Freestyle

The minute you walked in the store
I could see you were a man of the Bible, a real Puritan,
Cowboys boots, face unclean,
Say, wouldn't you like to know what I'm thinkin' that's so mean?
So let me get right to the point,
I don't mock and tease every man who's beneath,
Hey Real Puritan!
Spend a little money on your teeth.

Yeah, that's pretty liberal and superior of me. Here's some more!

Here comes Tom and he's lookin' for a movie,
Not sure what but there'd better not be boobies,
Them's no good 'cause skin makes Jesus cry
And Tom's little daughter is still living in a lie,

It's fine if you show lots of people being shot,
Beheadings and revengings, we'll take them by the lot,
Virtue and stoicism shall always win the day
Keep your sword and your gun, just don't forget to pray

See, Tom watches movies every week with his kid,
Gotta keep things clean so weekly sins will be undid,
Exposure to violence is easy enough to explain,
Any villain not from here just blow away the remains,

Yet sometimes there arises often after a good shooting,
The worst kind of smut, the kind you'll find polluting
The minds of our young'uns, their souls and their hearts,
What must we watch? Some LOVING dares start!

"That's offensive," Tom says, and with awfully good reason,
"I knew it would happen, after the execution for treason,
A nice family film, full of killing and double dealings,
And I had to shut it down, because those two showed their feelings!"

Hey that's fine Tom, I understand, I says with a smile,
Parenting's hard enough without all that is vile,
Why can't it be easy, without challenges, without danger?
After all, sex ed should be left up to some stranger.

Set that watch

Remember this?










Of course you do. If you're like me, and it's safe to say you are or want to be, you've thought of little else since the movie's end credits. Two thoughts cycle around in your mind like atoms around a nucleus: When Can I Watch It Again and When Will The Sequel Come Out. Well, you can watch it right now if you want to. At work? Hey, thanks for reading while at work! Tell your boss you're suffering from Optimus Primitus, a rare form of what is colloquially referred to as "24 hour Shrieking Giddiness." At home? If you are, you're probably watching Transformers right now and not even reading this anyways. Out with friends? Stop reading your Blackberry and tell these people that they can either come back to your place immediately, stopping only for donuts and Schnapps or go fuck themselves.

It's fair to say this movie, and soon to be movie franchise, gets me more than a little irrational. I can't even give this movie any more than three out of four stars; the fight scene is too long at the end and Anthony Anderson does to his castmates what William H. Macy does to other gamblers in The Cooler. Still, I couldn't even watch previews last year because I got too excited, I almost broke the Boss' hand when I saw the first theatrical trailer, and was pretty sure I had a minor heart attack that lasted through the entire first half of the actual movie. I can't explain it, it's totally irrational to get this excited at this age. Plus, I don't even enjoy the old show anymore, or really any of the new shows, because after a certain point in one's life you run out of capacity to tolerate endlessly taunting. I don't own any toys (though wish I had kept my old ones, like everyone else who sees what they go for on Ebay), don't own the 1986 movie and haven't really kept up with the TV shows since Generation One. And yet...

It's a good time to be in your mid-twenties. Special effects technology has reached the point where it can produce real-life articulations of the stuff of our childhood imaginations. Comic book/Saturday morning cartoon franchises like Spiderman, the X-Men, Batman, the Hulk, the Fantastic Four and the new and fabulous Iron Man may have upset some nerds by changing the odd plot point and origin story (something Marvel NEVER EVER fiddled with in the comics, oh NO NEVER) but it's safe to say nobody saw these movies and thought, gee, maybe they should have just animated it so that it didn't look like crap. Transformers will be followed with G.I. Joe to add to our list of childhood nostalgia films, and you can include the upcoming Star Trek prequel and the new Indiana Jones as part of the ongoing effort to exploit audience nostalgia.

There's two things that people just don't understand. First, they seem to think there's something wrong with Hollywood leafing through stacks of comic books and old TV shows for new movie ideas. This is a common misconception, and I'd like to clear it up for you. Comic books have great characters and rich, developed plots while old TV shows, if you strip away all the taunting and often lame main characters, have all sorts of sweet supporting characters and side-relationships. Like Snake-Eyes and Storm Shadow in GI JOE, or even Megatron and StarScream, there's plenty of backstory and character histories you can pull out and condense into a two-hour movie, then build upon to make several more. I WANT my nostalgia exploited, and so do YOU. What you don't want is someone else's nostalgia exploited, like when they make a Charlie's Angels or Chipmunks movie, because YOU didn't watch it. Honestly. What's wrong with you. You're just selfish, though certainly armed with better taste.

The other misconception is that a film franchise, or threequel, or series, or whatever you want to call it, are bad things. They're actually awesome. Understand now? No? Okay, I'll explain. Sure, there's lots of bad franchises out there (the Mighty Ducks, the recent Star Wars trilogy, the Scary/Date/Epic/Movie movies. Hey Genre Movie writers: Just Die Already! Thanks!) and even more that had terrific starts but became bloated and ran out of momentum (the Burton/Schumacher Batmans, Pirates of the Carribean, and to a lesser degree the Matrix and Spiderman). Because of this, some people conclude that because some movie series suck, or start out great and then suck, there's something inherent in the multiple movie format that causes this. The reality is Most Stuff Sucks, if you follow Sturgeon's Law like you should. Well actually don't follow it, instead try to improve upon it, if you can. Most movies of any kind suck, whether part of a series or not. Yet the inherent benefit of making a trilogy or a series, is that the audience becomes more committed to the characters and will invariably have a greater emotional investment in their future. If you crammed the Lord of the Rings into one movie, then Frodo's sprint up the rocks to the opening of Mount Doom resonates much less with the viewer. In the Matrix Revolutions, Trinity's death is a far greater emotional blow because of how much time we've spent with her. Making a few more movies greatly enhances any fate that befalls our heroes and villains.

Start counting down, if you haven't already, to June 26, 2009, the target release date of Transformers 2. Keep track of added cast members and new trivia at IMDB. These studios are spending $200 million bucks of their own money to make a best-guess of what we might want to see. They're spoon-feeding us timewarps back to our youth, the least we can do is enjoy the tribute. If the movie isn't perfect, just find a way to like it. It's your childhood memories, don't let Michael Bay ruin them for you. He won't ruin mine, click on the IMDB link and go the FAQ section. Unicron?!?! Are you fucking KIDDING me?!??!!?!

Sultans of Swing: Great song or the Greatest song?

I love Dire Straits. I've had my share of favorite bands and there will surely be more, but until I discovered Dire Straits, or re-discovered since everyone's heard Money for Nothing, I'd never before heard a band whose music just seemed perfect. Effortless, balanced, harmonious. This is the kind of music that makes $120,000 speakers, $150,000 turntables and $50,000 interconnects seem like the highest of goals rather than a money-burning scheme. Like any band they have songs stronger than others, more memorable than the rest, but if a good band is one whose CD you can listen to from start to finish without feeling the need to skip anything, then a great band is one whose entire discography allows your fingers a long rest.

Sultans of Swing, certainly a classic and one of my favorites, is the best representative of the band's sound and impact. It's just there, a song that sits in the background when you have friends over, takes over a room when it comes over your speakers, or changes and amplifies any mood. I've listened to it while blowing off steam after work, while chilling out after long stimulus-enhanced poker nights, and during those times where I didn't really know what I was feeling, just that I didn't like it. It's impact changes depending on your own mood, but without losing any of it's own identity. If you're just peacefully relaxing, it brings you to a smokey London pub on a Thursday night, listening to a local band in the background while you take your time with one last pint. The kind of pub where the smoke is the only atmosphere, where the room barely affords the singer's sunglasses light to reflect, yet those glasses still draw the gazes of casual listeners while he plays only for himself. If you've had a bad day, feeling worn out and needing to hide from all the possibilities in the world, it's a rhythmic melancholy massage that comforts while reinforcing the sadness in your heart. Like being wrapped in a warm wet blanket, it soaks into you from all sides while you decide whether the softness is worth the inevitable chill to come.

It's not for everyone and that's fine. I like lots of music that others find any of boring, offensive, bland, simple, talentless, and just plain crap. I don't care if people call me a wigger for listening to Eminem, a punkass for listening to Guns'N Roses, or a snooty pseudo-artist for listening to the Dandy Warhols, those would be shots at the bands rather than shots at me. Yet I can't bring myself to be objective or dispassionate when people call Dire Straits boring, or untalented, or country. They just leave a kind of impact that bonds you to their music and when they're put down I always feel not like my taste has been questioned, but that the very nature of that taste was just attacked. So I don't handle it very well, like I didn't handle my 18 year-old assistant manager picking away at Bob Dylan lyrics at work the other day. I'll grant anyone that Dylan's harmonica playing is kind of irritating (it's not Dylan, it's frankly a shitty instrument better suited to use in Guantanamo Bay), his singing has debatable merit and his guitar playing is, at best, called "underrated." But his lyrics, of course, are incredible. You're talking about arguable the most important songwriter of the 20th century. What people fail to realize is that there are certain pillars of art that are not interested in layman judgments. They are simply on a higher plane, with a parallel purpose whose destination will not be deterred by flippant Philistines. Such is my connection with Dire Straits. I don't care if you like them or not, but you're best served recognizing their greatness or simply leaving the room, as there won't be any space left for interference.

Gallimaufry

The absolute best part of my day, after going to bed knowing I'm going to get lots of sleep and turning on my speakers and finding out that, yup, they are way friggin better than the ones at the LD Lounge, is being at work and asking Baby Boomer-types how they're doing and have them respond with "Nope, just looking thanks." Whoa. WHOA. I didn't ask you if you wanted to purchase a product, I didn't even ask if you had any questions. You're too stupid to know what you want and your questions will be critical, insulting and only serve to illustrate your own lack of ability to listen to or absorb new ideas. That's why instead I asked how you're doing. Next time I'm going to going to respond with "Oh, I'm not going to sell you anything. I just want to know how THE FUCK YOUR DAY HAS BEEN!!! HAHAHAHA!!!"

I also like old people who come in and tell me how much better their stuff is than our stuff. "Old" is not an age with customers, it's a state of mind. It's how often you throw up your hands while listening to an explanation of how new things work, the amount of times you shake your head and accusingly complain about how fast things are changing, the extent you assume I, the relatively young salesperson, know little about this "real world" that myself and peers continue to be threatened with while we work our asses off for barely above minimum wage while paying off student loans on the degree we paid for ourselves for the purpose of getting ahead and getting that better job we were told would be out there. It's also the kind of sweater you wear. I'm fascinated by these people who managed, despite being unable to decipher the difference between an ethernet cable and a tipped cow, to find the perfect television and the ideal home video format 15 years ago (a 37-inch Sharp and a Laserdisc, of course). If arguments can be won with no facts and intense staring, and they can, then I'm fucking sold. I'd rather watch a 37-inch Sharp than real life now, and DVD's and Blu-Ray? Fuck off. Three words for you: Shiny Colored Records. They are the SHIT, the bee's knees, the one cold beer in a fridge of stillwarms. Laserdiscs, despite having no true surround sound, no digital audio, the inability to fit any more than 60 minutes on each side (yep, you had to flip them. Flip them FOR REAL) and BEING FUCKING ENORMOUS, are way better than DVD's, and probably Blu-Ray too. Why? Get the hell out of here with your "why." They just are. You're too young to understand, that's all. See, years ago there were these things called "A-tracks." You'd put them in your car and they wouldn't hold many songs and you'd have to flip them for real at some point. THAT'S why Laserdisc and TV's weighing as much as a solid gold car driven by William Howard Taft are better. Now look what you've done, you've gone and upset me. I've got spittle on my cardigan.

I actually do find older customers fun to talk with, it's a low-pressure sales job so listening to nattering folkies is considered good service. Most of them are friendly and earnest and don't want to learn about technical things, which is awesome because I know not of technical things. Well I do know of technical things, like I know of Latin or changing transmissions. Old people don't know about these things and don't WANT to know about them, they want to know if they can still hook up "that big black one over there" to their VCR with coaxial cables, and if The Waltons will come on at the same time. It's easy to sell things when all your answers are "Hell ya you can hook dat shit up!"

It's those lonely old men who've taken on the responsibility of Voice of The Greatest Generation that are the worst. They don't want to buy anything, they're not impressed by a full 1080p Blu-Ray picture or a lossless DTS soundtrack and, most importantly, they don't like YOU. I don't think much of my own generation, it may not be entirely our fault we're so apathetic, disinterested and nihilistic but it's tiresome nonetheless, and thus I don't enjoy having title of Voice of the Gratest Generation imposed upon me.*

It occurs to me that if I didn't make so many little typos in my writing I might get away with more a few more subtle puns. As such "Gratest" may be mistaken as just another error than the intended pun of "grating," or irritating, in place of "greatest." It's not even a joke really, just an appropriate description, but still not worthy of such a long explanatory diversion.

Listening to the old Luddites prattle on about the superiority of their own wooden equipment, with their stone circuitry and toilet paper tubes and string interconnects, I can't help but wonder if they just ran out of people to tell and are now working through Strangers, or they just repeat the same rants over and over without concern about whether anyone's actually in front of them or not. Either way, hearing about how great some person's old crap sounds makes me think that probably both of us would be happier if they were at home listening to it right now.

"Violence is fine, just no boobies"

At work the other day when Big Poppa Pump comes in looking for DVD's. I sashayed myself to the other side of the disc rack, passive-aggressively forcing my overly-keen fellow employee to "help" Pump, who was mingling in a suspiciously interested manner. Pump tells Keen that he's just looking for a movie, so kudos to Pump for managing to find the right place. Keen asks if Pump is looking for anything in particular, Pump says no but is looking for something G rated, nothing too offensive. I assumed this was for his little Pumplings at home but further eavesdropping reveals that no, Pump wants something non-offensive for himself. Okay, so Keen leads him towards dude-friendly comedies starting, of course, with Knocked Up and Superbad. Pump says NO, by non-offensive he means something without any nudity or sexuality, he finds that unacceptable. Violence is fine though.

In customer service the best approach is to treat people like they're your friend already, or least that you already know them. This takes away the formality, eases the tension, and makes it easier to get customers to open up and actually tell you what they want. Yet in the real world a person's friends are usually people with similar worldviews. This allows us to say what's on our mind or voice some challenging opinion without worrying about offending anyone. In my own case, I spout off all kinds of profane opinions as part of a process of working through some thought process, sort of thinking aloud just to hear what that opinion sounds like, what the obvious flaws in it may be, and how to change it. Most people do this of course, and are careful to go through this process in an environment where they won't get into a friendship-breaking argument. Yet in customer service, you have to tread carefully; you have to think of that person as an acquaintance but one whom you know nothing about so as to avoid challenging their values. Let the customer lead the discussion, wait until they've voiced an opinion, then either agree or change the subject.

That's all pretty obvious, but it's still surprising when you come across someone who appears perfectly normal, meaning they look and sound the way you think you look and sound, but then voices some stupid thought out of nowhere. Listening to Pump describe his rather specific taste in movies was one of those times where you're reminded that some people out there are crazy right wing repressed Puritan fundamentalists who have all sorts of foolish values, one of which being that they prefer to see a human body blown up and ripped apart than topless in a hot tub. What's really creepy is that these people, these Daywalkers, live amongst us everyday totally anonymously and can only be unmasked by their own volition. Just like Nicolas Cage in City of Angels, if instead of an angel Cage played Jerry Falwell, instead of a doctor Meg Ryan played a prostitute with a heart of gold, and instead of having sex with her Cage/Falwell cut off her head, threw her body in a river and gave the movie a PG rating because her hair was tied back the whole time. For a metaphor that isn't as stretched out as a pair of Lulu Lemons in a Curves, try Wednesday Addams going out for Halloween, dressed completely normally and claiming to be a homicidal maniac because "they look just like everyone else."

Find the flattest thing around you. That table? Fine. That's my Point, and it has been beaten as flat as your table, but without all the Rockstar and porn lying around it. Rockstar is disgusting. What struck me about the Pump situation was that it seemed perfectly normal, if only very very slightly anti-free market, to tell Pump that he would not be allowed to purchase products until his taste in movies, and by extension his Talibanist values, reversed themselves into something less reactionary and archaic. It's not like private companies don't already dictate customer taste; London Drugs doesn't carry any South Park and Wal-Mart doesn't carry unedited Eminem. I'd simply be extending this corporate policy to fit my own more enlightened entertainment values and, being a representative of the company, would essentially be a medium for the company's continuing quest to provide the highest standard of home entertainment. I should probably get a raise for having taken two or three sentences uttered by a complete stranger, turning them into a thorough character portrait, and designing a value-based sales system around him. This will be known as a "Concentrated Sample Size Focus Group."

You lost today kid, but it doesn't mean you have to like it

So I went with Job Plan B, which would be fine except I had like 30 plan A's. Because my new attempts at anonymousity mean I can't disclose exactly which London Drugs AV department I work in, right now all I can say is that I don't work at the one with the sardonic hockey/hippie haired employee who can't be bothered to learn the cash register or his boss's name and wearing the humiliating Be Patient With Me I'm A Retard pin. That's definitely not me, I prefer to think of my hair as "Homeless Chic." Oh, I can sell you speakers. That's no problem. I like speakers, and Blu-Ray players and receivers and cables and all that stuff. What I don't like is people. That's what I bought all this crap for in the first place, because actually leaving the house to see a movie, like I did the other night to see Forgetting Sarah Marshall, is like that scene in Temple of Doom where Indiana Jones ("Junior!") and Short Round get stuck in the shrinking room with the spikes. Only instead of spikes emerging from the floor it's a mixture of filthy rednecks, slimy emos, and underaged undermedicated teenagers. And instead of stone walls closing in it's a shrinking room made of sticky floors, walls, and ceiling. And everywhere you see ads. With cells phones ringing in the background. For $14.50.

This job will be fun. I'll make it fun. It's not a job I fear losing and as such I'll feel free from failure and pressure. I've never worked for a big company before so hopefully I can take advantage of that and maybe end up somewhere warmer as a result. Otherwise a management position for a clever guy like me, competing only against high-schoolers, should be pretty attainable. That's unlikely though, as I only hope to last long enough to pay off my debts, get a Blu-Ray player, and maybe an electric razor and a new popcorn maker. Truly, my goals have finally sunk to an achievable level.

So this is the plan for the short-medium term, as much as I'd rather have any of the jobs I applied for. In the meantime, I'll continue to hold out hope that a shadowy figure will approach me one night after work, ask me for a drink, chat about sports or the weather before handing me a blank business card with an address and time on the back. That address will be an empty field off a long dirt road, surrounded by a chain link fence and with no buildings or people in sight. I'll walk up to the fence, look around, see nothing but a cool spring breeze russle through the long grass. I'll step back, take on last look around, turn back towards my car and stop suddenly. An older man would be standing there, with white, wispy hear and wearing grey suit, black overcoat and a grey fedora. He'll be standing in front of a black limousine with the engine running quietly. I'll look around, puzzled how I failed to notice anything approach.

"Please sir, we must be going."
"Wait. Who are you, where did you come from, what's going on?" I'll foolishly stutter.
"You were approached. The Company has needs for a man of your particular talents."
"You don't know who I am."
"You're quite wrong, sir. It is you who does not know yourself."

With no possible response, I simply stare in silence before following the man into the limo.

"Welcome to the Company," the man says, then smiles. "It has been a very long time coming."

Product training Friday. *SIGH*

I'm not your fwend buddy

Mixed from scenes in Season 12, episode 4. Check out www.allsp.com and watch the original episode, it's amazing how little editing goes into timing the character exchanges.

American Psycho

I've watched American Psycho seven or eight times and, like most great movies, there's a new layer and theme revealed with each viewing. All my favorite movies are ones I didn't get right away, though many were ones I saw when I was too young to get them. I saw Fight Club at 19, American Psycho at 20, Apocalypse Now at 18, Pulp Fiction at 14, and in retrospect I never feel like I had a good handle on any of them after the first crack. Not an expert now either, but I'm much more comfortable discussing the themes and messages in these films, and saying with some confidence that Pulp Fiction is a vastly overrated nonsensical mishmash. Each time I see that movie I like it less. It has some great scenes, great style, cool dialogue, but there doesn't seem to be any direction or point to it all. If that is the point, they why bother. I dunno, re-educate me I guess.

Anyway, I've seen American Psycho a few times, then bought it, watched it a few more times and at this point, I'm finally comfortable saying that I don't think it matters if he actually committed all those murders or if it was all in his head. The point of the movie, commentating on the materialistic 1980's, is that nobody notices anything and are completely wrapped up in themselves and their own accomplishments. Conformity and acceptance are the only goals and once reached, they are hollow, superficial and unsatisfying. The fact that he seemingly gets away with the murders shows how little people take note of their surroundings and the extent to which society worries about itself. If they were only fantasies, they illustrate the extent to which Bateman feels trapped, repressed and desires to lash out and be noticed. Either way, the point is the same. This is illustrated three ways, using quotes from IMDB.com.

The first is with Patrick's internal identity struggle with the conformist lifestyle he leads. That people keep mistaking Patrick Bateman for other people is the obvious plot tool, but there's a variety of ways the film makes the point that in this world, people intentionally act, and are thus treated, like clones. Characters are constantly unsure of who is whom. In the business card scene not only is each card basically the same, but they all have the same title, "Vice President." This is what Bateman is fighting within himself, his desire to be included ("You hate the job anyways, I don't see why you don't just quit" "Because I want to FIT IN") and his feelings of entrapment within that conformity. He wants to be accepted but clearly recognizes the price of such a shallow, superficial facade. He talks about how important it is to take care of oneself and address the world's problems (his long soliloquy at Espace about ending apartheid, civil rights, social responsibility) yet film ends with a monologue where he says he "does not hope for a better world for anyone." He knows what to say, everyone in his circle of "friends" knows how to react and chime in but Bateman admits to not caring about any of this, and goes out of his way to act contrary to his politically correct speeches by, well, killing a LOT of people. That's the sliver of humanity within the character, he knows he's trapped in this contradiction but can't find a way out. Hence the last shot of the movie, the sign saying "This is not an exit," where his realization does not result in any catharsis or new insight about his world or how he can improve his life as a result.

The most obvious way the film shows his inability to escape his shallow lifestyle cycle is in how he constantly tries to get caught. He ridiculous lies to Det. Kimble about his whereabouts ("I was probably returning some videotapes [that night]") and obvious evasiveness ("Listen, you'll have to excuse me. I have a lunch meeting with Cliff Huxtable at the Four Seasons in 20 minutes") are some of the movie's funniest scenes. They show Bateman almost crying out for help, hoping to get caught. An interesting scene after he kills Paul Allen illustrates the whole point of the movie. Bateman, dragging Paul Allen's body slowly out of his apartment through the lobby and into his car, runs into co-worker Luis Carruthers just as he's shoving the body into the trunk. He looks absurdly suspicious, dragging this huge BLACK body-size bag through the lobby, which is of course empty, making no attempt to be conspicuous at all. Oddly, the camera following him through the lobby shows a trail of blood behind the bag, then when he's outside moving towards the car, the blood trail is gone. My sense is that it's an intentional way of throwing the viewer, maintaining that existential ambiguity. Carruthers, happening upon Bateman moving a big black bag into the truck of his car, with a trail of blood that is, or is not, leading up to the car, looks taken back and hesitant before delivering perhaps the best line in the film: "Where did you get that overnight bag?"

Lastly, the film (and by greater extension the book, which I keep intending to read) is so intentionally gratuitous and profane in its violence, language, and sexuality in order to magnify Bateman's internal struggle. Without the shock value of these scenes, you don't get the contrast from his bland, clonelike public personality and the violent, psychotic desires of his "actual" or fantasy self. To show just how frustrated and trapped Bateman feels, the film shows scenes of gruesome violence (real or fantasy) as a way of showing the incredible breadth of Bateman's personality split. This contrasts the group scenes where all the suits, haircuts, job titles, business cards etc are all the same and nothing jumps out at the viewer to make Bateman stand out. Marcus Halbertram is of course the best example of this, as he is essentially an exact duplicate of Bateman (glasses, suits, barber, though Bateman's haircut is slightly better). It's ironic to me that which gave the movie its notoriety, and thus its meaning, is also what many people focused on at the expense of the whole point of the film.

So the points overlap to some degree, the conformity, the lost identity, the cries for help and individuality, all to illustrate the central theme of the film: Bateman is lost in a sea of similarity caused by the shallow materialism, self-centeredness, greed, and culture of uncaring that was the 1980's. Cultural traits that have, mercifully, been overcome. I love this movie, Christian Bale is incredible at showing that fake, manufactured expressions and emotions that make his character so hollow and soulless through the majority of the film. Because of this, his breakdown and "confession" at the end are so much stronger and authentic, or as close as possible, thus creating another contradiction within the character.

That's what I think anyways. What I really enjoyed about writing this was typing "Batman" instead of "Bateman" almost half the time. That's where my mind's really at.

The CHILDREN

Children are the most important thing in whole world, our greatest natural resource, even more valuable than oil. They're also more important than the lives of American soldiers in Iraq, failing health care and education systems, and most certainly silly things like the environment, the housing crisis and election year featuring a war hero against the first black candidate or the first female candidate. Indeed, children are important. But they are not more important than marijuana.

I was in a one-way conversation with the Boss recently regarding some curious judgments over performance enhancing drugs. Like most of these conversations, it featured me doing most of the talking while the Boss tried in vain to stay awake and say "yup" and "I reckon" at the right moments. Baseball, it seems, has a problem with performance enhancing drugs. So do the Olympics, the National Football League, the Tour de France, but not the NHL. Baseball's come under fire in the last few years as a result of Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds making themselves into Professor Farnsworth's Atomic Supermen, and then passing hallowed records like water stations in a marathon. U.S. politicians, having solved all the world's problems and needing a break from strenuous golf course openings, hauled Roger Clemens and his former trainer in front of an official Congressional committee so they could amuse the sporting world by making absolute asses of themselves. Under the guise of protecting the children, the steroid cheat and the steroid enabler were harangued for their staggering disrespect and utter disregard for the precious, innocent, mindless zombie children of the world. Just those two though, none of the other players and trainers mentioned in the Mitchell Report.

Steroids are bad, always, unless they save lives. They're unhealthy and can make your biceps explode and otherwise look like this:












It's very important that children not look like this, for reasons I can't come up with right now because that picture is fucking awesome. Oh right. It's horribly unhealthy and clothes won't fit you. And impossible actually, because that's a fake picture. But it's all about health, being healthy, living naturally, eating soy until we kill ourselves, being one with nature who tries to kill us at every opportunity, and making sure that CHILDREN HAVE GOOD ROLE MODELS and THAT is why you cannot do steroids, Mr. Bonds and Mr. Clemens.

Remember Ross Rebagliati? The charming Canadian pothead from the 1998 Winter Olympics? Sure you do. Once the people in charge of medal-stripping and re-gifting realized that it was okay to smoke pot if you were a snowboarder from Whistler, and frankly should be given TWO medals for making it down the hill while high (though a Doritos motivation might have quickened his pace), they quickly returned his rightfully earned medal and apologized for confusing public perception over drugs. Remember Ben Johnson, that other Canadian who had his medal stripped? Sure you do. He made the mistake of taking Stanozolol instead of marijuana (and being black instead of white) and as such was treated with slightly less forgiveness.

So the message about drugs and sports and children and contradictions is simple. You cannot do drugs, ever, because it sets a bad example for children who look up to pro athletes and nobody else. All children want to be pro athletes all the time, and if you do drugs you'll corrupt today's youth and as a result we, Society, will punish you and strip you of any and all accolades you may have accumulated as a result of your own nefariousness. However, it's okay if you do drugs that are bad for you but don't make you better at anything. That's okay. Kids won't associate recreational drugs with any kind of "cool" image, especially not if you're a snowboarder. Kids are smarter than that, when it suits us, Society, to think so.

For the record, I was glad Ross kept his medal and I thought it was the right decision. I'm just pointing out the rather obvious contradictions between holier-than-thou rhetoric from politicians and anti-doping officials and the actual penalties they impose. This is all pretty dated obviously, but with baseball trying to purge steroids out of it's system (you know, while it has a few untainted records left) it's still a current topic, and probably will continue to be.

I Am A Suitable Model For Jack's Next Movie, we hope.

I just want to say that this is the greatest cartoon theme song/introduction ever. Better than Transformers, better than X-Men and that's really it for the top tier. After that, you're dwelling in mediocrity: Ninjas Turtles, He-Man, Spider-man, all average introductory fare. This intro is where it's at. YouTube, next to the wheel, birth control and A & W cream soda (some day, it will come back...), is the greatest invention in the history of inventors inventing inventions, inventively so.

A funny thing happened on the way to the phauraum

What's a "phauraum?" you say? Well, it's hard to explain. Some would say it's a special time in young boy's life when the trees seem a little greener, roses smell fresher and fauns are harder to enslave and sentence to lives of servitude. Others would say it's that funny lump that forms on one side of your neck but not the other. Actually, that's just me. When I had mono they said it was a swollen lymph node. Fine, but now I have just one of them swollen instead of having them on both sides. I guess I have half-mono then, which means I'm just really bored. It's been a while since I've just written a rambly, self-absorbed entry.

STILL no job, though fortunately the Alberta economy is slowing down. Some would say that's bad, but those are the same people who's rather get an A on a math quiz than a C. Normal people know that getting a C means that people will expect less from you, am I right? Yeah? Can I get an amen? No? Good, fuck you with your amens and godblessyous and gezoontiEEts. "A's". What a bunch of assholes.

I stand firm in my applications for government jobs that I only scratch the surface of being qualified for. See, there's a difference between "being able to do a job" and "being qualified for it." Maybe not in the minds of those doing the hiring, but certainly to me. Just one phone call and one solid interview and I'm gold baby! That probably means I'll have to shut down this blog, or at least get a more anonymous pic, but that will be the worthwhile cost of a job that, if I get the one I want, will allow me to tell people at my high school reunion (why does it still matter? It's not fair!) exactly what I want to tell them:

Some stupid redneck: "Yeah, I've made Grand High Foreman at Some Depressed Soon-To-Be Shut Down Mill, they pay me $58.38/hr and I only have to work three 16 hour night shifts a week. No big deal. It's pretty awesome, I just bought four new snowmobiles, an second trailer and a John Deere skidder."

Some snotty asshole: "Yeah, I graduated from Yale, Mega Cum Loade, and now I'm Vice-Awesome Delegate to Farawayfullofsandistan. Just seeing the plight of the Farwaynese and their struggle to achieve autonomy against impossible odds, and North American disinterest, makes going to work each day seem so REAL, you know?"

Some stupid redneck and Some snotty asshole to Me: "So, what are you doing now?"

Me: "Actually I can't talk about it, it's Classified."

Other people: "Oh come on!"

Me: "Sorry guys, I'd be dead tomorrow if I said anything."

Other people: (die in a puddle of their own relative lameness).

Get a job

Monty Python + Lord of the Rings + A Blog = Not In Any Way Employable

"Inspired" by watching Return of the King last night and wondering what the rest of Middle-Earth's populace thought of suddenly having a king thrust upon them after a long absence. How might they have evolved since the last Gondorian King (Eärnur, in case you were wondering, son of Earnil II, of course)...

[clop clop]
ARAGORN: Old woman!
DENNIS: Man!
ARAGORN: Old Man, sorry. Who lives in that barn at the top of the hill?
DENNIS: I'm thirty seven.
ARAGORN: What?
DENNIS: I'm thirty seven -- I'm not old!
ARAGORN: Well, I can't just call you `Man'.
DENNIS: Well, you could say `Dennis'.
ARAGORN: Well, I didn't know you were called `Dennis.'
DENNIS: (getting upset) Well, you didn't bother to find out, did you? Dennis, son of Dennisor.
ARAGORN: I did say sorry about the `old woman,' but from the behind you looked--
DENNIS: What I object to is you automatically treat me like an inferior!
ARAGORN: Well, I AM king...
DENNIS: Oh king, eh, very nice. An' how'd you get that, eh? By exploitin' the workers -- by 'angin' on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic an' social differences in our society! By using nationalistic propaganda to assemble the lower class in a misguided assault on a misunderstood culture? Orcs greeting Men as liberators indeed. If there's ever going to be any progress--
(woman enters)
WOMAN: Dennis, there's some lovely filth down here. Oh -- how d'you do?
ARAGORN: How do you do, good lady. I am Aragorn, son of Arathorn, Isildur's heir and King of Arnor. Who lives in that barn up there?
WOMAN: King of what?
ARAGORN: Arnor.
WOMAN: What's Arnor?
ARAGORN: Well, it's here. We're all part of Arnor and I am your king.
WOMAN: I didn't know we had a king. I thought we were an autonomous collective.
DENNIS: You're fooling yourself. We're living as part of a nomadic horse-mounted dictatorship. A self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working riding classes--
WOMAN: Oh there you go, bringing class into it again.
DENNIS: That's what it's all about if only people would--
ARAGORN: Please, please good people. I am in haste. Who lives in that barn?
WOMAN: No one live there.
ARAGORN: Then who is guarding the throne?
WOMAN: We don't have anyone guarding the throne.
ARAGORN: What?
DENNIS: I told you. We're an anarcho-syndicalist nomadic commune. We take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week.
ARAGORN: Yes.
DENNIS: But all the decision of that officer have to be ratified at a special biweekly meeting.
ARAGORN: (impatiently) Yes, I see.
DENNIS: By a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs,--
ARAGORN: Be quiet!
DENNIS: --but by a two-thirds majority in the case of more--
ARAGORN: Be quiet! I order you to be quiet!
WOMAN: Order, eh -- who does he think he is?
ARAGORN: I am your king! I summon you to fulfill your oath!
WOMAN: Well, I didn't vote for you.
ARAGORN: You don't vote for kings!
WOMAN: Well, 'ow did you become king then?
ARAGORN: Elrond, Lord of Rivendell,
[elves sing]
He revealed to me my true name and ancestry when I came of age, and delivered to me the shards of Elendil's sword, Narcil, the Sceptre of Annuminas and the Ring of Barahir.
[singing stops]
That is why I am your king!
DENNIS: Listen -- strange elves lying in the woods distributing merchandise is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the horse-riding masses, not from some farcical welding ceremony.
ARAGORN: Be quiet!
DENNIS: Well you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some skinny nance threw some broken sword bits at you!
ARAGORN: Shut up!
DENNIS: I mean, if I went around sayin' I was an emperor just because some singing albino lobbed some jewelry at me they'd put me away!
ARAGORN: Shut up! Will you shut up! (grabs Dennis)
DENNIS: Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system.
ARAGORN: Shut up! Behold, the sword of Elendil!
DENNIS: Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! HELP! HELP! I'm being repressed!
ARAGORN: Bloody peasant!
DENNIS: Oh, what a give away. Did you here that, did you here that, eh? That's what I'm on about -- did you see him repressing me, you saw it didn't you?
ARAGORN: (chops off Dennis' head)

"I wish I could believe that, (blank)"

So I'm working my way through the original Generation 1 Transformers tv series, you know, for shits and giggles. I've gone back a few times now to revisit my favorite childhood show but this time I'm starting at the beginning and going all the way through. At this point, I'm well past being surpised or disappointed with how truly stupid and crappy this show is. Don't care, still love it.

I'm finding though that watching a whole bunch of episodes back-to-back is that you can't help but find even MORE things that are wrong, stupid, or deliberate attempts to insult/confuse the intelligence of their target toy market: small children and eventual nostalgic twenty-somethings. I'd like to share a few of those issues with you now, if I may. The series aired between 1984 and 1987, so of course the animation looks dated and the production values are cheap. Instead, here's some other questions that I hope go beyond the obvious, like why nobody EVER gets hit by laserfire in the battle scenes, which also afford everyone so much free time to taunt each other.

1. How is it possible for the Decepticons to have possibly survived this long when they rely on human technology for ALL their energy? If it isn't some miracle new invention to solve all the world's power problems, it's a dam, or a volcano, or oil, or a wind farm, or Duracell batteries. How can they possibly be so "advanced" when they can barely dress themselves? They must have used awfully long extension cords to get around on Cybertron.

2. I purposefully said "Decepticons" above because the Autobots do not give two shits about Energon cubes. They blow them up, throw them away, use them as corner tables, anything but use them for energy. Somehow, since the Escape From Cybertron To Find More Energy, the Autobots figured out how to generate power out of Good Intentions and High Hopes.

3. Megatron is tough, ruthless, merciless. He is most certainly without mercy or Ruth. Well, no actually. He's a pussy. It's obvious Transformers cannot be killed by anything (other than a movie) so I can see why he doesn't just kill off Starscream, but what about some kind of demerit system, or sending him to the Decepticon Corner so that he can Think About What He Did? How much crap do you think you could possibly handle from one of your employees before handing out a well-deserved bitch-slap? Answer: A lot less than Megatron does from Starscream.

4. Why don't the Dinobots combine into anything? This is just a question I've always had, it's not a flaw in the show. Or maybe it is. I mean, there's five of them, they're all dinosaurs, and... well that's really the whole formula. Five or six Transformers who all do the same thing will invariably combine, those are the rules. The Dinobots are no different from other theme teams like the Arielbots, Stunticons, Protectobots, Combaticons. Why no "Dinosaurus," "Carnotron," or "Archoplex?"

5. How many kids broke their Soundwave toys by trying to jam two or three robot tapes inside him, like he does on the show? At least one :(

6. Every once in a while, probably by accident, somebody gets hit with a laserblast. Sparks fly and the Autobot (usually) goes down with the requisite grunt and moan. There's usually some indication of damage, either a dent or burn marks or something, but they're cars, right? With windows and windshields? Could they share this indestructible CarGlass, capable of sustaining laserblasts, collisions, and impact with walls and rocks, with us Puny Humans?

7. Speaking of which, why don't the Autobots ever teach the Puny Humans anything? Ever? Assholes.

8. The opening title sequences are incredible aren't they? Especially the Season 2 intro:



Though the Season 3 song was much better, the opening sequence just isn't as fast, not as action-dense, and while it does have a quick Metroplex vs. Tripticon shot, doesn't really feature that many sweet characters.



So, why don't they get the same guys who created the intro to do the rest of the show?

9. Why can't I stop watching this stupid show??? I'm sure Ebay owns a stake in the DVD releases; each episode features a new character that I end up wanting to buy as soon as that episode is over. Hey, just like in the old days!

Magic

I think there's two kinds of people in the world, one kind who wants to know how magic tricks work and another who does not. Of course, people change types depending on the kind of trick they're seeing. A couple goes to see a magic show, one is happy seeing David Copperfield's car disappear, the other looks for the strings and mirrors behind the scenes. Yet put those two people in a restaurant and they'll be the opposite, one having no interest in how the food is made, the other sneaking glances into the kitchen. They go home, rent a movie, one captivated in rapt attention while the other is looking at the camera angles, set design, sound, and auteur imprints.

I was thinking about this today, trying to figure out at what point exposing the trickery behind the scenes ruins and when it improves the product. I don't really want to know how Criss Angel does his illusions but I'd love to know how he does his street magic. The last thing I want to see is how the greasy 17 year-olds at Wendy's put together my burgers but when I worked at the Chinese food restaurant, I loved watching the cooks work their sweet and sour skills. Love knowing stories from movie sets about what lines were improvised and who hated whom, but there's nothing more boring to me than watching some white-haired engineer talking about how they had to built a whole city, with a working sewer system and everything, just because they couldn't find a city that, you know, looked right. I don't know how one can unify all those contradictions into a cohesive explanation, except that most couples I know, or am involved with, will contradict each other as often as possible.

What must be universal certainty, however, is how people hate finding out that great art was actually created out of economics. I was listening to a film critic on the radio once talking about how the increasing DVD player and disc sales were affecting film photography. The idea was that DVD sales are so high, and for many the preferred viewing method over the theatre experience, that directors are using more close-up shots in their movies to cater to the smaller size TV screens at home. That kind of takes the artistic pleasure out of movies, doesn't it? I like the idea of directors stomping their foot in their producer's office, refusing to allow his artistic vision to be contradicted. Finding out that they've capitulated to market factors really de-values the viewing experience.

That's kind of annoying, but not annoying enough to warrant a blog post. A better, more aggravating example is with the Transformers movie. No, not the new one, that was awesome, but the 1986 animated movie, which was also awesome. This is a great movie, relatively speaking. Lots of new characters, a truly epic plot, the death of Optimus Prime and Starscream, the evolution and promotion of secondary characters into headliners, and a massive villain worthy of the movie's grand scale. I remember watching this for the first time and being incredibly emotionally involved, far moreso than a 19 year-old should be. But come on! Killing off Optimus Prime and Starscream? That's ballsy. It's the equivalent of killing Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader halfway through Empire Strikes Back, or doing away with Peter Parker and Harry Osbourn. I mean, you're talking about the most important Autobot and second most important Decepticon. That's epic stuff! Congradulations to the filmakers for taking chances and working with the audience's expectations!

Ah, but the backstory cuts out the artistic heart of the movie. The reason they killed off Optimus Prime and the all the rest was because Hasbro was launching a new Transformers toy line featuring a bunch of new characters. The new TV show would feature only the new toy characters, so the writers had to "tie off" a number of the old characters. Pretty weak eh? And Orson Welles voicing Unicron? In declining health during his last film role, Welles really didn't have much idea what he was doing, and was completely oblivious to the cultural phenomenon of which he was excitingly a part.

I guess neither of those are surprises, that companies like to make money or that old people don't care about transforming robots. The appeal of watching a magic trick is that your senses are convinced of something you rationally know to be impossible. Like a computer being presented with statements like "this sentence is a lie," the human brain gets locked in this nexus point between imagination and reality. You can go one of two ways: remain in your state of confused bliss, or attempt to regain your hold on reality and try to make sense out of the incongruity of the experience. It's much the same, I suppose, with old cartoons. You know there's strings and mirrors and marketing ploys that you should be aware of, it's up to you to avoid rooting around backstage after the show's over.

The Unconscious Subconscious nonsense...

I don't put much credence into what dreams are about. I don't believe in any secret meanings or hidden clues that reveal supressed memories, hatred towards parents, or super-charged homosexuality. Sure, you might have dreams that remind you of some fear you have (I'm constantly having ones where I've lost my glasses and somebody needs help), but those aren't repressed or hidden feelings your subconscious suddenly released. You knew that stuff already. People are extremely gifted at finding patterns, and meaning as a result, from random piles of verbal or numeric nonsense. Dreams are just a gumbo of whatever thoughts you had rattling around in your brain during the day. Nothing more.

Last night, I dreamed that I was receiving job counselling in a deep underground mountain fortress. The setting looked exactly like Superman's Fortress of Solitude, except deeper, much bigger, and made of natural rock formations instead of ice. I was led into the deepest chasm by a nice chap wearing black pants, a white collared button-up t-shirt and a black tie. He was cleanshaven and shorter than his colleague, who I met only briefly. He had a nametag but I don't remember what it said. He sat me down at a picnic table and told me to "help myself" to whatever food I wanted while he checked out my application. He walked off towards a trailer, like the kind you see at construction sites, that was about fifty yards away. The only "food" was a glass jar of water, a tub of whey protein, glutamine, creatine, and a shaker cup. I started mixing up the ingredients when I noticed two other people sitting at the table. A tall skinny girl and a short fat girl. They stared at me while I mixed, saying nothing. I asked them "what they were in for." The skinny girl said she was recovering from an eating disorder and had a heroin addiction. The fat girl said she was depressed and had tried to commit suicide. They asked me why I was here. I told them it was because I couldn't find I job that fit with my degree and relative lack of experience. They nodded understandingly. I asked how long they'd been here. They both looked at me, confused.

"We don't remember."
"Well, how long did they say it would take."
"They didn't. Did they tell you?"
"No, actually, I guess not. I'll ask when he comes back."
"When who comes back?"
"That guy who led me over here? The one with the tie?"

They didn't say anything, just stared. I went back to my shaker cup, put the lid on, and shook up the drink. I took off the lid, let it sit for a while and watched the foam dissipate. When I looked up, the girls had gone and the fellow with the tie was back. He was holding a clipboard and was smiling pleasantly.

"I think we can help you. Are you ready to begin?"
"No. Let me finish my shake."
"Take your time. I'll be waiting."

He kept standing there, smiling. I felt angry, hostile all of a sudden. I looked down at my shake. The foam was gone. I looked at the shake, then looked back at him. He saw my hostility but it did not affect his mood.

"No rush."

The Sarah Connocles

Boy I was excited for this. Boy oh boy. Two episodes of "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" have fallen short of the expectations that this show would inevitably create. Considering the evolution of multi-season story arc TV shows in the last few years, emerging from HBO classics "Sex and the City" and "The Sopranos," gaining strength with "24" and "Lost" and peaking, of course, with "Veronica Mars," there was every reason to think that "Terminator" would greatly benefit from its rich sci-fi background and well-developed mythology. Time-travel, apocalypse, mother-son relationships, hot robots, these are all topics perfectly suited to a TV series rather than a movie franchise, especially considering how DVD sales of TV shows have made it possible for multi-layered character and story depth, previously impossible under the Slaves-to-Syndication mentality of the past.

The first two shows have fallen short of this promise, I think, because of their inability to focus on the strengths of the films. Arnold deadpanned lots of great lines before or just after blowing something up or beating someone up and while Summer Glau did much of the same on "Serenity," she hasn't yet been as violent or destructive as Arnold's T-800 was so there isn't the same kind of innocence/violent justapositioning. The pacing has been kind of slow, feeling more like a video game in that the characters may have an ultimate goal, but are just hitting checkpoints along the way. Run away from Terminator, meet Helpful Terminator, break into bank, transport into future, find new ID's, deal with complications. Very linear plotting, the opposite from what you'd expect from a show featuring time-travel as prominently as this one does.

The characters themselves are producing mixed results. Thomas Dekker as John Connor has given a solid performance with a well-written character. It would be pretty easy to portray him as young, whiny, feels-sorry-for-himself teenager but fortunately the writers spared us that cliche. Sarah Connor's voiceovers feel like knockoffs of Mohinder's existential intros on "Heroes." They aren't furthering the plot, they don't develope her character and they don't re-frame the story or the scene in any meaningful way. Voiceovers are used to provide the audience with a voice from outside the world they're watching. The point is to grant perspective on the scene and story in a different way than what the viewer can otherwise draw out from within the storyworld. By limiting Sarah Connor's voiceovers to little more than introspective nattering, no new perspective is gained and the opportunity to enhance the viewer's perspective is lost. Summer Glau's Terminator hasn't been asked to do much other than shove larger men through walls (No plasma arm cannon? No liquid metal? Just "Shoving," that's her power?), but so far is the only character through which the plot can evolve. This will need to change as the series goes on. Right now there's a real claustrophobic feel to the story, which if intentional can work (that the characters are isolated from the rest of the world in their mission) but the relationships between these three characters has to evolve beyond "I didn't know you could do that."

Another gap between the films and the series is the genre gap. The movies were action-science fiction, so far the show has featured little action (the most exciting happening in a dream sequence at the beginning of the pilot episode) and even less sci-fi (that gun they built in the vault was pretty cool, but that's it). Chase scenes in this show won't carry any suspense because we know John won't die, presumably Sarah, the titular character, will make it and the attractive robot will pull through. Miles Dyson was a very sympathetic character in T2, if the show can build in more charaters that the audience connects with, they'll be a lot more emotionally invested into the suspense scenes. I just worry that the show will be the same every week: Sarah and the Termihottie will go out to learn a little more about SkyNet, John will tag along but mostly be relegated to "trying to fit in" plots in his new school/chess team/group sports blog effort, periodically being interrupted by Evil Terminator for a lengthy chase scene featuring, of course, the great and mystical Robots Through Walls fighting technique. I'll stick with it, but I need a little more.

It's a New Year!

Well kind of. Like the Canadian dollar reaching par with its American big brother or $1.00/litre gas, January 1st is a pretty significant psychological barrier. I achieved none of the things I wanted to in 2007 (though it's possible that mail-order bride was merely lost at sea) but with the start of 2008 hope springs eternal. Well no, not really. It springs up once in while and hopefully just long enough to give me the energy to get a job. Edmonton is a nice city but I do not have a nice job, a nice place or a nice car, and as a result I'm getting pretty tired of this place rubbing its nice things in my face. The only thing I can do to fight back is move somewhere that has things Edmonton does not. Like a summer that lasts more than four months. That is this year's goal, to finish 2008 with a real home base, somewhere I'm happy to invite people to visit. Not just in terms of my physical housing space, but have a life worth being proud about. I've never been good at feeling proud of myself or anything I've done, so that's the goal this year. Have a nice pad, have a job I enjoy going to and feel good telling people about, and maybe a cool hobby. The goal for 2009 is to travel like a mad fool. It's probably telling that I'm further along on those plans than 2008's. Good luck to all of you who made New Year's resolutions, hopefully you were able to remember the ones from last year to see if you achieved them. Or hopefully not.

Blog Blog Baby

I was drivin', in my 5.0, when some radio caller suggested that all of Edmonton be subjected to four minutes and thirty-one seconds of the worst rap song ever created. It reminded me of my favorite added-in scene in the Two Towers (right?) when Saruman talks about how the orcs were actually elves who were tortured and mutated, using the wonderfully worded "foulcraft," into the Uruk-Hai. That's really what's happening here. You have a truly great song, Under Pressure, brutalized and punished into this horrible perversion then BASTARDIZED EVEN FURTHER by having it "sung" by a white chap from Dallas with less street cred than mysef when I wear that khaki-collared shirt-sweater combo that's keeping the Gap in business. His true name, Robert Matthew Van Winkle, is the whitest, cleanest most suburban name this side of Daniel Joseph Abraham, a random name I just made up.

Ice Ice Baby reached it peak in 1991 when it was nominated for a Grammy for Best Solo Rap Performance. In a tight race between two formidable opponents, the Iceman's dreams of Livin' Large in an ice manshion on an ice throne with, I suppose, Iced Babies at his command were smashed/melted when the much-coveted honour went to MC Hammer for his memorable and inspiring melody, U Can't Touch This. I was 10 that year and like all 10 year olds, my ability to pick out pure raw talent from the otherwise over-marketed, under-talented, purely manufactured music industry was impeccable. Sure, lots of people my age will giggle, blush, and shyly admit that Vanilla Ice is a guilty pleasure for them. Fine. I owned one of his tapes. I knew ALL the lyrics and loved saying "word to your mother" which, like most stolen ghetto sayings, may have made sense sometime but now it's just fucking nonsense. It's still a guilty pleasure for me and one that I dance to at every wedding and mouth the lyrics to in the car when some fool requests in on the radio. Until some black dude pulls up next to me at the light.

***Tangent: I don't think this is racist but if you think so I'll be happy not to listen. I like rap music. Rap culture has become garish and unconscionable but there's lots of great rap out there that's funny, skillful, true to its rebellious political roots and isn't about bitches and ho's. I don't apologize for liking rap because to me it's just catchy music that I can listen to at the gym and distract me from Naked Changeroom Man and his Neverending Wrinkles of Horror. Yet whenever I'm at the gym, listening to some Bumpin' Tunes, and a black dude walks by I feel like I should listen to something else. I feel like a poser, a foolish suburban middle class white kid listening to music born out of poverty, oppression and prejudice. That's how I see rap music, at least at its best and most meaningful, as statement music, written and performed by people whose past and present were full of inexplicable injustice, fear, ignorance and hate. That's why Ice Ice Baby is a truly guilty pleasure. It's both a catchy song from my youth and a song that, in its attempts to emulate, succeeds only in mocking it's own genre and with it the spirit and soul of rap's history. After that flash of white guilt at the gym subsides and I realize my own ignorance, common sense takes over and reminds me that Dr. Dre represents all blacks the same way Kid Rock represents all whites and changing music would merely affirm that foolish (and unsettling, in the case of Kid Rock) statement. Man I hate Kid Rock. Just die already. In my mind, those kind of sudden reflex thoughts aren't racist but merely ignorant. And yet, because it's an ignorant thought that manifests itself from my own guilt and shame over centuries of racially-charged mistreatment by British whities like me, is it a "bad" thought? Can a person be ignorant yet in a way that manifests itself not negatively but rather just unnecessarily cautiously? Sure, why not.

The mainstream music industry is based on style over substance and manufacturing false images for lesser artists rather than developing and promoting bands with something to say (not Bono, go back to Ireland and eat potatoes you sanctimonious asshole), and as such make it easy to deride any depictions of the music industry that celebrates artistic integrity. The whole Vanilla Ice construct was unfortunately not a mockery or satire of hip hop culture and if he were to come along today, he'd be called a genius for creating a persona that mocks the materialism, mysoginy and machismo that characterize contemporary rap music. Since it was played straight one can only say, in the wordsmithing skills of Todd Bertuzzi describing his actions that crippled a fellow player, "it is what it is." I have a lot of respect for the history and origins of rap but, like many, little for the industry which allows it to exist. It becomes somewhat of a quandry, to appreciate the painter but not the museum. It's a dilemma, how to extrapolate the good from the bad while each acts as a symbiot for the other. How to mock The Man without using The Man's resources? Good thing The Man is an idiot.

The Ego Has Landed

It works, but I know little to nothing about HTML so the links are messed up. One of those problems you have to throw money at, so I'll probably need new speakers.