Fred and Loathing on The Internet

The management has asked that more blog content be produced on a regular basis. They are irate that so much has been provided to the creative staff at fredlambuth.com yet there is so little output to show for it. The top brass have voiced complaints about the level of initiative being shown among the employees. There have also been threats of funding being withheld.
They say all the creature comforts available should be reason alone for much more blog posts. The (incredibly soothing to use mechanical) keyboards should be typing all the time, joyfully mind you. The (fancy and articulate) colored pencils should be pressed to paper at the same rate with the same amount of cheer.

Sure, there was quite a lot of grumbling among the crew about being asked to ‘work harder’. They really hate work, even when it’s not hard. This imploring from the top brass for increased production of our artistic creations has been heard loud and clear, or so they tell me. Will this resounding reception to the new orders go anywhere? We’ll find out in the long run. Here’s to a good start. A thousand year publication reich!

The first blog post after this bold step forward will be one gabbing about a 1000 page biography of George F. Kennan, a man who definitely put out a lot of written copy. Thousands of words per day. The guy was oozing phrases and bon mots to write down. What was learned from reading this biography, George F. Kennan: An American Life by John L. Gaddis...

The Venture Bros. is not the only TV show that is about ‘change’. That term is such a broad topic, yet it’s usually one of the prerequisites for qualifying as ‘literature’. Apparently for a story to elevate above mere amusement and into the glorious category of ‘art’, the story needs an element of lasting change. Childish stories of adventure, crime, or super heroics are simply tawdry tales and not full blown literature because in those pulp novels, B-movies, and comic books, everything is restored to how things were before the story began.

Something has to be different than how it started if the story is to be considered holding literary value. The story’s settings, the whole cast of characters, the themes itself, anything. The protagonist is the likely candidate for this change. I think that’s what separates the ‘novel’ from just any long fictional story recorded on to printed pages bound together at the spine. That a story will end with the protagonist changed, or the setting has changed because of them. Either way, the story concludes in a different place than where it started.

Television productions have become a cinematic home for these novel length or multi-book stories. Dramatic series that spread their narratives out over one hour episodes. Sometimes cut into thirty minute episodes, if the writers are economical. I find novels into TV series to be a fitting transition. Charles Dickens would adapt well to the television production schedule of a...

Seeing how the precedent has already been set for blog posts being dedicated to an actual person rather than a media object, we might as well keep going in that direction. We have more to say than just reviews seeking out the nostalgia of forgotten sitcoms, action movies or GOP presidents (and failed presidential candidates). Let’s do a blog post about an inanimate object. Let’s write not about a person, nor a place, but a thing.

The book that brought this ‘thing’ to my attention is American Gun: The True Story of the AR-15 by Cameron McWhirter and Zosha Elimson. A publication from 2023 that has stirred the item in question out of the recesses of my nostalgic musings and into the forefront.

The rifle itself is the item. Or I suppose the ‘AR’ weapons platform. That’s what is getting the blog treatment. Well unofficially. This was a somewhat fabulous book that presented a lot of new information on the development of the rifle. A whole lot about how unliked the lightweight small caliber AR platform was by the military and gun manufacturing elites. I prefaced my qualification of the book's fabulousness with the word ‘somewhat’ because I don’t have my full confidence in the new stuff I learned from this book. There were a few things I did know about prior to reading this book that did come out slightly wrong. At least from how I’ve heard it told in several other non-fiction books. Seeing these gaffes made me reconsider every new thing I learned from this...