As my beloved Philadelphia Eagles plod to their inexorably mediocre finish, I’m distressed that my travel schedule will force me to see most games on the televisions of our country’s bars and restaurants. It’s not the quality of the picture or the patrons that have me on edge (although both promise to be low-grade). It’s the closed-captioning.
Sure, when it comes to late night talk shows, sitcoms and hundreds of other programs whose currency is chatter, cc’ing is essential for our low-frequency friends. But why must we be subjected to chunky blocks of courier type dominating the screens of sporting events, for which visuals are everything? Since even the most bionic eared cannot hear the announcers at crowded eateries anyway, closed-captioning hurts everyone.
And, for the love of Christ, if we must endure closed-captioning, hire a stenographer! If I read one more “Touchtown!” or other typographical monstrosity, I’m hurling my bar nuts at the screen.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
The Double Entendre Is Not the Funny Part
Late last night, during a somnambulant round of Comcast channel surfing, I came across a movie called “Big and Hairy.” As it turned out, the title was not the funny, nor titillating, part.
“Big and Hairy,” I quickly learned, is a sub-mental, 1998 made-for-TV movie starring former Walton, Richard Thomas and featuring a character named Picasso Dewlap. So why bring up this relic, if not to snicker at its masturbatory title? Because, patient reader, the description of the movie turned out to be the most inadvertently hilarious bit of copy I’ve read in years. Here it is, word for word:
“A boy recruits a young Bigfoot onto his basketball team, with unforeseen consequences.”
This transcendent little sentence gave way to a cascade of questions:
“Big and Hairy,” I quickly learned, is a sub-mental, 1998 made-for-TV movie starring former Walton, Richard Thomas and featuring a character named Picasso Dewlap. So why bring up this relic, if not to snicker at its masturbatory title? Because, patient reader, the description of the movie turned out to be the most inadvertently hilarious bit of copy I’ve read in years. Here it is, word for word:
“A boy recruits a young Bigfoot onto his basketball team, with unforeseen consequences.”
This transcendent little sentence gave way to a cascade of questions:
- Why was it only after Bigfoot joined the basketball team that “unforeseen” events occurred?
- Wouldn’t unforeseen-moment-number-one be the mere presence of a 10-foot beast?
- Don’t unforeseen consequences require a control group of seen consequences?
- If so, where is the history of Sasquatch hardwood action from whence to draw comparisons?
- In this vein, what could possibly be unforeseen – that he only pulled down 15 rebounds per game? That his outside shot was a bit flat?
- Ultimately, wouldn’t the only unforeseen consequence be Bigfoot not ripping the limbs from every opposing player?
Thursday, July 2, 2009
This Year's Overrated "It" Comedy
An elderly man's lumpy, cellulite-ridden body. Three men getting tasered in the head and balls... by children! Characters endlessly screaming "We're fucked!" or, for a change of pace, "This is fucked!" (usually uttered by smug, charmless Bradley Cooper). The standard-issue categorization of women as Bellicose Shrews or Angelic Strippers. A swishy Chinese villain shouting broken-Engrish insults. (Race-baiting and homophobic stereotyping in a single character -- neat trick!)
For these and many other sub- 4th-grade delights, please see "The Hangover," directed by stunted hack Todd Phillips (also responsible for "Road Trip," "Starsky and Hutch" and "School for Scoundrels"). Even the laughs earned by the grandly original comic performance of Zach Galifianakis are curdled by the early admission of his character, Alan, that he "can't be within 200 yards of schools or Chuck E. Cheeses." Ick.
Only one part of "The Hangover" succeeds brilliantly, but you'll have to wait about 100 minutes to see it. An end-credits photo montage, filling in the characters' temporal blanks, reveals the circumstances by which a tiger, a baby, a run-in with Wayne Newton, a missing tooth, and other roofie-feuled mysteries came to be. What is so deeply, honestly funny about these still-lifes is the disparity between the maniacal joy of the moment and the inevitable next-morning comedown.
But more than that, photographs are the ultimate distillation of time, inviting the audience to quickly absorb and flesh out what is frozen before them. And, of course, rarely is the moving picture as funny as what's in our own heads. Particularly when that moving picture is "The Hangover."
For these and many other sub- 4th-grade delights, please see "The Hangover," directed by stunted hack Todd Phillips (also responsible for "Road Trip," "Starsky and Hutch" and "School for Scoundrels"). Even the laughs earned by the grandly original comic performance of Zach Galifianakis are curdled by the early admission of his character, Alan, that he "can't be within 200 yards of schools or Chuck E. Cheeses." Ick.
Only one part of "The Hangover" succeeds brilliantly, but you'll have to wait about 100 minutes to see it. An end-credits photo montage, filling in the characters' temporal blanks, reveals the circumstances by which a tiger, a baby, a run-in with Wayne Newton, a missing tooth, and other roofie-feuled mysteries came to be. What is so deeply, honestly funny about these still-lifes is the disparity between the maniacal joy of the moment and the inevitable next-morning comedown.
But more than that, photographs are the ultimate distillation of time, inviting the audience to quickly absorb and flesh out what is frozen before them. And, of course, rarely is the moving picture as funny as what's in our own heads. Particularly when that moving picture is "The Hangover."
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Is That a "3" or a "B"?
Saturday, March 21, 2009
The Allstate Prophet
When asked about the death of Natasha Richardson last week, fellow actor Dennis Haysbert (best known as President David Palmer in the TV series "24") said the following:
"God doesn't give us anything we can't handle. It was her time. God called her home."
Once -- just once -- I'd like to see an interviewer question this kind of offensive, stone-age nonsense. Suggested follow-ups to the smug stentor:
1) What do you mean by “handle”? Wracked with grief for the rest of your life, but short of committing suicide? That kind of “handle”?
2) Do you think a false claim that Ms. Richardson is in an invisible house in the sky offers her young sons succor, particularly the one who was with her during her tragic fall?
3) Why have you become a shill for Allstate Insurance when, by your logic, there are no accidents... only God's plan?
"God doesn't give us anything we can't handle. It was her time. God called her home."
Once -- just once -- I'd like to see an interviewer question this kind of offensive, stone-age nonsense. Suggested follow-ups to the smug stentor:
1) What do you mean by “handle”? Wracked with grief for the rest of your life, but short of committing suicide? That kind of “handle”?
2) Do you think a false claim that Ms. Richardson is in an invisible house in the sky offers her young sons succor, particularly the one who was with her during her tragic fall?
3) Why have you become a shill for Allstate Insurance when, by your logic, there are no accidents... only God's plan?
Monday, February 9, 2009
Irony Exposed!
"An old man turned ninety-eight
He won the lottery and died the next day
It's a black fly in your Chardonnay
It's a death row pardon two minutes too late
Isn't it ironic ... don't you think?"
- Alanis Morisette
No, I don't.
While irony's precise meaning is difficult to pinpoint (and let's forget Socratic irony altogether), we can generally agree that it is marked by a deliberate contrast between apparent (literal) and intended meaning, whether in the form of a spoken phrase or a situation.
I bring Ms. Morisette's oldish song to the fore because it symbolizes the word's still rampant misuse. Just yesterday a colleague, referring to Thursday's plane crash in upstate New York, said "Ironic that one of the victims was a 9/11 widow." No, it is not ironic. There was no incongruity between an expectation of a reality and what actually happened. It is a coincidental shame that so much tragedy has been heaped upon one family, but far from ironic.
Similarly, a "black fly in your Chardonnay" is not within seven football fields of irony. The simplistic line is meant to cleverly juxtapose the third world and the refined. I suppose it does, in a seventh-grade-Intro-to-English-class way (see, student, if it landed in tap water it wouldn't have been such a cultural jolt!). But there's absolutely no contrast between surface and underlying meaning.
Now if I, a proud atheist, were to be struck and killed by lightning you could say that it's ironic. But since there is no God, and since all wise people know that lightning is caused by successive portions of air becoming a conductive discharge channel as the electrons and positive ions of air molecules are pulled away from each other and forced to flow in opposite directions, you'd be wrong again. So fuck off.
He won the lottery and died the next day
It's a black fly in your Chardonnay
It's a death row pardon two minutes too late
Isn't it ironic ... don't you think?"
- Alanis Morisette
No, I don't.
While irony's precise meaning is difficult to pinpoint (and let's forget Socratic irony altogether), we can generally agree that it is marked by a deliberate contrast between apparent (literal) and intended meaning, whether in the form of a spoken phrase or a situation.
I bring Ms. Morisette's oldish song to the fore because it symbolizes the word's still rampant misuse. Just yesterday a colleague, referring to Thursday's plane crash in upstate New York, said "Ironic that one of the victims was a 9/11 widow." No, it is not ironic. There was no incongruity between an expectation of a reality and what actually happened. It is a coincidental shame that so much tragedy has been heaped upon one family, but far from ironic.
Similarly, a "black fly in your Chardonnay" is not within seven football fields of irony. The simplistic line is meant to cleverly juxtapose the third world and the refined. I suppose it does, in a seventh-grade-Intro-to-English-class way (see, student, if it landed in tap water it wouldn't have been such a cultural jolt!). But there's absolutely no contrast between surface and underlying meaning.
Now if I, a proud atheist, were to be struck and killed by lightning you could say that it's ironic. But since there is no God, and since all wise people know that lightning is caused by successive portions of air becoming a conductive discharge channel as the electrons and positive ions of air molecules are pulled away from each other and forced to flow in opposite directions, you'd be wrong again. So fuck off.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Those Carrots Sure Do Glisten!
Armed with my new 60", 1080P, 100,000-1 contrast-ratio television, I was abuzz with the promise of heretofore unknown high-definition delights. Replay of the Super Bowl with its reds and blacks and fireworks popping? Documentary on the rain forest, every leaf and exoskeleton tactile? Fresh print of Citizen Kane, Greg Toland's deep-focus photography revealing even more secrets? Ah...there it was. The top category in Comcast's On-Demand menu: "HD Programs." One remote click away from a world of revelatory visuals. What would be at the top of the list?
Celebrity Rehab in HD.
That's right. Chief among your HD options is this ghastly pap masquerading as docu-healing. This country's yen for the Schadenfreude Channel (stocked with exploitive garbage like Home Makeover, American Idol and The Bachelor) is bad enough. Must we also have it served with the same clarity as the BBC's Planet Earth? Yes, you thought you saw Jeff Conaway's stomach contents, Gary Busey's darting-eyes and Steven Adler's drooping mouth before...
Where's a tube TV when you need one?
Celebrity Rehab in HD.
That's right. Chief among your HD options is this ghastly pap masquerading as docu-healing. This country's yen for the Schadenfreude Channel (stocked with exploitive garbage like Home Makeover, American Idol and The Bachelor) is bad enough. Must we also have it served with the same clarity as the BBC's Planet Earth? Yes, you thought you saw Jeff Conaway's stomach contents, Gary Busey's darting-eyes and Steven Adler's drooping mouth before...
Where's a tube TV when you need one?
Friday, January 30, 2009
You're a Fool. Literally.
On a recent Today Show, chirpy, self-loving weekend anchor Jenna Wolfe made, as the unintelligent often do, a verbal gaffe of inclusion. During one of those idiotic wildlife segments, Ms. Rose was holding a snake when the frightened reptile relieved itself on her arm. Her eloquent response: "Oh my God. It literally peed on me!"
Forget the breathless, teenage-like first part and pay close attention to her unfortunate use of the misunderstood and over-utilized adverb. "Literally" should never be used as a mere point of emphasis (it is not synonymous with "really"), nor as an intensive before a figurative expression (you can't say "I'm literally going to throw you to the wolves" unless you really are).
So, Ms. Wolfe, unless you were artfully contrasting what happened with novelistic, existential snake urination, you have blighted your show once again.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Utterances of the Damned
* I don't have the bandwidth -- A perfectly fine word for the transmission capacity of electronic communications has been transmogrified into a business cliché for personal time. Even in its correct form the word has been dying since 2005, so the unoriginality is twice as acute. The next time a colleague complains of a lack of bandwidth, might I suggest that you engage in a little wordplay of your own. Tell them that, based on their bi-weekly trip to the Macaroni Grill, they have plenty of "band width."
* There you go -- This patronizing response to another's attempt at humor is the spoken equivalent to a pat on the head (and is usually accompanied by a preening smile and a "you-da-man!" finger point). Please, either serve up a full-throttle, white-lie laugh or have the honesty to level with your office's Pauly Shore about his lack of comic skills.
* Sooner, rather than later -- Are not the final three words strongly implied by the first? Indeed, a full 75% of this bizarre expression of urgency is unnecessary. Imagine the same cadence in other situations: "This coffee's too hot, rather than cold." "Pump me harder, rather than softer!" (Apologies -- I never miss a chance to paraphrase from the late-night Cinemax classic, Shaving Ryan's Privates.)
* There you go -- This patronizing response to another's attempt at humor is the spoken equivalent to a pat on the head (and is usually accompanied by a preening smile and a "you-da-man!" finger point). Please, either serve up a full-throttle, white-lie laugh or have the honesty to level with your office's Pauly Shore about his lack of comic skills.
* Sooner, rather than later -- Are not the final three words strongly implied by the first? Indeed, a full 75% of this bizarre expression of urgency is unnecessary. Imagine the same cadence in other situations: "This coffee's too hot, rather than cold." "Pump me harder, rather than softer!" (Apologies -- I never miss a chance to paraphrase from the late-night Cinemax classic, Shaving Ryan's Privates.)
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Adjectivally Challenged
“The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.”
- Henry James
"The Dark Knight was awesome."
- Probably You
"Awesome" overkill started innocently, as part of the Valley zeitgeist of the early '80s. When Jeff Spicoli shouted "Awesome! Totally awesome!" in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, his was a sincere, pot-fueled burst of exuberance, a West Coast bridge to the "groovy" legacy of the '70s. His character found a comically absurdist way of reforming Henry James's beauty-is-everywhere meaning. But now the word has been drained of its glory by millions of linguistically challenged mammals who carelessly flick it in front of every item or event that induces modest pleasure.
That which truly inspires awe? The Manhattan skyline. The Grand Canyon. The sea. Birth. That which should not? Most everything else, including an over-edited superhero sequel marked by a morose lead performance. I can guarantee that your meeting was not "awesome," nor was your burger, your coffee, your friend's joke or your child's crappy 1st grade play.
- Henry James
"The Dark Knight was awesome."
- Probably You
"Awesome" overkill started innocently, as part of the Valley zeitgeist of the early '80s. When Jeff Spicoli shouted "Awesome! Totally awesome!" in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, his was a sincere, pot-fueled burst of exuberance, a West Coast bridge to the "groovy" legacy of the '70s. His character found a comically absurdist way of reforming Henry James's beauty-is-everywhere meaning. But now the word has been drained of its glory by millions of linguistically challenged mammals who carelessly flick it in front of every item or event that induces modest pleasure.
That which truly inspires awe? The Manhattan skyline. The Grand Canyon. The sea. Birth. That which should not? Most everything else, including an over-edited superhero sequel marked by a morose lead performance. I can guarantee that your meeting was not "awesome," nor was your burger, your coffee, your friend's joke or your child's crappy 1st grade play.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Banish These Practices
* Feng Shui Consulting - Feng shui, the ancient bullshit art of arranging objects to facilitate positive "energy," has spawned that ubiquitous cottage industry: the consultant. That's right -- a few thousand dollars can earn you the services of people like Rodika Tchi (whose picture, below, is even more grating than her faux Far East moniker). According to her about.com bio, "Ms. Tchi has been feng shui consulting for numerous private residences and businesses for more than 10 years and has taught feng shui at the University of British Columbia." Taught? Feng Shui? At a University? I can only imagine their course offerings: Molecular Biology, Business Administration and The Art of Moving Your Couch Three Inches to the Left.
Rodika Tchi
* Dumping Gatorade on Winning Coaches - This annoying practice has been giving coaches hypothermia since 1985. (Sometimes worse. 72-year-old coach Coach George Allen died not long after his Long Beach State players dumped a bucket of ice-water on him following a season-ending victory.) Last year, Boston Celtics coach Doc Rivers was even showered with the hideous substance on a basketball court. 1985 is the year that brought us such cultural touchstones as New Coke and Eddie Murphy's "Party All the Time." Do we really want anything else from that era to survive?
* Saying "Knock Knock" Instead of Knocking - A knock is a socially acceptable auditory intrusion. Softly saying the words as you peek into my office does not reduce its impact. It is akin to poking a goose feather at my earlobe.
Rodika Tchi
* Dumping Gatorade on Winning Coaches - This annoying practice has been giving coaches hypothermia since 1985. (Sometimes worse. 72-year-old coach Coach George Allen died not long after his Long Beach State players dumped a bucket of ice-water on him following a season-ending victory.) Last year, Boston Celtics coach Doc Rivers was even showered with the hideous substance on a basketball court. 1985 is the year that brought us such cultural touchstones as New Coke and Eddie Murphy's "Party All the Time." Do we really want anything else from that era to survive?
* Saying "Knock Knock" Instead of Knocking - A knock is a socially acceptable auditory intrusion. Softly saying the words as you peek into my office does not reduce its impact. It is akin to poking a goose feather at my earlobe.
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