Can you tell the difference between people of Japanese, Chinese, and Korean descent? Take the test and find out! I scored an 8 out of 18 on my first try. Not very good, huh? Oh, but my heart was in the right place. I’ll do better next time, I promise.
All posts by Lucas
Hey, kids!
Check it out!
The CIA’s got its own page just for kids like YOU!
It’s full of fun and games! You can disguise yourself as a dirty hippie to infiltrate that commie cult! Or try the Word Search Puzzle! Can you find “foreign assassination” and “puppet dictator”? Hint: You just might have to look sideways!
Life goes on, bra
Regular television programming has more or less resumed, but there has certainly been, and justifiably so, a dark cloud, more composed of confusion and sorrow than of gloom, hovering over everything. David Letterman resumed his show tonight, and admitted that he didn’t feel it was entirely appropriate for his show to be back on, that it was too soon. Dan Rather was the lead guest, and at least twice he let his emotions get the best of him and broke down in tears as he and Dave chatted. He apologized immediately, saying he was a professional, and that it was his job to not let things like that show. Dave patted his hand and said, “Yes, you’re a professional, but good Christ, you’re also a human being.” The audience applauded, and I sort of broke down in tears myself. Can’t really blame Dan, or the other anchors – they’ve pretty much been working eighteen hours a day since Tuesday morning, and not only have they had no time to spend with their loved ones, but they have necessarily been forced to think about and reflect on the disasters almost exclusively since they occurred. Plus, they become privy to information long before it comes out to the public. I won’t blame them for one minute for letting the strain show through. And this certainly applies to the rescue workers, who are in much the same boat but have the added trauma of seeing and feeling the carnage, and yet must remain stoic and strong and continue to dig. If they need to rest for a moment, or have a cry, that’s something they should do. Not that they need my permission or anyone else’s, for that matter.
Craig Kilborn opened his show with no introduction, no monologue – we simply saw him sitting at his desk. He quietly explained that, like Dave, he wasn’t entirely confident that it was the right time to continue with the show. He also noted that the possibility of a coming war would certainly affect how and when his show is aired. How would they know what was appropriate then? Tonight’s show, then, was to be a sort of experiment. “No comedy,” he said. “Just catharsis.” He acknowledged that it would be pretty easy for his writing staff to put together some innocuous comedy bits, but no one felt like being funny. Craig said he himself didn’t feel like being funny and didn’t know how many days, weeks it would be until he felt the show could return to normal. And despite all this, just like on Letterman, there were still laughs, some self-deprecatory (“Some of you will say, ‘Craig, you’ve done no-comedy shows before, haven’t you?’ Well, this time it’s intentional.”) and some simply bittersweet. Say what you like about Craig Kilborn, but tonight he had me choked up.
I think it’s a good thing for these men to be back on television – NBC’s talk shows aren’t back on yet as far as I can tell – because I think it will help us grieve, and it will help us to find that catharsis Craig was talking about, and it will raise us, however gradually, from the gloom, and it will remind us, if any of us needed the reminder, that all is not lost.
Off-topic and somewhat frivolous after the above, but I have found the following to be a useful distraction in the last few days – [http://www.vectorinternet.co.uk/games/kick-ups.html]. It’s a little flash game where you see how many times you can kick (click) a soccer ball before it hits the ground. I suck at it – my highest score has been 17, which is small potatoes compared to the highest scores, but that’s neither here nor there – it’s just a nice little way to pass the time without having to think too much. I’ll admit thinking too much is not necessarily a problem for certain segments of the American population at this point in time, but if you’re like me, and this tragedy makes your own mortality loom and your sense of hopelessness about the state of the world expand, then take a break, and go suck at this game. At least, if you’re like me, you’ll suck at it.
Don’t say it, don’t play it
Clear Channel is a corporation that is notable for the fact that they own and control more radio stations in the United States then almost any other group. The following is purportedly a list of songs that they are discouraging their stations from playing in the wake of the terrorist attacks, on the basis that they may be inappropriate, tasteless, or simply evocative of recent events:
http://www.hitsdailydouble.com/news/songs.html
Understandable:
Soundgarden “Blow Up the Outside World”
Black Sabbath “Suicide Solution”
Beastie Boys “Sabotage”
Surfaris “Wipeout”
Savage Garden “Crash and Burn”
Elton John “Daniel”
Lenny Kravitz “Fly Away”
Tom Petty “Free Fallin'”
Bangles “Walk Like an Egyptian”
Pushing it:
Foo Fighters “Learn to Fly”
Sugar Ray “Fly”
Steam “Na Na Na Na Hey Hey”
John Parr “St. Elmo’s Fire”
Talking Heads “Burning Down the House”
The Clash “Rock the Casbah”
Alien Ant Farm “Smooth Criminal”
Red Hot Chili Peppers “Under the Bridge”
Smashing Pumpkins “Bullet With Butterfly Wings”
WTF:
Simon And Garfunkel “Bridge Over Troubled Water”
Zombies “She’s Not There”
The Beatles “Obla Di, Obla Da”
Cat Stevens “Morning Has Broken”
Nina “99 Luft Balloons/99 Red Balloons”
John Lennon “Imagine”
Peter Paul and Mary “Blowin’ in the Wind”
A comic creator speaks out
Did we bomb Boston to stop the Boston Strangler ? Did we level New York City to get at Son of Sam ? No we did not. So why the fuck should we flatten Afghanistan just to get at a bunch of murderous bastards who have the country’s people in a repressive death grip ?
…
Or…here’s my favourite solution, which would actually be much more effective than any other but who’s going to listen to a loony peacenik like me ?
We bring bin Laden back to the U.S. for trial and BEFORE locking him up, we keep him in house arrest…. IN THE PLAYBOY MANSION!
Can you imagine how rapidly and thoroughly Bin Laden’s fanatical following would collapse if they saw pictures of him sipping cocktails by the poolside, surrounded by bikini-clad airheads ?
Can you imagine him trying to espouse his fundamentalist doctrines to a gigling gaggle of sexy Playmates ?..
Who do you think will go to heaven?
“The ACLU’s got to take a lot of blame for this. And, I know that I’ll hear from them for this. But, throwing God or successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say ‘you helped this happen’.”
– Jerry Falwell, The 700 Club, 9/13/01
Um. This man is an idiot. A hateful, delusional, self-motivated idiot. I sincerely hope this is the last time this asshole is ever heard from in a public forum.
On to more important matters. This past summer, there was a reality series on Fox called Murder in Small Town X, which was basically a long murder mystery dinner game enacted in great detail for television. I only saw the two-hour finale, but it was very engrossing. The winner of the game was an NYC firefighter named Angel Juarbe. You can probably see what’s coming. Angel was among the hundreds of firefighters inside the World Trade Center when it collapsed. He’s still unaccounted for, as confirmed by friends and the producers of the show. I remember him saying at the end of the show that even though he won the money (I forget how much it was. A hundred thousand, I think?) he wasn’t going to give up his job, because firefighting was what he wanted to do. Reportedly his unit was among the first on the scene. Apparently he was on the phone with a friend when it happened and cut the call short, saying, “I gotta go… I have to go to the World Trade Center.” Here’s hoping, for the sake of his family and friends, that he turns up soon.
What to believe?
Something I suspected might be the case turned out to be. From www.counterpunch.org:
Least credible news footage
CNN’s videotape of Palestinians supposedly dancing in the streets of a West Bank town. CounterPuncher Marcio A.V. Carvalho at the state university of Campinas in Brazil tells us that he and his colleagues had compared this tape with one from 1991 showing Palestinian cheering, and found them to be identical.
There may be a mitigating factor here, though. Yesterday the Associated Press filed a story about a cameraman who was threatened after taking video of a Palestinian rally:
AP protests threats to cameraman
The videographer, on assignment for Associated Press Television News, was summoned to a Palestinian Authority security office and told that the material must not be aired. Calls in the name of the Tanzim militia, an armed group associated with Yasser Arafat’s Fatah group, warned him he would be held responsible and made what he interpreted as threats on his life.
Several Palestinian Authority officials spoke to AP in Jerusalem urging that the material not be broadcast. Ahmed Abdel Rahman, Arafat’s Cabinet secretary, said the Palestinian Authority “cannot guarantee the life” of the cameraman if the footage was broadcast.
Possibly the 1991 footage was similar to the censored footage from the rally. If that’s the case, it’s a fairly unethical and irresponsible decision to use it. If this story *isn’t* the reason the footage was used… well, I’d just hate to think that CNN was purposefully trying to foster resentment towards Palestinians…
In shock
 |
Yawn, I mean yay
Just saw on the news that Michael Jordan will be returning to his career has a professional basketball player.
You know, instead of returning to the NBA, he should start his own professional league, which would consist entirely of retired millionaire players who have nothing better to do. Just a real casual, laid-back league. They can sit on the sidelines in rocking chairs instead of on a bench. Just to keep it interesting, though, we’ll have the two baskets suspended from the ceiling back-to-back in the center of the court instead of on the ends, and also they will be forty feet up. The court itself will have a moving floor; it will tilt gradually as much as sixty degrees in one direction, and then in the other. The degree of tilt would be determined by the amount of time that has gone by on the shot clock. The lines on the court will be heated and scalding to the touch. If a ball goes out of bounds, it is lost forever and the team responsible must trade one of their players to the referee for a new ball. The player will then go sit down in the upper seats and must remain there for the rest of the half. If a team has less than five people left during a half due to out-of-bounds balls, the head coach, assistant coach, team doctor, mascot, and/or one of the players’ wives must fill in so that each team has five members on the court at all times, even during halftime and commerical breaks, even if they are just sitting there. All games will be played shoes-and-skins. All players who have shaved heads but are not naturally bald will be required to wear ridiculous stereotypical Afro wigs for the duration of the season, even while sleeping.
Alternately, Michael should join the Harlem Globetrotters. Their ticket sales could use a shot in the arm, and Michael’s little tongue-wagging floating-in-midair bit fits right in with the Globetrotters’ wacky style.
Or he could finance the creation of an army of killer robots with basketballs for heads who will march on our major cities and surely kill us all.
Go see this
Despite my film major upbringing, I have no pretensions towards movie criticdom. However, an issue must be addressed. I read some reviews online of the film Wet Hot American Summer, released in early August of this year, which claimed that the movie was “unfunny” and its jokes were “lame”. Also, it is “ineptly made”.
Let me tell you, not as any sort of cultural commentator or social critic, but as an average, intelligent human being who doesn’t laugh at things that aren’t funny: they are wrong. VERY wrong. Job-risking wrong. Wet Hot American Summer is easily the funniest film I’ve seen in a long time, and one of the most meticulously crafted. The critics don’t seem to get the joke.
The movie, made by folks from MTV’s The State (which I have never seen), is ostensibly a parody of early ’80s summer camp movies such as Meatballs. But that’s not quite what it is. “Parody” nowadays takes various scenes from popular movies, replaces the actors with “funny” equivalents, and adds a “funny” twist to make the scene “funny”. Sometimes, what is “funny” is actually funny, but check out this list: Spaceballs. Robin Hood: Men in Tights. Scary Movie. Repossessed. Loaded Weapon 1. Hot Shots!. Well, I liked Hot Shots!. But these movies are all examples of what the American “parody” movie has become.
I left Airplane! off the list because it’s a different animal. I can’t quite explain what the difference is, but I think it has something to do with the idea that Airplane! is actually a serious movie, not conventionally a comedy at all, but the dramatic situations are completely stretched to the point of absurdity – which is what makes them funny. The “gags” in the movie (the inflating automatic pilot, the romantic flashback stuff) are actually where the movie is weaker, and the stronger moments are the ones that are completely deadpan, yet make absolutely no sense (the young boy offering the young girl coffee, pretty much every scene Leslie Nielsen is in).
Wet Hot American Summer is anomalous in kind of the same way. It’s not a deconstruction of a summer camp movie, it is a summer camp movie. A hilarious, ridiculous, absurd one. It’s what a summer camp movie would have been if such movies were smart. And it’s made beautifully, right down to the trashy, grainy cinematography and the bad continuity, all clearly very intentional and thought-out.
One review I read spoke of David Hyde Pierce (whose scenes of pure awkwardness with Janeane Garofalo are just priceless), “who, in his work as Niles on Frasier, does some of the most talented farce acting any actor has accomplished in the last few years”. Sure, I love him on Frasier. But he’s played that character forever. The reviewer then goes on to say David Hyde Pierce is given nothing to work with. I disagree. Hearing David Hyde Pierce say, in a moment of frustration, “Fuck my cock!” is alone worth the price of admission. It’s difficult to say which actor gives the funniest performance – Paul Rudd is great, Michael Ian Black has some great scenes, and of course Michael Showalter as the sympathetic hero – but I think I’d have to give the edge to Christopher Meloni, of all people – the lead on Law & Order: SVU but here a crazy, bearded Vietnam-vet cook who steals every scene he’s in.
Again, I’m not a movie critic. I don’t want to be a movie critic. It doesn’t matter how I explain it. Wet Hot American Summer was damn funny. Go see it.
By popular demand
Shaved.
Streptococcus is every bit as dirty as it sounds
“I’m sick,” I said.
“How long have you been sick?” the doctor asked.
“A week,” I told her.
“Open your mouth and stick out your tongue,” she said. I did so. She shined a light into my throat and turned away in horror.
“STREPTOCOCCUS!!!” she screamed. “The worst case I’ve ever seen! Quick,” she said, handing me a bottle of pills, “take these. And make sure you are not around people for the next three days or else you will infect them with STREPTOCOCCUS!!!“
Later, at home, I decided to look into my throat and see for myself. My bathroom was dark, so I manipulated my wall-mounted shaving mirror until it was shining a light directly onto my tonsils.
STREPTOCOCCUS!!!
My normally pink throat was covered in large white polka dots. It was as if bits of it had been bleached. It somewhat resembled a marshmallow swirl. Suddenly, my uvula started vibrating at a very high speed. Soon, I realized it was because I was screaming.
“STREPTOCOCCUS!!!”
Oh, but I’m feeling much better now.
Sick as a dawg
I got toads in my nodes and a stoat in my throat.