How a Terrible Commercial is Going to Ruin a lot of Lives.

I have nothing against improving the world. Being the cynic that I am, I would still never disparage a genuine act of altruism. I do, however, take great issue with someone being a clueless numbskull as they do it.

I’ve seen an increasingly skewed perception of what it is to be a humanitarian in my travels. The line between Right and Wrong has blurred progressively, and we’re left with a broad, scattered conception of what it is to be “good”.  Now, a logical adult couldn’t claim to know the exact cause of this transgression, but that doesn’t stop be from being unreasonably confident that I’ve pinned it down.

There’s a group called The Foundation for a Better Life, and I’m not sure exactly what it is they sell other than the warm-fuzzy’s. Their mission is to spread positive values by suggesting doing nice things for people in return for NO MONEY WHATSOEVER. Crazy, right? Their website is even called Values.com, which let me tell you, is a frightful mess wrapped up in flash adobe clusterfuck. These guys have gone all out cornering the market on virtue, thanks mostly to an endless barrage of regrettably stupid adverts each one more preachy than the next. Only one, however stands above the rest.

Open to a hard-fought high school basketball game. The whole season is on the line for both sides. Rebound! The Bears push it down the court for a quick lay-up (I saw the scoreboard, that basket definitely evened them up at 65-65). Only seconds remaining and…oh no! The red team turns it over on the inbound, Bears are going to get the ball back! They’re just one point away from realizing a dream!

Coach calls a timeout to formulate the perfect play. You can almost feel the electricity! But wait, somethings not right with Alex over there, who suddenly blurts out “I touched it. I touched the ball before it went out, coach”. Coach is, for lack of a better word, crestfallen. “You gotta be kidding me, Alex”, “It’s the championship game!” they cried, but it was too late. “I touched it, it’s their ball” Alex insisted, gazing at coach quite preachingly. With a look of defeat, coach breaks huddle and whimpers “just don’t foul them on the inbounds”. Just as there seems to be no point to anything anymore, coach yells out “Hey Alex…good job”. Cue music.

Hey Alex…good job.

Real commercial, I promise.

Alex is a well meaning albeit wildly misguided teen, sure. By now he has consumed so much values.com kool-aid he cant see straight any more, nor does he realize the severe beating waiting for him in the locker room. He essentially forfeited the entire season because of his compulsion to do right whenever, wherever. This is not being a good person, it’s being an asshole teammate. The pursuit of playing gallant hero is taken only by Alex, when there are four other guys who don’t give a shit about values and are here to win! High school titles are a rare and fleeting opportunity, and a dream held by these athletes since their first NERF hoop. They even try to reason with the shmuck in the huddle! “Alex, it’s the championship game! Don’t do this! I may have a scholarship riding on this shit! See Pooky over there? He’s gonna get laid if we win, and just look at him! It’s his only shot! Alex, please!” or something to that effect. However, he was unmoved by their pleas, and pressed on, flipping them all off with both hands just out of frame.

I also cant help but notice, after watching the replay frame-by-frame upwards of 20 times, I honestly don’t think this basket case Alex even touched the ball. I honestly think it was just beyond his fingertips. This sociopath is so out of control he fabricated the whole incident! It would not be surprised at all if Alex were to break his own nose in the locker room to save his teammates the fuss of getting his blood all over their jerseys.

Then there’s coach, poor ole coach. Just imagine what winning the state title would have done for him. He’d be a local hero, eat for free at the Applebee’s downtown whenever he wanted, and even completely renew his faith and love for the game! Maybe a college gig would come calling, where he could develop future talents and definitely never, ever recruit Alex.

Rather, he’ll only have been so close; get stuck at this dead end job in this dead end high school, and be stuck with Alex’s ass for another two years (Alex is a sophomore. That’s a detail that was left open and I had to fill it in).

A lot of heartache. A lot of shattered lives and broken promises left in Alex’s wake. Could have been avoided, too. If only morality and compassion weren’t subject to branding for the sake of capital.  So lets try this, don’t screw up important basketball games or any other athletic competitions thereof. Keep it simple. Change a light bulb for a short person. Don’t know any short people? Then pick up dropped items for your tall friends. I just gave you two ideas that will be very helpful while not alienating any teammates. There’s nothing to it! Go clean some oily pelicans, or even just drive like a civil person. While you’re at it, drive an old person to the store. They often don’t have cars and the ones that do are awful drivers. Awful, awful drivers. Cue music.

Disney is working hard to make hardcore violence palatable for childen

I can recall every detail of the day I watched my first R-rated film with an unparalleled clarity. It was summer, and I was eight. Outside was windy and unpleasant as the fine Colorado dust was being blown fiercely by the harsh June wind. My brother and I were spending the weekend with my father, who was still in the early stages of a separation and struggling to find a way to keep his two utterly bored kids from killing and eating him. But there was no fun to be had on this blustery day, and there isn’t a god damn thing to watch on network TV on a Saturday afternoon.  In an act of sheer desperation and somewhat questionable parenting, my father sat us down and introduced us to the greatest American cinematic achievement, known otherwise as RoboCop.

Up until this point, violence, cursing, and partial-frontal nudity were all foreign concepts to me. Hell, they weren’t even concepts, I had no idea any of those things existed or were so awesome. Fucking especially the cursing.  As much as I thoroughly enjoyed the grotesque nature of it all, I was equally shaken and impacted by the visceral imagery. How I made it past Officer Murphy literally getting blown to bits by a ruthless gang led by Foreman’s Dad, I’ll never know.  But I knew well enough, then and there, that I had seen human nature at its ugliest, and guns and bullets and homicide were serious matters.  On that gusty, inclement Saturday, I learned to enjoy violence and also respect it. And the law. And robots.

Now, I find myself wondering if recognizing the time and place is being overlooked in favor for wider viewership.  Disney, makers of fuzzy sunshine and sympathizers to lawless pirates, decided not too long ago they wanted a slice of the savagery pie.  Traditionally, vehemence has occurred in Disney cinema to serve harsh but crucial life-lessons, like your mom may be hunted and shot in front of you or some awful things may happen to your toys once you forsake them.  Do you have any clue what happened to your toys when you started to ignore them?  Horrible things.  Watch Toy Story 3….don’t, actually….do.  Do watch it, but prepare yourself.

I find myself in this state of distress because I just recently subjected myself to Tron Legacy.  Yeah, all of it.  And look, it was bad, sure.  It did exceed my expectations only slightly, however.  Hell, it wasn’t even the worst movie I’d seen this week (that distinguishment belongs to the 20 minutes of Red that I trudged through).  It’s redeeming qualities are as follows; great visuals, superb score by Daft Punk, Olivia Wilde and her fine self.  The other 135 minutes are something of an incomprehensible mess, due largely in part to the overwhelming body count.  Before I knew it, characters were being cut in half, dismembered, decapitated, impaled, shot, and vehicularly manslaughtered.  Walt Disney himself must still be rolling in his Neo Nazi regalia’d  cryogenic chamber. I know I would be.

Of course, these people are not idiots.  The good folks Of Disney Studios know you can’t just slap a PG rating on indescribable gore.  But if you find loopholes like, say, killing “programs” instead of people. Yes, every entity in the realm of Tron is a mere computer program, meaning no actual blood or attachment. Every program, at the point of “termination” simply crumbles into thousands of little blue cubes.  Finito!  They even had the gall to cut off Olivia Wilde’s arm, making sure to linger on her non-bleeding wound long enough to show the kiddies’ “See! It’s fine! Everthings okay, no blood! Don’t freak out!”

But nothing compared to the films’ climax, in which the good guys are escaping from the bad guys yadda yadda they’re in little airplanes yadda yadda the good guys have a turret gun on theirs.  While staving off their attackers, the character on the turret gun spends a few minutes firing aimlessly and eventually  lands a shot directly on one his attackers…directly on his brain.  No exaggerations. He literally blew a hole right through that guys’ head.  In the theme of good taste, they held the shot long enough for you to say “the definitely just blew a hole through that guys’ fucking head” six or seven times. PG rating, mind you.

I was still aghast as the credits rolled.  What I had just seen was a solid two and half hours of unidentifiable, unrelatable beings get slaughtered in the most moronically stylish ways possible.  And while it was produced specifically not to make the violence resonate any longer than a few seconds, I was deeply perturbed BECAUSE of my familiarity with violence and not in spite of it.  Jesus, they blew a guys face off.  Know how many people lost their face in RoboCop? Exactly zero.

Look, I get it.  Disney is big business, so is blood and guts.  This is a country that loves its violence so long as it’s not terribly realistic, not against women, not against old people or young children, and not extremely messy, thanks.  A violent but approachable oeuvre like Tron Legacy serves only to soften the blow of unspeakably gruesome actions and leads us to forget the causatum of murder.  What’s more is Disney studios has bought the rights to the Seal Team Six capture and assassination of Osama Bin Laden.  How they plan on presenting every caustic emotion and consequence of such an event, I have no idea.  So, if anyone out there has any ideas of how to recreate Bin Laden being shot in the head in a gentle, stylized, PG-friendly manner, Disney would probably love to have you on board.

Rawr Rawr Orton Sucks Rawr!; The ugly state of Bronco Nation

I was something of an odd child.  Painfully bashful, reserved, and what some older folks may have referred to as “obnoxious and completely unrelateable”.  You can’t fault them though; many of these assertions were (and are) dead on.  As socially inept personalities well know, making connections with others can be difficult, due to a universal lack of charisma and/or self-esteem.  Instead of living desolate, unhappy lives, we build associations with other dysfunctional beings through modes of culture.  Some of us bond with others through French cinema, or Spiderman, or even the occasional tough-to-define sexual fetish.

My own attempts to ingratiate myself into society led to a love of the Denver Broncos. Not just a love, but an endlessly abiding devotion that would consume my little ADD-riddled existence.  No doubt, they were as much of an underdog as I.  We mirrored one-another in our constant shortcomings and longwinded, bumbling efforts for marginal success.  I found myself reveling in every victory, and felt inexplicable mirth with every loss.

Beyond the surface, there was something far greater about the culture, something that felt unique and pure.  Fans were loyal, fervent, and shared a love for their fellow fan like no other fan in America.  We packed the stands to capacity every single week, and cheered harder and louder than what could be considered healthy or sensible.  Even through the worst, from Wade Phillips to Dale Carter, we were steadfast fans, and backed our Broncos through the worst.  An awe-inspiring vibe which now feels abstracted and distant.

With age, I’ve learned to handle loss with some maturity, as opposed to the earth-shattering melancholia I once did.  But not everyone grew up.  Bronco Nation now seethes with mean-spirited disconsolation, which often gives way to childish indignation.  So it’s not the loss of the game itself, it’s the loss of the class and dignity of this franchise I’ve held so dear. 

A couple nights ago, we witnessed the nadir of fan decorum.  In what was an inexplicably ugly game, factions of irritated fans began booing our quarterback somewhere around 45 minutes into the season.  The entire soiree was boo-worthy, as was the entire squad was beat soundly in every aspect of the game. And while Denver was never really in it, they were never really out of it either.  Didn’t matter.  Swaths of easily exasperated fans started booing and chanting “WEE WAH TEE-BOW” as our offense scored a touchdown and narrowed the lead to three.

Recap: First game of season, 4^th quarter, down by single digits, acrimonious bleating from truculent jerkfaces.

Being a loyal fan, of any given franchise or individual comes with some inevitable caveats.  Tim Tebow came equipped with a few of his own. One of them being that he is a “developmental project”, which everyone initially very understood of.  Fans knew that he was not pro-ready coming out of a shotgun-heavy option offense.  He was (and still is) in dire need of correcting almost everything from his sloppy footwork to his supine throwing motion.  And his fans said “yeah, yeah, development needed, sure sure”, a notion abandoned about 2 weeks into last season.

More recently, Tebow was caste with yet another hurtful monition that he actually kind of sucked as a quarterback.  Nothing against the guy, but the skills just aren’t their yet.  Irregardless of his burgeoning desire to lead and win, Tebow was, and is, simply not at the capacity to do so just yet.  We have to pinch ourselves and remember that while we drafted an All-American kid, we didn’t draft an All-Star quarterback.

But you people.  You reckless and ruthless kooks, loons, maniacs… You’ve collectively put him on such an ascendant pedestal.  You’ve excised his flaws and relished over his endowments that your judgment is clouded, if not thrust out entirely.  You’ve prioritized his stardom and notability over the development over the team you expect him to schlep around.  And now I hear a handful of you are doling out thousands of dollars (ten of them, to be precise) to muddle my gorgeous Colorado skyline with a billboard disparaging Kyle Orton.  To what end?  To change my mind? Coach Fox’s mind? John Elway’s mind?  Effectively, all they’ve done is forfeit their money and credibility as a fan to be the loudest person in the argument.  This is where your movement is headed, friends.

I remember vaguely when this was a classy institution.  We had the best fans and the best atmosphere, even if our squad was lousy.  We didn’t boo our quarterback when our defensive backs were slipping on nearly every coverage or our front seven was getting trampled.  We took our losses hard, but were always pleased as punch to wait for the next week, or the next season if we had to.  The difference was that our devotion, the common strain that connected us all, remained unyielding through the most difficult of stretches.  So relax, spastic children.  Your boy will have his day; just don’t boo his ass off when the grass seems greener on the other side.

Roy Williams: A Cautionary Fail.

The phrase “I sure miss Detroit” isn’t uttered often.  I’ve seen Robocop. Crime is out of completely out of control, the police force is despondent and worn, and is seemingly on the verge of striking altogether. On top of all that, the Lions have been a total sideshow for like the past 200 years.  However, there seems to be a light looming at the end of the tunnel.  Robocop Murphy is doing a bang-up job ridding the streets of Red Foreman and other scum of the like, and Ndamukong Suh is eating quarterbacks on the field.  Serious, he is literally feasting on these people in front of everyone.  From what I can tell, it is completely league sanctioned.  Remarkable!

Indeed, the clouds are breaking over the perceptively less-gloomy metropolis, but don’t tell that to Roy Williams.  Ever since he scrambled out of town for greener pastures and a un-screw-up-able situation in Dallas, his existence has become a dazzling spectacle of impotence and buffoonery.  In fact, one could directly attribute the much of the recent consternation suffered by the Cowboys’ dynasty to him. 

In 2008, Jerry Jones was looking to compliment his ever-coy superstar Terrell Owens.  He figured the best way to get his team over the hump, and maybe lure T.O. out of his shell just a little, would be to trade for an impactful weapon. Ultimately, they traded for the 6’3, 215 lb. Williams.  It should be noted that he made the Pro Bowl and led the conference in receiving yards just one season prior, so Dallas thought they were getting something of a sure thing….for four draft picks….in the middle of the season.  If those circumstances weren’t baffling enough, they restructured for him a six-year contract worth 53$ milly (almost half of it guaranteed, yo).  In response, he gave them 198 yards and single touchdown on 19 catches in seven games.  In the subsequent draft, the Cowboys didn’t have a pick until #69, wherein they drafted an enormous television which, in all fairness, is the biggest star on the team.

After yet another ho-hum year, in which he was overshadowed by hairless cat Miles Austin, the Cowboys drafted Dez Bryant, who was quickly heralded and touted as definitely not Roy Williams.  Bryant would soon prove to the unraveling of Williams, both as a man and a teammate.  In an unprecedented move, Dez Bryant refused to carry Williams’ shoulder pads, as is custom at some— no, pretty much all training camps.  Its part of the time-tested tradition of hazing, or punishing someone for being younger than you.  Understated torture has been a staple of sports longer than homosexual undertones.  You’re going to have to carry some pads, period.  And then, best case scenario, you maybe get your head shaved and your gym bag pissed on. So be it, welcome to the team.  But not Bryant, no sir.  He straight told Williams, to his pathetic face, that he would not carry his pads.  He then gargled some Gatorade, and skipped away.  Quite jauntily, I’m guessing.

After having his very being tarnished, he slugged through (spoiler) another shabby season, and wasn’t even worthy of carrying Dez Bryants’ jock at that point.  However, he did have one thing going for him.  He was going steady with Brooke Daniels, the former prettiest lady in all the lone star state.  In fact, the unknowingly brazen lover was head-over-heels for her, and he wanted to lock her down for life with a little long-term contract of his own.  In an overwhelming act of sweeping, maudlin romanticism, Williams bent down on one knee, took the ring out of his pocket, put it in an envelope and crammed it into his mailbox.  Just in case that alone didn’t seal the deal, he enclosed of VHS tape to ask for her hand.  Nothing says “devotion” like using two antiquated forms of communication, especially when you’re sitting on 26$ guaranteed.

Now jilted, disrespected, ineffectual and enervated; Roy Williams must long for the cold, humdrum simplicity of Detroit.  Why would a man who gets paid such incomprehensible money to perform poorly at his job sue his ex for a paltry 75k?  Well, he’s desperate to win.  Some stretches of our lives can only be described unmitigated shitstorms where we just can’t buy a break.  It’s daunting trying to turn the tides on bum luck, but things will never change for someone who can’t pull their head out of their ass long enough to propose like an evolved human being.

Watch me Successfully Defend Kanye West

Grandstanding is a perilous route to fame.  When done right, you’ll amass legions of fans who will extol your every fashion statement and dope beat.  When done wrong, you bewilder a cute blonde in front an adoring audience, which never bodes well for flamboyant megastar under the influence of too much Courvoisier.  Enter Kanye West, a polarizing media gargantuan who managed to do both, excellently at that.  In a moment of unabashed megalomania, Mr. West managed to shove away a large majority of his already abated fan base.  Since, he’d been making the rounds (disastrously) to re-establish himself as the flamboyant, peerless hip-hop icon he was just years ago.  Nothing seems to have worked, though.  Former fans have jumped ship for less egregious, albeit less dynamic performers.

If we’ve learned anything about bandwagons, it’s just as easy to jump off as it is to jump on.  And while most everyone seems eager to relegate Kanye to the realm of controversial afterthoughts, I’m prepared to declare him as one of the most important figures of contemporary culture as well as music.  Lousy attitude and selfishness aside, West is this generations’ Jim Morrison, or maybe even Pythagoras.  Hrmm….we’ll stick with Morrison.

Let’s go back to 2008.  Kanye was still riding the wave of incredible popularity garnered by the success of his two prior albums, not to mention the dozens of hits he’d produced.  Without question, he was the face of the industry and was primed to eventually reach a cult status shared by few.  However, he was reeling from the death of his mother, an emotion that would cast a heavy shadow over his new album.  808s and Heartbreak sputtered commercially, and was rejected by listeners who expected the same vibe delivered on his previous two efforts.  Granted, it was heavy on the pop and harmony, and lacked the dick-swinging swagger that became his staple, but he had opened up like never before.  Heavily themed in depression, anxiety, and self-doubt, he dropped his guard and peeled away at his exterior almost entirely and was shown no thanks for it.

Things seemed to fall apart slowly thereafter.  The Swift situation, an utter fiasco at Bonnaroo, a couple of very public breakups; the shine and mystique began to fade.  But that wasn’t going to stop West from doing what he was best at, saying exactly what was on his mind. 

Late last year, he released My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.  Most devotees were long gone by then, but the few that remained found themselves being overtaken by a stirring, histrionic opus rarely found in today’s rap.  Sharp, impetuous, and brutally honest, Fantasy delivered unexpected depth, as well as the burgeoning essence of a figure who’d fallen from the crest to the doldrums.  Even more provocative was the overall message; you people don’t know what you want. 

And really, he nailed it.  The general public took a nobody, exalted him to a messiah, and left him as a leper.  They didn’t want the same ole same, but didn’t care for anything odd or antithetical.  Young males adulated him for his misogynistic tones, but turned when he was a big bully to embodiment of the cute, awkward girl whose songs they related to.  So Kanye let go, stopped caring, and told the world “yes, I am that asshole, and you people love it. Without the anger, without the intrigue, I would have been another passing craze soon to be forgotten like so many others. I am that asshole, and even if you’re not okay with it, I am.”

It’s key to realize how many personalities we now view as historic figures were incredibly imperfect.  Albert Einstein has been retroactively diagnosed as having severe autism, as have Thomas Edison for Aspergers syndrome and Martin Luther for OCD, and there’s a good chance they were impossible to tolerate on many occasions during their respective eras.  So it’s easy to say West is a washed-up, brooding jerk with no room in his heart but for himself.  But, as we’ve seen, genius tends to walk hand-in-hand with emotional and chemical imbalance.  Maybe he’s not your favorite.  Maybe you want him to disappear already.  Maybe you’d prefer music that has nothing to explore, or won’t lead you to explore yourself, because one may find they’re not the most savory individual.  Kanye West made that very grim discovery, and used it to create a quietly brilliant album.

How not to institute peace and understanding; The Terry Jones Saga.

Little known fact; upon drafting The Constitution some 220 years ago, the signees of said document had meant for it to be ratified every 20 years.  Really.  Before autographing the original Bill of Rights, they stopped briefly and said to one-another “Say, let’s suggest they update this thing every so often, or these idiots might follow the same old, irrelevant laws forever and ever, yeah?”  A little wordy, I know, but I make no apologies for proper 18^th century dialect.

Anyhow, we never did that.  Amendments protecting us from the de rigeur tyranny of England still stand today, even though we’re pretty good pals now.  However, some of those idiots our forefathers expressed concerns about in my brain began to surface.  But nowadays they’re just coming out of the friggin’ woodwork.  And sure, it’s nice to still be protected from treason for calling your president some pretty crazy stuff, or to tell a union soldier to piss off if you don’t want to give up your futon for the night.  But there’s always going to be a fly in the ointment.  Some jerk will always force you to question the validity of your rights.  Terry Jones is that Jerk….butthead.  Sonofabitch. 

Some quick facts about Terry Jones, Pastor of the Dove World Outreach Cult…I mean, Center.  Mmmm, no, I did mean cult.

• Charged and fined by a German administrative court for falsely representing himself as a doctor.
• Banned from the church he formed in Cologne for reported fear mongering, brainwashing, and beating children with rods-ing.
• Banned from the UK forever and ever and ever.
• Videotaped himself burning a copy of the Quran, an article of faith that nearly two billion people worldwide really, really like.
• Remarkably poor strategist.

Unsavory qualities, each and every one of them, but it’s the last one that has led to this point.  An effervescent zealot, Jones introduced his plan to toast the Muslim holy book in the name of Christians….Americ…insane people everywhere on 9/11, 2010, under the ill-advice that the cliché would help fuel the fire.  As if the mustache wasn’t enough.

The problem was, not a single other person on earth wanted to bolster his assertion, so he conceded his batshit ploy and shelved that Quran he paid at least $15 for (I Amazon’d it).  Things quieted down for a while, most of us forgot about him entirely. 

But it sat there, mocking him.  Mocking him and his God, and his country, and baseball cards and bad mortgages.  Damned if he was going to let that book abrogate everything he believed in.  No longer would he object quietly while a brackish America let these savages run wild.  So he hollered at Sylvia to grab the camera and his good smotin’ boots, and the rest is shameful, shameful history.

But the genius behind Jones’ scheme was that there was neither genius nor scheme.  In fact, he didn’t seem to plan any action further than making sure to have the fire extinguisher nearby.  The man sat back and waited for the truckloads of accolades to pull into his driveway.  Which is odd, considering that in one fell swoop he set off uncontrollable riots, endangered the lives of embedded contractors, diplomats, and tourists, and supplied great recruiting fodder for jihadists, not one single person has yet to send a thank-you card.   Why exactly.  For every uneducated loon, there are at least five crazier personalities willing to find an outlet and congratulate the hell out them.  Terry Jones was really counting on that, seeing as how his congregation consisted of about 50 swamp-people before this fiasco and has likely plummeted since.

When you add it all up, it doesn’t make sense that such an agoraphobic numbskull could wind up being such a consequential force.  But modern existence tends to lack sense, and instead gives way to sensationalism and gestures of egomania, two qualities that can launch any neophyte to unexpected levels of success, because we love that in our freaks.  We love them to drag their brand of absurdity to the brink, to tease our imaginations with just how insane people can be, especially if that insanity can be easily transmitted from one to 2 billion people that exist to us only in our TV’s.  That’s how things managed to get this far.  All that chaos and bloodshed and instability, it wouldn’t hit any closer (for most of us) than the CNN desk.  Most Americans don’t know Islam, they don’t see it at bus stops or schools, and it manages to abide mainly as fleeting notion.  If Terry Jones was some radical fundamentalist who wanted to burn a bible, bill of rights, or even Mickey Mouse, you’d never have heard of him.  There would be no cameras, no Fox News appearances, no coverage whatsoever.  There’s no commercial appeal in attacking something even vaguely American.

Plight in Japan; The Unintentional Comedy

(Originally posted March 18th, 2011)
Tragedies have a tendency to bring out the good in people.  It sometimes seems contrived, but it’s always positive when individuals reach out to a nation of strangers they’ll never meet and help them any way they can.  Sure, it’s easier for some than others, but for many kind souls it comes naturally.

Problem is, in spite of their tangible contributions, they usually get lumped together with those who believe prayer solves catastrophes.  And, look, I’m not saying they’re bad people.  I know they have their beliefs in rosaries and divine intervention (which never happens), but everyone can pray until they’re blue in the bible.  It won’t alleviate any environmental disaster or ascending death toll, even if we send it over by the boatload, which is an absurd notion in itself.

Oh, but I’m forgetting the dregs of society.  The bottom-feeders.  The village idiots/town drunks.  That shithead from high school who cheated off your in civics and somehow managed to become a McDonald’s night manager or TSA security agent.  Yeah, you know the one.  Well, that person, and all persons just like them, had their own contribution to make in the recent woe of the Asian Pacific rim.  And not at all surprisingly, it was xenophobic, vitriolic, and punctuated poorly beyond all comprehension.

Predictably enough, they took to the internet in droves and essentially smeared feces all over the walls.  Facebook, YouTube, the ole’ reliable Fox News message boards…all flooded with the witty acumen of impossibly dim troglodytes.  Of all the hundreds of entries I’ve poured over in the subsequent days, this one embodies the jittery insecurity rampant in this particular group.  Bear in mind I couldn’t make this up, as hard as I may try.


“oh shit tsunami impact on japan I think about it revenge from Pearl Harbor I think gods planned USA always respect”

And to imagine, this guy is actually walking among us, indiscernible from one idiot to the next.

In this, and other poetic musings like it, there are three distinct themes I notice.

1. You had it coming, Japan.
2. Jesus, still American.
3. I just found out how to make words show up on glowing paper.

I’m not even giving them credit for completely misunderstanding Karma.  If I’m not mistaken, they see it something as military attack -> 70 years -> great big wave.  The more I think about it, the less it makes sense.  But it must be daunting to ignore the part where we dropped a pair of nuclear bombs on Japanese cities, not military bases or something of that nature, just unwitting citizens.  Anywhere between 150,000 to 246,000 (not made up), considerably more than an attack that would have been far less severe had a certain someone (Gary) recognized a fleet of 353 (also not made up) Imperial submarines and aircraft on the radar.  In conclusion, don’t worry about Karma, you cave-people, we took care of that long ago.

What still has so many people so pissed at Japan?  The majority of the bad energy seems to come from individuals who don’t even know what Saving Private Ryan is, yet they have the culture and knowledge to firmly assert, from a strictly world-political standpoint, that Japan rightly had an 8.9 earthquake with their name on it.  Furthermore, to contend that Jesus, in all his benevolent glory and Levi jeans, saw fit to kill off about 10,000 innocent Japanese for that crap they pulled decades back….well, exhibits a grotesque misunderstanding in Jesus, Karma, and plate tectonics.

Somehow, this theory that every time there’s an unspeakable tragedy oversees, it’s a message from God to get their act together.  Well, I’ve come to the conclusion this isn’t some growing trend, but that there’s always a massive reserve of dolts with some severely harebrained ideas of how existence and reality apply to them.  They just need a voice, and they can always count on finding it in Glenn Beck (and many others like him), for not much reason other than he a) is on TV and b) is a regular dummy just like them, because he actually suggested and reinforced that this was a very strong sign from God.  Completely serious.  Google it.  Watch it.  And later on this spring and summer, when half of Missouri or Arkansas or Iowa…what have you, is submerged in 100%, Jesus certified American water; ask yourself if he’s punishing them for being so sinful.  Also, ask them whose boats they attacked.

Bill O'Reilly Refuses to be Outstupided; Part Two: The Re-dumbening

(Originally posted Feb. 15th, 2011)
When we last visited Bill O’Reilly, I called into question his understanding of basic logic.   His seemingly erred concept of existence and natural balance left him at odds with things most of us understand as scientific truth.  But he has kept flapping his gums since, and has led me to a deeper understanding of his abashed tenor.  Not only does he misunderstand reason in a simple, scientific form, he has a deep disdain for it.

You can’t argue that O’Reilly is a harsh competitor by nature.  In being so, he understands the mentality of a prison inmate, which is to attack the biggest, nastiest rival on the cell block, obviously.  In the case of reason versus ignorance, the 300 lb Aryan doing life for a double murder would be Stephen Hawking.  I’m not saying Stephen Hawking is an Aryan, I just-- you get it.

If per chance, you’re not entirely familiar with Hawkings’ work, go wiki him.  I could spend all day describing the absurd, mind-blowing things he’s discovered about our universe and our subsequent existence, but you owe it to yourself to learn about it first-hand.

Less to say, Hawking has a pretty good understand of things like tides and moons and stuff.  If anyone could possibly sway a man like O’Reilly with his impressive savvy, it would be this gentleman.  But Bill’s stubbornness knows no bounds and shows no mercy.  So a line in the sand was drawn, and O’Reilly provoked decades upon decades of painstaking research with his crumbling monkey brain, and spewed out this.

“Well, you know, if Mr. Hawking and tell us how the Earth got here, why the sun comes up and goes down without interruption. Why the tide goes in and out, no miscommunications ever…you know, if he wants to explain how all that happens I am ready to receive him—but of course, he can’t. Look I, I don’t have any beef against people like Hawkings and Maher and uh, the other guy, the British guy who makes a fortune being an atheist.  If they want to, if they want to be non-believers, I don’t care, that’s up to them.  But it’s just as much of a stretch to be an atheist than it is to believe in God.  Because there’s just no explanation of how the planet got here.  And Hawkings doesn’t have it.”
-In response to the question, “What are your thoughts on Stephen Hawkings assertion that science can explain everything without the need of deity?”

Mind you, the theory of the sun revolving around the Earth was disproven centuries ago.  A whole bunch of centuries, in fact, by people fond of leeches and reckless phlebotomy as healthcare.  But Bill takes it a step further, and questions why that, in conjunction with the impressively consistent tides, happens without any miscommunication.  If only Stephen Hawking would be a man and explain it all in the No Spin Zone (to be ridiculed, vilified, derided and eventually tried for witchcraft).  However, it seems Hawking is drawing nearer to death at an exponential rate, and doesn’t have time to be treated like a numbskull by a man who was pushed over the edge by the demands of Inside Edition.  Go on, youtube it.

So what to do about Bill?  If one of the most brilliant minds of our time can’t explain something as elementary as planetary orbit, gravity, and other geeky evidence-y things, who can?   Well, no one.  O’Reilly is the Houdini of loquaciousness, in that he will ask a line of concentrically stupid questions until you give up, much like a 3 year old child?  Ever try to explain the principles of planetary orbit to a toddler?  If you’re at all like me, you know that its way over their heads, and their typical reaction is to change the topic to something they understand, which is often rocks or horsies.  That is the secret to O’Reilly’s perpetual smugness.  His argumentative success is a product of his ability to dumb the argument down.  It’s easier to argue oceans and sunsets as opposed to tackling the long process of decarbonization of the atmosphere, Precambrian abiogenetic studies, and all that ballyhoo.  I’d like to point out that Bill O’Reilly actually has a degree in history.   I’d like to see Hawkins explain that with all his science. 

Bill O'Reilly refuses to be outstupided; Part One.

(Originally posted Feb.10th, 2011)
The arena of puerility is vast and competitive.  In recent years, stupid has become big business in this country and other parts of the world.  In fact, it’s become highly bankable.  There are a lot of stupid people with stupid things to say, who have stupid-high ratings and/or devout, fatuous fan bases.  Not to be presumptuous, but I think we can all agree the population of stupids has been burgeoning in recent memory, and we’re seemingly overrun with them now.  We are, in fact, because stupid is reaching its evolutionary apex.  And for the time being, as has found a nurturing father in Bill O’Reilly.

Now, it’s disputable as to who the true heavyweight champ of stupid truly is.  Really, it seems like the baton is being tossed to a different simpleton at a dizzying rate.  But nobody, not Michael Steele, not Bristol Palin, not even Christina Aguilera, has a higher rate of batshit consistency than The Culture Warrior.  And now, sheer disregard to the balance of the universe, he’s pushed the envelope to a level of sheer folly, likely to never be topped again for at least two weeks.

While reading these quotes, disregard the fact that this is a 62 year old obstinate jerk.  Also, forget that he has no manners, no logic, and suffers from indescribable xenophobia.  Maybe it’s best to imagine this is coming from a young child who still knows nothing of the complexities of existence, that might keep your head from caving in after reading this.  Here’s Bill remarking on how his basic misunderstanding of everything proves the existence of God.  Enjoy.

“Ok, how’d the moon get there? How’d the moon get there?  You pinheads who attack me, you guys are just desperate….How’d the sun get there?  How’d it get there?  Can you explain that to me? How come we have that and Mars doesn’t have it? Venus doesn’t have it.  How come?  Why not?  How’d it get here?  How did that little amoeba get out here?  How’d it do it?  Come on.  You have order in this universe, tide goes in, tide goes out.  Ok, sure, the moon does it, fine.  How’d the moon get there?  Who put it there? Did it just happen?  If we have existence, if we have life here on Earth, how come they don’t have it on the other planets?  Were we just lucky? Some meteor do this? You know, I see this stuff as desperate. Many times it takes more faith to not believe, and to think that this is all luck, all this human body and the intricacies of it and everything else, all luck….(confused shoulder shrug….than it does to believe in a deity.  There you go.”

The great Philosopher of our time hath been discovered!

Firstly, I will give him credit for understanding the basic principles of lunar gravity, at least he’s open to that smidge of science.  Otherwise, this is just the most adorable rhetoric of a simpleton in quite some time.  He somehow manages to reduce hundreds of millions of years and a completely unfathomable process of evolution into a planet popping into existence, wherein a lucky amoeba crawled on shore, grew arms and an anus, and wrote the bible.   And nevermind that the universe is has billions of stars and trillions of planets, and is theoretically full of life under numerous but suitable conditions.

 But Bill isn’t buying it.  He hears all this and all that registers is blah blah blah abortion blah blah Reagan.  Bill O’Reilly defies you to throw your best science at him.  Think he’s at all impressed by Stephen Hawking?  You, pinhead, are sadly mistaken.


To be continued…

Good News, Rush Limbaugh's Still Got It!

(Originally posted Jan. 15th, 2010)
Mexico City had theirs. Eastern China just had one, too. And now, Haiti has just encountered “The Big One”. With death tolls feared to be over 100,000 (more or less the best case scenario), looming piles of rubble smothering the landscape, and essentially zero domestic funds for rescue and recovery efforts, Haiti isn’t just up shit creek, it IS shit creek. It’s hard to describe how ugly the situation looks from here. The entire effort seems bewildering. I cant imagine just how much of an already decayed infrastructure withered away during the quake, much less, how much of an horribly overcrowded city is still trapped beneath it all. Something so unthinkably woeful will often lead most people to rest their malice and ill-will, at least long enough to reflect on something other than oneself. Then again, some people look at this Haiti crisis and see a golden egg. One of them is Voldemort, the other is Rush Limbaugh.

The odd thing about all this recent uproar is, it’s hardly political. Sure, he’s raised a fair amount of hell over President Obama supposed shameless drooling over the political opportunity smoldering over there, but that’s not the core here. Even Rush hasn’t convinced himself that this is a “botched” operation based on political positioning in light of that whole….uh…um….Katrina….um, mishap.

No, this is all about Black people. I’m officially squeezing every drop out of the Kanye West card. Rush Limbaugh HATES black people. Am I just negligently throwing around accusations here? Well, here’s some pudding:

“Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?”

“We need segregated buses… This is Obama’s America.”

“You’re a foreigner. You shut your mouth or you get out.”

Personal Favorite…

“They’re 12 percent of the population. Who the hell cares?” (In reference to thousands of them dying in ways that was in no way preventable back then, at all.)

Not offended too terribly?

“You know who deserves a posthumous Medal of Honor? James Earl Ray (known assassin of Dr. Martin Luther King). We miss you, James. Godspeed.”

So as you see, he’s not just a dabbler in bigotry. You could almost say he’s the snuggie of hatred. For years, we had millions and millions of blankets, but then came along the snuggie and completely changed the game.

Rush Limbaugh is keeping discrimination warm and convenienced.

Back here in reality, Rush Limbaugh has become increasingly nonexistent as a political figure and has cut his teeth as more of a crass, spewing masthead representing a repulsion for anything not white, Christian, or Reaganesque. He still yearns and pleads for that “good old day” he keeps bothering us with. You know, when he didn’t have to tussle with ethnics in the streets and black people were fairly powerless as a race. Oh, women were under some considerable oppression as well, and I’d be willing to bet he misses that dearly too.

In short, Rush Limbaugh will likely never be happy until everything and everyone black is gone. I’m thoroughly convinced his is the master race and he is the mastermind. It all sounds eerily like another white supremacist who thrived on a platform of hate some decades ago, but I’ll stop short of making the comparison—because nobody does that quite like Rush.

Green with Envy: The Heartache of Fandom (updated, heyooo!)

(Originally posted Nov. 1st, 2009)
As sports fans, we cant help but romanticize our relationships we have with professional athletes. We see ourselves in them. We reminisce over the great visions we once had for our own selves, despite our hideous lack of fleet and skill (i.e. yours truly). We savor in every victory, suffer with every loss, exhale with every good break, lose our cool with every bad call. Our collective intimacy, however, leads us down a tough road often fraught with trepidation and heartache. This state of punch-drunk admiration can strip some of the ability to let go, move on, and someday love another. Which brings us to the impetuous aftermath of the affair between Brett Favre and Packer Nation.

The people of Green Bay had trudged through an endless line of losers. They came and they went, weak-armed quarterbacks with no supporting cast just couldn’t live up to the lofty, often importune demands. Then there was Brett, a Cajun wunderkind with a great release, tough mentality, and a knack for winning. It was love at first sight. Together, they were rapt in a state of bliss and consistent offensive production. Brett gave 100% of himself, as well. He nurtured their feelings, quelled their insecurities, and gave them outstanding efficiency. For 153 straight games, he played with sore ribs, achy joints, unfathomable cold, and did it all with boyish spirit. And for that, he was greatly admired, deified, even. He was put on a pedestal and admired deeply. However, no honey moon lasts forever. Brett began to vacillate. The relationship began to grow stale, his heart wasn’t in it as it had been before. Packer Nation responded by growing increasingly despondent. Quietly, they developed a festering resentment. Soon, that gave way to rupture, and before we knew it, Brett and Packer nation were over.

Soon after, Brett found another. Realizing this was clearly just a fling, Packer Nation kept their jealousy internal. In due time, that union had hit the skids as well. Rumors began flying around, as usual, and it seemed that Brett was just too old for the game. Packer Nation, feeling heartily satisfied, caught a scent of that closure they had yearned for. Finally, they could move on and devote themselves to a promising new rapport with a young arm and great hair.

Then it happened, THEY happened. Brett had entered into a new accord with the hot franchise down the block. They had everything Green Bay did not. They were younger, quickly becoming more successful, and had an intimidating running game. All the emotion finally boiled over. Jaundiced and blushed with incredibly envy, Packer Nation went on a vitriolic spree. They just couldn’t believe the man they loved, unconditionally and endlessly, had betrayed them like this.

So today, we arrived at the culmination of months of hype, muck-raking, and high-pitched whining, all because they made it about them. Yes. Packer Nation made it about themselves. They felt so entitled, so hoggish, that they invested everything in themselves into one mans career. He was made to feel uncomfortable by management and left feeling drained by the fan base, and while he waffled for far too long, there was nothing else the man could do but leave. His career, his body, his desire was his, not that of thousands of rabid fans, and only he understood that.

Instead of letting it go, they nudged and perturbed like a drunk ex calling nonstop at 3 am. What did he do? He eviscerated them. Completely dismantled them, he did. He showed up at their house, constrained their new stud, said everything he wanted to say, and took the plasma screen and his favorite shirt back. On the way out, he slammed the door emphatically, while Packer Nation lay sobbing on a pillow of humiliation. All because they made it about them.

(Update)

In light of Green Bays' recent Super Bowl triumph, I have to congratulate the franchine as a whole and further chide the fan base.  In the months subsequent to this posting, Brett Favre went from an anomalous old-timer to a sexting, philandering punchline.  Once a the Packers' knight in bacon-wrapped armor, he's viewed as something more of a middling relic.  Because of his shenanigans, he'll never be held in the same regard as Bart Starr or Paul Hornung, and even Hornung had a reputation for being a dickhead at times.  Moreover, he's likely to be eclipsed somewhere down the road by the once reviled Aaron Rodgers, and with good reason.  Where Brett was bombastic and a theatrical spaz, Rodgers is Mr. Cool, has the most accurate delivery in the league, and most importantly, he acts like he's been there before.  Mark my words, you'll never see Aaron Rodgers awkward penis on the internet.

Is it November 4th yet?

(Originally posted Oct. 27th, 2008)
One perk of Democracy is the unconditional right to not only vote, but to also speak our thoughts regarding all things politics, thus enriching the people around us in an open-minded forum of enriching discussion. However, our countries government has become less Democratic and increasingly Fascist (look up the definition and make the connection yourself). This thinly-veiled shift in policy has not only led to the fabrication of our supposed undeterred ability to vote (voter list purging, for one), but also our ability to speak in a manner not reflective of inbred cavemen. Many of us will believe any hot garbage we hear about any candidate, even the most outlandish of claims, thus encouraging many of us to prattle like idiots to whoever will listen.

To understand why it’s so easy for a select handful to perpetuate even the silliest of political muck, you have to understand the effect of the current administration on the bulk of the nation. We’re a simultaneously furious and panicky bunch of people. Prior to 9/11, there were no stories of the horrors of Darfur, chemical attacks over major cities, or Arabs wanting to kill you and your family. Since, the GOP has eternalized a system of keeping citizens in a position of isolation and powerlessness. They scared us into duct taping our windowsills, because the anthrax could be coming at any time. They strongly advise you call cops in the event of a suspicious box or bag on the street. They even gave national peril a color-coded system, so even young children can feel anxiety at all times. They have us mixed-up, a feeling that makes some people angry.

Now, that anger is being converted to a vicious malevolence that I hear being spewed at our current presidential contenders. And yes, face facts my conservative friends, the majority at that has been directed at Barack Obama. You know, the Arab one. The one that we can’t be sure was really born in America. The one with the socialist agenda. The one with the terrorist sounding name. Barack Hussein Obama, who, to the typical pre-programmed type, would sound Arab. And remember, the Arabs hate us and want to kill American kids. Of course, anyone with a shred of self-awareness would do their research and find that name to be very, very, Nigerian. Also, they may be surprised to find he’s not a commie socialist, has a pretty legit looking birth certificate, and, mindblowingly enough, Arabs don’t want us all dead. Seems sensible enough, right?

But where does all this vitriol root?  Well, it starts with an idiot holding a mic, which transcends to idiots with radios and TV’s, eventually arcing to wider crowds of idiots with enough panic and fear to believe any garbage they hear. It’s horrible. It’s ugly. It reflects poorly on us as a collective nation. When things like “terrorist” and “kill him” are screamed by idiots and received by other idiots, horrific things happen. It makes that fear in our stomachs boil over, and leads the most idiotic type to do the unconscionable, like drag Brandon McClelland via truck to the worst death imaginable, or maybe bomb a clinic, or even shoot a president three times.

We’re better than this. We’re supposed to be savvy, informed political minds. Instead many of us are willing to spew bitterness that only further divides us as countrymen, separating the reds from the blues. Look, it doesn’t matter who you vote for. I really don’t care. If Obama’s, McCain’s, or even Nader’s policies work for you, fine. That’s true democracy, I don’t care what you think and you don’t care what I think, and we can move about with our day. Just cast your vote and shut the fuck up.