com  -It's not quite ready, but Kelly and I will soon be commandeering another podcast along with The Married Gamers.  Nickel Nickel Nine (aka 559, the area code for the Fresno area) will be a local Fresno County focused podcast.  We've come to love the Fresno area as it starts being attractive to new ideas, great businesses, and a place where a lot more fun things can happen.  The podcast should be launching in the next week or two.

To New Beginnings!

I've been thinking about endings and new beginnings a lot lately.  There's been some "stuff" happening with my wife that I can't talk about because that's the way the legal world works. (Just to keep tongues from wagging, it's not anything between me and my wife.) In any event, my wife is now searching for a new beginning for herself which will define her in a new way, that may open new avenues to follow her passions and reward her drive and creativity.

In the midst of this search, she's also making a new beginning with her diet and exercise in a big way, which has also extended to me.  This is fortunate for me at the moment I need the "diet training wheels" on.  In my head I can select what I should be eating, what portion size is right, and what time slot I could fit in 20-30 minutes of cardio each day.  That's all in my head, but my bad relationship with food over decades creeps in if left to my own devices.  Just last night as Kelly was sleeping off the effects of a shot for her migraine, instead of easily picking up a flatbread sandwich or healthy salad I opted for a Wendy's cheeseburger, two sides of fries and topped it off with a large cherry poison...I mean Coke.  I'm still feeling guilty about that this morning.  I need to end that need to creep in just "one more bad meal" or that feeling that if I don't eat at fast food now I'll be "missing out".  I know down the road I need to make good choices for myself independently, but for the moment I thank God that Kelly is being an encouragement and a leader as we lose weight and get more fit.

It's hard trying to eat right while I deal with what I think is depression.  I may not be suicidal or a danger to others, but man I am slowly eating my way to death.  I literally lay awake at night sometimes wonder how big my heart is after years of living this sedentary lifestyle and piss-poor eating choices.  I NEED this new beginning.

And yet I am fearful.  Tomorrow I see my doctor who I haven't seen in a year.  While I know she won't yell at me, I feel like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.  And yet, I don't want to be given up on yet.  I am also fearful of this visit because I also have to bring up the depression for the first time to a physician.  It makes what I only "think" I may have into something with real consequences.  But this too will offer me a new beginning, and one that may enrich my relationship with my wife, friends, co-workers and family.

Lastly for new beginning, my wife and I have talked about heading back to church.  It's has been years since we sat in a pew or chapel.  My faith is important to me.  I know it's important to my wife as well.  That said, for some reason we just stopped going.  That a church just two blocks from us that I know is an "affirming" church which is important to both of us.  We might give it a try this Sunday.  I really wish there was a Lutheran church that was also affirming in my area.  I sorely miss the liturgy.  In any regard, I do look forward to worshiping God as part of the body of Christ.

To new beginnings!

The "To Kill A Mockingbird" Rule

Running The Married Gamers website and podcast, I've made lots of friends. But here's what irks me. I have friends that, to my knowledge, accept me for who I am. The genuinely like me. However they then make fun of those generalized "mouth breathers" of which clan I am known to be part of. I don't like this.

I get it. Making fun of the obese often comes without incrimination. It's like it's the last segment of polite society that it's okay to put down. I mean after all, we did it to ourselves. We should know better. However, these friends KNOW me. They know that changing your lifestyle is HARD, especially when a person has made poor choices for decades. Deprogramming oneself and learning to eat right, know portion sizes, keep away from sugar, walk, exercise, and the like is a little like learning to walk again after being debilitated for several months. These friends know how hard it is for me to get myself together but somehow are unsympathetic to my obese brothers and sisters. It bums me out, and yes it makes me depressed a bit.

One of my most informative books growing up was Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird. Besides my parent's instruction, my somewhat lax Christian upbringing, and the music I listened to, Mockingbird taught me how to try to "get into another person's skin" and to view people from their perspective. We human beings are so interesting from any other creature on the planet. Just today as I was getting mail, I was thinking that there are billions of people who have distinct lives: each one with their own hopes, desires, needs and problems. We may share many of them in common, but we are all unique. That complexity intrigues me and compels me to treat others with at least respect. I'm far from perfect at it, but I would hate to miss a Boo Radley who may one day become my hero.

My Ten Favorite Albums of 2012

It's always hard to chose the ten best of anything, especially music. There's plenty of stuff I haven't heard that may certainly be deserving, so instead I'll just mention albums that have been my favorites this year.

10. The Loudest Sound Ever Heard -The Choir The Choir was the first Christian band to show me that music didn't have to fit into either/or worship or secular music. Even when their music have been an inspiration and solace for me for over twenty years, their latest album proves that their work and talent continues unabated and will continue to mean so much to my own faith journey.

9. King Animal -Soundgarden Truth be told, Soundgarden was never a particular favorite grunge band for me. I always leaned more towards Nirvana and Pearl Jam. That said, King Animal is a BEAST! It's a solid return for a band that still has life yet in it. A lot has been said recently about the sunset of rock, but this album proves that it's far from dead. Cornell and boys create an album of great guitar hooks, vocals that excite, and a rhythm that drives the blood.

8. Believe -Justin Bieber Sacrilege! How dare I include former teeny-bopper and bublegum pop star Justin Bieber above Soundgarden or even on this list. The Gods honest truth, I love this album. I feel that Bieber has an ear and voice for great pop and dance music. Believe shows a big step from his manufactured teen sensation days to a more adult dance album. I think he has enough in him to outshine his heartthrob beginnings. This is a fun, slick album that has been a delight for me to drive and work to (sometimes to the chagrin of co-workers and my wife).

7. channel ORANGE -Frank Ocean I am admittedly not ANYWHERE an aficionado when it comes to Hip Hop/ R&B. I first of Ocean for his work on the Jay-Z & Kanye West album which was a mixed bag, except for that killer Ocean track, "No Church in the Wild." This album dropped amidst his revealing personal life that even five years might have killed his career before it had a change to blossom. I'm glad that it looks like the key folks in the Hip Hop community have progressed enough to give this man a chance to pursue his passions (all of them). This album is evokes Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, and his colleague Kanye West. It's my favorite album of this genre all this year, although Childish Gambino (Donald Glover) gave it a run for its money early on when I was drawing up this list.

6. Locked Down -Dr. John Dr. John has already had a storied career and several albums to boast of. Despite his rich career, with Black Keys guitarist Dan Auerbach acting as producer for this album, this is Dr. John's best album in decades. John's voodoo New Orleans music is layered with the raw musical textures that Auerbach brings to the mix. It'd dark, moody, restless and damn good!

5. Girl On Fire -Alicia Keys It's been a while since a last heard or was interested in Alicia Keys, but this album changes that. It's a beautiful album start to finish. It feels honest and deep and for some reason I just connect with it.

4. TIE: Boys & Girls -Alabama Shakes and Arrow -Heartless Bastards Sure, this is a way to squeeze eleven selections into a favorite ten list, but these two bands do go hand in hand with one another. Alabama Shakes feels like Amy Winehouse meets Janis Joplin and Big Brother & Holding Company. Brittany Howard's has a strange quality about it, but draws my ear. Her band is tight and manages to infuse the album with various forms of rock music from classic, southern, jam, alt. country. After declaring my love for the Alabama Shakes, a fellow podcaster friend of mine (Mik of The Fanboys Lunchcast) recommended I check out Heartless Bastards. Their latest album, Arrow, found its musical mark. Erika Wennerstrom's voice can fill whatever room it enters. The album is at times luminous and other southern gothic. It is from the first to last track affecting. I'm so grateful for Mik's suggestion, I'm now a fan of Heartless Bastards.

3. Mirage Rock -Band of Horses I've been a fair-weather fan of Band of Horses since their sophomore album. I haven't given them to much thought to be honest, until I read that renowned producer Glyn Johns was helping the band produced Mirage Rock. The result is Band of Horses best album to date. It is feels like a great Seventies California rock album without all the boring Eagles tunes. There isn't a bad tune on this album, and once the last song finishes I find myself often just letting the album repeat.

2. Rebirth -Jimmy Cliff What a rebirth indeed! This album was without a doubt my summer album. I listened (and continue) to listen to this album hundreds of time, sometimes just letting it repeat on long trips in my car. Jimmy Cliff is a reggae icon and Rebirth shows that he is not ready to fade away. It's a strong album that sheds light on some weighty topics at times and other times is celebratory of reggae and Cliff's influence in it (with some choice covers like The Clash's "Guns of Brixton") . The band backing him does a great job supporting the legend even with such luminaires Rancid's Tim Armstrong and Cypress Hill's Dan Boer among them.

1. Blunderbuss -Jack White I knew early on that White's album, Blunderbuss, would be my favorite album of the year. I was very sad when The White Stripes closed up shop, but after hearing this album, I'm glad that White continues to be one of my favorite artists and guitarists. Blunderbuss is a jangly, rough and tough album full of mean guitar hooks, bloodied drum beats, and kick you when your down lyrics. It's a bar-room fight of an album, made perfect clear in the stellar track "Love Interruption." So there you have it. There's plenty of Honorable Mentions on my list of favorite albums including Childish Gambino's Camp, Gary Clark Jr's Blak and Blu, Green Day's UNO . . . DOS . . . TRÉ! , Bob Dylan's Tempest, Norah Jones' Little Broken Hearts and more.

Blogging my Way in 2013!

Hello again. I will do my utmost to provide new content for this site this year. I have a few "Best Of 2012" that will find themselves here on Leftybrown.com this week starting with my top ten music albums of 2012. Stay Tuned! -Chris

Attaining Nerdvana

So....I've been busy.  More on THAT later, but I wanted to give a short update on the whole SocialEngine trial and The Married Gamers.

I just pulled the trigger and paid $530 for SocialEngine and several plugins.  I was really impress by the ease in which it was to work with the software, and it really opens us (The Married Gamers) to do something really, really cool.

So we are creating a hub call Nerdvana. It will be a place where geeks can attain a higher level of conversation. We will be inviting friendly, non-bullying gaming and geek websites and podcasts to become our partners.  These sites/podcasts would have a great place they and their communities can hang out, create events, interact and chat.  It benefits everyone's communities, makes the place robust and hopping with stuff to do, provides great networking opportunities, and also helps our internal numbers as well.  Also down the road we might devote a portion of the landing page with an ad as well.

The websites and podcasts still control their respective sites (with link exchanges between them and Nerdvana) and we don't demand anything from them financially or editorially.  So it's a good deal for new sites/shows to build a reader/listener base and for others older places provides a second chance to reigniting that community spark.

As much as I love community, I'm really excited by the idea.  Nerdvana should fully launch by April 1st.  If you have a website or podcast that would like to apply to partner up, just drop me a message over Twitter @leftybrown or my email address.

Becoming Friends at The Married Gamers

I just wanted to follow up a bit about bringing back the forums to The Married Gamers.  We are currently trying out something pretty damn cool.  It's called SocialEngine, and it not only give us the ability to run a forum, but also create our own social network of sorts.  It does come with a hefty price tag.  For the features we want to include it'll cost between $500-$600.  We'll be able to offer IM, Chat, Forums, Photo Albums, Groups, Polls, and Blogs.  Pretty robust.

So we really want to get a lot of people testing it out so we can help their opinions, because after all we want to have something people will use and enjoy themselves there.  We also want to make sure it is worth our investment.

So if you want to check it out, head to our SocialEngine trial here: http://setrial.themarriedgamers.net.  Be sure to 'Friend' me!

Behind the Scenes with The Married Gamers

So occasionally I use this space to talk frankly about The Married Gamers website, podcast, and gaming folks I've had the pleasure of interacting with.  For today I want to just give a glimpse on the "secret sauce" we currently are working with behind the scenes.


The Staff

Currently we have 15 staffers at The Married Gamers, including Kelly and myself.  One of those 15 is our web administrator, Devon, who doesn't write for the site, but makes everything look nice and fixes problems when and if they should arrive.

We have three editors at the site.  I'm Executive Editor which is a fancy way of saying I own and shape the direction, look, philosophy, and feel of the website and its various parts (including our Facebook Fan Page, Twitter account, Youtube channel, Google+, and what other social media places we need to be in).  I also proofread articles along with Erik our Editor in Chief.  Erik is the person I most depend on making sure a piece is grammatically correct.  Although I do have an English background my grammar can sometimes be a little shaky.  Finally, Kelly (my wife) is the Managing Editor.  She does not proofread articles, but she is in charge of managing our writer's schedules.  This means requesting review copies of games and products, sending coverage of said items back to the companies, setting up interviews for staff, and setting up what I call "Game Beats" (basically assigning writers a game to cover).

Now running a website that doesn't have ad revenues, angel donors, or rich uncles makes it hard to attract good staff members.  So I am extremely thankful that we have made some great connections, good vibes, and good reputations in that we have attracted some talented, prolific, and passionate writers.  Payment for their services often comes in the form of the games they get to review and keep.  Also this year Kelly and I made an investment in our writers saying that if we can improve our visitors to the site, and if they keep their end of the agreement to develop pre-release release content for an assigned game, that we will guarantee that they will have the game to review.  If we don't get a review copy, I will purchase them a copy to review.  I thought it was only fitting since many of our staff have busy work, school, and work lives so finding additional time to write about games can sometimes be hard to do.  This experiment is in its infancy, but I do hope it encourages our writers to write more often and develop the itch to become serious writers.

Managing, proofreading, planning, promoting, writing, and recording Married Gamers stuff takes a lot of work.  Sometimes it feels like I have so many balls in the air and not enough arms to catch them all.  I'm thankful that Kelly is really good at helping, and Erik has run the site so many times when I've either been sick or away.  I have dealt with burnout, frustrations with staff not writing enough, and sometimes not "feeling it anymore."  There was a time last year I came close to shutting down the website and just producing the podcast.  Thankfully, our some of our writers picked up the slack, and we had some new hires that really re-energized me.


The Community

It's weird this path we've taken with The Married Gamers.  I never expected it to be anything more than a podcast and a personal blog that Kelly & I would share our thoughts on.  Many of you know we started the podcast as a way to heal our marriage, which was in dire straits at the time.  The podcast attracted listeners and when we added forums to the website/blog we attracted a tight-knight community.  I have to say I miss that early community because there was a very strong connection to our members. Some of those 'early adopters' have lost interest in forums, maybe in The Married Gamers, or simply have moved on to other sites or passions.  We have tried as a group to go where the audience is, so we have a Facebook Fan Page and a Google+ page in in it's infancy.

Our Facebook Fan page has been fun, and we're still trying to learn how to use that portal right.  We have not quite made it a special and unique way to interact with us.  We haven't used our photo or video wall as much as I had hoped.  And we also haven't had many discussions that have started from our fans.  Also we had hoped the page would regrow our community game nights using the calendar/invite system, but that hasn't worked that well.  Our fans do answer our Questions of the Day fairly often.

Ultimately with the Facebook page we want to:  1.) Get people to visit our home website.  2.) Make our fans our advocates.  3.) Get our fans to not just respond to questions but to lead discussions.  4.) Get our staff to visit the fan page to interact with our community.   Some of that has been difficult, and we hope we can improve on that in the future.

Our Twitter account has been pretty successful.  Loren, who is not only a pretty good writer, is also our PR person.  He runs the majority of our Twitter postings (that isn't auto-tweets of any new posts on our Wordpress website).  I also use the account as well.  We have a good following, decent interactions, and good retweeting.  We do need to improve our discussions a bit more, and I do want to take advantage of Twitter chats and the like.

Our strategy with @MarriedGamers is to:  1.) Get people to our home website.  2.) Develop an attractive company personality.  3.) Grow our followers.

Recently, we decided to bring back our forums.  We are research and testing various software at the moment, including one that would cost close to $500 but enable us to do some very killer stuff for our community.  Right now we are working on the bugs with that one option and it might be too large a drain on our resources.   Our backup is to get a more tradition forums software that some of these other indie sites use (because it's robust AND free).

I really wanted to get our forums back because I really miss those early community days.  I miss the daily interactions with our passionate fans.  I think they are a way for community to interact better than a quick 140 characters on Twitter, or a short response on Facebook.  We do have more "sinister" reasons for forums as well: 1.) Increase visitor stay lengths  2.) Empower our community to interact.  3.) Provide closer connections with our most passionate community/fans.

We are hoping to have forums running before Easter.  We (by we I mean Devon) has some work to do when he has time for it.  And before we launch something we'll need staff, friends, and community to test it.  But I can't wait for the forums to return!  I'm really jazzed about it.


Okay, I have much more to say, so I'll write down some of these thoughts and use them for some future posts.  Hope you enjoyed some of my internal thoughts, strategies, and plans for The Married Gamers.

A Buffet of Topics

It's be a week since I last posted, so allow me to have a few comments on a bevy of topics:


+ Whitney Houston:   I spent most of my K-12 educational years in the Eighties.  Whitney's first album became a hitmaker when I was in eight grade.  Back then I would bounce around from musical genre to musical genre seemingly every week.  I dug Whitney Houston, and Lionel Ritchie, and of course Michael Jackson.  Whitney had a great set of pipes, and in those days a joy in using them.  My interest in her faded after her short hiatus after doing The Bodyguard in 1992.  We all know about her addictions, her reality TV show, and Bobby Brown.  It's unfortunate.  I can't help comparing Whitney to Billie Holiday.  Both had a wonderful gift and powerful demons.  However they both have a body of work that will long be remembered, continue to inspire, and stir one's emotions.  So, for that I'm thankful and moved.


+ Faitheist:  The latest Sojourner's magazine has a short piece by Eboo Patel on Chris Stedman who has a book coming out later this year called, "Faitheist: How an Athiest Found Common Ground with the Religious."  Stedman is a former Christian who became an Atheist but in serving others found himself respecting other people's religious values while not claiming it for himself.  He chooses not to hate religious people.  I am a little tired of the Christian-bashing and we ALL know we Christians are awfully good at hating anything "not Christian."  Like Stedman, I think we could all do with a dose of treating people like people.  There's an intrinsic value to each and everyone of us.

Loving people, even if you disagree with their own religion (or lack thereof), sexuality, politics. We could all use a dose of that tonic.


+ Resume:  I've been thinking of updating my resume.  I'm not considering a job change.  I like 90% of the people I work with in the library.  I love working at a Christian university.  It's refreshing to have time to slip away for prayer when I need it.  And frankly, while I sometime am prone for too much "multi-tasking" I am good and skilled at what I do.

That being said, I won't lie and say that having a job in the games industry isn't attractive to me.  So I want to update my resume, just in case.  However it's been nearly 20 years since I've written a resume or cover sheet.  I have acquired lots of experience managing a community, running a gaming website, gaming forums, social media, etc.  So in a sense I really need two resumes; one that highlights those skills learned while doing The Married Gamers, and another I learned from working my library job.  But I have writer's block, or something.  Also, things have changed in 20 years, I am also creating a digital resume on a fantastic local site called re.vu.  You can check out my early "draft" here.  And of course, there's LinkedIn.  I can be found there by clicking here.

So I need help sharpening and honing my resume talents.  Just in case.


+ The Married Gamers:  Speaking of TMG, I'm going to work on a separate post about the site during my lunch break today.  I just wanted to quickly say it's weird after nearly five years (Late August will be five years) of owning and running the site and podcast that only now we are hitting our stride.  I really feel like we have a stellar staff, Kelly and I are really clicking and having fun (again) doing the podcast(s), and we working on something behind the scenes that might transform our community.  It's a lot of work, but man these past few months have been delightfully fun.

Now if we could turn it into something that could make some sort of return on the thousands of dollars we've put into it as a hobby/labor of love/business.

I still need to figure out if it is worth it turning TMG into an LLC in the State of California.  I REALLY need to come to a decision on that.  Anyone know someone I can ask about that gratis?