Pretense Does Not Make Good Fiction

For the last eternity (read: about a month), I have been slogging away, attempting to finish Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum. If you have never read this book before, I don't suggest that you do. I found it overly indulgent, disjointed, and uninteresting (it revolves primarily around the Knights Templar. Don't know who they are? Join the club). I've actually quit reading this book. This is something that I almost never do. The only time I quit reading books is actually when they are the above three things. I can actually deal with the first two, but the last one is really the kicker. I read Pynchon and David Foster Wallace, so the first two really aren't that much of a concern. The last book that I quit reading was The Obstacles by a Mexican named Urroz. Snorefest. But, I digress.

A lot of people believe that Foucault's Pendulum is a master stroke, a perfect marriage of medieval research and psychological thriller. If you do not see the book in this way, you are obviously an idiot in the minds of these people. The last thing that I would call myself is an idiot. Slacker? Sure. Sketchy? Possibly, but those days are behind me. Idiot? No chance. I aim to keep the personal conceit in check, but this is a place where I can pretty much go apeshit. I actually understood the book. I just didn't like it. It wasn't holding my attention like a good book should, and I didn't feel invested in the characters. But, the fact that people look at me as if I'm an idiot because I don't like the book gets at my larger point.

Foucault's Pendulum is pretty much one of those books people read if they are either interested in the topic or trying to be super pretentious. There is a lot of good medieval research in the book. But, all of that research is obfuscated by the terrible prose of Eco. Wordy and overwrought, Eco's writing helps to slow the leaden pace of the book and make the already impenetrable topic incomprehensible as well. But, people will swear that it's a revolutionary book even if they didn't finish it or they didn't actually like it when they read it. They will do this because the book can be held up as a kind of calling card, a badge of intellectual supremacy even though speaking with half a brain about something other than sports and gossip will usually convince people of your intelligence as well.

As I am publishing this at 4 in the morning, I'm not really sure what the grander point of this all is. All I know is that I am angry at people thinking I'm dumb because I didn't like a dense, overwritten treatise with unengaging main characters and absurdist topics which were discredited before the book even began. I just needed to get my frustration with this book out into the open.

Blame Entourage

Turtle's love for the early 90s hits led to this getting stuck in my head.



Also, for future reference from that episode of Entourage, chiba hawking is alright. I did it for a while, and I know people who did it. It is a totally acceptable habit to partake in. But, there are ethics to such manoeuvres, the most of basic is which don't act like the shit is yours. You are in a privileged position. You didn't bring shit to this party, but you're getting it for no cost to yourself. By being in such a position, you are already doing better than before. It is important, and probably one of the few rules of smoking conduct, to remember that while your presence as a free smoker is cool, acting like the shit is yours is not.

I'll use an example, actually where this issue raised itself in my mind: the same episode that reminded me of Snow in fact. Anyway, Turtle picks up some girls in the grocery store. Some blonde in a tight t-shirt. Very generically pretty girl. She has friends. Turtle's got friends. A Grand plan ensues. The girls that Turtle has picked up are two types. There are two of the girls who are chill about the whole situation. Then, there is this brunette who is just so siced (read: hyped.) on this dude she doesn't know's stash. They are driving along. The girl just panics not about nay incident but because she would lose the weed. In fact, he did lose the weed; the police cop made him throw it down a storm drain. Turns up, that storm drain was shallow because Turtle could pull the stash back out. As expected, the brunette was mad siced over this dude's stash.

Such overenthusiasm for someone else's stash reminded me of the fine balance of being a chiba hawk. Just because you are a woman doesn't mean that I have to smoke you out. I do that out of generosity, and that generosity can be abused by all genders, races, and creeds. It is very much a privilege not a right to get the free smoking. A Public Service Announcement.

Information Blast? No.

I have some substantial posts on their own. I don't need to blast them at you. I will say this on the other hand. I was reading about Heath Shuler voted for the expansion of FISA to allow the Bush administration to do pretty much whatever they want. Seeing as I was against giving them such grand expansive powers, it only raised my ire for him once again.

If you are not from Washington or New Orleans and/or a huge football fan, you probably have no idea of who Heath Shuler is. Currently, Heath Shuler is the representative for the 11th Congressional district of North Carolina, the place that he retired to once he finished his football "career". I say "career" because Shuler was one of the worst quarterbacks to ever step onto an NFL field. He's only second to Ryan Leaf as one of the major quarterback busts of all time. Shuler was a fantastic college quarterback. He led a very successful Tennessee team before Peyton Manning came on board to do the same although neither won the dreaded big game.

Shuler's raw collegiate level talent led to many NFL teams thinking that he would be a good professional quarterback, someone to lead the team into the future. With this as his thinking, Charlie Casserly, the then-GM, decided to spend the Washington Redskin's first round pick (Third Overall) on Shuler in 1994.

He held out at the beginning, which did not make him a fan favorite when he got to D.C. When he got around to playing, expectations were high because of the holdout; everyone wanted to see if he was worth the wait. It turned out that he wasn't. Shuler was a terrible quarterback. He had no field presence. He couldn't control a game. He was the epitome of the black years of the Redskins. If you look it up on Wikipedia, there is no history of the Redskins from 1993 when Joe Gibbs retired to 1997, the year of Daniel Snyder's purchasing and subsequent wrecking of the team (Snyder is the reason that I am not a Redskins fan anymore. The bad years were OK, but I can't stand that dude. I've been a Ravens fan since the Marchibroda days, and I have no intentions of looking back). They went through coaches. They went through talent. But, regardless of what they did, the Redskins just didn't get better. The best move they made during this period was getting rid of Desmond Howard and Heath Shuler leaving after a couple of years in the nation's capitol.

Now, I mentioned Desmond Howard as well. Following a successful campaign at the University of Michigan which netted him the Heisman Trophy (throw the stiff-arm!) in 1991, Howard was a highly scouted prospect. The Redskins ended up with him in their stable. He played three full years in the league as a featured receiver with the Redskins. He only got FIVE touchdown passes. TWO full years went by before he got a touchdown. People literally booed him when he caught the ball. Everything evened out after Howard left because the Redskins drafted Michael Westbrook who, while frequently injured and short-tempered, was a far better receiver than Howard. Howard got the last laugh on the other hand because he actually won a Super Bowl after leaving D.C. Yea, after the win in Super Bowl XXVI where Mark Rypien played one of the best games of his life, D.C. doesn't really have much to remember except for all of the failures. Someone is saying that D.C. United is the most successful club in MLS. My response to you is yea, so? Do you want me to care about MLS? I like soccer, and I don't care about MLS. I'll watch if I'm desperate, but I prefer the European and South American games more. It's more skilled and has better fluidity.

My larger ranging point before going off on that extended rant is that Heath Shuler still sucks whether he's in a suit or in a set of pads. And the fact that I don't have an Information Blast.

Afternoon Notes

Hello, hello. First things first, English Premier League is in full effect. This means that I get months upon months of Arsenal Goalkeeper Jens Lehmann fucking something up. First game back from recess, Lehmann fucks up a simple clearance. What happens? Fulham scores a goal. Luckily for Arsenal, they put up two in reply and won the game. Today, I watched Arsenal take on Blackburn. Along with being chippy, I'm proud of the Arsenal defense for actually standing strong and shutting down the Rovers. That said, Lehmann made this game into a tie.

During the second half, a player from Blackburn hits a strike from about 23-25 yards out. For the non-soccer folks, that's a bad shot unless you are one of the greatest players of all-time, which this guy clearly was not. I mean, let's be serious here. He wouldn't be playing for Blackburn if he was one of the best players of all-time. But, I digress. This hard but totally saveable shot comes in and what does Lehmann do? Fuck it up. The ball hit him in the hands!!!!! And he still didn't make the play. In fact, it bounced past him. Luckily for him, the game ended in a tie. Blame should also be heaped upon the strikers who missed a couple golden opportunities to put themselves ahead and put the nail in the coffin of Blackburn. If this is going to be the stride of the season, I'm in for a very long season.

After I stopped being mad about the failure of the Gunners to get the three points from Blackburn, I decided that I wanted to watch a movie. I couldn't find any terrible action movies on although The Fly II was playing on Cinemax. Deciding against my better judgment not to watch either Sahara, the fiasco involving Penelope Cruz that wasn't Vanilla Sky, or the aforementioned Fly sequel, I decided upon Proof, a film version of an award-winning play. I'll say that I decided to watch this film because Gwyneth Paltrow is one of those actresses who is lauded by everyone. She is supposed to be the great actress of my era, putting in memorable bids that people are supposed to fall in a tizzy about.

After watching this movie, I'm wondering if these people are smoking crack. I won't go so far as to say this movie was terrible, but it's definitely mediocre. And that mediocrity stems from Paltrow's performance as Catherine, a depressed young woman who is the daughter of a fictional John Nash. Hope Davis, who played Catherine's sister Claire, and Jake Gyllenhaal, who played Hal, a student of Catherine's father (Anthony Hopkins), were standouts. Claire could have easily just been a bitch, but she showed some humanity and decency although I thought her efforts were misplaced. Hal was a considerate person who was trying to do what was right. Unfortunately, Catherine didn't see it that way.

My problems with this movie were many. I thought that the timing and organization of the movie left a lot to be desired. Joel Madden, who is best known for Paltrow's Oscar-winning Shakespeare in Love, spliced the film with flashbacks and other things that not only made the movie confusing to watch but actually took away the suspense of the movie. For example, he explains the plot twist fully. The plot twist was the one thing that could have saved this movie, but Madden ruined it by explaining it, leaving nothing to the imagination of the audience as it most likely was in the stage play.

Also, Paltrow's turn as Catherine was terrible. She played the role of a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown as plainly and uninterestingly as she could. She just sulked through the film, displaying no changes in emotions or demeanor. She just sat there to her detriment. This led to the sympathy that we were supposed to have for her character (Catherine is supposed to be a genius) being thrown completely out of the window. While other films have had protagonists who lacked sympathy (for me, this was The Squid and the Whale), those protagonists had some redeemable characteristics. The positive aspects of such a negative character were erased by the vacant acting of Paltrow. But, I think that her vacancy was more maddening because Catherine was a character on the verge of a mental breakdown, spending time by herself in a house with a crazy man. The effects of that on her mind, I think, would be greater than what Paltrow lets on in her performance. There was no edginess to her character. Instead, Paltrow just displays a lot of malaise and no signs of being a tormented genius.

Aside from Paltrow's terribly vacant performance, the other primary problem that I had with the movie was the fact that it still played like a stage play. It was very stiff and formal. Everything was overly dramatic and scholarly actor. The natural aspects of the characters were lacking in translation from the stage. I understand the stiffness of the characters on stage because you don't have the flexibility allowed on film. But, when going to film, the characters have to become well-rounded, showing off many aspects and using the camera and surroundings to the advantage. None of the characters effectively did this even though opportunities abounded for such work to take place. All of the characters fell into this trap, taking away from the more realistic aspects of high quality cinema.

Now that I have vented about Jens "Faulty Boot" Lehmann (Faulty Boot is what I will call him until he is replaced in goal) and Proof, I think that I can leave now. So, I will.

Straight From the Journal Junction

The pictures are only to prove that I'm not making this shit up. But, I wouldn't make up something this patently absurd. For the record, I live in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia where there seem to be a lot of meth labs. I think this is the last place a terrorist would be, but my personal feelings aside. I ripped this one straight from the newspaper's (The Martinsburg Journal) call-in section called the Journal Junction.

I'm going to skip over the article about making bike riders get a license and the request for aid in eradicating a bat. The real gem is this one from a caller in Berkeley County:

Has any thought been given to the possibility that sleeper cells of al-Qaeda could use the features, such as Journal Junction, to communicate with each other through coded messages?

Aside from being a grammatical nightmare, the sheer point is ludicrous. Unless this sleeper cell is primarily white, I don't think that they will be using the Journal Junction to get things done. Also, seeing as they can't even bust up all the meth labs, I'm fairly confident that the cops won't find a sleeper cell for al-Qaeda even if they hung out at the Waffle House on Foxcroft Ave.

If the submitter is trying to suggest that there are Muslim extremists in the area, I would ask, um, where? I don't think that I've seen an Arabic person in the whole time that I've lived here. I live across the street from some Indian cats, but I doubt that they are a terrorist cell. If they are, they've clearly put their priorities in the wrong place. Also, don't these guys normally plan stuff in places where they can gain a lot of information and have those things that are important. Oh right, targets. Yea, that's it. I mean, they can hit the house of Confederate Generals and a Confederate spy in Martinsburg, but that's no skin off my back. Hell, blast away. Fuckers tried to keep me enslaved and fought a war to do it.

A Note

I've been sitting around watching MSNBC for an hour or so now. I'm fairly confident that they've spent around a half-hour covering Nicole Ritchie and Lindsay Lohan. This is ridiculous. There are troops dying and a fiasco on the hill. Aren't these just as important as these celebutards?? Also, while I'm on the complaint, what's so tragic about drunk astronauts?I feel like most airline pilots are drunk. Did you ever think about why they talk so slowly on the overhead? I know: sauce.

A Public Service Announcement

If I had some of that calming muzak to play in the background of this post, I would. As you may or may not know, there is a war going on in the Middle East. Yes, the war in Iraq against that mysterious man/woman/person/animal/skeleton of danger Terrorism. Pretty much everyone in America wants the troops to come home. This war is a fiasco, one that has destabilized the country and, more than likely, the entire region. But, the eggheads and brown-nosers in Washington have finally picked up on this fact and are trying to do something about it. There are still many (Joe Lieberman, Walnuts "Gay Sweater" McCain, Lindsay Graham amongst others) who believe that this is the right course: to send our troops into the desert of Iraq to face uncertainty, to confront the constant stench of burning flesh and death, and to experience the modern rendition of Vietnam where the enemies are buried amongst the masses. But, this group of voices are slowly dying down as the public has made their displeasure with the war become much louder.

In hopes of appeasing the loud voices, the Senate has decided to work towards pulling the troops out of the country. While I've expressed my displeasure with a precipitous withdrawal, I have to clarify the rhetoric being used by the mainstream media right now. The mainstream media continues to suggest that the Democrats are filibustering their own bill. If you are unfamiliar with parliamentary rules, filibustering is a fancy word for stalling. Think of it like its Spanish etymological base: pirate. A pirate came up on a ship and took over, making the ship do its deeds until the crew, who has its own agenda, could overtake them. The same concept works here. How much sense does it make to have the group who wants to take the troops out blocking agenda to take troops out? None at all.

To flesh this out across the Senate, the Republicans are the pirates, forcing the Democrats to get 60 votes to close discussion and make it an actual vote. The Republicans are filibustering. Apparently, the mainstream media does not understand the idea that the Republicans are filibustering by blocking the vote. So, when you hear someone say that the Democrats are filibustering, you should either slap them or change the channel. The Republicans are the bad ones here.

If You Feel at a Loss

If you are feeling at a loss like I am with everyone being on vacation and not doing anything interesting, you can take the last nine days of June and celebrate National Gay Pride Month! That is correct, June is officially National Gay Pride Month. Commemorate the tragedy of the Stonewall Riots (you actually can a week from today. The anniversary is the 28th of June). Play a Judy Garland Record. Watch Mommie Dearest and anything involving Divine (I recommend Pink Flamingos). Watch a drag queen show and marvel at the fact those guys can work a catwalk out. As well, give your local queer a hug to tell them that you are proud of them for being unapologetic about who they really are. Also, this is your last meaningful month to celebrate because it goes downhill from here. Next month is National Ice Cream Month. I'm jazzed about that, but I also love ice cream.

I Actually Wish I Had Something To Post

That title is misleading because I actually have material that I can post. I should rewind from this moment and explain forwards.

I was reading my RSS feeds and getting ready to start posting until

BLAM!

the power went out. So, with the power going out, I decided to take a drive and go down to the park to read. The only park near my house that I could remember was about a fifteen-minute drive away. It was good times, but I felt like my position on the top of the kids' slide was giving me the hater eye from the parents in the area. Anyway, when I get around to going through my reader, there isn't a lot going on.

I have a lot of essay type things to put up such as how TV is trying to out David Lynch David Lynch and the NBA as performance art, another entry into the theoretical defense of athletics as artistic and/or intellectual endeavors. But, I don't actually have time to write these pieces right now because I have to go to dinner in about a half-hour, enough time to maybe get through the intros.

Clearing Out My hPDA

As I think I've told one person so far aside from the people who have seen me whip it out, I use a bizarre information keeping system. Instead of keeping a regular Moleskine notebook in my pocket (they're too bulky), I use this thing called a hipster PDA (Parietal Disgorgement Aid). People who like to get things done use them, but more often than not, I just need a place to write things that come up down. This tool has worked perfectly for such needs. Additionally, I've tricked mine out a bit for it to work like my regular day-to-day organizational tool: the Uncalendar. There are colored priority cards, graph paper for math and lists, lined and unlined white cards, and a Moleskine cahier attached for longer ideas and as a clipboard.

Anyway, from time to time, I have to clear it out because I have a lot of stuff in it that I haven't processed. Today is such a day because most of it is relevant to this process. While at the beer pong tournament, I have, on an index card, the outline to my boxing post. I also noticed something very troubling in Best Week Ever this week as well. So, I have a card outlining that too.

For the next week or so, I'm going to run a Five a Day project where I review five albums a day. They won't necessarily be new, but they'll be albums that I've wanted to listen to for a while now. The reviews won't be too wordy, but they'll be enough to know what's up with the album. This will go in for the late night sendoff instead of some strange rant about how one pop star is better than the other.

Also, strange story: I went to a model house about ten miles from my own house. The woman in this house was talking about making decisions about moving into a new house. And she said, you should make a Ben Franklin list to determine the pros and cons. I've never heard the phrase with regards to a pro-con list. I always just thought it was a pro-con list. So, to see what this was about, I wrote it down in my hPDA to find out its true origins. I'm still at a loss, so if someone could explain that term's history, i.e. did Ben Franklin create the pro-con list, I'd appreciate a comment.

And this is how I use my hipster parietal disgorgement aid. And, I keep my ID cards in a rubberband. But, I know people who do that and, once I started driving, I understood the utility of keeping cards in such a manner. Anyway, those are some things to look forwards to in the coming days from this lovely blog. I hope that you will return to partake.

The Effectiveness of Liberalism

As I noted before, Adbusters has published an article from frequent Rolling Stone contributor Matt Taibbi about his aversion to using the term "liberal" to define himself. He explains that he sees the constant failures of liberals as being connected with the actual working class and its lack of a backbone as important reasons not to be aligned with the name.

Considering the pullout of Democratic leadership from a bill that would allow military women to get emergency contraception from their formulary, the following quote from Taibbi becomes more salient:

At a time when someone should be organizing forcefully against the war in Iraq and engaging middle America on the alarming issue of big-business occupation of the Washington power process, the American left has turned into a skittish, hysterical old lady, one who defiantly insists on living in the past, is easily mesmerized by half-baked pseudo-intellectual nonsense, and quick to run from anything like real conflict or responsibility.

And, this is true of the current political structure. The military women being denied the right to Plan B is only another in a series of ongoing unwillingness to actually take a stand and fight against anything. The current political season is another good example of that. The only candidates whose positions are any modicum of clear are those of Chris Dodd and Mike Gravel, but they have a snowball's chance in hell of winning the bid. The bid will go to Edwards, Clinton, or Obama: a double-talking, generic, all sizzle no fizzle liberal*.

Taibbi goes on to slam the economic make-up of the liberal movement, as one that is pretty much well-off, hyper-educated, and interested in things outside of bread-and-butter issues such as getting food on the table and keeping a roof over their head, the concerns of most working class people. Such issues include environmentalism and women's rights. While no one argues against the necessity of these things, they are not pressing to most of the people that are being represented by the left, as noted above.

Along with the disconnect, Taibbi argues that liberal college students, the source of so much anger in the 1960s, have nothing really to complain about anymore. They are, usually, from good backgrounds, have a lot of money behind them, and are unwilling to use their advantages to actually solve the problem. Instead, these students protest and march around, making no difference at all.

Because of a confluence of all of these issues, Taibbi no longer sees himself as a liberal, but as a progressive. Taibbi feels that the term progressive is more neutral, avoidant of the class and aesthetic connotations that come along with being a liberal.

In considering this article, I have to agree with most of what Taibbi said. A lot of the commenters on the website were not so compliant with his article, but Taibbi spoke to a lot of the problems that I've had as someone on the left with the operation of the liberals in Washington and in other locales across America. The whole movement has become overridden with monetary interests, interests that are in the disinterest of the target audience: the middle of America.

Also, there is a large tendency of liberals to slam the Midwest. I never understood this. They are the core of American society, what makes this country run. They might not be sophisticated like high-minded East Coasters (of which I am one, and I would never call myself high-minded. I'd probably ask them where the racetrack was, so we could go drink some high life and talk about cars), but they are way more important to this country than the ones who frou-frou them. Additionally, I like the Midwest because it isn't caught up in all of the liberal backpatting. I actually really, really like the Midwest; it's quite a lot of fun when they aren't trying to kill me for being Black.

Taibbi also opines about the liberal tradition of slamming Bush at every opportunity. On this point:

Then there’s the tone problem. A hell of a lot of what the left does these days is tediously lecture middle America about how wrong it is, loudly snorting at a stubbornly unchanging litany of Republican villains. There’s a weirdly indulgent tone to all of this Bush-bashing that goes on in lefty media, a tone that’s not only annoyingly predictable in its pervasiveness, but a turnoff to people who might have tuned in to that channel in search of something else.

As this very blog stated a while ago, primarily when I changed format, we all know Bush is a moron. I don't need to remind you, the reader, of that all the time. I also don't need elected officials to remind me of this all the time either. It is completely unnecessary and comes across as it usually does: like a lot of noise. When someone makes a lot of noise, that usually means that they don't stand for anything or have something substantive to say. I agree with them on Bush, and I'm saying this. That should be a statement within itself.

In sum, I think that Taibbi's article serves as a wake-up call to the sleeping Liberal giant. Although it was published in the anti-corporate, Marxist Adbusters, it is a reminder for the progressive/anarchist/culture jamming movement of what it is fighting against. The left's fight is not against the conservatives anymore; the left's fight is now against the left. We have a lot of resources available to us, as we don't have a real issue to fight for anymore+. The progressive movement needs to use its resources to organize and fight once again.


*I've endorsed Edwards on this blog before. I have to say that I don't particularly like the mainstream of liberal politics, but I know that a Green/Socialist candidate will not be elected this time around. I have to hedge my bets and go with the lesser of all possible evils.

+I still have issues to fight for like not getting followed in stores by security or harassed by cops or unfairly discriminated against by cops and government or getting a fair shake in loans. There are many things that I have to work on as a Black man. Also, unlike in the 1960s, whitey, you can't help. And, seriously, please don't try to say you're down. Black people really don't appreciate that.

Hello World? Are you there? It's me.

While there is the decline of the Palestinian state and the regular Iraqi violence going on right now, there doesn't seem to be much else happening. As I said this, I looked through my reader and I found an article from Adbusters about the failure of the left. It's pretty intriguing, especially as someone who is a textbook liberal but would never align with the left. Primarily because the left is full of pantywaists who complain a lot. I'm very much of the belief that if you have a problem with something, write a letter to your congressman, write a letter to the newspaper, organize a rally, do something other than the regular leftist response: bitch.

I'm going to react to it, hence my not linking to it now.

For Post 300

I was going to post about basketball, but then I got inspired from reading another post. A guest blogger at Feministe was questioning his own stance on pornography after reading a story coming from CNN about a new anti-porn bill passed in Iran. The bill stems from the controversy caused by a sex tape involving a popular Iranian celebrity engaging in intercourse with a man. The celebrity says that it was not her, but the damage had already been done.

The bill will, essentially, outlaw all forms of pornography and all people who are involved in pornography. From CNN:

With a 148-5 vote in favor and four abstentions, lawmakers present at the Wednesday session of the 290-seat parliament approved that "producers of pornographic works and main elements in their production are considered corrupter of the world and could be sentenced to punishment as corrupter of the world."

The term, "corrupter of the world" is taken from the Quran, the Muslims' holy book, and ranks among the highest on the scale of an individual's criminal offenses. Under Iran's Islamic Penal Code, it carries a death penalty.

The "main elements" referred to in the draft include producers, directors, cameramen and actors involved in making a pornographic video.

The bill also envisages convictions ranging from one year imprisonment to a death sentence for the main distributors of the movies and also producers of Web sites in which the pornographic works appear.

Besides videos, the bill covers all electronic visual material, such as DVDs and CDs. Other material, such as porn magazines and books, are already banned under Iranian law.

In liberal America, this wouldn't stand. Pornography has been defended successfully on First Amendment grounds in the Supreme Court. Regardless of that, this law is completely unreasonable. But, for me to explain this, I have to explain my own relationship with pornography.

I do not think that there is a delineation between erotica and pornography. Both involve sex and the human form. The question becomes how is this presented to the viewer. Erotica tends to be of higher quality with better camera work and very possibly a plot. A lot of pornography is done very quickly (like a day) with a handheld camera which is either shaky or overly involved in the scene, fracturing the gentle nature and eliminating the innate intimacy of human sexuality.

Even with this distinction, I think that both forms are beneficial to men and women. I think that a lot of the arguments about the objectification of women in porn are specious. I won't suggest that it doesn't exist because it does. A lot of pornography does have women who are in situations where they are only there to serve the male interest, but, as I think most people believe, I find this sort of pornography to be very unappealing. It is more appealing to have both the women and men aroused and fully invested in the sex, and this is not an idea that is left to the high-brow erotica makers; low-brow pornographers can focus on the passion of the woman as well.

With all of this said, pornography is a useful tool to explore our own sexuality and to explore our relationships with others. I believe that it serves as an important role in the relationships between consenting adults as well as a sexual release for single persons. I think that such explorations serve a very great purpose in society. Additionally, erotica/porn is meant to express a sexual fantasy with regards to the relationships between humans and their sexuality. People who decide to explore the nature of human sexuality as a profession should not be punished for making such a decision, as they would in Iran. There will always be men who feel that is their right to degrade women, and those men should be rightfully decried and shunned. But, to write off an entire genre of work positive to the understanding of one's self for the representation given by a few misogynists is ridiculous. There is a violence to sexuality, but that violence should not be one that puts either the man or the woman in a situation that makes them uncomfortable or submissive to the needs of other.*

*submissiveness is, for some people, a turn on. I am fully behind that. But, there is a modicum of consent that is involved in passing into a S&M situation, which is completely acceptable. The problem arises when male actors force women into situations that they do not enjoy or agree with. A substantial amount of porn does this. I do not support this ideal. I'm aware that this will draw a lot of fire, but that's ok. I'll back it up.

If You Would Like To Learn How To Play Basketball

I know how to play basketball. I went to Stu Vetter's Basketball Camp when I was in elementary school. But, my dreams of being an athlete were stopped dead in their tracks when I attempted to try out for middle school basketball and realized that I lacked all semblances of athletic talent. I didn't think when I was 12 that I was going to blog, but I digress. Because of that time at Stu's camp, I do know and appreciate high quality basketball.

If you know nothing about basketball, its strategies and intricacies, I highly suggest you start watching right now. The NBA Finals are going on right now. It is the upstart Cleveland Cavaliers with the heir apparent to Michael Jordan's throne LeBron James. I personally have problems with this classification, but, if you want to talk about that, send me an email. The Cavaliers are playing the San Antonio Spurs. Some of you might not have known that there is a team in San Antonio. Well, there is and it is the team that all other teams and fans should watch to understand how to play basketball. The Spurs are one of the most fundamentally sound teams in the league.

For these MTV-addled kids, The Spurs are what you would call a "boring team." They aren't high flying like the Phoenix Suns or the Golden State (CA) Warriors. None of their players are particularly charismatic like Stephon Marbury or Vince Carter. This last aspect highlighted by the fact that their star player Tim Duncan, who will go down in history as the best power forward ever to set foot on a professional basketball court, has the nickname of the "Big Fundamental" (Are you serious?). The only reason they even get attention from people outside of the basketball world is because their point guard Tony Parker (Balance-toi!) is marrying Eva Longoria. If you don't know what show she's from, click on her name and find out yourself. Also, smite yourself for being out of touch with popular culture. Eva aside, the Spurs play the basketball that all teams should aspire to play. It's team-oriented, without ego, modular with sound fundamentals. Just from watching, you will learn how to play, watch, and critique basketball.

Ladies, are you having problems pulling men? Men, are you having problems connecting with other men because you know nothing about sports while it seems like everyone else you know does? This series is for you. Now, stop reading this and go watch.

p.s. I see basketball as a sort of performance art due to the nature and presentation of the sport. If I remember, I will go into this at another time, maybe between Game 3 and 4, i.e. Tuesday and Thursday. And, I'm serious about basketball as art. This isn't some bullshit theorizing about the nature of sport and its relationship to the cultural sphere.

I Have To Go Off About This

As everyone knows, I try to avoid ranting because I have a problem of ending up in a completely different place than I started, but, for this rant, it is very, very simple: Paris Hilton is not news.

Today, I have seen the mainstream media obsess about Paris Hilton leaving jail to be placed under house arrest. She's not important at all. What has Paris Hilton actually done? What? Nothing at all. She opened her legs and got filmed doing it. Oh, and this is on top of her throwing homophobic and racial slurs around, dissing her friends, flaking out on appearances, and being a terrible role model for young girls who invariably follow her every waking move because any magazine with a mostly female readership is obligated to cover her.

Amongst other things that happened today, Oman got hammered by a cyclone which killed 25 people and another 26 are missing. We have suffered the 3,500th Death in Iraq today. We're already over that actually. Also, in a tie to Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine are about to go to war with each other. And we have President Bush in Germany endangering the long-term health of the planet by not accepting limits on carbon emissions. But, none of this is important. What is more important is the fact that a woman with no discernable talents of any sort is getting out of jail 20 days before she is supposed to.

Words do not express my anger at this situation. When I grew up (and this is like maybe 13-14 years ago), news was about important current events. It was a place that you went to learn about the day's happenings in the world, in Congress, in your local community. It was intended to be an informational source, keeping people up to date and making them effective, informed citizens. News departments were not held to the same standard as entertainment because news was never intended to be entertainment; it was intended to be informational, and information is not always the most exciting thing. Unfortunately, this ethos has disappeared. Now, when I open my RSS feed from supposedly the best name in journalism (CNN), I am surrounded with fluff pieces about Paula Abdul and Paris Hilton. This isn't news; this is entertainment. And entertainment is fine when it is not considered real news. But, when you start calling it real news, you are doing a disservice to the public at large.

The public has lost sources of news. They have been replaced with infotainment, some weird hybrid to attract people like me (youth demographics, 18-35) to it. But, on the contrary, it has repelled me. I think my breaking point was the commercial free coverage of Anna Nicole Smith. When it happened, I saw people pontificating and thinking about it and thought someone important had died. Then I realized: it's fucking Anna Nicole Smith, a gold digging has-been playmate.

I came to understand that my dreams of actual news on television that didn't involve white kids (they don't have by-the-minute coverage of searches for Black kids and we all know it), white girls (same logic as above plus girls are oh so useless, they can't do anything without the help of the mainstream media), and celebrities was exactly that: a dream. It actually makes me really sad to say that the news has become self-defeating. It really does. Between the run-up to the war, the non-stop coverage of reality programming like American Idol and Dancing with the Stars, and the constant coverage of Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton on CNN and MSNBC, the mainstream media is lighting its own path to self-destruction. Apparently, people dying in Iraq, the unfurling of the new Watergate, the lack of agreement on immigration, the disregard for civility in Washington, the rollback of Women's rights, the obstinacy of the Bush administration, and the allowance of torture and unjust military prisons isn't really important if Paris Hilton gets let out of jail early or a little pretty white girl is lost.

If I sound cynical, I am. I'm just fed up with the state of news right now. I want news to be news again instead of being bullshit like it is now. But, with the constant coverage of Paris Hilton, I'll be assured that this will not happen any time soon.

Criss Angel: The Debate Continues

On the heels of his show Mindfreak's third season's premiere where he floated above the light at the top of the Luxor pyramid in Las Vegas and his is-he-or-isn't-he-dating-Cameron-Diaz drama, it has become time for me to discuss possibly one of the strangest people of all time: Criss Angel. I don't mean this as an insult or anything of the sort. I am saying that he is strange because he's just a older Greek boy from Long Island who astounds and mystifies the masses with completely psycho magic tricks. Now, I was one of those people who saw all of the decoding magic specials that Fox used to show back in its halcyon days, so I thought I knew everything that there was to know about magic. Not only was I wrong, Criss Angel's existence helped to prove that I was dead wrong. Now, the question is about Criss Angel's existence, which is what I will discuss here.

This fascination with his existence started in the summer of 2005 when a friend and I were watching Mindfreak. I can't remember exactly what he did, but it led to the friend exclaiming that Criss Angel was the antichrist. Now, I've watched a lot of Criss Angel since that time and some of his tricks make me still wonder: is this guy supernatural or is he really just an antichrist disguised in all black and too many chains?

Proof for his supernatural abilities can be seen with the show. Whenever he does a trick on his show, he spends a considerable amount of time working to prove that he is doing the trick for real, that there are no trick cameras or anything of the sort (read: cheats that were pointed out during the Fox specials on magic). After spending all of this time, he then finds random people to participate with him. And by random, I mean primarily young, attractive, buxom young females. These tricks are usually varying and regularly mindblowing. He also does all of his tricks in front of people as well. For example, he supported himself horizontally on one foot and also levitated a girl with other people holding her in front of a live audience. He also split himself in half in front of an audience, doing a variation on the traditional sawing the girl in half trick. They are really cool tricks that he does, and he, as his name would suggest, freaks everyone's mind.

Also, since levitations and sawing in half are more standard tricks and he isn't standard, Criss Angel also does a lot of mentalist tricks. For example, Criss drove Mandy Moore's car through Los Angeles to a restaurant she wanted to go to and ordered for her, all without her saying anything. She only thought about what she wanted to do and communicated nothing to Criss Angel except for when he was clear making a left-hand turn. Oh right, I almost forgot. He did the entire thing blindfolded with half-dollars taped down on his eyes, just for the people who are always naysaying his skills. Also, he worked his way into a new car just by guiding himself with the spirit of the car dealer to the keys. This is genuinely non-magic stuff that's really, really impressive, especially if there are no tricks involved.

But, with this talent, come some downsides. In particular, the fact that Criss Angel may or may not be the anti-christ. He talks about the trinity of controlling one's mind, body, and spirit. Now, I'm not saying anything, but that sounds slightly satanic, does it not? Give your body to the occult! Also, he torments us with these terrible interludes involving some random characters and him singing his own theme song. I know you like music, Criss. It's on your wikipedia page, but you don't have to sing your own theme song. That's what Tom Green did and what Robert Goulet would do if he had his own television show. And, additionally, he might be the anti-christ because many of his tricks are utterly mindblowing and could only be done by people who are of the underworld because, even though he could change water into wine, God can't float down from a 26th floor balcony indoors over thousands of people who had no idea he was doing the trick.

In the end, the magic of Criss Angel is very contentious. A lot of people, like myself, believe that Criss Angel is very good and may not be of this world, as this discussion has suggested. Others believe that he is a huge fraud who can't actually do any magic. I went on Youtube. I watched the video. None of it was convincing and is purely conjecture to prove that they can know everything, which no one can. The conspiracy theorists on JFK are closer to a right answer than the Criss Angel naysayers. Anyway, his talents and demonstrations are very impressive. If you haven't watched before, watch Criss Angel on A&E and get back to me about which side of the line you think he lays on. Is he just a supernaturally gifted human or is he something more sinister than that. If you have, leave a comment about what you think of this.

White Kids and Gang Signs

I have talked a lot about hip-hop on this blog over the last month or so, as it has been a pretty hot button issue in American culture. Today, I came across an article from The Boston Globe via Feministing about the relationship between white kids, the "ghetto", and rap culture.

The crux of the argument revolves around a premise that many have been arguing for a long time, which is that the music has become a representation, fairly or unfairly, for all Black people. Because so many of the consumers of hip-hop have no experience with the ideas presented in most hip-hop, these white suburbanites have fetishized and exoticized ideas of living in the ghetto. Unfortunately, such fetishizing has led to negative images for all Black people regardless of our actual connection to hip-hop culture and rap music. This idea is a fairly similar one that happened back in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries called minstrelsy when white people dressed up as if they were black, covering their faces in burnt cork and shucking and jiving like "authentic negroes" did in those times.

Many thought we had passed this point in our society, where Black people were no longer being exoticized and used to amuse and entertain the white people in the country. Black music has produced many heroes for its own culture such as James Brown and George Clinton, but that has passed again with the rise of artists like 50 Cent and Lil' Jon who fill the minds of these impressionable American youth with images of Black people standing on the corner, drinking 40s, and slanging crack. This is bad enough within itself. But, as the article notes, this is made worse by the presence of "ghetto parties" based of these white kids' understanding of what it means to be ghetto as taught to them by outlets such as Flavor of Love (I already know) and the rappers that are being promoted by the white record executives who decided to hold up the principles of nihilism and excess capitalism. Although, to rap's defense, no rapper I know talks about dressing up in blackface, which the kids do at these offensive parties.

The parties are shocking, but this is the most shocking part of the entire article:

When [Professor] Price brought up the subject of ghetto parties in his Northeastern classroom, he says his white students reacted by saying, "So what? " They considered ghetto parties no more harmful than toga parties, says Price.

I think that this is fitting of why so many people of color have problems with white adoption of hip-hop culture. No one in hip-hop is saying that white kids can't be a part of it, but, if you are going to be a part of it, you have to understand it. Hip-hop has been political since Kool Herc started moving a record back and forth under a stylus. Rapping, breaking, graf writing, and scratching were the initial tools to make disenfranchised voices heard because they were so frequently silenced and are still silenced now. The fact that these kids don't understand that we have had to go through century upon century of having my fellow men and women stereotyped as lazy, lascivious, poor, morally bankrupt, violent, and content with being the literal footrest for the White population leaves me with seething anger throughout my body. It genuinely offends me that they cannot understand this most simple of concepts of the Black experience. It makes me wonder if anything that our schools have been trying to teach us about the struggles of Martin Luther King have stuck with these kids in any meaningful way.

If you are a white kid who is ignorant, negligent, stupid enough to think that it is a good idea to show up to a party in gold chains, wearing clothing four sizes too big, and in fucking blackface, I don't want you listening to my music. I don't want you to listen to the music that represents my people's struggle out of the hood. I don't want you even being connected to the culture because this display shows that you don't have a basic understanding of who hip-hop represents and what it means when it says that it is a global culture. Hell, I might punch you out, and I never raised a hand against others.

She Leads a Life of Crime

Oh, in case you didn't know, Paris Hilton has decided to go off to jail now. TMZ has way more coverage than the link I just referred you to. In addition, TMZ has posts on Paris's living situation, her meals, her trip, her last hours out. Anything you could want to know about Paris Hilton and her trip to the clink can be found out from TMZ.com. And if that isn't good enough for you, TMZ has listed ways for you to write letters and visit the embattled celebutant.

Honestly, this is something that shouldn't have been covered because it furthers the idea that Paris Hilton is an actual celebrity. Yes, she is a real person, but I'm a real person too. And I, like Hilton, have done nothing to further my celebrity in life and don't reference anything involving National Lampoon as proof. Those straight-to-video movies are jokes and do not further anything except the distance between these shitty new movies and old classics involving Chevy Chase. Also, if I wanted to, I could probably have a reality show on television now too. The Simple Life is not really an accomplishment that I want to write home about, but Paris and Kathy probably talk about it all of the time. She would talk to Pops but he's busying making money to be blown away (no pun intended).

So, with this all said, I am declaring a moratorium on Paris Hilton for the next 22 days. She's in jail and she's not really important in my own life, so I'm not going to talk about her. And I'm actually going to hold up my moratorium unlike those punk ass bitches over at the Associated Press.

The First Reality Show

With the glut of reality programming that comes on television now, it is nice to recall the more pleasant times when Fox showed programming like When Animals Attack and When Good Times Go Bad along with Melrose Place (Heather Locklear, you evil bitch) and Party of Five. In those days, Fox was on the forefront of creating the phenomenon of that floods our television now and has a channel dedicated to it, and no I'm not talking about MTV.

Fox went out above everyone with the brilliance that is Cops. It is the simplest of all concepts of all time: put camera crew with police cops, ride with police cops on calls, videotape all happenings. The sheer simplicity of this show is why it succeeded. We were put in shotgun to experience what it is like to be a cop, to chase down a crackhead that's hopping fences, or going to a domestic dispute. We have no better idea of what is going on than the cops; it's a radical and very fun idea. It reminds me of cinema verité in its lack of a clear plot or connectedness other than the fact that the people involved are cops.

This program started back in the 1980's and has, according to Wikipedia, shown over 650 episodes. Clearly, Cops has done something right. What it has done is make one of the first but the best reality show of all time. The informational tips aside, Cops still has its own character and doesn't feel like it has been sold out. I understand that Cops can't drop a product in here, but I mean that the situations and "players" are far more real than in other reality shows. The scriptedness of a lot of other shows is far too great for me and gets me into fairly complex structuralist arguments with myself about the (non) reality of reality and questions of authorship and detachment (read: things I deal with in art history). It is nice to watch a show where genuine emotions and reactions are present and shown in the forefront. It reminds me of the halcyon days of The Real World in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco when the roommates were starkly different and true tensions would boil up in the house. In two of those seasons, people left the house (David and Puck, if my memory serves me correctly). The shit was straight up raw funk. And the camera crew did not invade or intrude. They were neutral observers who were just following along.

Cops still lives by this simple mantra. As much as I love Project Runway, I can't watch it all of the time. There's all this built-in drama, an overanxious editor, and a lot of pomp and circumstance. I don't have to worry about that with Cops, as it is always consistent and simple. I can always turn the show on and not have to figure out what is going on or what they are supposed to be doing. Cops every week is three vignettes on the seedier side of America done documentary style, and that simplicity of concept is why it is the boss of the reality show.

While I'm Condemning Bad Television

Next up on the chopping block is Sunset Tan. Sunset Tan is pretty clearly what it sounds like. E! has decided to follow the ups and downs of the high pressure, big money world of tanning in L.A. Firstly, I am going to make an observation here. In a place where it is regularly sunny and surrounded by beaches, why would people in L.A. go to a tanning salon? I mean, there's no rainy season in L.A. I know, contrary to the Tony Toni Tone song, it does rain in L.A., but not all of the time or for huge extended periods. Seeing as this show exists, tanning is clearly popular. I guess this is what having a lot of disposable income does to people.

In addition to its bland, uninteresting topic, this show is also one that has yet to build its celebrity audience...like Blow Out (Dude, Cindy Margolis and Alia Shawkat?! I love Arrested Development, but you're trying to pull Maeby as star power. Antin, you need to try again, DUDE!). In the episode that I'm watching now, two girls have the most awkward interaction with Chris Kattan. Chris mothafuckin' Kattan. This bitch is best known for being Corky Romano. Also, the best that the girls behind the counter could come up with is Chris Kattan, You need a tan! Are you fucking serious? Like this is the best taunt you could come up with for Chris Kattan? These girls are classically Southern California. Bottle blond, huge boobs, nice figures with little to say. I'm amazed that they did that well. And as I type that, the girl says she is hot and bothered by him. Additionally, one of the girls was talking about how shaking hands with Kattan made her boob shake. And, boy, did it shake! But, that's immaterial right now because the awkwardness was amplified by ten when his wife shows back up again. Even still it wasn't as amusing as other reality moments.

Additionally, some of the hotshot spray tanners goes to Vegas, and one of them is in a relationship. But, he has crazy girls climbing all over him. Not just crazy girls. Crazy NAKED girls. While this is the single man's fantasy, home dude's not so jazzed. And, his boss is pissed because he DOESN'T want naked girls climbing all over him, biting him, and being generally hot in his presence while paying him to be there to spray a tan on. This moment has almost legitimated this show for me. A sleazy older man tells his younger worker that if he doesn't want girls climbing all over him, he needs to go back to Los Angeles. Brilliant, but it just keeps up E!'s track record of shitty reality programming.

Aside from reality shows, E! is also really bad at list programming. They tried to copy the well-tested method of Video Hits 1 of putting no-name NYC and LA comics and low-budget actors in front of a blue screen, paying them peanuts, and telling them to say something funny about something they may or may not know about (I don't believe that Michael Ian Black loved the 1970s). While they may not have known anything about what they were talking about, it was generally amusing to hear folks such as Black, Beth Littleford, and Rachael Harris go off on random topics. E! tried to do this as well, but the only thing that E! has going for it is the presence of Chelsea Handler (she helps to prove that those crazy broads can tell jokes). Everyone else is absolutely terrible. I rarely see an actual funny person on these shows. E!, a note for you: Kelly Packard is not funny! Just because she was on Baywatch and Ripley's Believe it or Not! does not mean that's qualified to comment on stuff in a humorous, effective manner. Also, their list programs are way too long. They spend too much time on each thing. 25 things should only take one hour, not two. An hour and a half at most. If it takes you two, you're not doing enough jump cuts, the bread and butter of teen/young adult programming.

Because of the shittiness of like 75% of its programming, I'm putting E! on notice. If it didn't have the decidedly low-budget Soup, which should air all of the time instead of once a week, it would be intolerable in comparison to its already insufferable companion channel The Style Channel. I can't watch visibly hot girls complain about not being hot for more than 30 minutes, but this is the entire premise of the hour-long Instant Beauty Pageant: girls buy clothes and cry about how they don't think they look hot even though EVERY OTHER PERSON AROUND THEM says they are hot over and over again and I'm screaming to myself about them overreacting. Style should just stick to showing Fashion Television with Tim Blanks, editor of Fashion Magazine. E! needs to go take a look in the mirror and reconsider their programming to make it actually funny and entertaining outside of True Hollywood Story and its celebrity video biographies.