Friday, October 17, 2014

TALKING AROUND THE TRUTH









TALKING AROUND THE TRUTH
(how to disrespect Gale Anne Hurd... and think you got away with it)



In your October 24th issue, you responded to a feedback letter written by a lady concerned about the fact that you failed to add Gale Anne Hurd to your list of female producers in an earlier issue. The fact that the Executive Editor, Sean Smith, gave such a lame, weak and flat-out disrespectful reason as to why she was omitted from the list was NOT WORTHY OF THE EFFORT.

If he was giving a respectful capitulation for that omission, I would not be writing this letter. But, his explanation for the omission was a long winded walk through the trees of “I’ll just talk my way out of my disrespect.”

Gale Anne Hurd should have been on the top of the list! Period! The list of movies, and TV shows she has produced... including The Walking Dead in 2014... is second to none, including most of the male entertainment producers out there.

She produced The Terminator, for goodness sakes! That was her second, or third film, beginning a list of films, and TV shows, that is A++! How on earth can EW allow Sean Smith to disrespect Gale Anne Hurd like this?

I would have respected Sean Smith if he told the writer of the feedback letter, Robyn Goldy of Ankeny, Iowa, that EW simply made an error and that he apologized for the error. Instead, he wrote a disingenuous walk around the truth.

I am going to guess Sean Smith is a young guy without proper context vetting and seasoning. I, a 55 year old man, was in my 20‘s when Gale Anne Hurd was making tidal waves with her presence when she first began producing... and I KNOW her worth and power in the industry!

I would NEVER exclude her off ANY list of the most powerful women in ANY industry! And if, by chance, I did omit her because of a lost of mind... I would lower my head in respect and tell her I am sorry -- after I make the corrections I should have never had to have made in the first place.

EW, if you want someone to write for you who is filled with the  proper respect for the medium, and the women, in question --- all you have to do is contact me at: horrorwalker@gmail.com.


Sincerely,
Ronald Lee Jones
thehorrorwalkerworld.blogspot.com

Wednesday, July 9, 2014

NO LOVE FOR THE WALKING DEAD TV SERIES ON WJFK CBS RADIO

Today, 7-9-19, on WJFK CBS radio in the Washington, DC area -- the radio station with the racist, sexist, bigoted, sometimes homophobic and abjectly stupid sets of radio hosts on three separate radio programs... from morning until night -- Chad Dukes, one of the hosts of the afternoon show, again made an ignorant, dumb ass statement against THE WALKING DEAD television series.

This "SHOCK JOCK radio dude, who want more than life itself, to be able to publicly shoot off his arsenal of guns he is proud to tell you he owns and will shoot you through the doors of his house if he doesn't know who is on the other side, and, desire to low hell the ability to say anything he wants on the radio with out repercussions. There is no doubt in my mind that Chad Dukes WANTS the power to say the word NIGGER without being suspended from his job -- like Jason Bishop of THE SPORTS JUNKIES, the morning program on WJFK, did a few months ago.

Bishop was suspended for a day, even though he made that comment in the presence of a young African-American intern, right before shaming her into saying she was not offended -- ON AIR!

Anyway... Chad Dukes is full of bat crap! He declares that THE WALKING DEAD books are good but the show is a piece of crap. I think those were his words, this is not a quote. His actual words are in his pod cast. But, I believe this is what he said.

To fans of The Walking Dead TV show... this is the best program on TV, period! It is not for everyone, to be sure. But THE WALKING DEAD is simply fantastic... and the numbers prove its number one status every Fall!

Below is the letter I wrote the first time Chad Dukes attacked THE WALKING DEAD.

Who says this radio host, and his former athlete co-host are smart? It sure as hell is not me, that's for goddamn sure!

RLJ




2-16-14

Hello horror fans...

There is a radio station in the Washington DC area, WJFK, that has several popular four hour blocks of Shock Jock Sports Talk Radio Shows that run throughout every day of the work week. The DJ's, all of them, are sexist, racist, homophobic and believe to a man that the world revolves around their individual opinions. I have written about, and called-out, the derision on this radio station for years. And I am about to give it to one of the major jerks on the radio station about something he said about The Walking Dead last week.

The DJ's name is Chad Dukes. This dude believes his backward, Neanderthal word is law. I believe he is an ignorant gnat who has one saving grace in his miserable existence --  his sharp sarcastic/racist wit. There are few people on the radio who can out-talk Chad Dukes.

His mouth is like Howard Stern used to be... without the obvious turns of words that can get him fired. But, he is smart enough to talk all around those words to make his divisive points.

He IS a student of what words he can say that take him right up to the line of Rush Limbaugh. It is all about being an ignorant smart mouth, lavishing his rabid audience with tales of his over-the-top gun fetish and threatening the rest of the audience with tales of his ever growing gun count.

I'll leave the expose of the racism and the bigotry and the homophobia for another time. And oh, he has a Co-host named Lavar Arrington... yea, the former Washington "Redskin!" An equal amount of the homophobia and ignorance comes from Arrington.

Oh, and don’t get Lavar Arrington started about Native Americans. You will think you are hearing the words of a racist white man from Virginia of 1814!

Dukes declared, one day during the last week, that The Walking Dead is “The worst written show on television and I’ll talk about it later.”

I do not know if he has talked about his opinion of the writing on The Walking Dead... I have been too turned off to the radio station because of the screaming homophobia by ALL of the DJ’s about the football player who decided to come out BEFORE the draft, and because of the ignorant attitude of blaming the bullying case of the Miami Dolphins team members on the victim, Jonathan Martin, and giving the alien basket case, Richie Incognito, any bit of a pass on his crazy behavior.

This is also another story for another day.

I wrote all this to say that WJFK stocks its workers with  fools who are insensitive to anyone outside of their bizarre view of the way the world must conform to the derisive culture of the NFL.

And, that if you eventually hear Chad Dukes cut into the excellent television hour that is The Walking Dead... remember this, as a fan of great TV writing... even if an hour of a television show is devoid of words, someone wrote the screenplay. Words of direction and plot are the guiding force that takes you through the episode.

Dukes was obviously pissed-off at the slow, mostly silent, pace of the last episode featuring the Michonne and Carl. He is too stupid to realize that he witnessed pure genius that night, written by Robert Kirkland himself.

What in the hell was wrong with Robert Kirkland giving the loving true audience an intimate look into the social growth of three of the most interesting characters on the show? Every The Walking Dead fan now has a better understanding of the relationship these three people now have... and obviously will have... with each other going forward.

Only the Shock Jock ignorant, or the Shock Jock stupid, or those TV viewers who HAVE to be the gratuitous dissenting voice will have come away from that excellent episode, especially the parts about the young man’s almost deadly realization that he cannot live in this world without the father he has been disrespecting, without the realization that they just watched an excellent hour of TV.

So trust your own eyes and ears as to the validity of the excellence of The Walking Dead. And don’t let the stupid, mouth breathing, ignorant Shock Jocks on WJFK radio infect your mind with their stupid derision.

Now... let us all prepare ourselves for the next excellent episode of the best program (MY OPINION) on TV -- The Walking Dead, 9:00 PM on AMC, tonight, Sunday, 2-16-14!

RLJ

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

RESPECT THE WALKING DEAD




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RESPECT THE WALKING DEAD



This missive is my verbal lashing at the tone on the above article...

I have read several articles that suggest that The Walking Dead is aimless and that if the producers would do 'this and that' then the show would be more relatable... even though The Walking Dead is the number one drama on TV and its fans are ravenous zombies who cannot get enough of The Walking Dead content... and sit right there in front of their TV's every Sunday night -- even during a NFL game!

I will confess this about myself -- I am not embarrassed to confess that I will forgo an hour, perhaps two hours, to watch The Walking Dead during football season... even during a Dallas Cowboys game. That is how much I LOVE The Walking Dead.

And, after each episode of The Walking Dead, Chris Hardwick host a live recap show called The Talking Dead. He usually has three guests on the couch and usually two of them are actors from the show. The third is usually a producer or the creator of The Walking Dead, Robert Kirkland himself, or perhaps the genius make-up artist/special effects producer Greg Nicotero will drop by and give his incredible insights into the awesomeness of the show.

Something in journalism really pisses me off these days... and that is the  me-me-me attitude and mindset that this new generation of writers bring to their articles. I grow weary of reviewers and bloggers and radio show hosts and writers who place as the point of view of their articles THEIR myopic viewpoint, as in... ‘if I don't like it then nobody should like it...’ disregarding the fact that there are 6 billion people on this planet, all with a different viewpoint of thought about the same subject.

This selfish way of thinking really bugs the hell out of me. If you do not like The Walking Dead... that is perfectly fine. But if you are writing about the show, make sure you show respect to the millions of people who LOVE The Walking Dead. Remember the fact that those people are the millions of fans who will not give you respect when they read your me-me-me point of view!

And believe me... even if you do not respect the show... you want anybody to read your writing. Why would you spend your time writing an article that offends the fans and alienates you from the very fans who would remotely be interested in your written work in the first place. Kind of silly, right?

“Think before you write,” that is what I say. And if you mean what you write when you write it, then critiques like mine should mean nothing to you and all the stuff I just wrote is moot. But again, you should consider the fact that just because you do not like something... there are millions, maybe tens of millions or hundreds of millions, of people who DO like it.

Remember that because you want those fans to at least tune you in enough to give you their attention without thinking that you are a joke.

RLJ

http://tv.msn.com/tv/article.aspx?news=853898&ocid=ansent11