Jay Peterson
  • Home
  • Acting
    • Headshots
    • Resume
    • Press
    • History
    • Reels
  • The Gruntverse
    • Three briefings before a crisis
    • The Preliminary Report of Marshal Bennett
    • So your kid turned out to be a mage
  • Jay at Play
    • Nonfiction
    • Other videos >
      • Just Blanks
      • Tommy That
      • Machine Gun Shakespeare
      • Igor
  • Blog

So, my teenagers threw me for a loop

6/24/2018

0 Comments

 
(I teach adults on Saturdays, kids on Sundays, divvied up between a 12-and-below class and a 13-and-up class)
Apparently, a lot of them are "13 reasons why" fans. I was asked about a particularly brutal scene involving a sexual assault at the end of season 2. Hadn't seen it yet, so I said I'd get back to them. A few minutes later, I mentioned a wartime experience (Me being a veteran hadn't come up before). Which of course brought the inevitable questions in the classy fashion only teenagers raised on Call of Duty can muster.
Now, adults, I don't give a fuck. They want to talk about the darker and uglier aspects of combat or my personal experiences thereof? full speed ahead. Kids? Kinda derailed my train of thought. I waved it off with a raised eyebrow and a look of, "really?" before moving on to the lesson at hand.
In the intervening two weeks, I gave myself the homework of re-watching the first and seeing the second season. And in a great many ways, it confirmed my first feelings: it's a well done depiction of a brutal subject. It's possibly the best depiction of high school I've ever seen committed to film, with a brilliant sense of nuance in several members of an ensemble cast. Spawned a lot of thought.
So today I sat down, and I admitted I'd been thrown for a loop, and why. And I promised to not do it again. They may not be adults yet, but they're learning how to be professionals. This is the kind of material they may be called upon to work with in the years to come. And the last thing they need is another adult gaffing them off or lying to them because the subject matter is intense.
I pointed out that if I walked onto a set tomorrow and they were there, they were my coworker, and should be treated with the respect that entails. That yeah, serious subjects should be dealt with seriously and respectfully, but that doesn't mean pretending that they don't exist.
We talked about that scene phrase by phrase (didn't have it handy to go over shot by shot), and discussed how it was done in a safe way. I hammered home a lesson I repeat almost every time: that there's never a reason to really get hurt, and there's never a reason to ever really hurt someone else. There is always a way to fool the camera and the audience. You just have to find it.
I answered the questions about my previous career, honest and straightforward. And I made it clear that if we ever had to discuss similar material in the future, it was all on the table, as long as we were serious and professional about it.
In this industry, there's going to be plenty of adults lying to them in the years to come. I don't need to be one of 'em.
And then, because I'd set up the mats, we went to work on falls. And we did good work.
0 Comments

Unpopular opinion

6/14/2018

0 Comments

 
I refuse to give angry far alt-right racist assholes the legitimacy of calling them Nazis. They're wannabes at best.
Nazis, for all their evil, could actually fight. And dress. Vile little shits, but damn they could tailor a jacket like nobody's business.
These clowns? In the middle of their supposed Trump-fueled resurgence, in the middle of Georgia, for fuck's sake, they couldn't turn out enough people to fill a Denny's to capacity. And those who didn't look like they'd just gotten off shift as an assistant manager at Target looked like the one night Hot Topic didn't make Saigon Sam's use a condom. I've seen better smack talk out of pop warner football teams.
I'll admit to some genuine fear back before the Battle of Berkley last year, but honestly, they're a mirror image of the antifa goons they get into posturing exercises with. What leaders they have are so obsessed with keeping the moral high ground of hitting back first that they'll wait forever rather than attack directly.
(I consider Charlottesville an aberration in the same way that the Dallas police murders were an aberration. Someone drinking the same koolaid, but peeled off from the mob on their own damn program and deaths resulted.)
People still screaming 'always punch Nazis' are just bleeding what respect I might have had for them. Unless they have scraped knuckles and pending assault charges, they're fucking posers. Wannabes preaching but not practicing the gospel of violence is part of how we got in this mess in the first place. Come back and tell me how righteous you are when it hurts just to pick up a fork, poser.
And finally, those who fell down the slippery slope and are now actively using 'nazi' as a synonym for "right-wing," "conservative," or "Republican?"
They've fallen to the same level of asinine as every meth-addled, dentally impaired cousin fucker that's ever yelled, "not all muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are muslims!" with a straight face.
Yes, it is that damn bad. Yes, it is that damn stupid. Same power, same charge, just aimed at a different angle.
I don't fucking care what blurb of pre-WWII history they're desperately trying to use as an analogy to try and justify it.
Either Cletus was right all along when he was ranting about moose limbs, or the fall into asinine has well and truly happened, it's just being justified differently.
(And those screaming it at us centrists have achieved the dumb of aforesaid cousin fuckers yelling 'terrorist' at Sikhs.)
0 Comments

Saving a Sinner in the choir loft

6/8/2018

0 Comments

 
Saving a Sinner in the choir loft:
When a dissonant voice appears on a topic otherwise agreed on all round. Calm discussion on said topic is interrupted by a preacher of the one true right way, screaming fire and brimstone from their port-o-pulpit upon the sinner in the loft.
I've seen this more and more. I'm talking to someone on a disagreed topic, we're finding middle ground, then BANG, someone jumps into the thread full of fire and brimstone, screaming about how fucking wrong my conversational companion is.
Unhelpful, to say the least.
The peak of this I've seen was a couple of years ago. A long and involved but helpful discussion of trans issues was going on. Then, someone I used to have a modicum of respect for (but has since lost the ability to see a fucking thing past the end of their own pronouns) decided to not only jump onto a soapbox but mount a full-scale superbowl halftime show about how evil and wrong the dissonant voice was.
Completely ignoring the fact that said dissonant voice had spent the last several hours being quietly and politely schooled by another trans individual. This all happened when I was asleep, and laying about with rolled-up newspaper had to happen some hours later. Needless to say, our super bowl halftime artist is no longer permitted here.
But it's been happening more than once. Quiet, respectful, helpful conversation getting derailed by uninvited preachers.
I'm not going to invoke a total ban, but I will point out how unhelpful it is.
0 Comments

An ally on demand is just a lackey

6/8/2018

0 Comments

 
Since I've been taking it rather painfully from, I shit you not, all across the length and breadth of the political matrix this week, let me reiterate something just to make it abundantly clear.
I have but a single response to any manner of loyalty test, oath of allegiance, or if-you-really-cared-you'd-agree call for confession.
That response is thus:
Fuck. Off.
You either believe I'm your ally, or you don't.
You either believe I'm a good person, or you don't.
You either know I'd help you move, or you don't.
You either know I'd help you move a body, or you don't.
If chanting the loyalty jingle is all it takes to convince you, your judgement fucking sucks.
Oh, and you "neutrality favors the oppressor" chanters can not only fuck off, you can fuck off, fuck back on, and fuck off once more.
That "silence means consent" bullshit is not just bullshit, it's bullshit that completely contradicts consent culture.
That's right. It's not just about sex.
"Qui tacet consentit" didn't save Thomas More, and not a one of you fucks are Thomas More.
I'm a radical moderate centrist. Fucking deal with it.
I'm also an aging grunt that has learned the value of diplomacy.
I don't want a world where shooting everyone difficult is the default option, even if I could thrive in such an environment. So I learned to have tea with people I don't particularly care for without making faces at them.
And if you are in my domain, you will do so as well or you will take your leave.
Fucking deal with it.
Tea?
0 Comments
    Picture

    Jay Peterson

    Musings on violence, storytelling, and humanity in general.

    Archives

    December 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    June 2013
    April 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    April 2012
    February 2012
    February 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    August 2010
    June 2010
    August 2008

    Categories

    All
    2nd Amendment
    Archer
    Armor
    Barbarism
    Blades
    Blanks
    Boobplate
    Book Review
    Chainmail Bikini
    Fight Scene
    Film
    Firearms
    History
    Killology
    Military
    Reality
    Safety
    Set Life
    Shakespeare
    Teacupping
    Theater
    Tucker Thayer
    USMC
    Viking
    War Stories
    Weapon Of The Week
    Workshops
    Wounds

    RSS Feed

Certa Bonum Certamen

Picture