Thursday, February 21, 2008

I just don't get it

I never claimed to be any kind of genius, but I don't think I'm a dummy, either. I got good grades in school. I read books with big words. And I'm pretty sure I understood the deeper meaning of last summer's Transformers movie. The heroic Autobots represented Man's quest for understanding and peace among all people, right? And the evil Decepticons represented big freaking robots?
See? I've got a couple of brain cells to rub together. But there are still some things I just don't understand.
I don't understand tattoos, for example. I get that body art has special meaning for some people, and that's fine. It just seems to me there are better forms of self-expression than having someone permanently etch a strand of barbed wire around your bicep or Tweety Bird on your fanny.
Still, a lower back tattoo of a butterfly is downright ordinary compared to what a Canadian tattoo artist did to himself recently. According to the Edmonton Sun, 30-year-old Lane Jensen wanted to add a little something to the tattoo of the buxom cowgirl on his calf. So, last December he gave her breast implants. Like, actual bags of silicone implanted in his calf. How he ever intended to make his socks fit right again I have no idea.
Perhaps not surprisingly, things did not go well for old Lane. His tiny fake calf-breasts got infected and by Christmas eve the sutures had split and, according to the Sun, drained a liter of lymphatic fluid. For those unfamiliar, a liter is metric-speak for "a whole lot of gross leg-goo."
In other words, ick.
I don't understand people who are way too into their pets, either. It's great if you love your cats and dogs and treat them well. But when you find yourself shopping on a site like kittywigs.com it might be time to take a closer look at your life. Kittywigs, as the name suggests, produces wigs for your feline friends. You know, in case you ever feel the need to make kitty look more like a shorter, hairier Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. The wigs come in four models, each certain to induce weeks of nightmares involving former first ladies hacking up hairballs.
When it comes to producing feelings of unease, though, even cat wigs have nothing on dog armor. I have no earthly idea why, outside of severe mental instability, a person would want to dress his dog like a character from an awful fantasy novel. If you do, though, the people at organicarmor.com can take care of you. Even better: You can get you and your dog matching suits. Probably a good idea to be well protected when your dog, sick of parading around in his jeweled helmet, tries to chew your throat open while you sleep.
I'm sure I'll never understand fashion.
I'm not talking about that Haute Coture stuff. Those aren't really clothes. I'm pretty sure they're an elaborate method devised for communicating with alien beings who secretly visit Earth to find great bargains at our outlet malls. I'm talking about everyday stuff. Stuff like Reebok's recently released line of Kool Ade scented shoes. You know, for those times you find yourself saying, "Gosh, I wish my shoes smelled more like I'd just spilled a pitcher of fruit punch on them."
The shoes, available in grape, strawberry and cherry, went on sale at the beginning of the month.
I just don't get it.


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Now playing: Tim Fite - Over The Counter Culture
via FoxyTunes

Friday, February 15, 2008

Coming soon to prime time?

There is good news and bad news to be found in the end this week of the three month-plus strike by the Writer's Guild of America. Certainly, the deal is good news for television fans. With professional writers back on the job we will once again have quality, first-run entertainment flowing to our living rooms each night. It hurts me to think fans of According to Jim have been left with unresolved storylines  although not as much as it hurts to realize there are actually fans of According to Jim. The deal is also good news for writers, who will now reportedly get paid more for DVD and online reproduction of their work. This is entirely reasonable. These people are professionals and deserve to be compensated as such. You certainly can't trust amateurs with important things like plots involving oafish husbands, their disproportionately attractive wives and their sassy children and/or wacky neighbors. It would be chaos. Most of the jokes involved in these shows have been around since Jackie Gleason and The Honeymooners and they've grown brittle over the years. Handling them now takes a delicate touch. The news isn't as good for television studios, which will have to pay more to a class of employees that, given the success of high-quality reality fare like that show where they hook people to polygraphs and ask them whether they've ever cheated on their taxes or been physically attracted to livestock, has started to seem less and less necessary. So much for next season's Thursday night lineup of Playing Shuffleboard with the Stars, Hey, Dummy, this Preschooler is Smarter than You and Fornication Beach. The WGA deal is also bad news for me. Sure, I'm as happy as anyone to have a fresh stream of new CSI: Without a Special Victims Cold Case episodes on the way, but with professional writers returning to work there's almost no chance the networks are going to want the scripts I've been working up to help fill the gaps. These scripts still needed a little polishing, but since they'll probably never see the light of a cathode ray tube I figured I'd share a few of them here.
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: The scene opens at a party. Attractive women in short skirts are laughing and having a good time with square-jawed men. Suddenly, there's a scream. Someone has been impaled on an ice sculpture. There is no evidence. But wait! Here come the CSI guys! They look at the crime scene and smirk knowingly. (Insert 40-minute special effects sequence of CSI investigators collecting evidence and suggesting theories) The investigators wrap up the case with an improbable explanation of what happened and more special effects. They high-five.
CSI: Miami: See above, but replace impaled by an ice sculpture with swarmed by rabid bats. Also, instead of high-fiving the CSI investigators dance the twist. Also, intercut special effects sequences with shots of David Caruso looking impossibly smug.
Law and Order: The one With the Crazy Guy: Vincent D'Onofrio acts like a lunatic for an hour.
Medium: Patricia Arquette sees spooky things, gets spooked, never seems to get used to the idea that she's seeing spooky things even though it's been, like, three seasons now. Cold
Case: Detectives look into a case from several years ago. First suspect tells them he didn't do it, but sends them to someone else. Period-appropriate music plays. Detectives accuse second suspect, who blames someone else. (Music) Detectives accuse third suspect, who puts the blame back on first suspect, who the detectives then arrest. More music. Viewers try to figure out what the heck just happened.
According to Jim: Jim does something exasperating, acts goofy. Jim's wife gets exasperated. Jim bickers with his sister-in-law or whoever that woman is. Jim redeems himself. Viewers continue to watch for some reason.

Thursday, February 07, 2008

Minnesota's official state column?

So, I'm driving to work the other day and I'm listening to NPR and they're airing a story about somebody trying to get something or other named the official state whatsit of Maryland.
I'll admit I really wasn't paying close attention. And even though later review has revealed it was walking Marylanders were trying to have enshrined as the state's official exercise I still can't say I care too much.
What caught my attention, though, came at the end of the story. That's when the reporter revealed some in the state opposed granting walking state symbol status because they feel Maryland has too many such symbols, including blue crabs (official state crustacean), the shell of an extinct snail (official state fossil shell) and jousting (official state sport).
This revelation raised two interesting points. One, the fossil shell of the cucuella ginanta really got a raw deal. And, two, apparently the sporting scene in Maryland has yet to advance past the middle ages. Which, I guess, explains University of Maryland basketball.
It got me thinking, though. I know the ladyslipper is Minnesota's state flower, wild rice is the state grain and the loon is the state bird (unless you believe the novelty t-shirts, in which case it's the comically oversized mosquito). But are there other symbols I should know about? Was I somehow living in ignorance of the fact my home state for some reason identifies its sporting scene with jai alai?
Apparently I wasn't. Minnesota's list of state symbols is almost disappointingly short and predictable. The state fish is the walleye. The state gem is the Lake Superior Agate. The state tree is the Norway pine.
Yawn. There wasn't an archaic sporting practice or a long-dead mollusk anywhere to be found. California has a state fife and drum band, Michigan has a state reptile and all we've got is a state drink.
It's milk, which, I suppose, goes really well with our state muffin (blueberry). If only we could get our legislators to designate Nesquick mix our state powder I could have myself an official Minnesota chocolate milk.
It's not until you get to the list of our rejected state symbols that things start to get interesting. I'm not sure whether the fact we have on multiple occasions rejected efforts to name the leopard frog our state amphibian means we have better things to do than other states or if it just means our legislators really can't get anything done.
It turns out there's a long list of rejected state symbols. Most recently, there was legislation introduced in 2007 that would have made the tilt-a-whirl our state ride. A companion bill that would have made queasiness our official state of being didn't go anywhere.
The competition for state mammal status has been heated over the years. There have been eight failed attempts to give that status to the white tailed deer and six attempts to give it to the eastern timber wolf. You have to figure the performance of our state's NBA franchise isn't helping that animal's chances.
There were competing bills in 1987 to designate a state beer. I cannot confirm that supporters of either Schell's Deer Brand beer or Cold Spring beer missed the votes in question because they were too hung over to get out of bed that day.
There has been legislation to name an official state fossil (the giant beaver), state folk dance (square dance) and state mineral (iron ore). HF970 tried to introduce a state soup in 1998 (wild rice) and in both 1998 and 1999 there were attempts to name a state reptile (the blandings turtle).
Maybe most unsettling, though, is HF970, which Senator Jack Davies introduced in 1977 in an attempt to have the leech named Minnesota's state parasite.
I mean, everyone knows that should be the lawyer.


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Now playing: Fountains Of Wayne - The Valley Of Malls
via FoxyTunes

Friday, February 01, 2008

What's next? Smurfs: the Movie?

Little by little, Hollywood is destroying my childhood.
Not all of it, obviously. So far as I know no producer has proposed a sitcom exploring my brief careers in 4-H or Cub Scouts. And there will probably never be an inspirational sports movie about the time my indoor soccer team won its league championship (Although there totally should be; we were awesome!).
No, mostly our nation’s entertainment industry has limited itself to producing mildly soul-killing updates on the television shows and movies that brought me so much joy when I was younger.
This isn't a new trend, I realize, but it seems to be picking up speed. Writers and producers don't have time to wait for their audience to actually become nostalgic about something. They have to create the nostalgia out of bailing wire, papier mache and the tears of tiny infants.
It was just a few years ago, remember, that the viewing public was subjected to remakes of before-my-time material like The Mod Squad, The Avengers and Bewitched. And while I'm not sure it's fair to say anyone was truly nostalgic for a show about the hilarious consequences of a human marrying a witch, at least enough time had passed that it was possible.
Now, the window between original and remake keeps shrinking. The past 12 months alone has brought newfangled versions of at least four television programs I enjoyed in my youth which, I swear, wasn’t all that long ago.
The adaptations met with varying levels of success. Transformers, which took its inspiration from a series of half-hour commercials for a line of toy robots, was big and stupid but ultimately kind of fun. I could have done without the scene where a robot relieved itself, but I’m willing to let it go.
I didn’t see either Underdog, about a super-powered canine, or The Chipmunks, but I saw trailers for both and feel confident when I say the would have made me weep for the lost innocence of youth and the death of creativity. Or maybe they just would have made me nauseous.
The movies share some characteristics. Both bring live action into what was once entirely a cartoon world, and both feature Jason Lee, who seemed pretty cool back when he was making movies like Mallrats and Chasing Amy but who now apparently sees nothing wrong with scenes in which he eats chipmunk poop.
I don’t know what the deal is with remakes and bodily function-related humor, but it makes me really nervous about any potential MacGuyver remakes.
Just a few weeks ago, NBC relaunched American Gladiators, the long lost and little mourned competition in which ordinary folks went up against steroid-crazed “Gladiators” with names like Thunder and Tower and Bulkyguy in events that involved whacking each other with padded sticks and rolling around in oversized metal balls. Watching the remake, which somehow managed to bump the crazy level of the gladiators up about three notches and which features Hulk Hogan and Mohammed Ali’s daughter as hosts, I had a hard time remembering what I ever found appealing about the original.
There are more remakes coming, too. A live-action version of G.I. Joe, perhaps the finest cartoon of my childhood, is due soon. So is a remake of Knight Rider, which promises to be awful, but in a completely different way than the David Hasselhoff-filled original.
I imagine the trend will only pick up steam. The window between original and remake will only get shorter.
I, for one, can’t wait for the theatrical release of Saved by the Bell: The Movie.

Sorry, Swedes

I don't have anything in particular against the Swedes. I spent 10 months living among them during my junior year of high school. I studied their culture, a surprising amount of which revolved around pickled herring and cheese sandwiches. They are a fine, sturdy people who possess many admirable qualities, not least the ability to live in a country that is dark for a good seven-ninths of the day during the winter. Trust me, Sweden is a good place to own a franchise on a flashlight shop.
Sweden has also produced many things that are of great benefit to the world as a whole. I am a big fan of their meatballs, their red gummy candies and their bikini teams.
So please, believe me when I say I have no quarrel with the Nordic peoples as a whole. But I worry that if I have to shop at their furniture store one more time I'm liable to punch someone in the head.
Fortunately, given my marked lack of upper body strength, that is unlikely to do any significant damage. It sure would make me feel better, though.
IKEA, that massive marketer of hex wrench-assembled furniture, caused a big stir when it opened several years ago in Bloomington, it's gigantic blue-and-yellow building proclaiming its overwhelming Swedishness to anyone driving by. People lined up for days for the chance to be the first to buy attractively priced knickknacks with whimsical, pseudo-Swedish names.
I have been to IKEA precisely three times since that day, and I believe a little piece of my soul died each time.
The crowds are part of what drive me crazy about IKEA. For someone whose job involves talking to other people I have remarkably little patience for humanity as a whole.
Actually, I'm generally OK with individuals. It's when you gather a bunch of people as a group, cram them into a confined space and wave bargain-priced glassware in their faces my eyelid really starts to twitch. This is why my rare trips to the Mall of America are typically followed by me locking myself in a dark room for about a week.
It's the design of the store that bugs me most, though. If you've never been, basically you enter through one door, go up an elevator and, with the exception of a few shortcuts, are forced to wander through acre after acre of competitively priced sofas and bed frames. There's only one way in. There's only one way out.
Walking through the store I imagine I understand how cattle feel as they're herded down a long chute toward the slaughterhouse. Only instead of a guy with a hacksaw there's a cash register and a plastic bucket of ginger cookies waiting for me at the end of the line. I think I'm getting a better deal than the cows, but not by much.
I imagine it didn't help that the first time I visited IKEA, ignorant of the unidirectional traffic pattern, I circled the store in reverse, like a salmon swimming upstream. By the time I'd made it halfway I was hoping a bear would come along and put me out of my misery.
Still, when a store's got what you need it's got what you need. And since I needed more cabinet and counter space in my new kitchen I girded my loins, put in my favorite ABBA CD and made the short drive to Bloomington. I got my counter. Now I just need to put it together.
Is anyone good with pictographs?