The Decline of My Love

 I am very passionate about today’s subject. I am not going to be talking about anyone specific because I don’t roll that way but more of a general feeling I have been getting lately. I have been a reader most of my life. I have always had great respect for authors or anyone who even attempts to put words on a page. I have been writing these blogs for about 15 months and there are days when I want to bang my head against the wall. This is the reason I had great respect for authors. Don’t get me wrong I still have love for most authors but I have seen a disturbing trend lately.

A few years ago it would have been just a pipe dream to talk to an author but with Facebook and other social media it makes authors so much more accessible to the reader. Is this a good thing I think so in most cases. It makes the reader feel closer to the author. Now I will tell you as a reader there are a few authors that if they asked me to clean their house I probably would jump at the chance. Most readers would. I think some authors are taking advantage of the love readers hold for them. Now I am not bashing the authors I am just adding my two cents into a discussion I have had with multiple people both in the reading world and outside of it. I work with people who I sometimes respect and so I ask their opinions and then there is my family who some of which are readers and some are not. I have gotten views from members of the Righteous Perverts and other places as well so here goes my rant.

I hate street teams. I feel like a street team is buying readers affection and in a way it is using them. Most readers would give their left arm to help an author that they love. I get that an author has to promote themselves because most publishers do not. My thing is that with most street teams the author is giving swag away to the members of their teams. Yes, they do expect the team members to also give the swag away to other people and to share their links and websites on their Facebook pages. Do the readers like the authors or their books, sure they do. Do they want the author to do well and write more books, yes. But to me this promotes ass kissing. If you are receiving free swag then you are not promoting the author because you love their books you are doing it to get free stuff. If you have read a book and not liked it then you are in the position of promoting something that you don’t believe in. Some will pimp an author or a book to get more stuff. I know some authors want their fans to be honest with them. Yes, I do know that some of them have street teams but to me the members of the teams cannot be an honest judge of a book because they are in a way being paid to promote the book/ author just not in money. 

Now the actual promoting. Most of you know that I am one of the administrators of The Righteous Perverts. We are a group that is about 115 members of which half is probably authors. We do allow authors to pimp their books, blogs and contests in the group. We also expect them to participate in other threads as well. If they do not then just like any other member they will be removed. That being said we do not get free anything. We have had authors run contests in the group but it is rare that it happens. They usually just tell us that they are running a contest on their blog or site so that we know. We do not allow street team members to promote in our group either. To me this is the way an author should promote. Reach out to your fans and if they want to share your book or you as an author then they are going to do it because they love you or your book.

Now onto the fact that how many people are the street teams really reaching? I do know that some people have several hundred friends on Facebook but how many of them are readers? Next up if they are putting the bookmarks and things in stores or the library they are going straight to the trash because most places do not allow that. If you have pimped your author at your hairdresser or for that matter at your bookclub meeting then how many new people are you reaching? If you have mentioned the book or the author then you can cross those people off your list because if you keep telling them then they are going to feel like they are being hounded. Are you seeing where I am going with this? There is no way for anyone to really reach that many people. I think authors are better off spending their time and or money doing interviews with magazines or bloggers or book clubs rather than expecting 10 or 15 people to reach a mass audience. This is just not going to work and I think that in the end it will create hard feelings of other fans for the authors.

As a fan of several authors I sometimes feel like we are being ditched or that authors do not appreciate the people who have been with them from the beginning. I refuse to join a street team although I have been asked. I keep my friends list low on purpose. Most of the people on my list do not read so that kills me pimping out there. I work in a store and I do pimp there but I do it by suggesting authors or books even though our store does not carry them. I have lists already made up to hand out to people who are asking for help finding a good romance to read. I do something unique I talk to them, I find out what they are looking for, I tell them if I have met an author and how that author acted. How nice they were or how good their books are.  I do this free of charge because I want my authors to do well and to be successful in their careers. I do not expect the author to give me anything for it. I do it because I want others to experience the joys of getting lost in the pages of a book. I do it to get people to read. I know I sound like a librarian but books have been a way for me to experience things that otherwise I would never know about.  Yes, I have told people that they should read the book even if it wasn’t the author’s best work but I also am honest with people and if they ask me if I liked the book then I give them the truth. I tell them that this particular book is not the best the author has written but I do like the book. If the book sucks and someone asks me about it then I tell them that they should try another book by the author. This is the way an honest reader shows their favorite authors the love because they are not being paid to do it.

Now as my rant draws to a close the line forms to the left for my lynching and you can send me my hate mail in the comments so it can be repeated over and over again.

Sinfully Sarcastic,

Shmuttmeister

Death

                                                                 

This blog is really about death. Everyone will experience death. Not only their own but those of loved ones. We all deal with the loss of someone differently. There will always be sadness when you think of them. Even time will not erase that feeling but each day you it will hurt a little less till you only remember the good times and you forget the bad. And with grief comes guilt. I am not sure why this is but no matter how much time you spend with them when someone dies you always think to yourself that I should have been around more or I should have told them that I loved them. Things like that will always haunt you but you have to get over it. Most people let death send them into a depression and the land of what if’s. This to me maybe the worst thing about dealing with deaths of people you love. Sometimes you just have to believe that you may have not spent enough time with them but they knew you loved them even if you didn't tell them everyday.

As a kid I spent a lot of time dealing with death. I was born when my mother was forty so all of our relatives were older than dirt to a kid. As a result I was being dragged to funerals as far back as I can remember. Now my family was Catholic so there was a lot of planning and praying at least at church. When we ended up at home though it was a totally different story.

I can remember sitting around and listening to the adults gossiping about whomever had died. I know that most people would call it disrespectful but they were dead so I am guessing they didn't mind. I can still see my Grandmother and all the old biddies sitting around the kitchen table just telling stories of everyone. Let me tell you these women didn't hold anything back. They reminisced about the good times and the bad. I heard things that a child should never know about their family or anyone else for that matter.

Sitting around and listening to these women talked taught me a valuable lesson. People may seem good and decent but in the end we all have our vices. Others seem like terrible people but they had good qualities as well. I learned that there are so many varying degrees of good and bad that you just have to accept that people are not perfect and sometimes they will find the wrong road and take it.

I know a lot of people find my family’s way of dealing with death as strange because we don’t sit around crying and wailing but that is just not our way. We always want to remember the ones who passed away but we do it in the most honest way possible. We all get together and do exactly what my Grandmother and her friends taught us. We sit down and talk about whoever died. We talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly. We never put the person on a pedestal and we know that in the end we cannot judge because when we die our family will still be doing the same thing except we will be the one being talked about.

Sinfully Sarcastic,

 Shmuttmeister

Fantasy Fix

Before you continue reading I should tell you that I just found this blog from over a year ago. Luna and wrote this and I miss her so I wanted to post it.

The Demented Duo are Back to Blog Another Day!! Totally sounds like a movie title doesn’t it. Today’s blog is brought to you by Pepsi, Lipton, Ruffles and Hostess. There that is our product placement, I wonder if we can get some free stuff from that promo. Yep, we are sugared up and it is late so this should be interesting.

No, we are not going to tell our deepest, darkest, twisted fantasies at least not in this blog. That may crop up in the porn blog though so keep checking back. This blog is actually a continuation of our wordy television blog. This is the blog we were going to write till we got sidetracked by our childhood tv memories.  

Fantasy what a wonderful word. So a cop who sees monsters, two demon hunting brothers (who happen to be hot) and prince charming go into a bar…………  yep totally sounds like a fantasy for us. Have you figured it out yet Miss Marple? No? Fine we will tell you what today’s blog is about, it is about fabulous fantasy based shows that we are fixated on.

The first show up for discussion is Supernatural. Wow, how the hot keep getting hotter. Season eight is done and the guys are just as hot now as they were when the show started. Now if you have lived in a cave for the last eight years let us tell you a bit about the show. Two brothers were taught by their father to hunt supernatural beings after their mother was killed by a demon. Did we mention that Dean (Jensen Ackles) and Sam (Jared Padalecki) are delicious.

Although Dean and Sam are the main characters there have been a lot of supporting characters that we have loved and hated. Their father was played by  Jeffery Dean Morgan (hot). Dad died when he traded his soul to save Sam. This brought Bobby to the show who became the surrogate father to the boys. He was their go to man on all supernatural info until they killed him off. They have been helped by other supernatural hunters like Jo, Ellen and Ash. Then there is Castiel the Angel in a trench coat( love him). 

Now what do the brothers really do you ask? They hunt down demons, vampires, and trace all weird beings and mysterious goings on. A lot of these are based on urban legends, folk lore, classic mythology and ghost stories. All of these things are accompanied by a classic rock soundtrack and Dean’s classic 67 Chevy Impala that he lovingly calls Baby.

Supernatural is one of the best written shows and they never take themselves too seriously. Every word is written with tongue firmly in cheek. This is never more apparent than in The French Mistake. If there is one episode that we would recommend to someone this is it. The show has all kinds of hidden snarky moments and if you are a faithful watcher you will catch them. Even though this show has scary moments it is not your normal gross out horror fest. We both put this is in our top 5 shows.

Next up for the Demented Duo is Grimm. Love, love, love this show. I checked and yep it is a three love show. Even though we are only on the second season I can’t imagine that we will ever fall out of love with Grimm. One of the reasons we love it is its originality. They have a totally new take on the monsters of the Grimm fairytales. This show is well written and the actors chemistry is amazing. David Giuntoli plays Nick a Portland cop who finds out when his aunt is dying that the family has a supernatural talent. They are called Grimm’s and their ability to see the true beings behind the masks that they wear as humans. Nick’s life is complicated because he has to hide the family secret from his fiancé Juliette(Bitsy Tulloch). Juliette has no idea of the monsters that lurk in their human skin or Nick’s ability to see them.

In the past his family hunted down and killed the Wesen otherwise known as the monsters from the fairytales. Nick is a different kind of Grimm, he asks questions to determine if the Wesen are a danger to humans or each other. He is helped in his job by his partner Hank played by Russell Hornsby. When Nick needs help with a Wesen problem he calls on Monroe ( Silas Weir Mitchell), what can we say about that Blutbad (the big bad wolf), other than we love him. He brings some much need fun to each episode.

There are several ongoing storylines, but they do not confuse you as a watcher. Captain Renard is played by the talented Sasha Roiz. He has his own secrets as a half Wesen bastard prince. We can’t wait for each new episode to air so we can watch it and then have a discussion on what we think is going to happen next.

The third and final fantasy fix is the fabulous sophomore show, Once Upon a Time. Another ensemble cast with amazing chemistry. The entire cast has dual roles in this show. The story starts with Henry an adorably precocious child played by Jared Gilmore. He is given a fairytale book that he believes is the story of his town Storybrook, Maine. He runs off to Boston to find his birthmother Emma (Jennifer Morrison) and convinces her to take him home to Maine. His adopted mother is Mayor Regina Mills (Lana Parrilla). When they reach the town Regina antagonizes Emma so she decides to stay in Storybrook.

The book was given to Henry by his teacher Mary Margaret (Ginnifer Goodwin). Henry believes that all the stories in the book are true and sets about convincing Emma to believe them as well. He tells her of the curse that the evil Queen Regina has placed on Fairytale Lands. The Evil Queen believes that Snow White betrayed her and that is why she cursed the lands. The only one who can break the curse is Snow White and Prince Charmings’ daughter.

The curse took the memory of everyone who lived in Fairytale Land and moved them to Storybrook. When Emma checks into Granny’s Bed and Breakfast, Mr Gold (Robert Carlyle) hears her name and it triggers his memory and he remembers his past life as the evil Rumplestiltskin in Fairytale Land.

Episode by episode you are introduced to both the current character and their fairytale counterpart. Henry must convince Emma that she is the daughter of  Snow White/ Mary Margaret and Prince Charming/David Nolan (Josh Dallas). She is the only one who will be able to break the curse and with each episode she believes a little more. Finally Emma believes when Henry is accidently poisoned and she and Regina must work together to save his life. Woven into the both stories you have the classic fairytale mixed with a new twist, and that is one of our favorite things about this show.  

If you want to escape reality for a while try one of our fantasy fix favorites. Or do you already have them all on your dvr?

Sinfully Sarcastic,          and the
Shmuttmeister               Lost Luntic