Little known fact: they seeded the clouds just so Prince could close with "Purple Rain." I know the elements are tricky, and I've never operated a television camera at a major sporting event ... but I've also see a LOT of rainy football games where there wasn't water or fog on the lens. What the hell happened? It's kind of weird to watch the Colts go downfield in what appears to be a soft-focus porn.
Bowl Flush
Sub-par ads for a sub-par Super Bowl. CareerBuilder.com had some pretty inventive spots, and I laughed outloud at the Bud Light ad where the guy wants to pick up an axe murderer. Beyond that, most ads made me not want to use the products advertised, out of spite. The car ads were all pretty bad. Coke's ads were all repeats of things they've been running in movie theaters, which mostly reminds me how much I hate commercials in movie theaters, and by association Coke. GoDaddy.com is trying to sell something (I'm not sure what) by using ugly women with breast implants. I guess it's working, because they keep on buying Super Bowl ads. Sigh.
Movie Review: Jonestown
Jim Jones founded the People's Temple church with hopes of creating an integrated utopian society; somehow it morphed over the decades into his own personal playground of drug abuse, sexual molestation and complete control over his congregation's lives. He moved a large number of his followers down to Guyana, and when a Congressman visited on behalf of concerned family members, he was murdered. That day, Jones ordered the mass suicide of his followers. They drank poison and died on the spot.
The documentary is full of interviews with former members of the People's Temple (two who escaped the mass suicide in the jungle, others who weren't in Guyana) plus photos and video/audio of Temple services and some Jonestown goings-on. If you already know the story of Jonestown (I read a book because I'm smart and stuff), you might be disappointed; they don't go all that far into the the horrific psychology and abuse that goes into making a cult. But it still has some disturbingly sad and powerful moments as they reconstruct the timeline that lead to the massacre.
Hands down, the date movie of the year.
Bottoms Up
We say "drink the Kool-Aid" all the time, as in: "Boy, the Patriots players sure do drink the Kool-Aid when it comes to Belichick's philosophy."
When the drinking of the Kool-Aid actually happened in 1978, the Kool-Aid was laced with cyanide, they used syringes to shoot it into the mouths of babies and children, and 909 people died in the South American jungle.
Dead babies rotting in the sun to whimsical idiom in UNDER 30 YEARS! God bless America.
Fun fact: it wasn't Kool-Aid. It was Flavor Aid. But they even have footage in the documentary of Jones giving a tour of the Jonestown storeroom, pointing to the boxes CLEARLY labeled "Flavor Aid" and calling it Kool-Aid. I guess there's no such thing as bad publicity, right? Right?
My name is Chris, and I ...
I got "Medieval II: Total War" for Christmas. It's a computer strategy game where you try to lead your faction (the Normans, the French, the Venetians, etc.) to the top of the Medieval world.
I am sad to report that I am now addicted to conquering Europe. I thought I could keep it under control but I just can't. I sit down at 10 p.m., thinking, "I'll just take Krakow and then go to bed." Then I blink, it's 4 a.m. and I have 30 units of Russian horsemen surrounding the Vatican. A few skipped meals later and I'm trying to knock the Mongols out of Jerusalem. Then, when I've won? I'm going to go back and play as the Moors. They deserve a shot.
My favorite part of the game: when you capture a city, you have the option of executing 75 percent of the population. If you do, the game makes the sound of a sword being drawn, followed by someone making a death gurgle. It's the greatest sound effect ever made. I'm slaughtering thousands JUST BECAUSE I LIKE THE NOISE.
The other day I had a conversation with my roommate where I said "I'm going to wipe the Hungarians from the face of the Earth," and I actually felt genuine anger. For the love of God, I must never be allowed to control any nation, pricipality, or military force of any size on the Eurasian landmass. It would not bode well for humanity.
If a white person calls a black person "articulate," is it always an insult?
I do public speaking for a living, but I do not consider myself "articulate." Put me on the spot and ask me to explain my viewpoints out loud, and I'll give you a very disorganized and confusing response. People who are good at that are "articulate." There's really not another word for it.
Unfortunately, for some, calling a black person "articulate" is a backhanded swipe indicating their belief that all black people are uneducated. Even if you're using the word in a non-racist way (Joe Biden, probably), people just assume that you're a racist. Which, of course, is racist, because you're assuming that white people can't just say something nice about a black person in a non-racial context. THE WELL IS POISONED!
Modest proposal: let's tidy this up by assuming that "articulate" is now officially a racial slur, and invent a new word that means "excellent at communicating ideas verbally, and when I say that, I mean that if I had never met or seen this person before, and I knew nothing about their skin color and all I can hear is the sound of their voice, because I am either legally blind or wearing some kind of sleep mask, I would be impressed and able to understand their viewpoints."
That word is "Vocillious."
Alternative
"The Sarah Silverman Program" is not "funny," and aggressively so. Watching an episode over the weekend with friends, no one laughed. We had people from both coasts; age range 23-30; both ends of the political spectrum; both genders; we're all college educated; and we all have a pretty decent helping of pop culture. Someone in that group is the target demographic for that show. No one even smiled.
It opened with Sarah Silverman singing a song to a kid about how she'd anally violate his mother with a stick then rub the feces in his mother's eye. From there on it kept an even keel. It's unapologetic with almost nothing approaching a traditional TV-show joke. It's not that they're floating jokes that are terrible, or tired, or poorly executed. They aren't really making jokes.
So: is that the point? Is the whole show a mockery of traditional television norms? Is the complete lack of "traditional" humor, in fact, the ACTUAL joke? Maybe we're all supposed to be dazzled by the fact that the people on television, though recognizing the long-standing American dream of being on television, have contempt for the medium. The show does seem to be a string of incidents that might appear in a standard sitcom, but played out with asocial aplomb. But Americans are pretty well-versed in television sterotypes and their ridiculousness; it's not exactly the next revolution in irony to blow up conventions that have been destroyed already (see "Seinfeld"). At this point, you're just picking up the rubble and smashing it, or, in Silverman's case, hitting it with a tactical nuke.
Or maybe the point is trying to get people to figure out what the point is? I may have spent more time writing these paragraphs than anyone making the show spent crafting a point.
It gets you (or at least me) thinking. A lot of what's "hot" in the comedy world is ironic or nihilistic to the extreme -- shows or stand-up with only a marginal interest in making people, well, laugh. Absurdist or excessively dry humor isn't a new phenomenon (see "Monty Python"), and when it works it's fantastic. But it seems like there's an extra edge of indifference these days -- not contempt for the audience, but a willingness to ignore their existence. There's no vulnerability, no attempt at connection ... there's no desire for approval. I guess in some senses it's liberating, but it's also surreal in such a results-based artform.
It's like watching comedy written on a dare: let's see how far we can go before anyone says the emperor has no clothes, before they notice we're not really telling many jokes, that we don't care what they think. No one's yelling yet. Example: I watched the new Demetri Martin special the other day, because he's acclaimed as a genius by about three media outlets a week. Why? It's amusing, but playing the piano or using a sketch pad doesn't make mildly cute observational comedy into genre-crushing brilliance. It's detached fluff. Is the ironic disconnect the whole point? Go over to SuperDeluxe.com and watch some Eugene Mirman videos. Fascinating stuff, but is it genius? What IS it?
In art the fringe can, over time, redefine the middle. A small group of people acting with passion and conviction can nudge an entire movement in their direction. Or the fringe can marginalize itself by being too inaccessible, and more or less languish on the sidelines, eking by on snob appeal. So what is "alternative" comedy -- a nudging movement (and if so, where is it nudging us), or an irrelevant one? Can you even define "alternative" comedy or think of it as a cohesive movement? And if it turns out the next revolution in comedy is not caring about the audience, who's going to watch comedy anymore?
Your Favorite Band Sucks
Please bear in mind that if I do not enjoy the same comedians and TV shows as you, you should definitely take it as a personal indictment of your character.
Glen or Glenda?
To expand: I don't think "alternative" is unfunny ... I usually think of it as comedy trapped in the wrong format. I don't think stand-up / sketch / sitcoms are really great vehicles for subtle social commentary, heaping doses of irony, etc. -- there are too many expectations built into the artforms to overcome. I guess it's valiant to try and smash (or ignore) those expectations, but for my money, wouldn't it also be great if you just wrote a book or movie? The next Douglas Adams could be wasting his time in the clubs of New York trying to work out a seven-minute set when he should be in front of a computer.
That makes it frustrating to me. You would not hire the world's greatest carpenter, tell him you need a wardrobe by 5 p.m., and then, instead of a hammer, give him a banana.
Unless he was a gorilla carpenter who could drive nails with his thick, leathery palms. In that case, the banana makes perfect sense.
Remember that time the Democratic candidate got more popular votes than the Republican candidate, but didn't win the presidency? His name was ...
GROVER CLEVELAND! The year was 1892, and he lost to Benjamin Harrison. Yes, it happened to Al Gore too, but there's an important difference: when life kicked Grover Cleveland in the biscuits, he knuckled up, made lemons out of lemonade, waded through hell and high water, made a left turn and accidentally ended up back in hell, then got his bearings, went back through the high water and made it back to the White House four years later.
Al Gore mostly ate donuts and then started trying to ruin the global economy.
Stephen Grover Cleveland was born in Caldwell, New Jersey, in 1837, the fifth of nine children of a Presbyterian minister whose love of god was second only to his love of seeding his wife. His family moved to New York state when he was four; he eventually ended up stopping in Buffalo when a scheduled trip to Ohio was cut short by a charming 133 month lake-effect snow storm. While waiting for the thaw, he became a lawyer (though he never went to law school; he clerked for three years before passing the bar).
Here's where it gets BLADOW: He got elected mayor of Buffalo in 1881 on a reform platform, because who wouldn't want to clean up Buffalo? He was so good at keeping the streets clean that the next year he won the governor's race in New York. He was so impressive at being governor that he was nominated for president in 1884. He made a grand total of three campaign appearances outside of Albany (one to Buffalo and two trips to the store for milk). And he WON. From mayor of Buffalo to president of the United States in three years. Yee.
He lost his re-election bid in 1888, over the sexy, sexy issue of tariffs. But in 1892 he made his triumphant return to Washington ... for four more years, at which point his party got tired of him and went with proven winner William Jennings Bryan and his sexy, sexy issue, the coinage of silver. No, really.
The house in Caldwell is a tiny affair -- it was a Manse owned by his father's church. It has a very simple four-room layout downstairs; the G came from humble origins. The bed where Cleveland was born (and probably conceived, wink wink) is still there, as is his crib, and a few choice artifacts -- campaign materials, personal photos, a piece of his wedding cake. (It's fruitcake, which will not decompose until 2832.) It's a nice, quick visit, and the on-site guide has all kinds of great stories. Don't be shy. Tell her Chris sent you. But that distant drumroll means it's time for ... FUN CLEVELAND FACTS!
The only man to serve non-consecutive terms, Cleveland is counted as the 22nd and 24th president. Which, let's be honest, is kind of dumb. The only president born in New Jersey, and the only president buried there (Princeton), though for most of his life he was pretty good about avoiding that hellhole.
The name "Grover" came from the first minister of his father's Caldwell church (the Clevelands were the second family to live in the Manse). His mom called him "Little Grove." His nieces and nephews called him "Uncle Jumbo." I call him "Sugarwalls."
Links with Woodrow Wilson: both men were sons of Presbyterian ministers; both were born in a Manse; both went by their middle names; both became governors of states they were not born in; both ran as Democratic "reform" candidates fighting political machines; both were nominated for president after one year as governor; both were married during their presidencies. Cleveland retired to Princeton after leaving the White House and sat on the board for the University ... when Wilson was named the school's president. They hated each other.
Kicked off the current string of 20 straight presidents without a beard. As a young professional he grew a beard, had his picture taken, and then sent the picture to friends to gather their opinions on the look. They shot it down. So basically, Grover Cleveland invented MySpace.
In 1884 he survived one of the dirtiest presidential campaigns on record. The unmarried Cleveland was accused of having a bastard child with a widower named Maria Halpin, who worked in a clothing store in Buffalo. Though Cleveland was paying child support, paternity wasn't entirely clear because Halpin was also regularly checking the inseams of his law partner and mentor Oscar Folsom. So if you're ever time-traveling back to 1880s Buffalo, you know where the party is.
When Oscar Folsom died, Cleveland became the executor of the Folsom estate, which gave him dibs on Folsom's daughter Frances, whom Cleveland married in 1886. He was 49; she was 21. This is why Cleveland is often referred to as "the president I'd most like to high-five." She was the youngest First Lady in history, and she always will be, because these days you can't deal with the mental problems of a 21-year-old girl and run the free world at the same time.
Let's make this perfectly clear: he married the daughter (less than half his age) of his dead law partner. The same law partner that he shared a mistress with. And he might have had a bastard kid with the mistress. And he was elected TWICE. Politics used to be so much more interesting.
Before Cleveland married, his sister took care of hosting duties in the White House. She was a closet lesbian. And that's why we almost went to war with France in 1885 over food poisoning from beef jerky.
Folsom and Cleveland were married in the Blue Room of the White House, behind the Green Door. He is the only president to be married in that building, the only president to have a child born in that building, and on a related note, the only president not to get back his cleaning deposit. John Philip Sousa and the U.S. Marine Band played at his wedding, to the frustration of Frances, who wanted a DJ.
Often noted as the biggest beer-drinker of all the presidents, which led to the 1888 campaign slogan, "You think you're better than me?" Loved fishing and hunting.
Issued more vetoes than all previous presidents combined, which is why Congressmen affectionately referred to him as "Old ****face."
The press created a mock 1892 campaign pitting Cleveland's daughter "Baby Ruth" against Harrison's grandson "Baby McKee." Ruth won in a landslide when, one month before Election Day, McKee was caught snorting opium off his nanny's stomach. Baby Ruth candy bars are, by most accounts, named after Cleveland's daughter; this was also an honor shared by his son Zagnut.
Valued his privacy, and was the first of three presidents to beat a paparazzi into a coma with the handle of a garden rake. (FDR, Carter)
Spent the four years between his terms living in Mahattan and working as a bartender at a gay club in the East Village.
Attempted to counter Bryan's "Cross of Gold" speech with the "Nickelplated Two-By-Four," to no avail.
#3 on F.H.M.'s "Hottest Grovers of All Time," behind Grover Norquist and Grover the Muppet.
New Jersey's problems are all cosmetic. It's not a bad state; but everyone who drives through it sees the same things and gets the same impressions. The Turnpike goes straight through oil refineries and chemical processing plants. The Parkway (five lanes wide) at one point cuts through a CEMETERY.
Simple solution: erect 20-foot billboards lining the ugly parts of the highways and blocking the view of the ugliness. On each billboard, put a picture of a famous New Jerseyan. You know you'd be totally cheered up by this:
Returning to the Motel 6 from a show at the Comedy Connection, I walked past a guy standing outside the lobby: white beard, gut, baseball cap, smoking a cigarette, and wearing a T-shirt with no jacket in 20-degree weather.
I said, "Hello."
He said, "Cold enough for you?"
I said, jokingly, "Naw, I want it 20 degrees colder."
At that point he puffed out his T-shirt and said with pride, "All I'm wearing is a T-shirt!" It was like a 2-year-old walking into the living room pantsless to tell you he used the potty.
I was a little bit at a loss, so I paused for a moment and said, "I guess the cigarettes keep you warm."
Then he looked at me like I was the grand marshall in a baby-raping parade. I have no idea why. I don't want to know why.
Motell
There's an implied social contract when you check into a Motel 6: you are cheap, so you're forfeiting the right to complain.
Sometimes they try to take advantage of that code, though. The broke it here in Portland. I'm warning you, stay away. Far, far, far away.
You know what the world needs? More people who review movies that have been out for a few weeks and are about to leave theaters. You're welcome in advance, world.
I like this movie. All the women in the world have been infertile for more than 20 years, probably because they angered god, what with all their sassing and "sexual liberation." Since women no longer have to use sex to attract suitable fathers, we can only assume that they stopped having sex altogether, and that male sexual frustration led to global nuclear war.
So we start the movie in a bombed-out post-apocalyptic world where England is the only surviving stable nation (hey, it's science fiction). Shockingly, a young girl turns up pregnant, and in the hands of a terrorist group that wants to keep her out of the hands of the government; the girl needs to get to safe transport on the coast, and Clive Owen gets drafted to take her there. Needless to say, stuff goes wrong.
Cool pic for a number of reasons: First, they don't overexplain the science. There's nothing worse than an episode of Star Trek when the whole plot revolves around reversing the polarity of something. Second, they don't have any profound speeches. No one sits around and talks about the meaning of children or hope for the future. Third, great action. It's not really an action movie, but car doors get used as weapons twice. Plus there's a really amazing sequence at the end with very few edits and camerawork that takes you inside a massive gun battle. None of the chopped-up MTV crap ... mostly steady, continuous shots that follow Clive through the action. Great stuff.
Don't leave early. The last song is the most profane that I've ever heard over closing credits, yet in charming way.
C Section
The song uses the word c**t. This is one of the worst words you can say in America. I've seen comedy shows where people will get laughs talking about molesting corpses, beating their grandparents or rape. Then the comic will drop the C-bomb, and the crowd turns on them instantly.
But somehow British people can get away with it. Must be the accent.
200 Miles to South of the Border
The Romans crucified 6,000 people along the Appian Way. Talking with another comedian over the weekend about this fact, we started wondering if they used their abs as billboard space.
Who benefits from Valentine's Day? Not new couples. If you just started dating it's stressful to figure out how intense or romantic your day should be before you cross the creepy "too soon" line. Not old couples. If you're settled into a routine, you get no points for obligatory romantic gestures, plus they're a reminder of the stuff you aren't doing the rest of the year. Not single people. If you're single it's a reminder that you're alone.
Valentine's Day is perfect if you've been dating for five months, 13 days and have not yet eaten at a fancy restaurant together.
From everyone else in the world, up yours, Hallmark. Go storm your local card shop. Burn it to the ground. I bet it would look cool as all the teddybears ran out on fire.
She Beat the Spread
Britney Spears. Jessica Simpson. Christina Aguilera. If someone handed you $500 in 2003 and asked you to bet on who would be the least skanky in 2007, where would your money go?
Christina would have been pulling about 40-to-1 odds at that point (her being dead under a railroad trestle was about 5-1), but she would have made you rich. She's married, most of her public appearances involve substantial clothing and her music career has an actual upward trajectory. Jessica Simpson got cut out of a pre-taped salute to Dolly Parton (supposedly one of her idols) on PBS, while Christina just nailed a live tribute to James Brown on the Grammys. Ridiculous.
Happy Presidents Day! We've had war heroes, revolutionary political philosophers, and middling bureaucrats. We've had a guy with a doctorate and a guy who never finished high school. We've had slave owners, philanderers, drunks, liars, fatties, skinnies, a New Jerseyan ... The job has evolved from political figurehead in a backwater of the civilized world into the most powerful position on Earth.
Basically, presidents are interesting ... BEHOLD!
1. George Washington is the farmer who introduced mules to American agriculture.
2. John Adams signed the Alien and Sedition Acts after Abigail Adams was abducted and probed.
3. Thomas Jefferson had red hair, which explains a lot.
4. James Madison let the British burn down the White House because he needed the insurance money for gambling debts.
5. "The Monroe Doctrine" was the name of James Monroe's soft-rock cover band. He played the harpsichord-guitar.
6. John Quincy Adams was one of the greatest diplomats in American history, because of the telepathic abilities inherited from the alien who impregnated Abigail Adams (see above).
7. Andrew Jackson settled 13 different political disputes by challenging Congress to drinking contests. He was 11-2.
8. Martin Van Buren was nicknamed "Old Kinderhook," whick is where we get the expression "O.K." He was also nicknamed "The Little Wizard," and "Andrew Jackson's Bitch."
9. William Henry Harrison lived in the White House for only 30 days, but he still totally left a lingering old-guy smell.
10. John Tyler had 11 kids ... that he knows of! BLADOW!
11. James K. Polk invented Manifest Destiny mostly as a way to pick up chicks.
12. Zachary Taylor died from gastroenteritis, contracted by eating cherries during the Fourth of July on the National Mall. Or so the Freemasons would have us believe.
13. Millard Fillmore is actually a composite character.
14. Franklin Pierce had a horrible marriage and all three of his children died young, including one in a train accident that Pierce watched. But man that guy could drink!
15. James Buchanan might belong on a $3 bill, if you catch my drift. You know what I'm saying? You totally get it, right?
16. Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address on the back of an envelope, and the Emancipation Proclamation on the back of a Denny's placemat.
17. Andrew Johnson was a tailor, and was instrumental in passing the "No White After Labor Day" Act of 1867.
18. True story (I think): during the war a paper published that U.S. Grant liked cigars. He didn't, but adoring fans sent him boxes and boxes. So he decided to take it up. He died of throat cancer. DAMN YOU MEDIA!
19. Rutherford B. Hayes was elected on a dare.
20. James Garfield's assassin tried to enter an insanity plea, because really, who cares enough to shoot James Garfield?
21. Chester A. Arthur is known as "The Father of Civil Service." So the next time you're standing in line for 50 minutes at the post office, remember: f*** Chester Arthur.
22. Grover Cleveland loved fishing, and also high-class prostitutes.
23. While in the White House, Benjamin Harrison had a pet goat named "Whiskers," but sadly, he never got to write a retarded children's book from the point of view of the goat.
24. On returning to the White House, Grover Cleveland was pleasantly surprised to find his secret stash of hard candy completely untouched.
25. Karl Rove has tried to pattern George W. Bush's career after that of William McKinley. Except for the part about getting shot.
26. Teddy Roosevelt's favorite thing to hunt, oddly enough? Boy Scouts.
27. William Howard Taft is the only president to sit on the Supreme Court. Literally. He had a huge ass, it wasn't all that tough to get all 9.
28. Woodrow Wilson loved vaudeville, although after a few major strokes I guess you can find anything pretty amusing.
29. Warren G. Harding often called joint sessions of Congress just to complain about his hangnail for a few hours.
30. Calvin Coolidge set the presidential record for press conferences, though most of them were to promote the boy band he was managing.
31. Have you ever seen Herbert Hoover and Orson Welles in the same place? Have you? I'm just saying, is all. Hoover was a world famous mining engineer, so he knew something about starting great depressions.
32. Franklin Roosevelt died in 1935, and the entire country was managed for the next 10 years by two Filipinos with some fishing line and some well-hidden eyehooks.
33. Harry S Truman owned a men's clothing store, and also dropped the bomb on Japan, which makes for a pretty diverse resume.
34. Dwight D. Eisenhower turned down the Medal of Honor, because of his firm belief that REAL MEN DON'T WEAR JEWELRY!
35. John F. Kennedy is the only person who doesn't remember where he was when John F. Kennedy was shot.
36. Lyndon B. Johnson used hypnosis when needed.
37. Richard Nixon loved using the White House bowling alley. So he couldn't have been all that bad..
38. Gerald Ford looked like the kind of guy who probably knows how to play the spoons.
39. Jimmy Carter has written 321 books. In 2007 alone.
40. Ronald Reagan got shot by an insane guy while in Washington DC, just like Garfield. Small world.
41. George Bush's kids are a governor and the president. But is that enough for daddy? Noooooooooooooooo.
42. Bill Clinton seems to stack up well against old white combat veterans.
43. Every day George W. Bush jogs 3 miles, and then goes all "Kiss of Death" and bench-presses Karl Rove for five minutes.
Dream Off
We all know that anyone can be president, but did you ever realize the moment that you won't be the president? It usually takes place near a Denny's bathroom.
35
You have to be 35 to be president, 30 for the Senate, 25 for the House. My younger brother just turned 25, meaning we're now all eligible for Congress. I'm a Republican, my older brother is a Democrat, younger is an Independent.
We are all going to get elected in 2008, at which point we will form the awesomely named White Caucus. People will vote for us just because it's a good human-interest story.
May God continue to bless America.
Back Off, Mac
When you say "Macs are better than PCs," you are actually saying: "I am arrogant about the fact that I'm too dumb to use a PC."
Go buy a Billy Preston album. I had been meaning to pick one up for years. What pushed me over the edge: during the Grammys in the "people who died" montage they showed his face.
The guy had an Afro so big it moved independently of the rest of his head. When your hair has to catch up to you, then you have my respect.
WARNING: there may be Jesus content. Back in the '70s a lot of people decided they were funkin' for the lord, and had smash #1 hits doing so. They were very smart about it, because a lot of times you won't even know you're accepting Jesus into your heart. Here's "Serpentine Fire" by Earth Wind and Fire:
When I see your face like the mornin' sun you spark me to shine
Tell all the world, my need is fulfilled and that's a new design
As long as you're near, there is no fear of a victory
But when Im away, influences stray my mind to disagree
I wanna see your face in the morning sun ignite my energy
The cause and effect of you has brought new meaning in my life to me
Gonna tell a story morning glory all about the serpentine fire
Gonna tell a story morning glory all about the serpentine fire
Oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah, oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah
I need to see your face like the morning sun ignite my energy
The cause and effect of you has brought new meaning in my life to me
The moments I find when Im inclined to do my best
Negative wins when I give in and then I lose the test (not many times)
Gonna tell a story morning glory all about the serpentine fire
Surely as life begun, you will as one battle with the serpentine fire
I enjoyed this song for five years while having no idea what it meant. But if you read the lyrics, it's clearly about Jesus fighting Quetzalcoatl. I prefer this "Trojan Horse" strategy to the standard Christian Rock:
Christian Record Executive One (with a pony tail): "This sounds like total crap."
Christian Record Executive Two (wearing Blue-Blockers): "Jesus forgives. Release it."
Bedtime? But I'm Slaughtering Innocents!
Regular blogging should resume now that I've basically crushed Europe under the sturdy riding boots of the Russian Empire. Last night I captured Rome and killed the Pope; Jerusalem is next.
I think I'm a pretty good emperor. I have benign economic policies, and I don't cause too much trouble on the international scene unless you attack me first, at which point I will raze all your cities to the ground and kill all your women and children. Tough but fair, right?
In that respect, I think the "Total War" series is educational. How else could I learn to manage a European empire?
I was sitting on a plane Saturday next to a guy with a double helix tattoo on his hand. For those of you who are not "street," it's like the prison teardrop. You get a double helix tattoo the first time you clone an animal in a lab environment.
If you have to get a tattoo (and you don't, unless it involves avoiding a prison rape) think long and hard about placement. Put it somewhere that you won't be forced to answer questions. I have a cousin with a tattoo of the Green Lantern symbol on his shoulder. That's OK: you'll have to do some smooth-talking once you manage to get your shirt off in a romantic situation ("I was abducted and branded by a cult! Take your bra off!") but most people won't ever see it.
Double helix on the hand is NOT good placement. You're advertising something no one wants to buy.
Red Carpet
The Oscar pre-show could basically double as a recruiting film for radical Islam.
Lisa Ling: You're not helping the troops.
Oscar
Here's what's wrong with Hollywood: there's a guy somewhere in the Oscarcast machinery who said, "You know what we need? More things interpreted through dance!"
They have mountains of focus group data; they have piles of critical reviews of past Oscarcasts; they have box office info on interpretive dance shows.
And NO ONE STOPPED THAT GUY.
The Al Gore fake announcement was priceless. That being said, we're not beating global warming. Inconvenient but true. If you want to go green, fine. But get over yourself.
If the building collapsed and thousands of stars were trapped under metal girders, it's good to know that Cameron Diaz and Nicole Kidman could cut people free with their cheekbones.
In a two-minute span Tom Hanks made a joke about screenwriters being alcoholics and made Chris Connelly look like a moron backstage. Tom Hanks is my hero.
The woman who won the costume design Oscar dressed like she worked in a 19th-century funeral parlor.
I would rather watch 10 extra minutes of people thanking their agents than 30 extra seconds of interpretive dance. I can't stress enough how awful interpretive dance is. My god. Make it stop.
Robert Downey just made fun of his own serious drug use ...
... and Jerry Seinfeld called all of the documentary nominess "incredibly depressing." Now all I need is for someone to call "Little Miss Sunshine" massively overrated. This is great stuff.
And the bad mood is back! After "An Inconvenient Truth" was announced as the winner, the "walk-to-the-stage" announcer said Hurricane Katrina drove home the impact of global warming. Uh ... a hurricane during hurricane season in a place where hurricanes happen all the time proved the risk of climate change? SMUG SMUG SMUG SMUG SMUG SMUG SMUG. The real reason we can't beat gloabl warming (forget the link above) is that people like me see this stuff and then increase their carbon footprint for spite. When I get home tomorrow I'm going to let my car idle on the street while I de-insulate my house.
Quincy Jones is dressed like an African dictator.
Ellen Degeneres had a flat monologue. Since then she's been solid gold -- easily the best host in recent memory. Maybe we should all go back and revisit "Mr. Wrong." We didn't all know she was gay back then, so the acting is probably much better than you thought at the time. (Don't act like you didn't see it in theaters opening night. We all did.)
Movie quotes are part of the graphics for the transition screens. For some reason, "Well, do ya, punk?" has shown up about ten times, waaaaaay more than any other quote. This makes me laugh.
In the time it took to honor Ennio Morricone he could have banged out about 10 new movie scores.
"Formula quirky." That's what "Little Miss Sunshine" is. It's a bunch of glib one-dimensional indie characters in a car. Amusing, but Oscar-worthy? Bleh. When I write a screenplay it's going to be AWESOME. And then the guy from "Little Miss Sunshine" will read this entry and use his Oscar clout to block it from production. Serves me right.
I'm watching this in low definition and I'm glad. I really don't want to see these people, men or women, at the cutaneous level. Mark my words: Hi-Def is going to be bad for everything other than sports. Sure, seeing how plain/ugly the stars look might, in the long run, help the self-esteem of a generation of young women. But I don't see how that makes things any easier for me 20 years down the road. BOO HI-DEF! KEEP AMERICA BEAUTIFUL!
These "walk-to-the-stage" announcements are absolutely ridiculous. Did you know that Helen Mirren once had an Indian hand reader tell her that her career would peak in her late 40s? Who picked the factoids? (It's not the nominees: some guy who won an Oscar for "Pan's Labyrinth" was described as working on 25 films, "including 'Spy Kids.'" If you have worked on 25 movies you don't pick "Spy Kids.") I'm thinking an angry production intern switched out the fact sheets about five minutes before showtime. Then he stole Clint Eastwood's glasses.
Big moment coming up ...
"The Departed." I enjoyed that movie. But "Hard Candy" was robbed.
'Heineken Light Champions' Promotion Notification. Dear Winner,
This is to inform you of the Award of One Million Great Britain Pounds Sterling
(1,000,000 GBP) from Heineken Beer Company Promotions. This promotional award is to
raise the profile of Heineken beer consumers males /females aged 18 to 65 in rural
and urban centers to support the spirit of Footballing. The online promotions build
email lists were generated from the World Wide Web. ...
Blah blah blah, send us your PIN and SSN and credit card numbers and mother's
maiden name as a formality, etc. etc. etc. ... All perfectly logical stuff, which of
course I'm going to do. But here's the best part: the e-mail is signed by ...
Mr. Sydney Morning Herald, Heineken Beer Promotional Officer; Mr.
Hamilton Spectator, President
Two guys named after newspapers! I bet each of those guys wandered through life
in a funk, picked on because they were named after publications. But then, they find
each other in the same office! I bet they eat lunch together every day and swap
stories, all those years of angst melting away before the bright sun that is their
friendship. It make me happy thinking about it. All that plus now I'm rich. What a
nutty world we live in!
The Tenth Circle
Possible fates worse than being chewed eternally by a three-headed Satan:
Being forced to watch a never-ending loop of contestant interviews from every
episode of "Jeopardy."
Working an endless shift at an airport shuttle-flight gate during an endless
snowstorm and being forced to deal with angry delayed business travelers who think
they're more important than everyone else. I recently got a chance to watch this
scenario in (slightly less than endless) action, and it wasn't pretty. The lady at
the counter was starting to lose it, culminating with this 12:45 announcement: "For
passengers flying to Washington who have an 11 a.m. departure time on their ticket,
we're not going to make that." Yee.
Living in a world without Speak the Hungarian Rapper.
Please, I beg you, follow that link. It will change your life.
Legal Stuff: If you have questions about this Web site, why? You should spend your time questioning the moral nature of any god who would let Chris White exist. But anyhow ... copyright 2009, Chris White Sucks Inc.
Stephen Grover Cleveland was born in Caldwell, New Jersey, in 1837, the fifth of nine children of a Presbyterian minister whose love of god was second only to his love of seeding his wife. His family moved to New York state when he was four; he eventually ended up stopping in Buffalo when a scheduled trip to Ohio was cut short by a charming 133 month lake-effect snow storm. While waiting for the thaw, he became a lawyer (though he never went to law school; he clerked for three years before passing the bar).
6. John Quincy Adams was one of the greatest diplomats in American history, because of the telepathic abilities inherited from the alien who impregnated Abigail Adams (see above).
21. Chester A. Arthur is known as "The Father of Civil Service." So the next time you're standing in line for 50 minutes at the post office, remember: f*** Chester Arthur.
34. Dwight D. Eisenhower turned down the Medal of Honor, because of his firm belief that REAL MEN DON'T WEAR JEWELRY!
August 2009: Jefferson.
Fall 2009: comic interviews on the podcast. 
