(Recent events have caused me to think in a slihtly English accent. That may bleed over into my writing. Do not be alarmed.)
One of the things that most fascinates me is psychosis. Mental illness. Being BOOOOONKERRRRRRRRS. I'm pretty sure the general reason is because I can imagine what it's like to be totally doffed. I like to think I have a strong imagination, so being able to channel nutsoids is, I think, a gift, because I get all the benefits of their different perspective of reality without all the trauma that goes along with it.
Why am I writing this? Because pretty soon you won't need to imagine what it's like to be a psycho. It'll be the reality. Yes, you guessed it, it's another POLITICAL BLOG ENTRY.
Delaware (remember them?) pulled a funny on Tuesday and nominated a proto-cat lady named Christine O'Donnell to the Republican ticket to the Senate seat once held by Joe "Joseph" Biden, the current Napper in Chief.
Don't know who Christine O'Donnell is? Well, in a nutshell, she is fucking nuts. Maybe she's not out and out psychotic, but she is certainly of below-average intelligence and probably very paranoid (they and anti-social types are the only people I'm sure I can spot a mile away). (Yes I am a doctor. A doctor of LOVE.) A more succinct description of what the hell is happening in Delaware can be found in this cute video:
That's just Delaware. The crazies have been crawling out of the woodwork all over, though, from Arizona's Jan Brewer claiming that drug dealers are beheading people out in the desert (they're not; those are just oddly shaped cactuses), to Sharron Angle in Nevada who thinks that social security is literally the devil. Literally. The devil. She thinks social security has cloven hooves and horns and answers to the name "Jay Leno."
New York, supposedly a bastion of LIBRULISM, is not immune. The GOP's candidate for governor is a delightful chap named Carl Paladino, a connoisseur of bestiality porn, among other wonderful subjects. Yup, opposing Andrew Cuomo is a guy who loves forwarding the kind of e-mails you get from grampy about that silly Negroid in the White House, and of horsedick.mpg. No confirmation yet that he has seen goatse, though, but I bet it'd be right up his alley.
Like syphilis, the Teabagger scourge is spreading from sea to oil-filled sea. There's no end in sight. We all hoped it'd be a temporary thing that would dissipate with the passage of the health care thing, but true madness does not respond to reality. Well, not in the way it's supposed to. Crazy people are wonderful in that any bit of contradiction just confirms how right they are. It's rare that nutty people have a House-like epiphany where they realize they do need help.
Am I saying that the country is actually spiraling towards collective psychosis? I'm not sure. I don't know if the people pushing the buttons of the Teabaggers are likewise true believers. My experience with such people tells me that the big shots could go either way.
If you had to know one thing about the United States, it's that it's really controlled by interests. Not people (although interests are of course made up of people). Interests. Semi-conscious entities. Any group of people is an interest: nations, guilds, unions, companies, Mickey Mouse Club chapters, ESL classes, Nose-picker Brigades, etc. The interests that control the U.S. are almost exclusively business in nature, not voters or any silly shit like that. And if it's one thing businesses love (aside from junkets to the Luxor), it's stability.
A quick glance at U.S. history rather proves that out. Even at the height of the Cold War, America's business class could reliably come down on the side of not being fucking retarded, even if many businessmen were crazed anti-communists willing to nuke the planet to get rid of the Reds. Verifiable shits like Nixon, Johnson, Reagan, Ford and Bush I, no matter how much of jerkfaces they were, would never let the country be destroyed or let its people be destroyed. So you were okay to feel safe with them.
(Although Reagan was probably probably borderline as he also had a nasty habit of swinging the country towards nuclear war with the Soviets, though he probably had no idea that he was doing that.)
(Also Clinton doesn't count because the Soviets were kaput and the U.S. was not seriously challenged by any foreign entity on his watch so he had no opportunity to seriously try something stupid. I don't think he would have, though.)
9/11 of course happened and Everything Changed™. In the wake of that, we have two reactions. America's business class have become more belligerent and willing to do risky shit to chase a buck. In this case, risky shit means whipping people up into frenzies, quietly stoking or tolerating violent rhetoric against convenient targets, and convincing people that they must accept a lower standard of living. This actually makes sense if you look at everything in a certain way, but that's a whole nother blog post and I'm 52.75% sure you are not that interested in it.
The other reaction, of course, comes from average Americans, who have become more paranoid and prone to bizarre suggestion. 20% of Americans think he is a Muslim (and 43% just don't plain know what he is). You could say that they're being fed misinformation (or disinformation??) from the media, thus leading them to the wrong conclusions. At a certain point, though, if you keep telling a person the sky is puke green, and they come to believe it, they're just plain fucking retarded.
This is not really a pleasant thing to experience, the slow crazifying of the country. This is almost certainly going to lead to violence because like Buzz, we're not that lucky. I don't know what the end game will be, but I do know the people who are whipping this shit into action are looking at an end game where most American citizens are no better off than the wage slaves in third-world countries, while the elites live high on the hawg.
The funny thing is that may not happen at all. Crazy people have a habit of being a tad bit unpredictable, even when you can tell what they're thinking. Who knows? Maybe the Teabaggers will back down at the moment of truth. Maybe they will get bored and chase after something else. Maybe they will decide that violent revolution will be the answer. Of course, the Teabaggers are not a monolothic entity, but their driving craziness is pretty uniform.
If we are that lucky, though, hopefully they will simply lose, give up, and take to the typewriter to warn us of our impending danger from the Gangster Computer God Worldwide Secret Containment Policy.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
A Bleh Book: The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop.
Baseball is my second favorite sport (the first being
So imagine my surprise when the head of NYU talks about baseball as a "path to God," and in his curriculum he lists a bunch of books that supposedly illustrate this. One of them is "The Universal Baseball Association," by Robert Coover.
I didn't really understand John Sexton's point about the theological aspects of baseball, and frankly I found an even more interesting angle to reading "UBA": Namely, the main character is a fan of franchise play. Sports franchise play.
Let me step out for a second and briefly go over what that is. You know those video games like MLB The Show, NHL '9x/20xx, or Madden? You know how many of those games have "Franchise" modes, where you play the game over a number of continuous seasons? Well, "UBA" is about that, except in the most bare-bones way possible.
The book is about the proprietor of one such league, but this is no video game he's playing. He's using dice. Dice baseball, which happens to be a hobby of mine, played in the 1960s (I didn't realize the book was written so long ago when I first picked it up). So this guy was playing franchise sports before there was even a single video game in existence.
Lemme step out again and briefly describe dice baseball: You roll the dice, and depending on what the numbers are, something happens (a hit, a homerun, a strikeout, etc.). You keep track of the game by writing shit down on scorecards and whatnot. It's more complicated than it sounds.
So I already had a keen interest in the subject matter going into the book. When you play franchise sports, be they dice-based or bit-based, you really get into it (if you're doing it right; most people quit after one or two seasons for reasons I'll talk about briefly). You watch the league grow, you might keep track of some records, of some stats, and if the game is well-balanced and stuff, it can sustain itself for a long period of time. If it holds your interest.
In order to really get into franchise sports, though, you need to have a really good imagination (and a really good platform to base the sport on, otherwise shit gets too wild to reasonably continue). When someone sits down to play a game of Madden, they play with all the familiar names, so they have no need to imagine what kind of virtual people they're controlling. Everyone knows who Peyton Manning is, what records he holds, how the team does with him playing, etc.
But what if the next season you played, Peyton was gone? Retired. Traded. Was killed in a hunting accident with Eli :clap clap:. In his place was Gorp Snrub, a rookie, generated by the computer and drafted to your team. At that point, the frustrated Colts player may drop the game, not wanting to go on with his familiar and popular player in exchange for a (ltierally) faceless replacement who probably sucks and has a swagger rating of only 55? Come the fuck on.
This is where imagination comes in. Instead of having Gorp Snrub be just a random bit of pixels filling a role on your roster, what if you fleshed the little bugger out? Gorp hails from Scranton, PA. He went to college at Oklahoma. He's not married but he's not looking. He's nervous filling in for Peyton, especially since Peyton departed so suddenly. He's under a lot of pressure. The media is all up his ass. He looks like he's taking it well but secretly he hopes his teammates can support him.
I've never even seen Gorp before and already I've crafted a simple backstory for him. Now extrapolate that out over 10 seasons, with hundreds of other players getting the same treatment. NOW you're doing franchise sports properly.
In this way, franchise sports becomes less about playing the game and more about creating a world and populating it with diverse fictional people. Sure, there are archetypes you can have (the wild-eyed rookie who plays over his head and crashes in his sophomore season, the No. 1 prospect everyone expects to do well, but will he live up to his promise? the dark-horse guy who comes into the league late but becomes a valuable role player, etc.). But it's up to the player to keep an interest in these fake guys who will never exist, and if you stick with it long enough, you can have an entire league history to play with.
If this sounds like super nerd shit to you, well congrats. P.S. NICE PHOTOS, NERD.
So now that I have that dissertation out of the way, let's get to the book. The book is about one such nerdlinger who uses dice to act out his fictional baseball league, the UBA. But this nerd is HARD CORE. When the book opens, we're entering into the 52nd or something year of the league (though in reality it takes like three months to do a season, not a bad pace all things considered).
The nerd in question is J. Henry Waugh, a 56-year-old actuary or something. After work, he usually heads straight home to play dice baseball all night. It's his life, his obsession. And like a good franchise sports nerd, he acts out the motions of the league and its games in his head, creating a story-within-a-story narrative where the fictional players he created exist. They play the game, completely unaware that their every action is being controlled by dice.
On the first night, Henry oversees the completion of a perfect game pitched by the son of one of the league's greats. Henry's on cloud 9, seeing the fulfillment of a pretty nifty storyline. But then tragedy strikes. The next time the star player is out there, he's hit by a line-drive and killed. Henry faces a dilemma all franchise players face: Does he call a mulligan and roll the dice again? Or does he accept what the impartial dice say, and Damon Rutherford (the unfortunate player) dies?
The temptation Henry faces is akin to quitting a game you're losing in progress because goshdarnit, the fuckin' AI's cheating again and what the hell I meant to clear the puck not shoot it into my own zone, THAT'S FUCKING INSANE. NO. NO. I WILL NOT ACCEPT LOSING TO THE DEVILS LIKE THAT. FUCK THIS STUPID GAME I HATE IT.
Henry accepts the roll, though, and lets Damon die, which sends shockwaves throughout the league AND Henry's personal life. His relationship with his only apparent friend, an annoying fatass, becomes severely strained. His work suffers tremendously, to the point where he risks being fired. His love life, already barren, may become even more barrenererer. And worst of all, he's losing the will to keep the league going after all these years.
Henry's personal life eventually takes a severe tumble, but he fights through with the power of baseball (and by giving in to temptation and tipping the dice to get an outcome that allows him some release from his demons). The league survives, and we see in a super-long epilogue the league, 100 seasons later, doing... something.
At some point after Rutherford's death, the narratives in the book break down. I think the main culprit is Coover's writing style. If there's only one way to describe it, it's this: "Purple FUCKin' prose." All over the place. All. Over. The place. Every sentence feels like a run-on even if it's only three words long. Every word can be read in the voice of an overzealous vaudevillian. The book has been described as "Joycean." Having read enough excerpts to know what that means, I can say YES, it is Joycean, and if you like Joyce, you might derive some enjoyment out of this.
Me? I don't like Joyce. I'm p. sure that Coover's writing style made the book (242 pages in my edition) added 100 pages of pure nothing to the story. I understand why he did it, though. He was trying to recapture the way baseball was described in Ye Olde Earlier Dayes, where writers would drone on and on about PEPPER! ROUND-TRIPPERS! OH BOY THAT WAS TOPS!!! I suppose he does a good job of doing that, but it's irritating to have to slog through five paragraphs of that shit just to get to the next relevant plot point.
And perhaps Coover got so distracted by how he was writing the story that he kinda lost track of where his story was going at points. Henry's baseball world is a world filled with old-timey players with old-timey names, with an Adjective first name and more often than not an Alliterative last name. It's a world where the ball makes a plfuff sound when it's hit than a solid crack. But it's not a terribly fascinating world.
When the narrative switches to the perspective of the fictional players, not only does the purple prose go into overdrive, the story nosedives into layers of existentialist shit so hard that it scarcely comes back up. When the players are not on the diamond, they spend most of their time talking to each other. Or, I should say, they talk at each other, like cartoon cutups, making noises but not having any meaning behind them. They sing songs, they tell old tales, but nothing is actually advanced. It's like watching a real-life bar scene and expecting a narrative to unfold. But it doesn't because real-life bar scenes don't have narratives and stop looking for meaning in them. Also who pissed in the corner?
Maybe Coover's intention was just to capture the feeling that the fictional characters are going through, but I didn't get much of it. Perhaps it's the dilemma franchise sports enthusiasts face when trying to get others interested in their franchise (it's almost impossible as nobody else shares the same point of reference the creator does, and therefore can't understand why some things are important or whatnot). Perhaps the book is "postmodern," which is a term that is not yet clearly defined and therefore I won't touch with a 10-foot-pole (otherwise known as MY DICK, SCORE :hi-fives all the bros:). But any way you slice it, the fitional baseball narrative goes nowhere and ends up nowhere. I can't even begin to tell you what's actually going on in the final chapter.
Henry himself isn't that interesting a character, and his supporting cast are even shallower than he is. We're never really led to understand why he picked up dice baseball or why it became such an obsession. Coover, though, does understand the intricacies of maintaing and making the most of such a hobby, and he does a good job mentioning the league's various histories, greats and records. For someone writing before any of this shit was as established as it is today (and when everything had to be written down, no less), he really grasps the subject matter well. Or he did. I have no idea if Mr. Coover's still alive.
But the story, unfortunately, devolves into a whole pile of nothing. It's a good vignette, I suppose, but it's too damn long and too damn in love with its own damn purple damn pr-damn-ose. Unless you're able to sustain the travails of Joycean narration and you're really interested in gleaning some insight into how franchise sports players operate, I suggest you give this one a wide berth.
Now, play ball!
It doesn't matter if I liked or disliked the book, I was gonna end that way.
Monday, July 26, 2010
What I like about Inception
Writing about dreams is hard. Depicting them in film/TV is even harder. That's my impression at least.
I know dreams. I can remember them quite vividly, so I can say from experience that usually writers don't really know how to frame them. I don't necessarily blame them, because if they depicted dreams as they usually are, it'd be extremely difficult to make narrative sense out of them.
But when you want to visualize a dream for the films, and you want to do it realistically, there's only one way to do it: vague. Vague vague vague. White borders at the edges. Characters switching positions without moving. People being recognized as who they are despite not looking like who they are. Places you recognize despite them not looking anything like what they are in real life. Difficulty moving. Difficulty thinking, but everything making sense.
With that said, "Inception" doesn't really depict dreams realistically, but it "gets" how they act, how they have no real form or purpose, how they just sit there, being born in your mind and dying if you can't remember them.
I used to think that dreams were just picture shows that my brain played while I was asleep to keep the night staff occupied. The poor janitor cleaning up my hippocampus after a busy day needed something cool to watch, after all. Apparently I internalized that idea so much that (and I may have mentioned this before) I actually had a dream end with a credit roll. Quintus Flufferstuff, you are the best director my mind's theater ever had!
Christopher Nolan seems to embrace this idea to a certain extent in "Inception." Though the dreams are crystal clear (on screen) and have more logic than usual, the entire premise of the movie is much like the theater of the mind. I won't go as far as CHUD's Devin Faraci and say that the entire movie is an alagory of movies as shared dreams, but the pathos that Cobb (Leo DiCaprio) goes through as he navigates the ultimate dream heist rings true to me.
Most of the time, dreams really are just theater, actions played out over a very simple narrative. Sometimes the narrative and settings and cast change, but it's the same basic actions over and over again. You're getting chased. You're chasing someone. You're talking to someone. You're walking somewhere. You're trying to shoot someone. You're avoiding a monster closet.
But sometimes dreams take those elements and push them in a direction that surprises you. You're in a crowded room. Someone very familiar is there. You have to get to her. You can see her. You sense she doesn't know you're there, and you have to change that. This is the kind of thing that sticks with you long after the details fade away, and like a good movie, it's the best kind of dream to have, even if it is sometimes unpleasant (that one wasn't, by the way).
Nolan seems to understand this. Cobb experiences dreams the same way I described above (the graf right above, not the other one. Well, that one too but let's focus on the one I just wrote out). The real story isn't the shootouts, the inception, the rescuing of wayward dreamers. The real story is the reminder that just because something is fiction doesn't mean it ain't real. Cliched, I know, but it's the kind of message that can only be driven home when the audience realizes that it too can participate in this kind of drama.
"Inception" was a fabulous movie all around; not since "The Dark Knight" has a movie hit all the right notes. But what it does beyond being a merely great flick (such as "Cliffhanger" or "The Fugitive" or "As Good As It Gets") is push you. Not necessarily challenge you (some movies don't need to be challenging to get a point across). But it pushes your mind. In a verb, it inspires.
"Jurassic Park" was inspirational to me. "Heat" was. "The Dark Knight" was. And so "Inception" is. These are movies that open up doors in our heads and let's us see what it's like to peer into another world, a world that's fictional but rings true to us. It isn't like "Avatar," which is empty and pointless, like an educational children's toy that can only shout random facts at an inattentive toddler.
The best part is that "Inception" reminds us that, should we ever hit a rut or a block in our creativity, we can fall asleep, and any given night can have a movie play in our head that opens a door for us. The subconscious is an extremely powerful weapon against boredom. Use it well.
I know dreams. I can remember them quite vividly, so I can say from experience that usually writers don't really know how to frame them. I don't necessarily blame them, because if they depicted dreams as they usually are, it'd be extremely difficult to make narrative sense out of them.
But when you want to visualize a dream for the films, and you want to do it realistically, there's only one way to do it: vague. Vague vague vague. White borders at the edges. Characters switching positions without moving. People being recognized as who they are despite not looking like who they are. Places you recognize despite them not looking anything like what they are in real life. Difficulty moving. Difficulty thinking, but everything making sense.
With that said, "Inception" doesn't really depict dreams realistically, but it "gets" how they act, how they have no real form or purpose, how they just sit there, being born in your mind and dying if you can't remember them.
I used to think that dreams were just picture shows that my brain played while I was asleep to keep the night staff occupied. The poor janitor cleaning up my hippocampus after a busy day needed something cool to watch, after all. Apparently I internalized that idea so much that (and I may have mentioned this before) I actually had a dream end with a credit roll. Quintus Flufferstuff, you are the best director my mind's theater ever had!
Christopher Nolan seems to embrace this idea to a certain extent in "Inception." Though the dreams are crystal clear (on screen) and have more logic than usual, the entire premise of the movie is much like the theater of the mind. I won't go as far as CHUD's Devin Faraci and say that the entire movie is an alagory of movies as shared dreams, but the pathos that Cobb (Leo DiCaprio) goes through as he navigates the ultimate dream heist rings true to me.
Most of the time, dreams really are just theater, actions played out over a very simple narrative. Sometimes the narrative and settings and cast change, but it's the same basic actions over and over again. You're getting chased. You're chasing someone. You're talking to someone. You're walking somewhere. You're trying to shoot someone. You're avoiding a monster closet.
But sometimes dreams take those elements and push them in a direction that surprises you. You're in a crowded room. Someone very familiar is there. You have to get to her. You can see her. You sense she doesn't know you're there, and you have to change that. This is the kind of thing that sticks with you long after the details fade away, and like a good movie, it's the best kind of dream to have, even if it is sometimes unpleasant (that one wasn't, by the way).
Nolan seems to understand this. Cobb experiences dreams the same way I described above (the graf right above, not the other one. Well, that one too but let's focus on the one I just wrote out). The real story isn't the shootouts, the inception, the rescuing of wayward dreamers. The real story is the reminder that just because something is fiction doesn't mean it ain't real. Cliched, I know, but it's the kind of message that can only be driven home when the audience realizes that it too can participate in this kind of drama.
"Inception" was a fabulous movie all around; not since "The Dark Knight" has a movie hit all the right notes. But what it does beyond being a merely great flick (such as "Cliffhanger" or "The Fugitive" or "As Good As It Gets") is push you. Not necessarily challenge you (some movies don't need to be challenging to get a point across). But it pushes your mind. In a verb, it inspires.
"Jurassic Park" was inspirational to me. "Heat" was. "The Dark Knight" was. And so "Inception" is. These are movies that open up doors in our heads and let's us see what it's like to peer into another world, a world that's fictional but rings true to us. It isn't like "Avatar," which is empty and pointless, like an educational children's toy that can only shout random facts at an inattentive toddler.
The best part is that "Inception" reminds us that, should we ever hit a rut or a block in our creativity, we can fall asleep, and any given night can have a movie play in our head that opens a door for us. The subconscious is an extremely powerful weapon against boredom. Use it well.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Random thought that occurred to me today while in traffic
When my grandparents dreamed about each other, did they see each other as they were in the present, or as they were when they were younger?
Sunday, July 11, 2010
A Flat (but Good) Book
In a way, it's a shame this book was not bad, because then I could've called this tome "Flat Earth Snooze." Alas, it is actually good. Not great, but good.
If you like the news, and you should or else you're a dummy, then you probably have at least an inkling as to how fucked up it is. Misplaced priorities, chasing down hot leads over substantive stories, and a complete inability to break meaningful stories are the obvious answers. But "Flat Earth News" digs a bit deeper.
Nick Davies works in the (British) newspaper system, and he and his contacts have a huge litany of sins committed by the press, a press that is increasingly dominated by RUPERT. Davies is more focused on newspapers (or as they call them in Britain, tabloids). Actually, he rarely addresses TV news, but many of the points he makes in the book are salient to the TV news world as well.
Davies does a good job illustrating the crazy (and harmful) shit that goes down in news organizations, whether it's hijinks involving an Israeli defector or an asshole managing editor or dudes going through trash looking for leads. He also helpfully explains the drudgery behind "churnalism," the mindless pumping out of stories no matter how pointless, and the tedious process involved in getting them out.
The stories Davies tells and the issues he explores are interesting, but as I said, in the age of the Internet and TV, his focus on newspapers makes things seem a bit quaint. You have to really be a newsie to stay interested, and if you're not, it's hard to recommend the book. Still, it has important things to say about our news media, so be a good citizen and read it. READ IT.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
From the Your Thing Sucks Files: Your Sport Sucks
In the real world, where people actually live, there are numerous ways to pass the time. One of those ways is in sports (or sport, as they say in Britain, and is it any wonder why we broke away from them in 1812?). Sports are (not is) fun because they combine athleticism with war, crybabying, money, bitches and games. And that's just in college!
But not all sports are created equal. Some of them are unequal in the negative sense. That is, they suck and/or are gay, not unlike the Boston Red Sox. In fact, some sports are even worse than the Red Sox, if that can be believed. Basically what I'm saying is I will never be a fan of the Sox no matter what happens. Believe it.
Let's go over them in alphabetical order.
NASCAR is a sport popular in the South, so already you know it's probably crap. And it's true: watching cars go around in circles isn't much fun at all. So why is it so popular?
I can't really say why people choose to endure watching it, but I know why they do: crashes. Everyone knows it, so stop trying to deny it. The risk of sudden explosive death can turn even the most mundane acts into a thrill. Don't believe me? Picture getting people to watch a pair of lovers traipse through a field. If that field were, say, laced with landmines, I bet you'd get a good turnout.
But NASCAR's problem is that the crashes are too few and far between. It's agonizing waiting four hours to see who goes up in a ball of flames. That's why I propose that they just cut to the chase, so to speak, and shorten the races to no more than 10 laps.
The most exciting part of any race is the final few laps, where racers increasingly throw caution to the wind and manuever much more aggressively. So why sit through all that boring foreplay when you can just make it a sprint? If you still think sitting through 100 hours of cars going around in circles, then you're dumb. Imagine playing Mario Kart, except instead of four laps, the tracks are 100 laps. It's EZ to see.
One of the oldest sports ever, tennis is enjoyed by stuck up people all over the world. Which means it's inaccessible to 95% of the population.
Tennis' big problem is that it's so steeped in its own ass that it defies ordinary folks to enjoy it. And it shouldn't be hard to enjoy. It's got lots of movement, lots of action, bitches in short skirts, it's like watching cheerleaders actually engage in competition.
Oh yeah, and I think guys play it too???
But tennis has three things going against it, as far as I can tell. First and foremost, it has an awfully boring cast of characters. Outside of the Williams sisters, most tennisers are hard to get to know. It could be because the mens' division is basically dominated by two guys, and the womens' division is populated by women. But that's really a marketing problem more than a sport problem.
Here's another lame thing about tennis: the scoring system. Who the fuck came up with this shit? (Answer: the English. They really do ruin everything.) Yeah look, I'm sure these rules made sense when they were first conceived outside a bar in 1139, but this America in the 20th century. We have civil rights for blacks and we don't count by 15s.
Now I'm not proposing they go to volleyball rules, but can they at least make this shit clear?
Here's a third problem: The games appear to be boring everyone in the crowd. I don't understand why they insist on silence and shit, like the tennisers can't concentrate unless they can hear a pin drop? Are they babies or something? Do they all have severe ADHD? And what a crock of shit anyway since they all grunt and shriek and sing songs and crap whenever they take a swing. Let the crowd go hog wild and maybe people tuning in will actually think something cool's going on.
So basically, tennis, loosen the fuck up a li'l.
I take that back, tennis. If any sport needs to loosen up, now, it'stetherballgolf. Hoooolllllllyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy shiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.
Whenever Tiger is not "on the" ""prowl,"" which is like being on the pill except it does the opposite of what the pill does, golf tanks in the ratings. Probably because people just aren't interested watching a bunch of stupid Europeans flail around some bumfuck course. Then again, Tiger does the exact same flailing but people like him. So what can golf do?
The Scottish invented golf, so it's only a little less shitty than if the English got their hands on it. Still, golf perfectly encapsulates the dreariness that is the Scottish countryside. Once again, everyone has to be dead quiet because golfers have to enter THE ZONE in order to hit the ball. It's weird. People can skate on ice and hit pucks into holes the size of Usher's dick (it's tiny) (so I hear) (I mean it's supposed to be really tiny), people can hit a small ball with a thin bat while the ball's coming at them at 95 mph, people can shoot a ball into a basket that's like 15" around, all with 40,000+ people screaming their lungs out, but hitting a stationary ball with a big club? No, that requires PERFECT concentration.
So yeah, let the gallery holler and shit. Don't these idiots know that if everyone is cheering, it creates a din that is less distracting than if you have perfect silence interrupted by birds chirping or squirrels fucking or a guy going "C'MON TIGER" under his breath, and then he's thrown off the course for disturbing the course's pet tiger mascot.
Here's another thing that could fix golf: get rid of all those clubs. If I were King of Golf, that's what I'd do. Then I'd invade the Kingdom of Billiards for its hot-ass womens division. But yeah, golfers don't need all those fucking clubs. Maybe they did in the stone age, when a 7-iron actually had a specific purpose different from the 5-iron or the 3-wood, but give me a break. A golfer only needs like four clubs, tops: a driver, a putter, a wedge and MAYBE a lighter club or something. Let the golfers compensate if they don't like it.
Also, as a corollary, I'd force all golfers to use the same make of clubs. No more of this Titlist super ballbreaker driver 5000.
Last, but not least, alligators in every water hazard, and if you hit it into the hazard, you gotta take your next shot next to the water AND with a steak tied around your ankles.
There are a lot of other terrible sports out there that need to be tweaked, but it's too early in the morning to get to them. So I will hold off for now. In the meantime, I will be tackling other things that suck in other venues. Keep your eyes out. I know you will be*.
* You won't be
But not all sports are created equal. Some of them are unequal in the negative sense. That is, they suck and/or are gay, not unlike the Boston Red Sox. In fact, some sports are even worse than the Red Sox, if that can be believed. Basically what I'm saying is I will never be a fan of the Sox no matter what happens. Believe it.
Let's go over them in alphabetical order.
NASCAR
NASCAR is a sport popular in the South, so already you know it's probably crap. And it's true: watching cars go around in circles isn't much fun at all. So why is it so popular?
I can't really say why people choose to endure watching it, but I know why they do: crashes. Everyone knows it, so stop trying to deny it. The risk of sudden explosive death can turn even the most mundane acts into a thrill. Don't believe me? Picture getting people to watch a pair of lovers traipse through a field. If that field were, say, laced with landmines, I bet you'd get a good turnout.
But NASCAR's problem is that the crashes are too few and far between. It's agonizing waiting four hours to see who goes up in a ball of flames. That's why I propose that they just cut to the chase, so to speak, and shorten the races to no more than 10 laps.
The most exciting part of any race is the final few laps, where racers increasingly throw caution to the wind and manuever much more aggressively. So why sit through all that boring foreplay when you can just make it a sprint? If you still think sitting through 100 hours of cars going around in circles, then you're dumb. Imagine playing Mario Kart, except instead of four laps, the tracks are 100 laps. It's EZ to see.
TENNIS
One of the oldest sports ever, tennis is enjoyed by stuck up people all over the world. Which means it's inaccessible to 95% of the population.
Tennis' big problem is that it's so steeped in its own ass that it defies ordinary folks to enjoy it. And it shouldn't be hard to enjoy. It's got lots of movement, lots of action, bitches in short skirts, it's like watching cheerleaders actually engage in competition.
Oh yeah, and I think guys play it too???
But tennis has three things going against it, as far as I can tell. First and foremost, it has an awfully boring cast of characters. Outside of the Williams sisters, most tennisers are hard to get to know. It could be because the mens' division is basically dominated by two guys, and the womens' division is populated by women. But that's really a marketing problem more than a sport problem.
Here's another lame thing about tennis: the scoring system. Who the fuck came up with this shit? (Answer: the English. They really do ruin everything.) Yeah look, I'm sure these rules made sense when they were first conceived outside a bar in 1139, but this America in the 20th century. We have civil rights for blacks and we don't count by 15s.
Now I'm not proposing they go to volleyball rules, but can they at least make this shit clear?
Here's a third problem: The games appear to be boring everyone in the crowd. I don't understand why they insist on silence and shit, like the tennisers can't concentrate unless they can hear a pin drop? Are they babies or something? Do they all have severe ADHD? And what a crock of shit anyway since they all grunt and shriek and sing songs and crap whenever they take a swing. Let the crowd go hog wild and maybe people tuning in will actually think something cool's going on.
So basically, tennis, loosen the fuck up a li'l.
GOLFIN
I take that back, tennis. If any sport needs to loosen up, now, it's
Whenever Tiger is not "on the" ""prowl,"" which is like being on the pill except it does the opposite of what the pill does, golf tanks in the ratings. Probably because people just aren't interested watching a bunch of stupid Europeans flail around some bumfuck course. Then again, Tiger does the exact same flailing but people like him. So what can golf do?
The Scottish invented golf, so it's only a little less shitty than if the English got their hands on it. Still, golf perfectly encapsulates the dreariness that is the Scottish countryside. Once again, everyone has to be dead quiet because golfers have to enter THE ZONE in order to hit the ball. It's weird. People can skate on ice and hit pucks into holes the size of Usher's dick (it's tiny) (so I hear) (I mean it's supposed to be really tiny), people can hit a small ball with a thin bat while the ball's coming at them at 95 mph, people can shoot a ball into a basket that's like 15" around, all with 40,000+ people screaming their lungs out, but hitting a stationary ball with a big club? No, that requires PERFECT concentration.
So yeah, let the gallery holler and shit. Don't these idiots know that if everyone is cheering, it creates a din that is less distracting than if you have perfect silence interrupted by birds chirping or squirrels fucking or a guy going "C'MON TIGER" under his breath, and then he's thrown off the course for disturbing the course's pet tiger mascot.
Here's another thing that could fix golf: get rid of all those clubs. If I were King of Golf, that's what I'd do. Then I'd invade the Kingdom of Billiards for its hot-ass womens division. But yeah, golfers don't need all those fucking clubs. Maybe they did in the stone age, when a 7-iron actually had a specific purpose different from the 5-iron or the 3-wood, but give me a break. A golfer only needs like four clubs, tops: a driver, a putter, a wedge and MAYBE a lighter club or something. Let the golfers compensate if they don't like it.
Also, as a corollary, I'd force all golfers to use the same make of clubs. No more of this Titlist super ballbreaker driver 5000.
Last, but not least, alligators in every water hazard, and if you hit it into the hazard, you gotta take your next shot next to the water AND with a steak tied around your ankles.
* * *
There are a lot of other terrible sports out there that need to be tweaked, but it's too early in the morning to get to them. So I will hold off for now. In the meantime, I will be tackling other things that suck in other venues. Keep your eyes out. I know you will be*.
* You won't be
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
This makes NO CENSUS (heheeehehe
It's 2010, and that means only one thing: It won't be until 2211 until we have a year where the sum of the first two digits are half of the sum of the second two digits. Coincidentally, it's also Census Time!!
Because America is one of the worst countries ever, it turns out that we can't even do this stupid shit right. The Teabaggers, America's favorite retarded children, are pulling yet another page out of the Kid in the Back of the Room Playbook and are refusing to fill out something that is constitutionally mandated. Perhaps they think that if they fill it out, Herod will slay all their kids.
But since I have no kids (that I know of (hyuck hyuck)), I'll fill mine out. The census people, recognizing how stupid Americans are, say that you'll need 10 minutes to fill out these 10 questions. Keep in mind that this is NOT a short-answer test.
Here we go.
1) How many people were living or staying in this house, apartment, or mobile home on April 1, 2010?
On April 1? A bit confusing since I don't know if they want a joke answer or if this question itself is a joke. Also no cardboard boxes? There goes half of South Boston.
2) Were there any additional people staying here that you did not include in Question 1?
Answers include little kids, relatives, nonrelatives or temporary guests. I don't know why the fuck you would not include your kids. Maybe the census people were being proactive in anticipating how stupid people would be. Or maybe Herod's agents are trying to trick Teabaggers into revealing how many kids they have to slaughter.
3) Is this house, apartment, or mobile home owned by you or someone in the house with a mortgage or loan? Or owned outright? Rented? Or occupied without payment of rent?
I guess to find out who's squatting so that cruise missiles can be alotted appropriately.
4) What is your telephone number?
Teabaggers don't like giving this one out. Surely the government has not yet mastered the secret of the white pages...
5) What is your name?
It has a box for a middle initial but no Christian/confirmation name. This means serious trouble.
6) What is your sex?
No box for "yes please."
7) What is your age (as of 4/1/10) and DOB?
So the Census people can send you the appropriate number of candles, I guess.
8) Are you of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish descent?
Choices include "no," "Mexican/Chicano," "BORICUA :blows horn:" "Cubano," "other." Once again Dominicanos are assed out. New York is NOT gonna like this.
9) What is your race?
Some retardandos have made a fuss about this, opting to fill in something stupid like "American!!" They're actually just gonna fill in "White" like everyone else.
Interestingly enough, they don't have "Arab" or "Persian" listed, which is weird. But they want you to distinguish between your Asiatics (i.e., Hmong, Cambodian, etc.), but I guess it makes no difference if you're African, mixed-African (what is a black Cuban supposed to fill out?), or European. All the turdlickers who want to fill out Norwegian, Xhosa, Italian, Afrikaan or German-Swiss are assed out.
10) Do you sometimes live or stay somewhere else?
Choices include hiding out in college, hiding out in the military, hiding out in your summer home, hiding out in jail, or hiding out in a nursing home.
I guess if you take the last few questions it can take more than three minutes. At any rate, those are the 10 Census questions for Census 2010. It's been a good one, folks! See you next year!!
Because America is one of the worst countries ever, it turns out that we can't even do this stupid shit right. The Teabaggers, America's favorite retarded children, are pulling yet another page out of the Kid in the Back of the Room Playbook and are refusing to fill out something that is constitutionally mandated. Perhaps they think that if they fill it out, Herod will slay all their kids.
But since I have no kids (that I know of (hyuck hyuck)), I'll fill mine out. The census people, recognizing how stupid Americans are, say that you'll need 10 minutes to fill out these 10 questions. Keep in mind that this is NOT a short-answer test.
Here we go.
1) How many people were living or staying in this house, apartment, or mobile home on April 1, 2010?
On April 1? A bit confusing since I don't know if they want a joke answer or if this question itself is a joke. Also no cardboard boxes? There goes half of South Boston.
2) Were there any additional people staying here that you did not include in Question 1?
Answers include little kids, relatives, nonrelatives or temporary guests. I don't know why the fuck you would not include your kids. Maybe the census people were being proactive in anticipating how stupid people would be. Or maybe Herod's agents are trying to trick Teabaggers into revealing how many kids they have to slaughter.
3) Is this house, apartment, or mobile home owned by you or someone in the house with a mortgage or loan? Or owned outright? Rented? Or occupied without payment of rent?
I guess to find out who's squatting so that cruise missiles can be alotted appropriately.
4) What is your telephone number?
Teabaggers don't like giving this one out. Surely the government has not yet mastered the secret of the white pages...
5) What is your name?
It has a box for a middle initial but no Christian/confirmation name. This means serious trouble.
6) What is your sex?
No box for "yes please."
7) What is your age (as of 4/1/10) and DOB?
So the Census people can send you the appropriate number of candles, I guess.
8) Are you of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish descent?
Choices include "no," "Mexican/Chicano," "BORICUA :blows horn:" "Cubano," "other." Once again Dominicanos are assed out. New York is NOT gonna like this.
9) What is your race?
Some retardandos have made a fuss about this, opting to fill in something stupid like "American!!" They're actually just gonna fill in "White" like everyone else.
Interestingly enough, they don't have "Arab" or "Persian" listed, which is weird. But they want you to distinguish between your Asiatics (i.e., Hmong, Cambodian, etc.), but I guess it makes no difference if you're African, mixed-African (what is a black Cuban supposed to fill out?), or European. All the turdlickers who want to fill out Norwegian, Xhosa, Italian, Afrikaan or German-Swiss are assed out.
10) Do you sometimes live or stay somewhere else?
Choices include hiding out in college, hiding out in the military, hiding out in your summer home, hiding out in jail, or hiding out in a nursing home.
I guess if you take the last few questions it can take more than three minutes. At any rate, those are the 10 Census questions for Census 2010. It's been a good one, folks! See you next year!!
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