April 23, 2007
MUSICAL INFLUENCES
I was flipping around radio stations the other day and found myself listening to a public service announcement that made me sit up and think "What the . . .?" Usually you know where a PSA is going, so to be surprised by the usual telegraphed anti-drug message is pretty rare. This particular PSA, which can be listened to here, features a girl's voice that has been altered to make it sound digitized, like a computer from 1982 is speaking. As the ad progresses, the girl's voice becomes gradually more human, until the final line, when it's just the voice of a girl. Then a male voice pops in with the punchline, or lesson, I'm not certain. Here is the transcript:
Being popular was all I could think about last year.
I wanted to be, like, cool with everybody.
I listened to music I didn't like and laughed at things that weren't funny.
I programmed myself to be a totally different person to everyone.
But I wasn't myself.
Now I'm not pretending to like indie rock or anything like that, and people think that's cool.
Male voice: Live above the influence––above weed.*
In case you missed it, liking indie rock was used there as a metaphor for being a brainless stoner intent on leading an inherently fake existence. So you kids just drop your joints and back slowly away from the Death Cab For Cutie cds. In fact, just leave your iPods over there by the door on your way out. There's no telling what kind of unhomogenized stoner crap might be on them.
*Brought to you by the slightly misguided and bizarre people at abovetheinluence.com.
NB: Apparently I am woefully behind the times. Either that or have enough sense to never listen to the radio. Pitchfork Media wrote about this all the way back in October of last year.
Tagged: drugs, musicPosted by Lexiphane at 3:35 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
April 20, 2007
SCIENCE NOTE TO BACARDI'S MARKETING FIRM, NOT THAT THEY'D CARE
If you're a company marketing your booze in a diet-conscious way, it would make sense that you're looking out for the best interest of the consumer. The thinner your customer looks the better theh bla blah blah . . . I'm sorry. I just got headbutted back to reality. Booze, dieting, and advertising really are a perfect storm of not making sense and, in fact, makes zero, or multiple-zeroes sense. Let's start with the graphic to the right: "0 Carbs 0 Sugar". It is from Bacardi, recommending mixing Bacardi rum with Diet Coke, because the resulting cocktail contains zero calories from carbs and zero calories from sugar. This is redundant, of course, because sugar is a carbohydrate. Sugars are certainly simpler molecules than complex carbohydrates, but when classifying food as either carb, fat, or protein, sugar goes in the carbohydrate column. The graphic to the right is the same as writing "0 Beatles 0 John Lennon".
The impression given by the Bacardi ads touting its zero-level qualities is that a Bacardi and Diet Coke cocktail is a godsend to the weight-conscious or Atkins-minded partygoers planning on drinking so often and in such quantities that the calorie content of their drinks will make a noticeable impact on their waistlines. Let me disabuse those people of that impression.
There's no fat or protein in a Bacardi and Diet Coke cocktail, so let's remove those from the equation. The Bacardi ad people double-emphasized the fact that there are zero calories from carbohydrates in that cocktail. The great unmentioned––and the presumable reason that people would be drinking a Bacardi and Diet Coke in the first place––is that the drink contains alcohol. Alcohol is a different type of molecule than fats, carbs, and protein. It gets a nutritional category all its own, and the alcohol molecule contains seven calories per gram.
The standard cocktail made with 1 1/2 ozs. of 80% proof liquor contains about 14 grams of alcohol equalling 97 calories. If you were to consume 35 Bacardi and Diet Cokes in an evening you would gain approximately one pound, althought that would be the least of your worries the next morning, presuming you wake up. The next time that you see one of these ads, remember that they are being cut off at the end, like an annoying repetitive drunk by a tired and annoyed bartender. After they tout zero calories from carbs and zero calories from sugar, they are forgetting to add 97 calories from alcohol.
Tagged: advertising, bacardi, caloriesPosted by Lexiphane at 12:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 9, 2007
LAMEST INVOCATION OF 9/11 OF ALL TIME, OR LATELY ANYWAY
Unfortunately, the passage of time and the resilience of our regional society following the 9/11/01 attacks has somehow been transformed from a source of pride for all, to a catch-all excuse to others. There is nothing political about this slide whatsoever, it is simply a case of grasping at tragic straws in order to cover one's suddenly-exposed rear end. The only metric of shame in play is how quotidian an embarassment can be used as a backdrop for a 9/11 invocation-as-explanation.
When a Union City, NJ school district found out that one of its employees or students had rung up $250 in Pay-Per-View charges with Cablevision while watching porn at one of its schools, an attorney for the district was quick to remind why cable boxes with pay-per-view porn were necessary in public schools:
"The board has cable boxes in the event of an emergency," education board attorney Thomas R. Kobin told the Jersey Journal of Jersey City for Saturday newspapers. "We are just a few minutes from the Lincoln Tunnel and New York City. There has been a history of attacks in New York City."Granted, if I found out there was a nuclear device planted in the Lincoln Tunnel "a few minutes away", I'd probably want to pull up some episodes of HBO's "Rome" for a few end-of-empire survival tips On-Demand, but even if there was a legitimately good reason for cable boxes in local schools, Kobin could probably state them explicitly without the stilted historical allusions. Tagged: 9/11, pathetic, porn, ppv, schools
Posted by Lexiphane at 12:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 4, 2007
THE BOORISH MANNERS OF SOME YALIES
Three Yale students, who police identified as 23-year-old Said Hyder Akbar, 19-year-old Nikolaos Angelopoulos and 19-year-old Farhad Anklesaria, were arrested yesterday after police picked them up in the area where a burning American flag was found and estinguished. The three Yale University students admitted setting the flag on fire, but no reason was listed for their actions. The headline of this WNBC article says that the three were "accused" of burning a flag. The body of the article says that the students were "charged" with flag-burning. We're not sure of the Constitutionality of laws against flag-burning (and we're against them), but expect that local prosecutors will prefer to go the easy route and charge the men with a more arson-oriented crime. Is it arson to burn a flag? I'd say it is, when the flag you light on fire is attached to someone's house.
Posted by Lexiphane at 11:24 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 26, 2007
LUCKY OR UNLUCKY? LET'S CALL IT A WASH
Like two booze-cruise ships not quite passing in the night, two cars helmed by drunk drivers slammed head-on into each other in Suffolk County early this morning.
Police said their cars were traveling in opposite directions in the same lane of traffic on North Ocean Avenue in Selden when they slammed into each other head-on.
Suffolk County police said the drivers have been charged with driving while intoxicated. One of the drivers suffered serious internal injuries and a broken thigh bone. One driver is hospitalized, and the other is in police custody awaiting arraignment.
So this was like a theoretical physics problem involving immoveable stupidity and unstoppable irresponsibility. I'm glad no one was killed, although I can't say the one driver in the hospital is likely to keep me awake nights with worry. I'm sure at least one of these two drivers is thinking "Jeez, can't a guy drive drunk in the right direction without some drunker jerk going the wrong way slamming into him? Learn how to drive drunk for Chrissakes!"
Tagged: drunk driversPosted by Lexiphane at 10:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN!
Get 'em while they're hot off the silkscreen presses! Celebrate the the top four college teams in the nation gathering for the Final Four in Atlanta with this commemorative t-shirt.
Tagged: final four, tshirtPosted by Lexiphane at 1:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 20, 2007
KEEPING YOUR PET SAFE BY . . . ANIMAL TESTING?
When I first read the headline "Test Of Pet Food Kills 7, FDA Says", I was going to make fun of the WNBC site where I found it. By leaving out the word "That" between "Kills" and "7", they're saying that the tests are what's killing people's pets and not the tainted pet food. My apologies to WNBC's copy writers because that is pretty much what they are saying. Turns out that the procedure for testing suspected poisonous food is to feed it to dogs and cats and then see how many of them die. That's what Menu Foods, the maker of pet food under 48 different brands, did when it first started receiving complaints that pets' post-meal naps were becoming permanent. The company had to see this for itself and conducted a test by feeding the suspect food to 40-50 dogs and cats, seven of which died.
WNBC's article has another small fact that may drive pet owners and animal lovers absolutely batshit crazy: after Menu Foods concluded that their food was capable of killing one out of seven animals that ingested it, the company waited several weeks to initiate a recall. Trial lawyers across the country must get positively light-headed giddy when they read something like that.
I predict that this Menu Foods pet food fiasco will within the year be a Harvard Business School case study on how to plunge a corporation irretrievably into a shitstorm so intense and all-encompassing that you may as well burn the whole thing to the ground and take the insurance money to Brazil or Cuba, or some other country without an extradition treaty. You think tobacco execs are reviled? Menu Foods execs are going to be held responsible for poisoning puppies and kittens!
NB: You have to give WNBC bonus points for including a sidebar in its article with links to its "Cutest Pet" and "Cutest Kitten" slideshows, among others.
Posted by Lexiphane at 6:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 18, 2007
WHEN THE CRAZY CAT IS THE MOST SANE CREATURE IN A ROOM
Thank you New York Times, for occasionally shedding your required mantel of superciliousness as the paper of record, for giving reporter Ben Gibberd the green light to write a story on some of the sublimely ridiculous people who live in NYC, and for making me laugh. Today's story on a Brooklyn massage therapist/cat psychic must be read more than once to truly soak in the insanity portrayed. Let's take a look at Sue Pike, 45-year-old cat psychic, in the middle of healing a troubled pet:
According to Ms. Gamboa, Gatti had been chewing her books and bullying her other cat, Lola. Ms. Pike wrote some quick comments in a notebook and then began her treatment by calling on what she called “universal knowledge” — the collective voice of the animal’s ancestors.
“Calling all of my spirit guides of the highest order,” Ms. Pike intoned as she sat cross-legged on the floor, her green eyes closed. “Are you there?”
Licking himself methodically, her patient ignored Ms. Pike.
She then began gently probing the cat’s feelings. Why was he so unkind to Lola?
Suddenly, Ms. Pike’s voice changed to a high-pitched girlish tone. “I don’t like sharing with the other kitty,” she announced.
“It’s Gatti talking,” Ms. Pike explained in a normal voice.
Through Ms. Pike, Gatti further revealed that he did not like having his nails clipped, and that he sometimes got sick from licking his fur.
After a few more exchanges, Ms. Pike crouched next to Gatti, made a retching sound and rubbed her hands together vigorously. The negative energy, she informed Ms. Gamboa, had been removed.
I'm sure if Gatti could talk, he would probably object to Pike's high-pitched impression of his voice that makes him come off as girlish–in front of a reporter from the Times no less. I think that's Conan O'Brien's largest complaint of Jim Gaffigan's impersonation of him in Pale Force. There is more. Read it.
(via a link at Gothamist)
Tagged: brooklyn, cats, insanity, new york times, psychicPosted by Lexiphane at 11:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 17, 2007
SOD OFF
People will literally spend money on anything. That seems to be confirmed by this story in today's New York Times about entrepreneurs who are selling dirt dug up in Ireland to customers willing to pay $15 for a 12 oz bag. So far, the folks at Auld Sod Exporting Co. in Tipperary have shipped $2 million worth of soil. Some people want more than just a 12 oz bag, though.
For some, it is more than a novelty. An 87-year-old lawyer in Manhattan, originally from Galway, recently bought $100,000 worth of the dirt to fill in his American grave, yet undug. A native of County Cork spent $148,000 on seven tons to spread under the house he was having built in Massachusetts.
“He said he wanted a house built on Irish soil so he can feel like he is home in old Ireland when he walked around his house in Massachusetts,” Mr. Burke said.
Other dirt-related entrepreneurs are perfectly frank about the genesis of their inspiration:
On Irishsmoke.ie, $18 brings three pounds of Irish bog, also known as turf or peat, cut from Donegal fields, to burn in a fireplace or on a grill, something Jim Gallagher thought up one night when he ran out of charcoal during a barbecue and thought himself too drunk to drive to the store. “I cut up some peat and put it in the barbecue, and everyone said, ‘This is amazing,’ ” recalled Mr. Gallagher, a native of Pleasantville, N.Y., now living in County Donegal, who also sells incense and torches that smell like peat. “It’s the aroma of home,” he said by telephone from Ireland.
What Mr. Gallagher means by "the aroma of home" is unclear, since he is actually from Westchester, NY. Do they burn a lot of peat in Westchester?
As H.L Mencken correctly noted: "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people." I guess that goes double for Irish-American people.
Tagged: Ireland, dirt, irishPosted by Lexiphane at 11:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 14, 2007
STOP THE SADNESS
After a particularly touching online slideshow offered by local NBC affiliate WNBC, local representatives admitted that outlawing suicide was no longer a sufficient response to a problem that has existed since the dawn of time and will probably continue until the end of time--without NY legislators' help. The recent death of a moderately famous person, which while only mildly tragic to the public at large, was a deep cause of sorrow to those who knew him and to his family members. Robbed of an opportunity to gain greater fame before dying of a drug overdose, plain crash, homicide, or a disease that might bear his name and those of fundraising events, this was obviously a great loss to not just the individual and those other people, but the entire cable news community.
In response to this incredibly tragic event, lawmakers are currently working on legislation on what is considered to be the root cause of tragedy: celebrity. Certain legislative exemptions for celebrity will of course be included, such as being a legislator. We can only hope that this ends happily for everyone.
Posted by Lexiphane at 4:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 13, 2007
LET'S SAVE THE OUTRAGE THIS TIME, ALRIGHT?
The New York Sun has an article today filled with some of the most disingenous belly-aching I've heard in some time. Right from the headline, one can sense that the head on this argument is more Coors Light than Guinness.
Ban of Liquor on St. Patrick's Riles Railroad Commuters
What commuters would these be exactly? On a Saturday? Could it be the throngs of Irish-for-a-day drunkards who make almost all public transportation in and around NYC a vomit-filled nightmare? Clinging to the increasingly absurd notion that the Irish are still some sort of discriminated-against ethnic group, as if this was the "ol' sod" during the Troubles, is patently ridiculous:
"It definitely looks like stereotyping, and that's what the MTA should be faulted for," state Senator Martin Golden, a Republican of Brooklyn who is Irish, said. "Some people do get out of control, but to focus on that day, and on certain segments of the population like that, is totally wrongheaded."
Mr. Golden said the MTA should lift what he dubbed a discriminatory liquor ban that assumes Irish revelers are more out of control than other groups when celebrating their holidays.
"And I'll fight any man who claims otherwise!" was not added by Mr. Golden.
A VP of a fraternal Irish police organization involved with the parade––of all people!––complained that a booze ban on March 17th was discriminatory because enforcement wasn't equally strengthened during the Gay Pride or certain Hispanic Day parades. Alright buddy, and everyone always says that it's "A Day When Everyone's Queer!" during the Gay Pride celebration; when legions of knuckleheads under the age age of 25 flock from far and wide, donning rainbow pants and drunkenly singing old Madonna favorites. You think you 're being unfairly discriminated against? Try holding a parade when every business and residence on 5th Avenue boards up their windows and doors with plywood and lock up their daughters, lest they be ravished by some scary Dominicans hoods. I think this is one occasion when we can put down the bottle for just an hour or two and stop whining. As for the stereotypes, try to get past them when weaving between cops and firemen relieving themselves just off 2nd Ave next Saturday, while stepping over the hundreds of empty bottles and cans littering the streets of the East Side, and as a you see some teenager with vomit down the front of his shirt holding onto a building as he waits in line to be denied entry to yet another bar.
(Photos courtesy of a Google search that turns up thousands of links associating St. Patrick's Day with drunken behavior.)
Tagged: drunk, mta, nyc, st. patrick's day, subway, vomitPosted by Lexiphane at 8:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 12, 2007
FOREIGN UNDIGNITARY
Being a foreign service officer for Israel must be a pretty tough row to hoe. Almost everyone of any importance knows that Israel and their perfidious Jewish compatriots around the globe are internationalist puppetmasters. Economic disruptions? That was the Jews, er, I mean Israel. War in Thailand? Israel. Oil spill in the North Sea? Israel. AIDS? Please! Israel. There are few problems in today's world that can't be blamed on a country the size of Delaware. Yes, it seems that a representative of Israel must have some type of sado-masochistic streak to take a job like that. From today's AP Wire:
JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israel has recalled its ambassador to El Salvador after he was found naked, bound and drunk, according to Israeli media reports confirmed Monday by a government spokeswoman.
The longtime diplomat, Tsuriel Raphael, has been removed from his post and the Foreign Ministry has begun searching for a replacement, said ministry spokeswoman Zehavit Ben-Hillel.
Two weeks ago, El Salvador police found Raphael in the yard of his residence, tied up, gagged with a ball and drunk, Israeli media reported. He was wearing sex bondage equipment, the media said. After he was untied, Raphael told police he was the ambassador of Israel, the reports said.
NYC diplomats only double park and occasionally run people down in the street.
Tagged: bondage, diplomat, el salvador, israelPosted by Lexiphane at 1:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 11, 2007
CANINE MORTO! NEXT ON THE OCHO!
I hate to do this. There are few things that would get me to bounce a once-in-a-generation Hoya championship off my marquis spot, but sometimes . . .
ESPN. What is wrong with you? Seriously, are your decision makers so removed from society up there in Bristol, CT that you have assumed the the moral sense of village idiots on vacation in Tijuana? That's not an academic question, although at this stage I understand the term "academic" may be far out of reach of whatever 7th-grade dropouts approve your ad copy.
During the March 10th broadcast of the Big East Conference Championship game, ESPN aired a commercial touting its coverage of some Arena Football league. The gist of it was--and this is paraphrasing--'Less Field Means More Intensity . . .' which would seem all well and good, except the ad had to finish its sentence––and more demure readers may want to shade their eyes––with one of the sickest similies I've read since NFL Quarterback Steve Young said "We're going to beat those Chargers like we beat San Fran faggots on our off days!" For the record, Steve Young never said anything remotely like that. But ESPN did finish its Arena Football ad thusly: "Less Field Means More Intensity--Like Two Pitbulls In A Cage!"
WHAT
THE
FUCK?
Did ESPN just pimp one of its broadcast league sports as having the competitive qualities of a barbaric bloodsport run by the most reprobate category of humans outside of slave traders and serial rapists? Yep! Yep, they did!
Pit or cage fights by animals has an unfortunately long history. It is gladiator fighting one species removed from humans, and yet it preys on participants bred to trust humans who nonetheless condition dogs to subject themselves to the most vile kinds of abuse. The lead photo is of a pitbull who apparently let the "ESPN-aired Arena Football-like" intensity get the best of him.
I like ESPN. I know people that work there and feel that it's a pretty decent organization, whatever its shortcomings might be. This particular broadcast ad, however, is so beyond the pale that I have to call them on it. Sick cruelty to animals is not a bullet point in a boardroom presentation; nor is it a pushbutton term to be inserted into an ad for an "extreme" sport (no matter how moronic that sport may or may not be.)
ESPN, please get your shit together. We love dogs. Most people do. Stop pimping their cruelty like it's something funny or extreme.
Giving ESPN the benefit of the doubt, it's possible that a local cable affiliate inserted that pro- animal cruelty ad into the Bristol feed. It didn't look like it, but I'm kind of hoping on it; otherwise it's like finding out your second cousin is a child molestor. Yuck!
UPDATE: Here is the exact transcript of the above-described ad:
[Voiceover] "If these walls could talk, they'd say less field means more fury, like two pitbulls locked in a cage. If these walls could talk, they'd say you have to see it to believe it. Russell Athletic ESPN Arena Football. Monday at 7 p.m. on ESPN2."
To read about the cruel practice of dogfights with pitbulls, see the ASPCA's page here. Pit Bulls On The Web has a page about the inhumane world of dogfights.
UPDATE II: Hear the audio portion of the offending ad by clicking here.
(Photo from Pit Bulls On The Web)
Tagged: ads, cruelty, dogs, espn, pitbullPosted by Lexiphane at 1:32 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 3, 2007
NYC POLITICS BORING
Sure, our current mayor may be a billionaire too good to reside in Gracie Mansion (a considerable step down from his UES mansion) and Rudy's moved on to run for the Presidency, but NYC apparently has nothing on Philadephia when it comes to political antics. In the long tradition of embarassing brothers of successful politicians (e.g. Roger Clinton, Billy Carter), Philly Mayor John Street's brother Milton Street may take the cake. It may be the City of Brotherly Love, but one gets the sense that there is probably little politicial love lost between Milton and the Mayor.
The Philadelphia Daily News reports that would-be mayoral candidate Milton Street had pledged to discontinue his run for the office now occupied by his younger brother if he failed to attract 5,000 supporters to a rally yesterday. He quickly backpedaled on the promise when about 2% of that number showed.
"I know I said that if I didn't get 5,000 people out here today I would not run. But there's something within me... I got to keep going. I got to keep on pushing," Street said to more than 100 people assembled outside City Hall.
Apparently a good portion of that crowd was from the media and passersby wondering who the man was crooning to electric organ music beside a coffin.
During an emotional 45-minute speech, Street unveiled a coffin to emphasize the city's homicide problem; sang a hymn, "If I Can Help Somebody," and said a prayer. A keyboardist played soft organ music in the background throughout.
Street said that he was going to have a band play but that two of the musicians were shot and killed yesterday morning. Police said they were unable to confirm his claim.
If that last paragraph didn't make you laugh at loud or at least crack a smile, something is wrong with you. Seriously though, Milton Street is concerned about crime and willing to crack down on the scourge of nearly all urban environments: hardworking immigrant small business owners.
Stopping violence was the focus of Street's comments. He said he would place a curfew on corner stores as part of his anti-crime effort.
"You have these stores run by the Asians staying up until 2 in the morning," he said. "I'm going to shut them down by 9 o'clock... . What business do you have if you're not selling drugs?"
While that was supposed to be a rhetorical question . . .
A man in the crowd yelled, "Wonton soup!"
Dark forces are currently aligned against candidate Milton Street.
"There's all these movements out here to keep Milton Street off the ballot," Street said atop a stage on the west side of City Hall before the crowd of mostly news media and passing gawkers. "Let the voters decide."
Some of these movements include a federal tax evasion investigation related to $2 million in consulting fees paid to Street related to Philadelphia International Airport, a recent arrest for outstanding traffic warrants, and questions about whether he even meets residency requirements to run for Mayor.
Someone paid Milton Street $2 million in consulting fees.
If his run for office doesn't pan out, Street plans to continue to employ his oratorical strengths in some manner or another.
"I have some options," Street said. "I mean, there are some other things I can do. I may do some talk radio. People have expressed an interest, without me giving out a lot of information, about me doing some talk radio. As a job. So I need a voice. So I guess I'll position myself where I can best have my voice heard."
I for one hope to hear a lot more from candidate Street
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 11:24 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 27, 2007
OBLIGATORY ONE-TIME-ONLY A.N.S. POST
[sigh] I was really hoping I could side step this altogether, but I will say one thing about the Anna Nicole Smith fiasco. If you're not familiar with the situation, here's a quick recap: weeks after losing her son to an overdose and days after giving birth to a daughter, drugged-out blonde bombshell and former Playmate dies of a likely OD in her hotel room. Said woman was embroiled in a legal battle with the family of a deceased oil tycoon she married when he was a wheelchair-bound nonagenarian. As the infant daughter is the heir to any multi-million dollar legal resolution, men are coming out of the woodwork to claim paternity. And weeks after her death, her body remains decomposing in a Florida morgue as multiple parties argue over where she should be buried. Got all that?
This morning, MSNBC aired an interview it conducted with one of the men who allegedly slept with Anna Nicole Smith and is now claiming paternity to her daughter Danielynn. Larry Birkhead was openly emotional as he described how in love he was with Anna Nicole Smith and gave his account of seeing her for the last time in a Florida morgue:
Birkhead became the most emotional when he described saying his final goodbye while viewing Smith's body in a Florida morgue last week.
“There was something she made me say every night before she went to sleep,” Birkhead said, tears spilling down his cheeks. “I said, ‘Good night my sweet Anna baby.’ That's what she wanted me to say to her every night before she went to sleep.”
That's pretty sweet. Enough so that it rang a bell; more like a gong. In the 1996 movie Beautiful Girls, a relatively small film directed by Ted Demme that did around $20mn in business, there is a scene where Tommy (Matt Dillon) is asking about Andera's (Uma Thurman) relationship with her boyfriend back in Chicago. She assures him that it is very good and says:
Andera: You know there are fours words I need to hear before I go to sleep. Four little words. "Good night sweet girl." That's all it takes. I'm easy, I know, but a guy who can muster up those four words is a guy I want to stay with.
People who start lifting quotes from movies (or closely paraphrasing them) without attribution incline me to believe that they are total frauds. It might not seem like a big deal, but out of the whole interview, that is the quote that MSNBC pulled for the headline: "Good night, my sweet Anna baby".
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 4:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 14, 2007
"GIMME AN O! GIMME A V! . . ."
What would that eventually spell? Overreach, of the judicial variety. The New York Times reports on the lack of enthusiasm over a judge's ruling that female high school cheerleaders must be present at female sporting events in equal measure to male sporting events. This means that some cheerleading squads no longer travel to boys' team away games to accomodate the girls' team schedule and oftentimes, the distaff cheerleaders aren't really welcomed by the women on the court.
Boys’ basketball boosters say something is missing in the stands at away games, cheerleaders resent not being able to meet their rivals on the road, and even female basketball players being hurrahed are unhappy.
In Johnson City, students and parents say they have accepted the change even as they question the need for it.
Several cheerleaders there recalled a game two years ago, long before the complaint, when the squad decided at the last minute to cheer for the girls’ team because a boys’ game was canceled.
The cheers drowned out directions from the girls’ coach, frustrated the players, and created so much tension that the cheerleaders left before halftime.
“They asked, ‘Why are you here?’ ” recalled Joquina Spence, 18, a senior cheerleader. “We told them, ‘We’re here to support you,’ and it was a problem because they kept yelling at us.”
Title IX, the federal statute enacted to level the playing field between men's and women's athletic programs, has become a victim of its own success as it wanders into the realm of reductio ad absurdum in order to stay relevant. Proponents of Title IX are now reduced to ferreting out non-existent problems regardless of whether anyone wants a proposed solution.
Whitney Point is one of 14 high schools in the Binghamton area that began sending cheerleaders to girls’ games in late November, after the mother of a female basketball player in Johnson City, N.Y., filed a discrimination complaint with the United States Department of Education. She said the lack of official sideline support made the girls seem like second-string, and violated Title IX’s promise of equal playing fields for both sexes.
But, as the New York State Public High School Athletic Association warned in a letter to its 768 members in November, the education department determined that cheerleaders should be provided “regardless of whether the girls’ basketball teams wanted and/or asked for” them.
While most of the Title IX lawsuits are originating here in New York State, leave it to California to take the cake in demanding nothing less than total mental adherence to a new and better political mindset:
Last February, a statewide group of physical education teachers in California called for cheerleaders to attend girls’ and boys’ games “in the same number, and with equal enthusiasm” as part of its five-year goals.
Five year plans; goals of enthusiastic participation. This sounds like something Mao would have come up with during the Cultural Revolution. Good luck with all of that.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 12:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 12, 2006
MEL GIBSON FOR U.N. SECRETARY GENERAL
Mel Gibson may be on a hiatus from show business for a bit after his recent roadside descent into drunken jackassery--you know, the one where he started calling Jewish people a bunch of war-mongering Christ-killing jackals?--so he may want to consider an alternative career in international politics.
What? "That's insane!" you might think. Au contraire. If you haven't been following closely for the last, say ten or thirty years, everything is the Jews' fault according to most European and international diplomats. The rise of Islamofascism? Jews' fault. 9/11/01 attacks on the U.S.? Jews. Hurricane Katrina? Probably Jews. Local school board election upset? "Shitty little country"'s fault, i.e. one filled with Jews.
So understand when I was a little confused when I read that Mel Gibson's career was in the crapper for tirading that Jewish people were responsible for every bad thing that had ever happened on the world stage. Having tried to keep current in world politics for the last two decades, I assumed that this was the Conventional Wisdom that people stuck to like a broken record. Mel Gibson isn't a deluded drunken reprobate asshole, he's just adhering to the party line of forward-thinking diplomacy, i.e. everything is the Jews' fault, but it's okay to say that because we once bought one of Henry Kissinger's books. See? Mel's not an insane anti-Semite; he's just being diplomatic.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 5:24 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 20, 2006
NICE TO MEET YA!
This weekend I had the pleasure of meeting my older brother's girlfriend Betsy. She's good people and she and my brother seem like a nice match, especially as they both emit the same pheromones that attract attacking flies during a badminton match. I'd see a doctor about that, both of you, or at least restrict yourself to urban areas.
Her only fault that I could detect was a sense of solipsism, asking that I represent her nicely on my site. Like I would write about my brother's girlfriend on my site! Sheesh! Get over yourself!
It was great to meet you Betsy.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 12:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 25, 2006
SPAM FREE VERSE OF THE DAY
The second installment of this feature, which excerpts the prose included in spam entered to evade email filters:
futile. They believe that successful people have become successful because
fate had ordained determined. They believe that all the trials and
tribulations that men face in this world is dNathaniel
Angsty!
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 10:32 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 23, 2006
CHICKENSUIT!
I'll be damned if I can think of anything at all warranting the posting of the picture above.
Austrian Edgar Honetschlaeger said he decided to work with the Japanese on the project because he hoped to make the chicken label clothing essential.He said "It's something that you don't really need but everyone wants to have anyway."
He is promoting the range on his website, www.chickenssuit.com, and a fashion show is now touring the world.
Several farmers have already had chicken suits with the name of their farm ordered and many advertisers have enquired about the possibility of having sponsored suits promoting everything from KFC to chicken soup.
The chicken suits come in various sizes, and had their first presentation in the Austrian pavilion of the World exhibition in Nagoya, Japan, where 20 chickens paraded a catwalk with Mozart music playing in the background.
The chicken suit collection will continue its world-wide tour with shows planned in Tokyo, Paris, Mexico City and Vienna.
I smell a prank, but at face value I can't think of a single thing to add to this.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 6:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
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