This Is A Serious Question

So blah blah blah, new Indiana Jones movie sometime (which Harrison Ford refuses to do if the studio makes him use a CGI whip)* and I refuse to make a lame joke in the style of "Indiana Jones and the ["gee, Mr. Ford, you really are getting up there in years"]. So actually two serious questions:

1) Nazis. The reason "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and "Last Crusade" are awesome: best supervillains. If one day my kid asks me why the Nazis were bad, I mean sure I'll think of the Holocaust, but no goddamn way I don't say "Trying to obtain the Ark of the Covenant as a vehicle for world domination and not respecting things which belong in a museum" first. So my question is, if Indy is clearly a good quarter-century older, advances in makeup and CGI technology not withstanding, there must be no way he can realistically fight Nazis (unless he teams up with Simon Wiesenthal in the best action movie pairing since Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker in Rush Hour 2 [and I have no idea which of the two the archaeology professor and the Nazi hunter correspond to] and goes to Argentina to stop the Nazis from harnessing the power of the Nazca Lines or something...oh shit, this movie would be awesome), who is he going to fight? I don't want him to fight the Soviets, although since Sean Connery is hopefully going to be in the movie as well, you never know. It'd be like fanfiction brought to life, Indiana Jones taking on S.P.E.C.T.R.E. So this seems to pose a serious problem. Admittedly "Temple of Doom" did not have Nazis, but Temple of Doom also sucked. Well, it didn't suck, it was pretty decent, but it's clearly a notch below the other two. Resolve this for me, O Mighty of Hollywood!

2) What artifacts are there left for Indy to find? Now at first this may seem flippant and glib. But seriously, the guy has found the Holy Grail, the Ark of the Covenant, some weird Indian shit, in the video game I remember playing, Atlantis, and probably like everything else ever in random spinoffs. There are only so many all-powerful magical artifacts that can be misused by the forces of mid-20th century ideologies to attain world domination. Seriously, what'll this one be about? And if this one does well, the inevitable five-quel? "Indiana Jones and the Holy Prepuce?"

Seriously, I want these questions answered. I just want to be secure knowing Hollywood isn't feeding us any more bad dates.

*I really don't feel like citing my sources, I have to do enough of that at school and I don't want to go google shit I know I fucking remember that must - THAT MUST! - be true

Another Look Back At The Late Nineties

People who know me know that from time to time I enjoy reminiscing about the halcyon days of alternative rock in the late '90s and early '00s. Sometimes it's getting really drunk and forcing everyone nearby to sing along as I play "Semi-Charmed Life" by Third Eye Blind on an acoustic guitar (it's G-D-C9, by the way, not too tough, and people really like it when you just go DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO over and over again instead of singing the verses, because no one knows any of the words to verses except for that line which I think is "she gives me head"). Sometimes I just run around campus with my arm straight in front of me smashing shit, and when people ask me what I'm doing, I just say, "Re-enacting the music video of Korn's Freak on a Leash." I even followed every single step in Blink-182's "Adam's Song" when I was depressed and contemplating suicide*, and let me tell you, that brought my spirits back faster than any therapist's bullshit. I fucking loved life that day.

Of course, not every band from that era was quite as good as Blink, or Korn (Blogger doesn't support a reversed-R feature, I need to start a petition about that), or 3IB (how fans abbreviate Third Eye Blind.) I don't remember a single song by Better than Ezra or Less Than Jake, only their names. But their names have raised several interesting puzzles.

First, why don't more bands define their quality in terms of their relationship to a marginally specified generic male name? With these two, it's clear. Better Than Ezra are better than Ezra, mainly because Ezra probably does less rockin' and more prophesying the fiery destruction of Nineveh. Less Than Jake, on the other hand - I mean, self-deprecation is what the kids are into. Or were into. Regardless of whether or not the kids are still into self-deprecation, it's clear that from their band name Less Than Jake convey the teenage wasteland of existential dread they lived through and want to guide their fans through as well. Jake - I mean, that kid's a fucking toolbag. Have you ever met him? He has these thick glasses and a nerdy voice but he still thinks she's so suave and all the ladies are after him (he uses the word ladies all the time too, he just says shit like "Oh, bet the ladies are totally going to dig this" and it isn't funny or anything, just annoying. He always does the whole "I drank so much last night" thing even when he had like three or four beers and just gets you into these bullshit conversations about how awesome he is for drinking, because he's the only kid on campus who's that ballsy.) He has this whole self-righteous shit going on when you talk to him too, all cocky moderate liberalism... Anyway, I mean seriously. You know the guy (note: if you do actually know a Jake and he is at all like this, or is not at all like this but is still unpleasant, my condolences. I do not know a Jake. If you know a Jake and he is cool, it doesn't really tell you very much about Less Than Jake because they could still be cool, just not as cool as Cool Jake, so, you know, whatever.) Less Than Jake are less than this guy. That is pretty fucking low. Damn.

Band Names I Am Now Considering:

Roughly Equivalent to Alan
Greater Than Or Equal To Stanley
Times Square Bootleg Version of Hank
Bill Without The Ever-Present Girlfriend
Can Condescend To Tom
Not As Well Read As David
Jewish Version of Frank
Rebound Hookup After Jeremiah
Platonic Form Of Andy

There is, in my mind, one final question posed by these two bands. How do Jake and Ezra compare to each other? This can only be accomplished in a vague mathematical proof-esque style.

Given:
Band1 > Ezra
Band2 < Jake

In order to make any further progress, we need raw, empirical data that can be plugged into these equations. We need statistics. We need quantitative evaluation of mediocre music. There is only one place to turn, and that is Pitchforkmedia's rigorous grading standards--I mean, sorry, sorry, I promise, Metacritic.

On Metacritic, "Closer" by Better Than Ezra gets a 64, while Less Than Jake's "Anthem" scores 71. This suggests Band1 < Band 2.

Jake > Band 2 > Band 1 > Ezra --> Jake > Ezra.

This result is vaguely consistent with the band names, since the bands received roughly the same amount of success (by my standards, which means that they are vague ironic touchstones and not a single song I can name), yet one was better than someone and the other was less, suggesting that both bands would be better than the same dude and worse than the other one. However, I'm not entirely satisfied with the results, so as soon as I can crank out a couple trusty algorithms according to the ThoughtfulConsiderater Guidelines for Quantitatively Evaluating Hilariously Poor Music (Tristan Cockburn,** Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003). Onward, SCIENCE!

*Note: did not actually happen, in case you're worried. If I were considering suicide, this blog would of course be my outlet for my emotional trauma.
**Tristan Cockburn is not a music critic and actually writes about fantasy baseball for ESPN.com. However, his name is so hilarious that I have vowed to incorporate it into every single thing I write.

Thoughts on Reading Confucius

For my Chinese history class, I had to read an excerpt of the Analects. Now, being the devoted student that I am, I figured I didn't really have to read them that closely, because I had a lot of things to say about the quote, "Confucius say: help, trapped in fortune cookie factory!"

Alt. joke: I had trouble staying focused on the reading because I kept adding "in bed" to the end of each line.

Oypacalypto

I saw Apocalypto tonight. No, I didn't. That was a lie. Anyway, in the strange, dark fantasy world of the first four words of this post, I saw a preview for Mel Gibson's next movie.

Voiceover: Mel Gibson comes back from sensitivity training with his bloodiest movie yet.

[Darkness. First a rugged Middle Eastern landscape, with a panorama of pretty mountains, and then a date appear on the screen.]

167 BC

Voiceover: A cruel young emperor that forces his conquered citizens to abandon their beliefs.

[Shot of a Middle Eastern-looking temple crawling with armed soldiers with shields and spears forcing priests away from their tasks. A Hellenistic statue, presumably of Zeus, is erected. A lot of whipping.]

Voiceover: A people in need of a leader.

[Camera pans out across olive groves to see aimless peasants shackled. More whipping. An eye is cut out and a young girl is implicitly raped. An old man surrounded by his sons lies in a cave, bleeding from a spear wound in his chest. He draws his last breath.]

Voiceover: One man will rise up and defeat his enemy.

[A handsome young man with stubble and sweat on his face emerges from the cave to face the rising sun. He screams an oath in a foreign language, perhaps mourning for his father, but also metaphorically mourning for his country.]

Voiceover: The story of the Festival of Lights--like you've never seen it before.

Judah Maccabee: [in ancient Hebrew, subtitles at the bottom of the screen] Antiochus! You will pay for what you have done!

[Scenes of ragtag Jews spearing Syrians. Lots of internal organs. Judah Maccabee bashes Syrian commander over the head with a menorah.]

Syrian [in ancient dialect]: He is the Jew they call The Hammer. No one can stop him!
Antiochus: You will defeat him--or pay the price.

[Fighting in a bloody temple. The carcasses of pigs litter the floor beneath the statue of Zeus.]

Hebrew: Judah, they have defiled the Temple. God shall punish them.
Judah: Not if we punish them first.

[Scenes of a vast Syrian army marching across Judea into the setting sun. Judah and a small band of followers watch from the hills. The rain begins to fall.]

Hebrew: We cannot defeat them! They are too many!
Judah: No, we cannot defeat them. But we can make their entrails suffer.

[Judah shackled and brought before Antiochus. He is whipped and otherwise tortured for around four minutes of the preview, leading me to believe this sequence will take up over an hour in the actual movie.]

Antiochus: So, Hebrew. It appears my god was stronger than yours.

[Judah spits in his face. The camera shows he is hiding a clay jar of oil]

Voiceover: Hanukkah 2007...

[Judah lights the oil and Antiochus' palace goes up in flames. Graphic shots of Syrian faces melting, people getting very high-degree burns, etc.]

Judah: It won't take a miracle for this baby to burn for eight days.

Voiceover: Come light the menorah. Mel Gibson's Maccabeeid. In theaters everywhere.

[The final spot is the celebratory lighting of a giant menorah. The camera pans in to show that instead of a candle, the priest is using the body of Antiochus as the shammes.]

I know I would see this movie.

Comix Criteeke

I don't know, I was trying to make the title look like it was written by a [fill in politically incorrect term for whatever group you happen to think about at your local Klan chapter/eugenics society/Republican National Convention.] Anyway, I got this from a school mailing list...

STALIN VS. HITLER

Basically Stalin and Hitler are superheroes or wizards or something and duel. Hitler has a particularly gay cape, plus all the Teutonic features we've come to know and love...


while Stalin's sword looks capable of its fair share of slashin'.

There's 29 pages of pure Dubya Dubya Eye Eye action, including:

• Stalin shooting lightning at Hitler, Emperor Palpatine-style.
  

• Cheesy dialogue.

Officer: My Fuehrer… He… is… here…
Hitler: It cannot be! He would not dare enter the very heart of Aryan Pride!

• Terrible English translation, including annotations which vary from strange to retarded. Consider this comic, in which Stalin cranks up the homoeroticism while Lenin plays kung fu B-movie sensei (let's just say Daniel LaRusso wouldn't have done much against the Cobra Kais with dialectical materialism), & following super-annotation:

1. Razliv*, many years ago…
Lenin: That's not bad, my dear chap, but thewe's** one mistake you're makin'…

2. Lenin: The laws of histowical inevitability*** are our stwength. You must learn**** to make the laws obey you.

* A place north to St Petersburg. In July 1917 Vladimir Lenin were hiding here from officials in a hayloft, and wrote "The State and Revolution" considered to be one of his most important works.

** Not unlike robot Walter, the Judge Dredd's servant, Lenin was not able to correctly pronounce "r" before vowels.

*** Presumption of historical inevitability is a corner stone of Marxism-Leninism.

**** The process of learning was extremely important for every member of the Party. Lenin used often to say: "To learn, to learn and to learn once again!"

Fuckin' awesome. The process of learning is also very important for me, which I was why I read this comic. Then there's this gem:

* The fact about moving Hitler to Argentina had been only a Lipatov's guess. Unexpectedly, in 09.22.02 solid evidences were acquired. During exhibiting the comics on elfwood.lysator.liu.se, artist Fernando Laub stated: "I'm from Argentina!!! The fuehrer came here and he is governing since 1945".

Whoo boy. Anything with "elfwood" in the URL screams reputable.

Welcome traveller, to the magic fantasy realm of Elfwood.
In this enchanted forest you will find more fantasy and
science fiction art than you could ever dream of.

More here. That's a whole 'nother story, of course.

• Hitler siccing a super-Aryan SS zombie on Stalin:

Stalin: I know who you are, the Man with Scars*. You are the one whom Hitler created out of body parts of SS cadavers and brought to life through his magic.

• Stalin going all Imhotep on Hitler's escape plane:

It's true what they say, sometimes great minds think alike.

• And Hitler being greeted by Valkyries en route to Valhalla (wait for the plot twist).

So uh basically read this comic, and reflect on the greatness of Mother Russia. And how strange it is that Hitler laughs like XAXAXAXAXA instead of with an 'H' like a normal person.

Re: Michael Richards

I really want Jerry Seinfeld to be performing a comedy bit somewhere, and for whatever reason, he gets heckled by some hairdresser-y guy. He starts screaming into the crowd, "Faggot! Faggot! 50 years ago you'd be classified as mentally ill, nancyboy! I hope you can never marry who you love! Not that there's anything wrong with that!"

Tale of two Seinfeld cast members, I guess.

If I Did It

So, blah blah blah, OJ Simpson is publishing a book called "If I Did It" in which "he discusses how he would have committed the killings of his ex-wife and her friend [Ron Goldman]." First, let's consider the cover:


Uh, nice choice with the coloration, guys. Not easy to misinterpret that at all. Anyway, can we get us some more "If I Did It's?" My nominees:

Mumia Abu-Jamal: "If I had shot that police officer, I would have made it more obvious so they would have just fried me, because I hate white kids with dreadlocks as much as anyone else. Jesus, if I see any more of that fucking graffiti..."



"...I am going to bust out of here, scalp Zach de la Rocha, and hopefully get my sentence commuted on the grounds that I did one hell of a public service."

Michael Jackson: "Now while many children have slept in the same bed as me, absolutely nothing sexual occured. I believe that children need all of our love and the bones of the Elephant Man. However, were I to have done anything icky with them, I would have probably occasionally during wrestling matches stuck my hand down their pants and started tickling their dingalings and boobooing their ballyballs. Also, I like to fuck little boys in the ass."

President George W. Bush: "Now of course, Al Qaeda attacked us on 9-11 because they hate our freedom. But if I were to have been responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, because I am as evil as proper flossing technique is dentally hygienic, I would have probably done something like arrange for a controlled demolition of the World Trade Center, probably paying off every single person who worked there to keep quiet, and since every American would have no qualms about taking money in exchange for keeping quiet about the most horrendous act of terrorism ever committed, it won't be a problem. Then I will fly a plane to Cleveland, for some reason. Oh fuck, there is no way I can make this scenario plausible. At least people who think OJ's innocent might fall for it."