Clover Jean Gardener - "Professional" "Writer" with "Books" "and" "Plays"

It is comical for me to do an intro post at this point but I figure it might be helpful for people who want them links. Them good good links.

So hello! My name is Clover Jean Gardener, and I'm a queer, PDX-based novelist and playwright. I am here, on Tumblr, where I ramble on the regular and post development updates of what I'm working on. You can also find me on the following links.

goodluckclove.com - my website! you can buy paperbacks of my books on here for probably cheaper than any other place.

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/goodluckclove (pretty much only for posting various short stories. free feed, why not)

Gumroad: https://luckygardener.gumroad.com/ (everything here will either be for free or pay what you what) I have been informed the Gumroad CEO is a dipshit so I'll change this later once I set up an alternative.

Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/clovergardener (lots of silly services you can get me to do. i haven't gotten much use out of this but it is funny to me.)

Pillowfort: https://www.pillowfort.social/GoodLuckClove (just got this. seems fine i think)

Bluesky: @luckyclove (i do not use this that often but maybe i will in the future)

I am not super active on like any social media. I do not really enjoy using any social media. But if you're curious about the avenues where you can pester me, these are your best bets!

I actually also do this!

I used to make little funny stories for my friends. I'd fold a piece of paper into a little booklet and say I found their diary and it would be me writing as them and making them sound real wacky.

I also write poems and little love letters for my loved ones all the time. It's fun!

Fascinated by the existential horror of older "legacy" comedians. People who clawed their way beyond the stand-up circuit and underpaid writing gigs to gain massive success and fame. And it's great. But for some of them, the rot sets in after a decade or so.

They start to get angry. Things are different. Society is slightly different now. The issue isn't that these people have been so rich for so long. The problem isn't that a lot of these people have their roots in observational comedy, and they no longer live lives that provide them with observations of any major relevance. They can only really observe society as a whole, even though their view on society is deeply warped by their fame and wealth.

The Jerry Seinfelds and Bill Mahers and Ellen DeGeneres' and Rosie O'Donnells' of the world have absolutely outlived the shelf life of their original art form. They could pivot and start a new medium that might provide something new (that's fine). They could stop working and live a quiet, luxurious retirement (also fine). Or they will release specials, again and again, that get increasingly more grim in atmosphere.

They pace an empty, mostly darkened stage with a microphone, alternating between anger and fear and confusion. The audience is unseen in the shadows, occasionally laughing, occasionally not. Some of the jokes sound like cries for help. The stage must seem so big. Spotlights are hot and bright - is it harder to take at that age? Are they tired? Are they aware they're being watched?

It's like a Samuel Beckett play. I watched one of Jerry Seinfeld's newer specials and it was like abstract performance art. It is grim. I enjoy Seinfeld's earlier specials, and by the end of this one I expected him to pull out a gun on either the audience or himself.

I took some painkillers so I'm feeling gooey in the brain. It's just wild the way some of these people will eventually age into their Absurdist Dread Era. They can't all be George Carlin I guess.

Clove Reviews The Interview (2014) But Gets Sidetracked Talking About Character Depth in Writing

So I watched The Interview, the 2014 Seth Rogan and James Franco comedy that received a ton of notoriety for being seen as an act of war by the North Korean government. Kim Jong-Un made threats severe enough to postpone release of the film. 

It's a movie where James Franco is the shlocky host of like a pop culture news show produced by Seth Rogan, and the two of them fall into an opportunity to aasasinste Kim Jong-Un. It's slightly less than fine. I got one chuckle in the beginning from a scene carried mostly by Seth Rogan, who is the more watchable actor purely because he doesn't insist on Franco-ing all of the place.

I wouldn't suggest watching it. It is not as edgy as the legacy around the film might suggest. It calls itself a "political satire", which I guess it is. It's claimed that the production team did a ton of research into North Korean politics. This surprised me, as the final film comes across very much like they skimmed maybe two articles. The script was originally written surrounding the assassination of a made up dictator, and if they stuck with that it likely would've been released without an issue and received far more tepidly. 

I'm about to get weird here though about one particular aspect of the movie.

My Review of The Interview (2014), 25 Minutes In

It was probably a poor choice to take the lasting legacy of "banned" media and just hand it to what is so far a deeply Medium Funny Movie.

Hi it's me. I am recovering fine from surgery. I am not allowed to cook or clean for a few more days which is making me a little buzzy with confused anxiety. But I am learning how to rest. I am RestMaxxing.

I'm also already bored. Does anyone have tips on RestMaxxing??

One of the oddest realizations I've ever had about myself is that I have had like a nearly life-long fascination with advertising. I have found fake advertisements I filmed and edited myself when I was 11. I have had multiple conversations with people about how the ARG marketing campaign for Cloverfield was like far better than the movie itself. I remember designing a massive marketing company (AdNational: "At your family's table since 1953!") that I think was meant to be lore for a story but I now can't even remember the story.

Like it's so strange to realize I've been this into advertising for this much of my life. If marketing was like twenty percent less shitty and exploitative I absolutely would be fully in a career for it.