Awesomeness

As I'm kicking it watching Grosse Pointe, which is the best show that the WB ever canceled, and listening to Pink and Brown's Shame Fantasy II, I thought about the fact that I saw the trailer for the second season of The Boondocks. Without question, my favorite cartoon of the current crop. This show is brilliant. I want the rest of you to revel in its brilliance as well. I've been waiting for like a year for this season to drop. And, I've still got like another 2 months.



Love your weekends and love yourself more than Isadora Wing*.

*kudos to those who understand the reference.

Day Out

I need to run errands and get out of my house, so I'm not blogging today. If you need news, I direct you to Google News. If you need witty banter, send me an email, and I'll come up with a series of one-liners and subtle burns for all of your reading pleasure. If you need sexing, you should probably call David Vitter. He can help you out with that one. I'm out!

Infrastructure

The cable news has not stopped covering the story all day. As it turns up, the bridge was considered structurally deficient and it's not the only one. Also, the further problem is that the state of Minnesota AND the Federal Government both knew that this bridge was faulty. That's a pretty big deal. Is it all day coverage important? I still say no, but that is a huge problem that should have been addressed by the states in appropriate time. This is the new Katrina or East Coast Blackout, whichever is more relevant to you (I'm going with Katrina. The whole Black people thing and a good friend of mine from college is from the Big Easy. And I didn't get any adverse effects of the blackout). We all want changes to be made, promises will be made to make change, but nothing will happen to the detriment of the dead and the citizens of this country. This fact is the saddest tragedy of all. Well, that and the fearmongering being done by all of the other 24 hour news channels. Frankly, as much of this as I watch, I have no idea of how I function as a person because I should be scared of everything.

Anyway, I'm done here. There is nothing else really going happening today aside from covering the bridge collapse. Hopefully, the regular news cycle will start again so I can stop having wall-to-wall coverage while my government falls apart due to ineptitude and lack of funds due to a war.

If you need something to brighten up your day, listen to this song. It isn't necessarily happy, but it's catchy as all hell. This is What's a Girl to Do by Bat For Lashes, the project of a young English/Pakistani lass. Reminds me of Kate Bush updated or a younger Beth Orton.

Can We Stop With The New Media, Please?

Over at The Huffington Post, proprietor and head important lady person Arianna Huffington is asking for submissions for a campaign candidate mash-up. If you want to read about it, go to her site and do that very thing. If you are unambitious (to keep it real, I am. I had to force myself to read it when I did), I will summarize.

The general idea of the mash-up is that people will submit questions through the website. Charlie Rose, master skirt chaser and professional interviewer, will proceed to ask those questions to the candidates. Each candidate will get the same questions. With that, Huffington and her gang of tech folks will proceed to put their answers online. This doesn't sound very mash-uppy, does it? The mash-up component comes from the fact that you can view the information anyway that you want. You can look at Tom Tancredo, Mike Gravel, and Mike Huckabee's stances on immigration and public health care together to see whose opinion you like more. While most people are unlikely to look at that compilation of talent and, in someone's opinion, asshattery, this is the flexibility allowed by the new format.

With this said, can people stop doing this? I've already expressed my displeasure with the new ways in which the Internet is being used for political discourse. I thought that the CNN/YouTube debate was a stupid concept. It was made even worse by its poor execution and the predictability of the questions. I don't fault the questioners for this. If anything, the questioners were articulate and not very insulting to themselves, the candidates, or the viewer. All of the blame lies on CNN who marshaled the debate terribly, giving the big three more time than the others and giving them more predictable questions as well.

The primary problem with this format is that it doesn't really catch any of the candidates off-guard because all of the questions are filtered through the media. All of the questions selected are very straightforward on topics that the candidates have been discussing for a while, so they already have studied, practiced answers that they can concisely present in a soundbite or with hollow bulletpoints. Even in the presidential debates held by the debate council (the real name is Commission on Presidential Debates), not these primary debates, the questions are usually predictable and the format far too structured, as in the candidates already know what the question area is and have time to prepare for such question areas. The interactivity in these debates only works to cover up these glaring faults in the American debate system.

But, these arguments are not addressed by the strategists and others who say that the Internet is the future of politics. They point at the fact that so many young people do things online. Because of this, politicians are using their websites to attract younger people to politics. You know who those younger people attracted to their websites are? Asshats like me: political junkies who know all three branches of government, understand parliamentary rules, can recite from memory all of my congressional representatives, who know all the Supreme Court justices (Ginsburg, Scalia, Thomas, Souter, Kennedy, Chief Justice Roberts, Alito, Stevens, and Breyer), and can actually explain why Alberto Gonzales is in such trouble right now (I know that someone out there has taken offense with me calling them an asshat. Whatever. Stop being an asshat and laugh at yourself for a moment). We are the kids that don't need reaching; we are already interested in politics. If anything, the fact that they are invading the space where I was actually safe from politics (to a degree) really only makes their artificiality and transparent attempts to seem cool worse.

If the politicians are trying to get other young people interested in politics, the web presence isn't really helping their cause. There are so many other things that you can do on the Internet instead of read about Joe Biden's stance towards ending the war in Iraq via diplomatic means or perusing Barack Obama and Rudy Giuliani's foreign policy stances. Hell, I like politics and I don't want to do this. How could they expect anyone who isn't interested in politics to do this?

Something that is lost on the older folks is that just because something is on the Internet doesn't get rid of their apathy. Many young people just don't care about politics. And I don't really blame them. It is rife with corruption and bad choices on all sides. There are only two parties, neither of which speak to them. The Internet, if anything, will further disenfranchise those who are not interested by the power relations in play at all level of politics.

This is a picture of Barack Obama's campaign website. It is a campaign post. It is another artifice, allowing the candidate to craft an image of himself and use meticulously crafted language to make a point. This website is good because it saves trees from having to be killed to print out campaign information, and it also puts that information in one centralized place, which is kind of nice. This archival reasons aside, the website isn't what politics needs.

Politics literally needs more focused person-to-person interaction and more public discourse. Because of the strict fractioning of the Internet, it is easy for people to not pay attention to these websites. Additionally, because many of us have been trained to be distrustful of pretty much everything on the Internet, how am I supposed to believe that he is more right than someone else. On top of all of this, the Internet does not give me a clean perspective of the candidate and his/her persona. Are they friendly, trustworthy, and gregarious or aloof, fraudulent, and cold? These are things that can't be determined from a website. These have to be experienced in person, as it is hard to relate to an image of someone, especially when that someone will most likely make decisions that will influence your life, either for the positive or negative, for the next four years.

All of this complaining about using the Internet as a marketing tool makes me sound like an old man, but even old people like this new way of campaigning as clearly proven by Arianna Huffington sponsoring this new event with Yahoo! and Slate. Maybe I hold too much stock in unscripted public appearances. But, I don't think this is a bad thing. I think this just means that I have faith in the political system as it works now where door-to-door campaigning and shaking hands means more than making a couple of clicks on my computer.

Information Blast: 55% Less Legit

I think this one contains more legitimate news than most of my other posts. Just to prove that there is a lot going on elsewhere in the world. There's a ridiculous story or two, for sure. This wouldn't be an information blast if it didn't have some ridiculous news. Let's get it...

• First things first, apparently Kanye (West) thinks people care about what he says.
• R. Kelly finally goes on trial for peeing on young girls. Only took five years.
• Justice is brought to the people of Sierra Leone as they try to recover from the civil war that inspired a Kanye West song.
• There's a war in Somalia right now with Ethiopia. A Report.
• The Russians are trying to expand their empire. They are already brainwashing the youth. The better question is who will be Chamberlain this time around?
• Gonzales sorta, kinda takes responsibility for creating confusion. Actually, scratch that. That sentence implies that his mea culpa actually makes sense.
• Big Bird will tell you how to get to your grave.
• Karl Rove is standing his ground, digging in with both feet.
• The English are telling the English that the Americans are upset with their prodigal son. America's still nonplussed.
• McClatchy returns to the days of shooting from the hip with this article about campaign books. This article should be reason enough to advocate drinking while reporting.
• This wouldn't be a bad idea in the godless Northeast, but it is a terrible one in the Bible Belt.
• If you think your money is worth nothing in America, you will be high royalty in Zimbabwe.
• Bush proves in this incident that you can take a good ol' boy out the frat, but you can't take the frat out of the good ol' boy.
• Sean Penn is now going to be called a terrorist and supporter of communism. I think he was already, but this is just icing on the cake.
• An AP writer gets intellectually lazy in the stirring paternity case of Scary Spice and Eddie Murphy. This case is so uninteresting that I can't even come up with a witty one-liner for it.
• Only assholes and Classics majors make casual references to the Odyssey. And, no, the two terms are not synonymous.
• See, if prostitution were legal, this man could take this woman to court for failure to provide services requested. From her perspective, the woman wouldn't have had to run away from a crazy guy using a truck as a weapon.
• Women from film then and now. Some of them are quite shocking.
• Nicole Ritchie is untalented. She can't act either.

While I thought this one was more substantial, it turns up my one from yesterday is a lot more substantial than this one.

Now, Hear Me Out

While I send condolences to the families and the Minneapolis area who are inconvenienced by the failure of the I-35W bridge, I have to ask the following question: is this non-stop coverage material? All of the cable news channels are covering this nonstop, and I'm at a loss for why. This is a bad thing for the state of Minnesota, and it is a good time to study structural integrity issues for the sake of future bridge building. It's probably as good of a time for this since the failure of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge:



But, there is no new news coming out about this issue. The information is all the same. People are saying the same thing. "I'm so shocked." "I didn't expect this to happen." "It's all so real." Am I supposed to be surprised? Of course they're shocked. A huge bridge just fell into the Mississippi River! It isn't like most people walk around and go, oh, look another bridge fell.

I guess this is another good time to ask the following question, as I am someone who is just as guilty of the following: why are we so fascinated by destruction and death? The non-stop coverage is not a testament to the need of finding out the truth or understanding why this would happen. That is the role of the local news who will serve the local community that is directly affected by this event. The national news has a responsibility to give periodic updates as there are people around the country and the globe who could be affected by this event. But, continual news coverage speaks to something more macabre and sinister within our spirits as American. The loss of life is always sad, but there is a need to leave that community with its pain and check in periodically when new news arises instead of aimlessly speculating about what the causes are and who is dead. Such reporting is counterproductive to those in mourning and those who are not.

This is an event that highlights the need for more international coverage on all of our cable news networks. I'm sure that doesn't interest a lot of people. But, it would help us to avoid around-the-clock news coverage full of speculative reporting. Instead, we would hear about the failure of the Zimbabwean economy or developments in the Middle East. I think that this event highlights the need for American cable providers to pick up Al-Jazeera English, a news channel that covers all angles and all areas of the globe. While I send condolences to the families who found that their family members are dead and/or missing, this event is showing a glaring hole in the nature of American telejournalism today.

I Just Thought About It

LNS: OOIOO

OOIOO is a Japanese band, experimental in nature. They are quite good. If you are familiar with the Boredoms, than you know what this should sound like. This is a video for UMO from their album Taiga.



Tribalism is the new angularity.

MSNBC: Bastions of Journalism

I feel bad for some of the people over at MSNBC, as some of their reporters are fantastically good. But, they then proceed to waste their time on such trifling issues as Hillary's non-cleavage. Media Matters, a group that spends their paid, working hours watching the media so I don't have to, noted that the channel spend almost 24 minutes over the course of the day reporting this story. If this doesn't sound like a lot to you, let me flesh it out across the other channels. The next closest channel was CNN with about 4 minutes...during its political program The Situation Room. And, the only reason they covered it there was because Wolf Blitzer is a closet perv who wanted to see the C-SPAN2 feed on his big screens (no pun intended) in the studio. Contrast this 24 minutes to Fox News who didn't cover the story AT ALL! Not once. Zero. Zilch. How do you expect me to take a channel like this seriously? How?!

A Cow Tipping for the Engineers

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is one of the best, if not the best, engineering schools in America. I'm sure that kids at Cooper Union, CalTech, Rensselaer, Stevens, Hopkins, and Georgia Tech will disagree with just cause. But, MIT is pretty widely considered as the GOAT of engineering schools. Not by this guy, but by others. In addition to being dope at engineering, MIT is the home of famed leftist rabble rouser Linguistics Professor Noam Chomsky.

Even with all of these accomplishments, a crime was committed that threatens to strip MIT of all of that intellectual street cred. Hell, it might even set back the whole city of Cambridge, location of MIT and that other bastion of over-hyped intellectualism Harvard University. The story revolves around former Business professor John J. Donovan, Sr. While involved in a custody battle for his kids, Donovan was shot in a parking lot. When investigators came to look at the situation, they heard the following story. From the AP:

What the former MIT professor and wealthy businessman told police sounded like a scene from a bad spy novel: He was shot by two masked men with Russian accents, and saved only because two of the bullets bounced off his belt buckle.

Seeing as cops, while they may commit questionable actions like sodomizing immigrants with plungers and letting off shots of a dude reaching for his wallet, aren't stupid, it became clear that Donovan was the culprit here. Donovan sticks by his story, but anyone with half a mind knows that he did this shit to himself.

On top of that, if he didn't do this to himself, there were more than enough people to get at him. His kids are a good starting point. One of his kids is claiming molestation and all of them are claiming getting stiffed.

Now, while I'm sure that he probably had this coming to him whether he asked for it or not, Donovan can't even find anyone who will cosign for him. That's how few friends he has. Anyway, I want to offer him a couple friendly tips as someone who hasn't been shot but could come up with a better explanation for the cops.

The following is a freestyle discussion about getting shot with the fuzz:

Cops: Sir, what happened?
Shot Guy: I was walking back to my car. I looked around as I normally do while walking in the dark.
Cops: What happened next?
SG: I thought I was hearing things so I progressed onwards. As I began to get into my car, I heard my name get called out. I looked around, the next thing I know, I'm being shot at. I searched for cover, but it was too late. I had been hit on my side. They weren't super good aims. They hit me around my hip, maybe around my belt buckle. But, it wasn't anything too bad.
Cops: Do you know who did this to you?
SG: I have no idea. They sounded like they had accents. I'm not sure, and I didn't get a clear look at their faces because it was dark.
Cops: Do you need to go to the hospital?
SG: Yea, they got me pretty good.

See, this is a much better made-up fake story than the one this guy has going. Russian guys with masks? Are you serious? I wouldn't believe that story. Hell, I barely believe the story I just wrote. But, I believe it more than a businessman getting hijacked by Russian hitmen. That's just unfathomable. Sounds like something out of a Tom Clancy novel (where's Harrison Ford?). And, in poor form and in disregard of his Miranda rights, Donovan gave up way too much of the ghost upfront talking about his kids having it out for him and money. Donovan clearly lost his head and should have stayed cool. You think, as a businessman, he would know about sealing the deal. Also, if you paid dudes to shoot you, you should throw out the list of supplies that you had in your jacket pocket for that shooting. I mean, he might have needed to buy a rifle and some shells and cheese, but that's highly unlikely as his ass got shot. Plus, he's rich. This clearly means, especially as a man, that he probably doesn't cook. He could be ABLE to cook, but it's unlikely that he does. That's called self-incrimination there, chief.

Donovan could stand to watch an episode or two of Cops to learn how to not commit a bad crime. I mean, once he gets out of jail for getting pinned on this one.

These are all of my family gatherings

All of them. Once again, piling on Mitt Romney.

Information Blast: Fuck Giuliani!!!!

My contempt for "America's Mayor" has been quite obvious. I've got some good shit to add to the gripes once forwarded by Kathleen Hanna on the eponymous Le Tigre album. Anyway, I've got way too many articles for you to persue. Dig it!

• Slate looks back to the origins of those crazy Christian rockers. Turns up Jesus can be found in Acid after all.
• Good Idea, Bad Idea time. Good Idea: Juicing people for money by saying your daughter is dead. Bad Idea: Your daughter is a) still alive and b) sitting directly outside of the building.
• Dick Cheney is a national menace along with being a goon. He should know better than to pick on America's Mom Hillary Clinton.
• Fan favorite and personal favorite from the John Waters acting stable Mink Stole talks about those landmark roles with the A.V. Club.
• This one's for the academics. A history professor complains about the shift in focus from cultural history to social history. History professor clearly has an anti-area studies bias. Damn historians and their master subject narratives.
  
• A gem from passive aggressive notes.
• You can do organ harvesting the right way, the wrong way, or the Max Power way.
• Keith Richards is writing a book. And, by write a book, Richards means he will do a lot of blow then proceed to rattle off his life story to an unemployed writer. I feel sorry for their editor.
  
• Black commenter comments on how white people get a pass in the media while Black people are immediately condemned. Yea, yea, I know. What else is new?
• Giuliani's camp is calling this a hatchet job. Hatchet Job means it's true, but you'll look bad if you admit this and let it get in the way of your husband being a total loon and complete jackass.
• You already know this.
• Add complete and utter moron to Mitt Romney's stellar list of accomplishments. Why is this guy qualified to be president again?

We're going to take a little break from the Information Blast to check in on the quagmire in Iraq: the $1 Trillion project of nation building. While the numbers are decreasing in deaths, they aren't really as Iraqis are still being killed in high rates and daily. If this weren't enough, we can't account for 190K guns given to Iraqi security forces. Yea, good work there, Dubya. I think that I can smell the progress. Smells like burning flesh and motor oil. Back to the Blast!

• Hatton-Mayweather is a huge fight, but you're missing the point. I want you to note the rhetoric from Mayweather's camp.
• OMG! A blogger at The Huffington Post stops crying about the competitiveness of American society and makes a good point about journalism!
• If you need to understand why Rupert Murdoch owning the Wall Street Journal is a bad thing, I refer you to another HuffPo piece about the media oligarchy. Wow, HuffPo actually produces some decent pieces today. I'm amazed.
• So, Jonah Goldberg has this brilliant idea to reinstate the voting test. Yes, reverse all that work my grandmother and others did back in the 1950s and 60s to gain the right to vote. Great idea, JG!
• I think this article is a clear reason for why I can't stand the Democratic Party of the United States. Newsflash: you're considered soft because you are soft.
• This story is pretty simple: Married couple flies flag upside down in protest. Couple called unpatriotic. Cop comes to house and says couple is desecrating the flag. Couple complies by taking flag down. Cop kicks down door. Cop beats shit out of husband. Cop arrest husband. Yep, this story's perfectly normal.
• Barack Obama proves he still knows nothing about foreign policy. I have to give him credit: he, at least, said something substantive.
• O.J. Simpson really needs to learn when to keep his mouth shut. His ass isn't in jail because he couldn't fit a leather glove over a rubber one.
• A genius piece: inappropriate hyphenated names. Example: Best-Lay.
• Man's in jail after a high-speed chase in May. Nothing too strange about this. Problem is he has no limbs. Zero. He's only got stubs.
• Britney Spears, along with being a terrible mother, is threatening paparazzi while her bodyguard beats them. We are witness to one of the greatest meltdowns of all-time. Britney Spears is setting herself up to be the Judy Garland of the 21st Century, except without any discernable talent. Well, there's still hope with K-Fed?
• Kate Moss kinda, sorta responds via proxy to Pete Doherty's rambling, Rick James-esque speech.
• Excerpts have been released from Karrine Steffans a/k/a Superhead's new book. But, I ask you, fair male readers: would you get with this chick? Two words from this guy: no dice.

Wow, this was mad long, but I haven't seen anything of consequence enough for me to talk about it. So, that's why it's mad long.

I Am Not To Be Taken Seriously

Given a comment that I got on my salute to Susan Filan for being able to navigate the treachery of the MSNBC daytime anchors, I have to say to readers: if a claim that I make seems patently absurd, it probably is. Unless it is about race, which is no laughing matter to me, it is probably something that you can laugh at. So, please do laugh and don't leave me notes about how woefully qualified a talking head is. I've been watching cable news for about a decade now. I know that these people are horribly unqualified, brought on to fill space during the 24-hour news cycle.

LNS: Sports Talk

If you don't keep up with sports today, I'll keep this simple: sports are not like they used to be. Today's huge news is a good example of that. Minnesota jack-of-all-trades Kevin Garnett was traded to Boston for FIVE players and two draft picks. Now, in reality, this trade is only for three players and two draft picks because Theo Ratliff is pretty much a bum now and Sebastian Telfair isn't mature enough or skilled enough to be a worthwhile NBA player. In fact, Telfair is the reason that the 19 year old rule is now in place in the NBA. Anyway, I digress.

This trade is steep to me in a lot of ways. Firstly, Boston traded away a franchise player of the future in Al Jefferson. They also traded away two promising swing men in Ryan Gomes and Gerald Green. And, I ask for what? For a dude who hasn't been able to carry his team past the first round of the playoffs for his entire career? Sure, he can put up buckets. But, he's not clutch. I wouldn't put the ball in KG's hands the same way I wouldn't put it in Dirk Nowitzki's hands because I know that he wouldn't come through. As much as I don't like him, I know Kobe would hit that clutch shot. Believe me, I watched him do it too, too many times. Boston will justify this trade because of the fact that they got Ray Allen (at a cost of promising young point guard Delonte West and rookie Jeff Green) and still have Paul Pierce (another underachieving yet talented player).

Minnesota doesn't have such a justification. But, in retrospect, Minnesota might come out on the better end of this whole deal. Think about it. Green is a good player. Jefferson is a fantastic young player. Gomes is solid. These players are being added to a nucleus lead by Randy Foye and Ricky Davis. This team will be a good one, especially if they can keep these guys together and can get them a good coach to play a high-tempo style of basketball. On top of this, they have TWO extra draft picks, which will most likely be pretty good. The pressure is not on them though.

All of the pressure is on KG. Garnett is considered to be one of the best players in recent memory. He can put up double-doubles. The problem is that he can't carry a team. People always said that he never had a teammate, and to a certain level this is true. I would respond that LeBron didn't have a teammate, a D-Wade to his Shaq, and he got to the finals. So, look at that and reconsider. Anyway, this choking capacity that Garnett has developed will be canceled by two of the clutchest players in the game in Pierce and Allen. Expectations are high all around. The next two years will determine whether or not Kevin Garnett will be the hall-of-famer that so many people believe that he will be. He better be as Boston has pretty much sent away its future to win.

For the record, I've never found KG to be a compelling player, but that's because I'm a hater who likes Tim Duncan considerably more. I always found KG to be a shooting guard in a power forwards body. He takes too many outside shots and can get shut down when he gets into the block. KG's numbers are impressive, but Basketball is a team game. And KG hasn't been the best team player unlike Duncan, who is the consummate team player. Call me old school if you will, but I like team basketball. If I want to want dudes show off and flex, I can watch wrestling or Mr. Olympia competitions.

Underdog isn't Real

When I was growing up, I watched a lot of cartoons like pretty much any kid with a television and responsible parents did. This watching was different in my family because I still do, but I'm getting away from my initial point. While I did watch all of the cartoons like Thundercats, Voltron, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (and not those suckass ones they show now), I also grew up watching Looney Tunes like pretty much any other well-adjusted American youth, oblivious to the grotesque violence, racism, bigotry misogyny, homophobia, and patriarchy contained within pretty much every cartoon. But, I came to this realization when I sat down and watched a Speedy Gonzales cartoon when I was older and saw the representation of Mexicans. I also became uncomforted by the aggressiveness of Pepe Le Pew, but that was aided by watching Dave Chappelle's comedy special Killing Them Softly.

Anyway, while I grew up with these cartoons, I also grew up with the absurd cartoons made by stoners such as Sealab 2020, Magilla Gorilla, Superfriends, Justice League, Hong Kong Phooey, Jabberjaw, Josie and the Pussycats, and, most importantly, Underdog. Underdog was the most simply premised show of all time as it was nothing more than a modified send-up of Superman. Dogs ruled in this faux Metropolis, and Underdog was the Clark Kent. Instead of being a journalist, he was a shoeshine boy. He still changed in a phone booth and spoke with a blatantly absurdist tone. His target for saving instead of Lois Lane was Polly Purebred. Remember, they are dogs. Anyway, this show was fun, ended in like five minutes and involved an unlikely superhero. It wasn't as absurd as Rocky and Bullwinkle, which is the best cartoon of the time before I was alive, but still enough to be remembered and correctly honored.

Unfortunately, the fond memories that I have of Underdog have been soiled by the work of Walt Disney. As you may well know, Disney has decided to make a live action version of this perfectly good cartoon to the pleasure of no one except for the kids who don't watch Boomerang or don't remember the awesomeness of Underdog from growing up like I do. Underdog is no longer a shoeshine boy in the live version, but a dog that underwent a strange lab experiment. As the original well states, Underdog took a special pill to get his powers. So, along with being inaccurate, it looks terrible. I only can see this film being a complete fiasco that will make an inexpicably high amount of money for the company to the detriment of the original and myself.

At this point, I have to acknowledge that I'm a huge nerd for noting the differences between the original and a remake of a children's cartoon. But, I can't watch these ads without getting mad that another thing from my youth is being cannabalized for a cheap dollar. The next thing I know, they'll be making a Hong Kong Phooey live version. At that point, I know that nothing is sacred from the greedy hands of capitalism.

Information Blast: One Time For Your Mind

After the misfire that was my props to Susan Filan for the 500th, I celebrated that shit proper today by giving a final shout to Signor Antonioni. Anyway, I'm all about the news today. I think the theme of the articles will become blatantly obvious as this goes along. Just you wait and see.

• Iran has built the largest carpet ever for the United Arab Emirates. It was done on the tired backs of Iranian women who will beat Ahmadinejad into submission if they have to do it again.
• A woman fakes a pregnancy to get gifts and money. We already have a system to con; it's called welfare.
• A woman is spied on in an unmanned tanning salon in England. If this woman is in such dire need of a tan, there are these brilliant tan salons that have people who actually work in them, can help you out, and keep guard to ensure that there are no pervs about. But, I guess this is just me being too sensible.
• Ethanol should be going into your gut and channeling its intensity into an uncontrollable rage, not powering your car.
• Another raging endorsement for smoking bongs instead of joints.
• I've lost count of how many people have been busted in this tour, but here's another one.
• Office Printers: silent weapons of death. Don't let them take your kids out on dates.
• If left-handed, there's good news and bad news for you. Good news: science pretty much confirmed the fact that you are born that way because who would train their kid to be a lefty. Bad news: you have a better chance of going batshit insane because of it.
• Ed Henry does two things wrong in this article. Firstly, he wrote it. Secondly, he uses then defines the term BFF. How fucking square is that?
• Sticks and Stones will break your bones. And words will also kill you.
• Texas taxpayers: organize a mob and get your money back for supporting this pointless survey. I could have told you why people have sex: for the money.
• Pete Doherty loves Kate Moss. Pete Doherty hates Kate Moss. Pete Doherty makes an ass of himself in a British Tabloid. Pete Doherty and Kate Moss are really meant for each other.
• John Edwards going for the youth vote. The young kids don't like the televisions and the Wolf Blitzers so much anymore.
• Mitt Romney feels democracy is being challenged by snowmen. I retort by saying democracy is challenged by Mitt Romney and his clear anti-dog and anti-snowman agenda.

Yea, as you can see, a lot of crazy, non-news today. I can't help it. Everyone's shutting down shop. I'll have to start manufacturing content about Lindsay Lohan. She has three boobs? I'll never tell!

Post 500: Another Important Death

So, apparently this week, all of my favorite people have decided to die. The innovator of the West Coast Offense in Bill Walsh. The Swedish filmmaking genius Ingmar Bergman. Now, I have another personally tragic death to report. Michelangelo Antonioni, one of the filmmakers of the 1960's along with Federico Fellini who made Italian film relevant again on the international stage, has passed on. He was 94 years old.

I think along with Bergman, Antonioni is one of my favorite directors of all-time. His movies were always deep, penetrating studies on the culture around us and how we exist within it and within ourselves. His pace was always slow, but that was the beauty of it. The slowness gives the viewer time to think about decisions the characters would make and work themselves into their positions. If anything, the pace made for better films. The picture above is from the last film in his early 60's trilogy L'Eclisse (The Eclipse). This trilogy also includes one of my all-time favorite films in L'Avventura, a study about how one finds love and what love can do to the heart.

While Antonioni was not one of the strongest writers in film history, he was without question one of the best, if not the best, aesthetes in the industry. His crisp frames, tracking techniques, and perfectly lethargic style with the camera have influenced many filmmakers since him. He was amongst the best to draw out emotions from pure aesthetics. The traces of his influence can be seen, most obviously, in the work of Sofia Coppola and Mike Mills. And traces of his aesthetics can be seen in many other films as well. While he has not made a film in a while, his films are already considered classics and will continue to be such for years and years to come. And, with that, I say Ciao! to Signor Antonioni.

MSNBC: I Kid Because I Care

As much shit as I give MSNBC, I actually do like the news on the channel. I routinely watch Countdown and, when awake, Morning Joe. The unreasonably blasé manner of the anchors at pretty much every time except prime time is appreciated by this guy. They'll hate me for saying this, but most of the daytime anchors are very attractive. And, to their appeals that they are good journalists, they are for the most part.

I don't think that all of them are very good. I'm not convinced that Contessa Brewer is a good journalist. She's a good news reader. She's hot. She has a good control of the desk, but her interviews are lacking in my opinion. Chris Jansing is tenacious, but interjects a little too much personal opinion into her reports. I'm personally into Monica Novotny and Mika Brzezinski since both of them know what they are talking about when on the line. They both ask good questions and understand the dispassionate nature of being a journalist. Also, while I'm glad that Norah O's got twins now, but she needs to come back to the desk. I'm missing her daytime presence and general cantankerousness greatly. O'Donnell played fast and loose with the facts sometimes, but it was OK because it always made watching her hour of programming more interesting. And I also know to not really trust television news. It's a bad habit I developed around the 2000 election. I haven't been able to shake it since.

Anyway, with this ode, I'm ending today. Let's not get it confused, CNN is the better news channel, but there is a certain charm in watching MSNBC. And, MSNBC usually shows a car chase during the day and I do like car chases. MSNBC also has very solid political coverage compared with CNN. Since it's cable news, I won't compare it with the bosses of news programs: NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and 60 Minutes. Watching MSNBC is like reading the tabloid paper for the gossip and other stories. You get the real news from other sources, but gaps in knowledge are filled by the tabloid. MSNBC fills the gaps.

A Hat Tip

Oh Stewardess rarely gives dap to people. Between recklessly chastising people and making fun of racists and MSNBC, I can't say that I have a lot of time to actually consider the positive contributions being made to the world by the other six billion people on it. So, with this blog halfway on the road to the big 1000, I figured that I should take time to give props to someone, especially since I couldn't prove my "dogfighting is only important because it's a Black guy getting it from the man or because it has found its way into affecting white people" theory. While I still believe this to be true, but I can't go use my Library of Congress card to prove it. Yes, that's right, bitches, I have a Library of Congress card. Got it for doing research on Black people.

Anyway, my hat tip goes to the MSNBC legal analyst Susan Filan. She's a real lawyer and has the background to prove it. But, this is not why she gets the hat tip for the 500th post. Filan gets the 500th post because MSNBC has been running her ragged. With its incessant coverage of all things trivial, MSNBC has spent a lot of time with its anchors covering the myriad legal cases in the public sphere. Filan has to switch from talking about Lindsay Lohan to talking about Michael Vick to talking about Nicole Ritchie. She's got to know a lot and has to hustle. Filan does it with great ease, even over anchor switches. She switches from Amy Robach to Monica Novotny to Contessa Brewer over the course of like three hours. That much transition would eventually confuse me. Clearly, Susan Filan is smarter than me. For the fact alone, Oh Stewardess salutes MSNBC's legal analyst Susan Filan. Her contributions to cutting through the legalese of current events is greatly appreciated.

Lil Wayne: A Critique

I'm going to come up straight and say it: I've never been a huge Lil' Wayne fan. I thought he was a little bitch in the Hot Boyz. I still think he's a bit of a bitch now on his own. But, my personal feelings aside, I'm going to explain solely on formal terms why I don't like Lil' Wayne as a rapper. Apparently, MTV disagrees with me because they think that he is the hottest rapper right now. I have a blog, so I'm going to list why I don't think that Lil' Wayne is the hottest mc right now.

The primary reason is that Lil' Wayne is a punchline rapper. Frankly, the fact that he is a boastful, self-involved rapper is nothing new. As long as rap has existed, rap has been about trying to prove how awesome you are in comparison to the other person. This feat is normally achieved through the verbal dexterity displayed over an entire course of sixteen bars, the usual length of a rap verse. Lil' Wayne does not drop hot verses; he drops hot lines. Lines are good for battle rappers. But, battle rappers are not always good rappers. They are, usually, marginal rappers over the course of a fully developed verse at best. Eyedea is a good example of this phenomenon. Dude's exceptionally talented, but his recorded work is weak.

I know that Wayne likes to talk about how he doesn't write rhymes in the booth. Let's compare his rhymes to a dude who never wrote in the booth: Jay-Z. Just to ensure fairness here, I'm going to take verses from recommended tracks according to All Music Guide on both artists' best albums, which are The Blueprint and Tha Carter II.

From Jay-Z first, this is a verse from "The Takeover," the infamous takedown track from The Blueprint:

I don't care if you Mobb Deep, I hold triggers to crews
You little FUCK, I've got money stacks bigger than you
When I was pushin weight, back in eighty-eight
you was a ballerina I got your pictures I seen ya
Then you dropped "Shook Ones," switch your demeanor
Well - we don't believe you, you need more people
Roc-A-Fella, students of the game, we passed the classes
Nobody can read you dudes like we do
Don't let 'em gas you like Jigga is ass and won't clap you
Trust me on this one - I'll detach you
Mind from spirit, body from soul
They'll have to hold a mass, put your body in a hole
No, you're not on my level get your brakes tweaked
I sold what ya whole album sold in my first week
You guys don't want it with Hov'
Ask Nas, he don't want it with Hov', nooooo!

From Lil' Wayne's "The Best Rapper Alive" from Tha Carter II:

Bring the crowd and I'm loud _In Living Colour_
It is Weezy fuckin' baby got these rappers in my stomach
Yumi, I'm takin' it I ain't asking them for nothing
If you sell a million records we can battle for ya' money
I rather count a hundred thousand dollars on a sunday
Watch a football game and bet it all on one play
Still stuntin' baby yes I'm still flossin
Latest car on the market wit the top peeled off it
Big wheels make it look a lil bulky
You look a lil salty have ya' self a chill coffee
Chill out the girls is still out
Even though I am a boss and got papers to fill out
I'm busy I got paper to reel in
God I hope they steppin' at the end of my rod
And I hope I'm fishing in the right pond
And I hope you catchin' on to every line
Who am I?

Now, let's look at the thematic differences between the two verses. While both verses are driven by the braggadocio that drives so many rappers, there are clear differences between the two. For someone who is hated on by so many Wayne fans, Jay-Z's verse is clear proof of why he is considered the better of the two mc's. Look at the structure of those two verses against each other. And, then attempt to answer the following question: what is the point of the verse? Jay-Z's point is clear: you step to him, you will get slayed because you are not as hard as I am and you don't flow as hard as I do. Jay-Z just declared that if you step to him, he will end your career. Now, think about that in comparison to Wayne's rhyme.

Now, Lil' Wayne is not talking on this level. He does talking about eating mc's, but Wayne doesn't progress past that. Wayne talks about battling mc's, but he doesn't talk about beating mc's. After possibly declaring any cred he would have towards beating an mc that steps to him, Wayne proceeds to waste this momentum by talking about how much money he stacks. His verse is formless and unfocused. How am I supposed to respect him as the best rapper alive when pretty much every good rapper save BIG and Pun are still alive? The best rappers alive eat mc's like Wayne on a 15-minute lunch break. It doesn't even take a lot of time to slay a rapper who makes such low quality, punchline-driven verses.

So, clearly, he is not better than Jay-Z. Let's see if he is better than a real OG in Rakim. Now, this might not be considered a fair fight because Rakim writes his rhymes. I mean, he's a real rapper and also, arguably, GOAT in the rap game. From "My Melody" on Paid In Full:

So what if I'm a microphone fiend addicted soon as I sing
One of these for MC's so they don't have to scream
I couldn't wait to take the mic, flow into it to test
Then let my melody play, and then the record suggest
That I'm droppin bombs, but I stay peace and calm
Any MC that disagree with me just wave your arm
And I'll break, when I'm through breakin I'll leave you broke
Drop the mic when I'm finished and watch it smoke
So stand back, you wanna rap? All of that can wait
I won't push, I won't beat around the bush
I wanna break upon those who are not supposed to
You might try but you can't get close to
Because I'm number one, competition is none
I'm measured with the heat that's made by sun
Whether playin ball or bobbin in the hall
I just writin my name in graffiti on the wall
You shouldn't have told me you said you control me
So now a contest is what you owe me
Pull out your money, pull out your cut
Pull up a chair, and I'ma tear shit up
My name is Rakim Allah, and R & A stands for "Ra"
Switch it around, but still comes out "R"
So easily will I e-m-c-e-e
My repetition of words is "check out my melody"
Some bass and treble is moist, scratchin and cuttin a voice
And when it's mine that's when the rhyme is always choice
I wouldn't have came to ?set? my name ?around the? same weak shit
Puttin blurs and slurs and words that don't fit
In a rhyme, why waste time on the microphone
I take this more serious than just a poem
Rockin party to party, backyard to yard
Now tear it up, y'all, and bless the mic for the gods

Once again, Rakim's point is perfectly clear: he is the best mc of all time. If you step to him on the mic, you will get slayed. You talk trash about Rakim, Rakim will take you to the stage and settle this. But, the settling will end up in your destruction as an mc. To retort from Wayne, I'm submitting a part of a freestyle that was done on Da Drought 3, Wayne's well-received mixtape:

And I go out my way just to get my dro and my doe
Cause, I love it more than I do my hoes yes I doess
I got gasoline comin out my pours
Imma torch
I got glasses like that white boy Scott Storch
And a porshe
I got license for tha scortch
Snipers at your porch
Rifles by the forts
And we shoot up courts
The judge juss a bitch
The jury suck dick
Im a eastside blood
And I dont smoke that crip
I smoke that kutch
First name Bubba
First names Young
Last name Stunna
Carter in the office
Take notes when I'm talkin
Smooth as a cruz boat floats when I'm walkin
I boast cause I'm ballin
I boast to be ballin
When I'm on the phone wit bitches man the money keep callin
You ain't satisfied till ya son'll be callin
Tellin you where to leave the money in the mornin
Ok you wanna zombie mover instead
Thats when you walk in ya house and everybody dead
I can take a shit where I stand
Where I stand...and watch you pussies piss in ya pants
You ain't a man your a hoe
I can kill him with the flow

Firstly, what the hell is he talking about? Yea, there are some punchlines there. But, there's no substance, no definition of one's superiority within the rhyme. The tempo is pretty good. I'll give Wayne that. But, that content is lacking. A couple punchlines does not a good rapper make. A rapper must make a point through their rhyme whether that point is talking about the streets or talking about how awesome you are. Additionally, I have no real image of Wayne as a rapper from what I've posted so far. All I know is that he likes to boast and he has a lot of money that he likes to throw around in his spare time. I mean, when he's not fucking girls. If you don't understand what I mean by Wayne not having an image to substantiate his raps, I point you to T.I. and one of his verses in that burner "What You Know":

See me in your city sittin pretty know I'm shinin dog
Ridin with a couple Latin broads and a china doll
And you know how we ball
Riding in shiny cars
Walk in designer malls
Buy everything he saw
You know about me dog
Don't talk about me dog
And if you doubt me dog
You better out me dog
I'm throwed off slightly bro
Don't wanna fight me bro
I'm fast as lightening bro
You better use your Nike's bro
Know you don't like me cause
Your bitch most likely does
She see me on them dubs
In front of every club
I be on dro I'm buzzed
Gave every hoe a hug
Niggaz don't show me mugs
Cause you don't know me cuz

T.I. is clearly a quick-triggered, young man who's got cash and will not back down from a challenge. Can you say that about Wayne from his rhymes as so far displayed? Bragging has a point, but that point must be substantiated by the creation of an image, of a persona. T.I. has done this. As is well known, T.I. previously rapped about being the Rubberband Man. While T.I. might be a little more lethargic in his flow, his flow is more fundamentally and thematically sound than Wayne's rhyme.

Working off thematics, Wayne suffers as a rapper because he, on top of not being able to personify himself and give a clear image of himself as a rapper, cannot tell a story in a rhyme. One of the best stories ever spit on rhyme that wasn't "Children's Story" by Slick Rick is "Cold World" from GZA's influential album Liquid Swords. Check the form:

It was the night before New Year's, and all through the fuckin projects
Not a handgun was silent, not even a Tec
Outside as I'm stuck, by enemies who put fear
and blasted on the spot before the pigs were dere
You know hoods robbers snipers new in sight, fuck blue and white
They escape before them flash the fuckin lights
Gunshots, shatter first floor window panes
Shells hit the ground and blood stained the dice game
Whether broke callisthetic, any style you set it
Beat niggaz toothless, physically cut up like gooses
But with iron on the sides thugs took no excuses
Therefore, your fifty-two handblocks was useless
Links was snatched off necks, scars on throats
Jackets took, after bullet rips through coats
Against those who felt the cold from the steel made em fold
and squeal, once the metal hit the temple of his grill
Destruction worker, who was caught for his bomber
No time to swing the hammer that was hangin from his Farmer's
And it's bugged how some niggaz catch slugs
and pockets dug from everything except check stubs
and it does, sound ill like wars in Brownsville
Or fatal robberies in Red Hook where feds look
For fugitives to shoot cops, niggaz layin on roof tops
for his CREAM he stashed in a shoebox
But he was hot, and the strip was filled with young killers
you don't suspect, so cops creep like caterpillars
And born thieves stay hooded with extra bullets
those who try to flee they hit the vertebrae, increase the murder rate
Similar to hit men who pull out Tecs and then
drop those who crack like tacos from Mexican
Rapid, like recipients cashin checks again
Back to the motherfuckin spot on Lexington

Wayne has yet to drop a verse on this level. When he does drop a rhyme on this level, he can then consider himself to be a good rapper, even one of the best rappers of all time. But, seeing as he can't rap his way out of a paper bag right now and hasn't slayed a rapper (Gillie the Kid) who has stepped to him, Wayne should not be given the credit of being a comparable rapper to anyone out right now. Even T.I., who I think is a middle-of -the-road rapper, slays Wayne on the regular. On the real, I'm not against giving Wayne his due, but he has to make me earn his respect. I'm the consumer of the rap.

Other consumers will argue against me and say that Wayne should be respected because he doesn't bite other people's rhymes. To this point, I say so what? EVERYONE IN RAP BITES! Every rapper in the game bites lines. Even in the most classic of rhymes "Rapper's Delight", Hank of the Sugarhill Gang ripped whole verses from Grandmaster Caz. So, all of the haters talking about biting need to chill out with that. In fact, maybe Wayne needs to bite more since the fundamental components of his rap flow are so weak.

He doesn't establish his persona on tracks, he can't tell a story, he can't present complete ideas. And, how is he supposed to be the best rapper alive? By my own figuring, he isn't even the best rapper in the South. Disagree if you want, but lyrics are lyrics. You can't look at the evidence presented and begin to tell me that Wayne is the best rapper alive. You can like him, I don't have a problem with that. To each his own. But, don't sit around calling him the best of all-time or even the best alive when most of the dopest mc's in the game are still alive and exponentially hotter than him.

Epilogue: yes, I'm a rap nerd. I spent hours on this. Additionally, all lyrics taken from Original Hip-Hop Lyrics Archive (www.ohhla.com).

Just Because I Remembered

Juliana Hatfield - What A Life.

Apparently, she's 40. Cheers, Ms. Hatfield.

A Final Pound

This pound goes out to football legend Bill Walsh. Winner and innovator, Walsh introduced the now-popular West Coast Offense to an unsuspecting NFL. He also took a chance on an unknown prospect from Mississippi Valley State named Jerry Rice. I don't know what happened to that guy. Anyway, he will be missed. He is a legend of the game.

Information Blast: I'm Pro-Hillary Flashing Boob

Hillary Clinton has been caught up in a pointless scandal about her boobs. Apparently, her plunging neckline worn on the floor of the Senate a couple weeks back was considered a bit too risque for some. I'm personally not seeing what the problem is here. For her being around sixty years old, she still looks pretty good and has nice boobs. If she wants to go that route, by all means she should be allowed to. My opinion of her will not be changed by cleavage. I still think she has a lot of questions to answer with regards to the war and her sincerity; flashing a little boob will not answer these questions. Also, I've got some good posts lined up, so let's start this blast.......NOW!

• Slate tries to answer the question plaguing the Tour de France: knowing full well they will probably be caught, why do the riders still dope? I'm going to say that they are dopes.
• Barack Obama really only has two barriers to him becoming president: Hillary Clinton and himself. That latter is a pretty large one to clear. He might need to take some lessons with Stacy Dragila to get over that.
• Tom Snyder, old man extraordinaire and generally smooth-toned late-night talk show host, passed on Sunday. Seriously, he was pretty rad.
  
• Granpappy Hilton to Paris: You're Dead To Me. No inheritance for you. Barron Hilton: new candidate for the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
• A man made a 100-lb pirogi on a message from beyond the grave. No, seriously. His Uncle Emil told him to make the world's largest pirogi.
• I only have one thing for this story: USA! USA! USA!
• In Mexico, they are handing out conjugal visits like prescriptions of Xanax.
• In another fine piece of American news, the voting machines that have been hackable for years have been hacked again. Seriously, voting wasn't that hard before with the punchcards.
• The Guardian has a pondering inquiry into why we are all fascinated by the starlets and not the stars anymore. I agree with the article for the most part, but I would also say that it is a double standard against women who are supposed to be "feminine".
• In one of the dumbest articles ever written by an established news outlet, Hillary Clinton will not win because fake women presidents and women news anchors have not been popular on television.
  
• Apparently, betting on celebrities' imminent deaths is a popular pastime in LA.
• Because conservative people are running out of things to complain about, they have decided to complain about the installation of foot baths for Islamic students so said students can stop ripping the sinks out of the library bathroom's walls when preparing for prayer.
  
• Jimmy Fallon is expected to follow in Conan O'Brien's footsteps when O'Brien moves to the big show in 2009. After second thought, this might not be half bad after all. Hey, Tina Fey cosigns on it. And, when has she been wrong? Don't answer that.
• In case you were interested, Alberto Contador won the Tour De France. I would make a joke here, but that would imply that I actually care about this year's tour. And, remember, I love cycling.
  
• People, 3-to-1, want their privacy invaded for the umbrella of National Security. Going against all of these security measures makes me kind of sound like a wingnut doesn't it? Oh well, moving on...
• Fox News, yet again, playing fast and loose with that whole news part of their name and their motto "we report, you decide".
• While the exiles are throwing pedals at our feet, the rest of the Iraqi people are dying of thirst.
  
• Hillary Clinton was a self-involved College Republican who wrote indulgent letters. I fail to see why this article saw the light of day. Am I supposed to be impressed by the fact that she kept in touch with people and that he kept the letters?
• And, just a reminder: advertising is bad.

I just realized that there are a lot of articles for Hillary Clinton. While I might be pro Hillary's cleavage, I'm still on the fence about her candidacy. She still has to prove to me that she's not a robot. Once she can do this, I think I would actually vote for her.

A Death in the Film World

I have sad news. Ingmar Bergman, the Swedish master of the Cinema, has passed away at the age of 89. For some, this might have no resonance or importance at all. For those people, all I have to say is watch The Seventh Seal, a deeply provocative and pondering film about the meaning of life, sacrifice, and death. It is one of the few films that consistently sticks with me as a film viewer. Its images were evocative and the infamous chess game is a fitting visual metaphor for the struggles that we all face as humans in this transient life.

Bergman is best known for the work that he has done in examining the human spirit. While many of the filmmakers of his time are also known for this, Bergman's films stand out for their raw, visceral intensity and their powerful beauty. Working with his longtime collaborator cinematographer Sven Nykvist, Bergman produced some of my favorite movies on the human condition in Scenes from a Marriage, which, in painstaking detail, shows the utter collapse of an otherwise happy marriage, and Cries and Whispers, a film that shows the effects of death on a familial relationship. Bergman's impact can be seen in the work of Woody Allen, who was greatly influenced by Bergman and, in particular, Husbands and Wives, which shares thematic elements with Scenes from a Marriage.

While he has not been active in film making for a long period now, his works are internationally and infinitely significant. Some will call him obtuse and with fair cause. But, those who are willing to look deeply within the films will come out with greater understanding of their own lives and a grand appreciation for the work done by Bergman. Now that he and Sven are playing chess elsewhere, I have to say goodbye to the man who influenced me a lot as an aesthetician and say that he will be greatly missed.

Before We Start

Yea, another Smiths video, but this is live. This is happened to the Smiths when they played live: fans threw flowers at the feet of Morrissey. It's not difficult to understand why Morrissey has such a huge ego about himself. But, seriously, how cool is that? I love the flowers. I kind of wish I had a bunch of flowers to swing over my head right now.

Must Read

I read It's Not News, It's Fark: How Mass Media Tries To Pass Off Crap as News by Drew Curtis. As someone who has never been in the media before, Curtis, the founder of Fark.com, perfectly understands how the media works. The book was absorbing, creative, and well-written. It was also funny as all hell. It was so good that I read it all in one day, which is something that I haven't done with a book since I graduated from college, a time when reading 250+ page books in one day was frequently required.

Your Weekends Probably Don't Involve A Taken Swimming Pool

As I was casually awakening from a mid-day nap (hey, I've got that kind of flexibility), my mom asked me if I wanted to go to dinner at my aunt's boyfriend's house. Seeing as I really didn't have much else going for me, I decided to go. Frankly, this was one of the best decisions that I've ever made...ever. To begin on how crazy this day was, I have to start from the very beginning and I do mean the very beginning.

We roll up to the house, and there are people hanging around on the porch doing whatever. This is pretty normal. It was slightly strange because people were yelling from the porch down at us. But, the absurdity begins when I walk through the door and first experienced a hurricane named Bob. The real Hurricane Bob hit land at a Category 3: pretty strong, but you might still have your house if it wasn't built out of wood. The Bob that I encountered on Friday was far more damaging to one's environment than his natural counterpart.

First things first, I believe Bob said to me when I walked up, and I quote, "who the hell are you?" After introducing myself, my aunt explains that I'm her nephew. This term "nephew" was one that did not have a lot of resonance for Bob, as he spent about five minutes trying to figure out what exactly a nephew is. I didn't think it was that difficult, but this also might have been subtle foreshadowing for what was about to happen over the course of the night.

As I asked where the drinks were, I learned that Bob made the first set of margaritas. At a later point in time, I could tell this to be true because they were not nearly strong enough to withstand what I was seeing. Seeing as I've used all of this conjecture, let me actually begin with my story. After getting a margarita in my own generic red cup, I sit out on the porch and find that special angle on cast iron furniture that we all wish for: the one that is comfortable. Anyway, as I'm looking for this, Bob starts talking about how he only wear boots and that he wears his boots everywhere at all times. The only time he takes his boots off is in bed.

This works as a not-so-subtle lead-in into Bob hitting on my mom. No bullshit. And, he was going hard at it no less. Seeing as she is more than capable of defending herself (believe me, I have proof), I drowned my embarrassment in booze. Among other things that I remember from this discussion was him actively making attempts to bed my mom, talking about how awesome he is in bed. At some point during this conversation, the topic stayed on hitting on my mom but switched to how much Bob hates living in Lancaster County, PA. For those unfamiliar with American geography, Lancaster County, PA has one of the highest concentrations of the god-fearing luddites more commonly known as the Amish. Anyway, he went on a riff about how he hates going to the club there and blah blah blah.

The next thing I know, I have a loud redhead running across the porch, turning off the classic rock playing inside, and replacing said rock with The Pussycat Dolls. This did, in fact, lead to her singing along with the songs, and me being generally, and genuinely, confused. I felt like I had left out of my regular life and entered an alternate universe where everyone was just wasted. I had to go take a smoke and come back. The smoke did help out. I started hanging out with the sane people, and the day became considerably more tolerable. Although, from hanging out with them, I did learn that a divorce settlement led to one party taking a pool. Not the house, just the pool. Yea, that's West Virginia for you.

Anyway, as the night progressed on and I got drunker (I think I was about 3 margaritas and 2 beers in at this point. In the in-between time, I was asked why I don't have a girlfriend and found a connection with another due to the fact that shoes are never worn in the house if at all possible), Bob became a lot more amusing as his intended goal had passed out from being way too drunk early in the day, as she forgot that oh-so-important skill in drinking: pacing.

Instead of trying to pick her up, he tried to pick up everything else in the room with a pair of boobs that wasn't already taken of which there were many. My family, real and assimilated, can all handle itself very well, so the outcome of this situation was very amusing to watch, especially while drinking. As I watched him, I quickly began to realize that if this was not a sign of desperation and/or over-intoxication, I'm not really sure what is anymore. Bob was completely out of control, bringing up inappropriate conversation topics in public, being belligerent, and making a generally uncomfortable atmosphere. And, I'm a guy saying this. I create uncomfortable situations all of the time, and I'm uncomfortable. That's how bad it was. Luckily for me, Bob started to fade back into the sea of noise as I continued on with my drinking and went down the hill. Honestly, if I hadn't gotten so wasted to cope or take notes, I would have put up a verbatim list of discussion topics.

After Bob decided that it was time to put it down, we all decided to wrap it up. I left still able to walk but definitely under the influence. Anyway, I definitely will not forget the time that I spent with Bob on this Friday night because, most likely, I will encounter Bob again. Well, that and the thing about the swimming pool. Seriously, who takes a swimming pool instead of the house?