I think it's safe to say that we children of the 80's were blessed with the best cartoon and action figure IPs of any generation. While Reaganomics was trickling down financial viscera upon the needy and John DeLorean (of the New Jersey DeLoreans) struggled to birth a cocaine empire to salvage his mondo-awesome car company, we were treated to Fred and Daphne repeatedly abandoning the serious business of investigating groovy mysteries for the immediate gratification of their gratuitous and frankly depraved sexual predilictions, leaving a plucky lesbian, a degenerate hippie with obvious learning disabilities, and a talking dog to do the yeoman's work. If drug culture and alternative lifestyles weren't your bag, there was always the communist utopia of the Smurfs, whose uniformity was broken only by the disparate skill-sets they had to offer up to their red, bearded Papa as the greedy capitalist Gargamel strove to distill from their minature corpses the ingredient essential to his alchemical formula for gold. And if communal living, alchemy, and political theory didn't do it for you, there was He-Man.
I embed this painting by, I believe, Matisse (though it may actually be a Renoir from his 1883 summer in Guernsey) not to emphasize the glistening musculature and overly modest loincloths of these unrepentantly heterosexual superheroes and villains, but rather to appreciate the subtle poetry of these characters' names. The eponymous protagonist needs little analysis: how better to immortalize the nuance of his unique motivations and the complex psychology of the hero mindset than by lashing together the masculine pronoun and the generic noun for the male gender? This is the equivalent of e.e. cummings's "l(a" or William Carlos Williams's "The Red Wheelbarrow," and like these works, are best appreciated in quiet contemplation.
But what of the myriad other names from this elaborate and rich universe? Shall I speak of the wind warrior Sy-Klone, the bee-like Buzz-Off, or perhaps he of many faces, Man-E-Faces? Might I dwell upon the inspirational tales of men overcoming conspicuous physical disability to triumph and thereby grasp at immortality: a man with a disproportionately large metal hand named Fisto; the crab man named Clawful; the conjoined evil twins, Two-Bad. Sure, the poet-philosophers who crafted this pantheon may have plumbed the depths of certain wells a few too many times: Skeletor, Spydor, Stinkor, Spikor, Panthor, and Grizzlor. Of course, those of a certain moral deformity might unscrupulously appropriate one or two of these names to dub acts of sexual licentiousness that would make Daphne and Fred blush a crimson worthy of that man's neckerchief. For instance, a "Thunder Punch" to the "Moss Man" below one's "Mantenna" might produce a "Dragon Blaster" on your "Man-at-Arms." I call it a "Prince Adam."
Looking back at this now, I confess I didn't appreciate how much the He-Man universe resembled the harrowing chronicles of two rival circuses sending their carnie abominations into gladiatorial contest. But honestly, if you were the ringleader of that menagerie, what else would you do? Apart from a lot of coke, of course.
It doesn't take a clairvoyant to guess that I'm a big fan of Old Spice's ongoing absurdist ad campaign; indeed, I've even used one or two of the commercials as objects for analysis in class. Even less surprising, with the popularity of the campaign has come a number of parodies, but the following one, dovetailing off the Old Spice guy's own shout-out to libraries, warms the cockles of my cold, dead academic heart. For years, university libraries were getting a bad rap, what with the hobos / hippies sleeping in window alcoves and perverts stalking (and occasionally assaulting) students in the stacks. But in my defense, I was just making sure my students were performing proper research techniques for their papers; the bear mace was really unnecessary on their part.
First the original video by the Old Spice guy, then the parody from Bring-Them-Young University.
The moral of these stories: litereseas is goodest. No need to despair for the plight of American edukation. OMG. ROFL!!1!! :) BYOB C U LATR!
For weeks now I've been reveling in France's utterly pathetic showing at the World Cup. Their much publicized bickering, subsequent collapse, and international shame are so delicious that I could eat it with a spoon, calories be damned. If I weren't already wed, I'd marry that debacle and spend the rest of my life faithfully loving it. You see, the delicate sauce that flavored this travesty so perfectly was the sweet tang of justice: in their last qualifying match, France eliminated Ireland through an equalizing goal that was set up by a Thierry Henry hand ball that was not called by the ref. In short, Ireland was denied a place in the World Cup because of a blown call. And though both nations are predominantly Catholic, God clearly took sides on the issue and made a point of raining Old Testament calamity upon the French side. Amen.
Sadly, I have come to learn that said hand ball was actually divine retribution itself. Behold the one and only foray by the Celtic race into kung fu films and see if you too don't feel the righteous fury of the Almighty swell within your breast:
I honestly can't think of a better way to sell this movie than they already do: "A classic good versus evil action flick, mixed with kicks, guns, motorcycles and a hot babe!" Of course, this may be because I'm utterly enamored by the alliterative phrase "mixed with kicks." I think it should be attached to everything. "Penicillin - now mixed with kicks." "Quick dry cement - please mix with kicks." And of course, "Your Mom: Mixed with Kicks."
However, this glorious line of poetry says little about the film's true substance. Luke McKinney over at Cracked puts it best: "Fatal Deviation is an ancient curse on the Irish people ('ancient' being 1993), passed on by a few VHS tapes like cinematic herpes until DVD technology re-released it on the world in exactly the same way archaeological digs 're-release' angry mummies...Fatal Deviation is not a parody. It's an Irish martial arts movie about a secret kung fu tournament run in a barn by a group of hobo-monks in the scenic village of Trim."
Clearly, Jimmy Bennett, the star / writer / director / cinematographer / "Fight Action Choreographer" / great shame of the Irish people / producer of this "film," played Mortal Kombat and thought it had a pretty sweet premise. The "hobo-monks" who organize the tournament and apparently train young Jimmy clearly have nothing to do with the decades of sexual abuse scandal that have plagued the Catholic church here and abroad:
I guarantee that haunting image is the last thing a number of children saw before an ether rag was shoved over their mouth and they were thrown into the back of a windowless van. Of, if we're going by the background, the last thing a smiling couple on a romantic hike saw before a hobo, reeking of the Elmer's Glue he just had for lunch, stabs them with a filthy Taco Bell spork and drags them off to his den, where he leisurely eats them both over the course of the next few weeks. The fact that the robe evokes Ben Kenobi on Tatooine makes it even worse for me. Pederasty and cannibalism are not the Jedi code.
Where was I? Oh yeah, talking about how much this movie is an affront to God and the entire history of cinema. The list of why this "movie" is so terrible stretches off into the horizon like the scrawl of text at the opening of a Star Wars movie (see what I did there?), and thus is far too lengthy to innumerate in its entirety. Still, if you ordered a sampler of this delicacy at your local pub, it would go something like this: pathetic fight choreography, editing that could only have been done by a chimpanzee with severe head trauma, an unintentional car crash because the ass couldn't navigate a narrow country road, a cast list that includes a member of the one Irish boy band from the 90's (Boyzone, which, I'll admit, one of my cousins was obsessed with when she was 6)...God, I feel disgusted with myself. Just watch this trailer for the movie and see for yourself. Or, save yourself two and a half minutes and just gouge your eyes out now.
Also, I found this gem from the same distributor:
Honestly, it seems like you can't throw a fucking rock without hitting an underground fight tournament in these movies. They really need to come up with an original premise. Like how an awkward and unpopular girl gets made over to become the prom queen, or how a grizzled detective plays by his own rules to catch the bad guys. Or maybe a grizzled girl plays by her own rules to get the prom queen, who is a bad guy / trannie. I'd pay to see that.
Just a quick note to point out I've finally corrected the link to Miss Carousel's Livejournal page on this page's sidebar. Where I rant about the absurd mainly to show off how clever I think I am and Ryan over at More Rants than Raves simply appreciates similar stories' absurdities for the sake of their own absurdities, Miss Carousel actually writes about her life and experiences with a candor I could only hope to fabricate during my best attempts at playing at being a full human being. It's a refreshing change in tone from my own inanity, and for those of you who knew her while she lived in the 'Side, I trust you'll enjoy catching up on her Livejournal page as much as I have.
Unless you're blind, you've noticed the aesthetic revisions made to the blog's template. If you are blind, please stop pawing at the computer screen; you're getting fingerprints all over it and you look fucking ridiculous (you'll have to trust me on that last part).
Wow...even I feel a little ashamed about that last line. And it didn't even involve sex tangentially, which is the usual source of my ever-present Catholic shame. Dammit. I just know I'm going to be conned by gypsies in a few years for that one. Or I'm going to lose my own sight in a tragic amateur falconry accident. Ah, the bitter price we pay for our aristocratic pleasures. But I digress.
The cartographical theme is, at least in part, inspired by recent events. A post I made shortly before my absence seems to have garnered no small bit of international response. Apparently, something of my doggerel poetry in anticipation of my annual Dungeons & Dragons vacation struck a cord in my fans from the Far East, for at last count, there are a full fifty two comments on the post. Now, I can draw sounds as well as the next guy, but the strange markings in each of these responses remain utterly impenetrable to me. American monoglot that I am, anything that isn't in English is ultimately gobbledygook to my stunning blue-green eyes, save for the occasional halting Spanish inquiries regarding the location of the library (which, if you were wondering, esta en la ciudad).
Still, the very opacity of their comments tantalizes me, not unlike how sometimes the most enticing accoutrement on a lovely woman obscures more than it reveals. And yes, I just compared language to a nubile female body and the act of translation to her disrobing; I am not the first to do so, and even if I were, I remain utterly unrepentant. My point is this, though: I want to know what these comments say, and thus if any of my readers could translate even a few of these remarks, I would be eternally grateful. Chances are they're advertising solutions to erectile dysfunction, or if I really struck a chord, threatening my life. Maybe both. Still, before I can appreciate these haiku and their poetic conceit of cherry blossoms in winter as flaccid genitalia / my life's expiration, I need your help in disrobing this exotic beauty. I promise we'll keep it between you and me.
Despite your fervent wishes that I do something productive with my life, I resolutely - defiantly, even - continue my humble blog. I was going to make an extended metaphor (is there another kind?) about keeping it plugged into the wall a little longer, but I've had some experience with that sort of thing, so I will forbear. I know, I know: I was as surprised as you are that life support systems aren't that funny. I think it's the incessant beeping - well, at least one hopes it's incessant. Sort of the point, right?
Well, look at me. Four months absent and I take a decidedly macabre turn in under five lines, and a full seven before I interject an unnecessarily French word. And yes, that grammatical construction was intended: the use of the word is entirely essential, but the word itself is far more "French" than it should be. Try to tone it down a little, "macabre." Why not just French-Canadian? You'd make a killing in Hollywood and be almost obnoxiously grateful and modest about it the whole time.
Admittedly, I'm being a tad more self-indulgent than usual this time out, if only to remind you what you're getting yourself (back) into. Consider yourself warned. I now return you to our regularly scheduled programming: the good Colonel ponderously railing against the trivialities of life in a desperate gambit to avoid confronting the genuinely important matters that swirl around us all, like windstorms and the rampant corruption in professional midget tossing.
Interested in wading through the swamps of Dagobah? Sledding on Hoth? Perhaps a picnic on Endor, followed by a romantic speeder chase and finished with some recreational Ewok clubbing? The galaxy is your space oyster, my friend. Glance through the exciting bevy of systems that await you. Leave your worries behind. Just bring your sense of adventure. And your credits.
These are the product of a graphic designer our of Chicago, Justin Van Genderen. If you're interested in tracking down a print of one of these Star Wars Tourism posters, you can browse here. I'm thinking of doing so myself. It can go next to my replica lightsaber and above the shelf with my dog-eared copies of How to Make Friends, Resignation: Accepting That You Will Die Alone, and Cat Fancy.
As many of you know, the lads from high school and I annually gather for one week during the summer to luxuriate in each others' company. This often entails binge drinking, video games, a disparate mixture of fast food and carefully crafted dinners by the various attendees, and binge drinking. On occasions there are also minor altercations, like last year, when one cultist playfully backhanded another gentleman's "swimsuit area" (like you do), to which the other responded by immediately standing...okay, wait. Every male reader knows you don't "immediately stand" after a shot to the mommy-daddy button, but let's just fast forward past the intervening moments of palpable agony this man endured. Ahem. So he stood, face jutting forward menacingly at his foe. Whenever confronted with such a threat, the animal portion of the brain makes its instinctive "fight or flight" decision, which I've always understood to be no decision at all. Apparently the victim's brain, wracked by agony as it was, misfired in some way and accidentally chose "fight." Thankfully nothing came of it. That shit will get you killed, yo.
What also has been known to merit the violent cessation of life is writing doggerel children's poetry for your Dungeon's and Dragon's group. You see, each year's ostensible purpose is not merely getting together again and acting like 15 year olds, but it's to get together and act like 15 year olds and play DnD. Each year a different member is in charge of crafting and running the campaign, and this year I have accepted that most holy of mantles. My first communique to my victims was simply this:
The knave, the seer,
The bastard weird,
Approached the ruin black;
The smith and squire,
Climbéd the spire,
To turn the trio back.
When whence they left,
The former cleft,
That split them was no more.
Their purpose knit,
Their skill and wit
Averted certain war.
Rejoice, dear friends,
Our violent end
Has missed us by a hair.
But trust you not
This peace they wrought;
Our doom comes through their heir.
—children’s rhyme used to begin a game of “Heroes’ Choice”
See you all this summer.
Honestly, can someone explain to me how I found a woman willing to marry me? I guarantee that the second I post this, every person who has even felt a twinge of affection for me will feel a deep and palpable shame settle over them, like a quilt woven of horrible realizations.
I'd explain myself further, but the other members of the gang read this blog, and I dare not unpack my doggerel's pregnant lines for fear I accidentally let slip the glittering clue with which they might avert their doom. And that just simply will not do. I mean to destroy them all.
Dear God, it took me four tries to spell Philippines right. Honestly, they just give Ph.Ds in English out to anyone off the street nowadays.
Ahem. But I digress.
A very good friend of mine has started a blog about his various (mis)adventures and wry observations. At first blush, this may sound rather mundane. After all, A Lie Told Well began as something akin to this, but I had to drop the "various (mis)adventures" part because I'm pretty much a shut in. This has instead left you, dear reader, with only the "wry observations" part, which quickly degenerated into self-indulgent prose desperately seeking the crassest denominator for humor at others' expense. Not surprisingly, though, I remain obstinately unapologetic.
But what would happen if a blogger of similar vision actually lived a life of international intrigue, grandiose globe-trotting, and other alluring alliteratives? Could that excitement be encapsulated in the limited confines of human expression? Could lightning really be captured in a bottle (honestly, that's not rhetorical. I'm horrible at science)? By way of answering, let me simply make three observations: 1) this is the man who told me about The Hobbit Hole, a bar in Manila that is Lord of the Rings themed and staffed exclusively by little people; 2) his blog already contains a picture of a "Cat Feeding Station" and has a different post entitled "There Are No Pumpkins in Kenya;" 3) I actually don't have a third observation, but for whatever reason, I (like everyone else brought up in the American educational system) feel compelled to group things in threes.
In short, check out the Great Adventures of Stewart Pinecrest, which unless I'm mistaken, is the auteur's porn name. Well played, Monsieur Pinecrest. Well played.
Call it Karma or simply the machinations of a thoroughly vengeful Old Testament God, we reap what we sow in this life, and all the trite agrarian metaphors in the world won't change that. While I cannot recall precisely what grave sin I committed in the past that merited the punishment, it must have been dire; indeed, there may very well be the body of some innocent girl scout bricked up in the wall of my home, her boxes of thin mints and carmel delights moldering alongside her. Without a tell-tale heart or black cat to alert the authorities, I might have escaped scott-free, and so the universe has taken a more subtle hand, for I can see no other reason how I could deserve the harrowing ordeal I was given. Perhaps this is a generational concern, a reckoning visited upon the son for the father's crimes. After all, during his minority in Ireland, my father was known to drown kittens for money. Maybe I pay for that deed, like my friend who must forever bear the curse of horrible foot odor because his own father once spit on a gypsy. I cannot know for certain. But whatever the reason, I was made to watch New Moon.
Needless to say, death is sweet release compared to the 130 minutes of agony that is this movie, but like the "vampires" that populate the local high school, I must apparently suffer in perpetuity. I put the word in quotes, of course, because they're nothing of the sort. When a vampire is exposed to direct sunlight, they burn to ash. They don't fucking sparkle. Honestly, if I hadn't already seen Twilight (which I'm pretty sure was punishment for a joke I made in 1996 about a special needs individual), I would have burst out into laughter at the sight, as I actually did when I first saw that ridiculousness on DVD. While it's true I now understand the literal meaning of the "I love boys who sparkle" t-shirts I've seen around, the connotative meaning remains the same: "I will die alone, unmourned by even my dozens of cats, which will probably feast on my remains after an indecorously short period of time." Funny how five little words can say so much, huh?
I won't go into how much I hate that movie, for drudging up any specifics sears my very soul. What I can tell you is that every second in that theater corroded my already delicate masculinity, leaving a ruin that will take years of deliberate effort to reconstitute. Thankfully a friend passed along this picture, which is constituted by such raw virility that I no longer entirely despair for my own plight. If you, too, have been subjected to moody stares of Robert Pattinson, the "my acting repertoire consists of four alternating facial expressions" performance of Kristen Stewart, the inexplicable reasoning behind werewolves never wearing shirts but always wearing knee length jean shorts and running shoes, or God help you, a sparkling vampire, behold and be saved:
I've been away for months now, but it has been a productive number of months. I'm now officially Col. Gentleman, Ph.D, or Doctor Colonel Gentleman, whichever you prefer. I've also enjoyed being jerked around by my gainful employer, which itself is a victim of California's budgetary woes and, if I'm to believe my union's rhetoric, the inhuman greed and ignorance of university administration. Rhetoric aside, if I have finally tasted the uncertainty common to most working Americans, unsure if I will keep my job or for how long, the fact remains that I am still teaching and thus have it a lot better than most. For this, as for so many other things, I remain thankful.
I also went through this year's round of applications for tenure track jobs in academia, which is apparently the thing you do after you graduate, this despite the fact that only a modest percentage of graduates ever land tenure track jobs even after years of trying. I won't go into details, but the process is the equivalent of asking every single girl in your high school to prom and being turned down by every single one. You don't expect the captain of the cheer squad or the junior beauty queen to give you the time of day, and there are plenty of others you've never heard of, only seen in the halls passing silently by with their biology textbooks clutched protectively to their sweatered chests, so again, no loss there. But when the girl with the strange skin affliction and a lazy eye, the one who weeps openly as she rereads the Twilight saga and gorges herself on baked meats, when that girl turns you down too...it stings a little. Thankfully, the process doesn't start again for another nine months, so I have time to nurse by bruised ego.
Things move forward on other, lighter fronts. I and the regular cast of villains have convened through the dark arts of the Internet to begin a regular Dungeons and Dragons campaign again, which provides a far more ready satiation of the urges that, had they no other outlet, would eventually compel me to don a purple bathrobe and pointy hat to stalk the freezer isle of my local supermarket and throw balls of tinfoil at passersby and shrilly cry, "Lightning Bolt!" Instead I may safely purge these emotions in the privacy of my own home, admittedly wearing a headset and brutalizing my peers with a poor imitation of Sean Connery. Still, it has produced other, glossier fruit:
In short, life moves on, and if not always in expected ways, it is not entirely unpleasant. And, without having to constantly devote my spare time to the dissertation (well, spare time not already devoted to video games and alcohol abuse - though in my defense, that bottle of whiskey had it coming) I may once again resume my duties as your humble blogger. It may very well take a few posts to get back to my usual form, so please bear with me. But for better or worse, I'm back, bitches.
