ESPN - Iran objects to the logo for the 2012 London Olympics, contending it is racist because it resembles the word "Zion" and warning of a possible boycott of the Games. The secretary general of Iran's National Olympic Committee said Iran sent a letter to International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge. The letter claims the 2012 logo spells out "Zion," a biblical term widely recognized to refer to the city of Jerusalem.
We've all heard some batshit crazy stuff coming out of Iran under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but for me this one takes the cake.It's complete lunacy on so many levels.
Firstly - How can you possibly look at that Logo and see "ZION"? When I look at this admittedly stupid looking logo, the first thing I see is 2012. If I'm going to experiment a bit, I see "ZOI'C" if im going left to right and "ZOC'I" if im going clock-wise. If this is some Jewish conspiracy like Iran says, and you read it read it Hebrew style from right to left you would get "OZC'I". I guess you could vaguely make out "ZION" from these letters, but what kind of whack-job reads stacked logo letters like a god damn tic-tac-toe board. In what language do you read down-diagonal up right-down?
Secondly - Is there anyone in the government of Iran that at least recognizes the hypocrisy of calling this racist? They are claiming it's racist because the letters represent the desire for Jews to have a home? Assuming I'm reading this correctly, their claim is that Jews are being racist for wanting a home, and they are not racist because they hate Jews and want Israel destroyed? It just seems kind of, I don't know, fishy.
Thirdly - How would a logo saying "Zion" even be racist at all? It's not lampooning a religion or race, it's not portraying stereotypes. It's just a word. If the logo spelled "IRAN" would that be racist to Israelis? If the New York City games logo looked like it spelled "Black", would Al Sharpton be flipping out? I think not.
Listen, Iran, stick to what you do best, denying the holocaust, helping spread worldwide Jewish conspiracy theories to weak-minded youths, and hiding Women's breasts. Leave the fine print analysis to the Jewish Lawyers.
I'll take Melissa Leo's super annoying and awkward "I can't believe I won" look and use of the word "Golly" in her speech. I'll take the crowd cheering on Kirk Douglas through a bit that went 10 minutes too long and bordered on painful to watch when he should never have been up there in the first place. I'll take James Franco acting like he was too cool to host the Oscars even though HE WAS HOSTING THE OSCARS. I'll take Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law laughing about their DUI and Prostitution arrests while children were watching. I'll even take the King's Speech guy dedicating the Best Screenplay Oscar to stutterers around the world when it would have been way cooler to have Christopher Nolan dedicate his Oscar for Inception to all the dreamers out there, including those who dream to not stutter anymore. But what I can not take is these smug Hollywood nincompoops cheering when the Inside Job directors mentioned that nobody has been thrown in jail from the 2008 financial crisis.
I'm not going to get into who should be thrown and jail over the financial crisis and who shouldn't be because that's not the point of this blog. The point is that everyone in that audience is probably friends with a guy who worked at Lehman or Bear Stearns, a ton of them surely invested money with one of many complicit investment banks or hedge funds and most importantly, most of them do not know a single person who's house was foreclosed on outside of Detroit. We're talking about the largest concentration of smugness outside of Bono's bedroom here. Kudos to these filmmakers as a.) I'm sure that their film was great and b.) they used their 5 minutes of exposure to draw light on something they care about, but God Damn It Hollywood, could you be more predictable and hypocritical? You have Anne Hathaway wearing like $50k worth of dresses in one night while the audience suddenly seems aghast at the excess of Wall Street. Sure, this may be a sweeping criticism of a large group and I'm sure many of these people are quite philanthropic, but don't pretend to be a sudden activist because the cameras are on, how fake can you get? This is the same group who probably drove SUV's to the show where they cheered on Al Gore's global warming movie. Shut up and focus on looking beautiful. God Damn It.
Some Random other thoughts on the Oscars:
- Hosting the Oscars should be like hosting the Superbowl, its better in warm weather, in a vibrant city, just like the Oscars are better hosted by a well seasoned comedian. Miami or New Orleans.....Baldwin, Billy Crystal, or Steve Martin. Franco and Hathaway were like Jacksonville, and nobody wants to go there.
-As terrible / creepy / uncomfortable as that Kirk Douglas thing was, he's still Kirk Douglas, and I wanted to kick Timberlake in the shins when he made fun of him. Easy Timberlake, people still remember your stellar work in "Alpha Dog" and when you lived at that fat perverted boy band guy's house when you were like 15.
-Can we be done with Céline Marie Claudette Dion? Titanic came out in 1997 and she's been holed-up at Caesars Palace in Vegas since 2003 with her pedophile ex-manager husband avoiding all shaving and daytime speaking. Do you know her husband was 38 when they met and she was 12? Celine, you're from Quebec, not France and you've lived in the US for like 20 years, enough with the heavy accent already. Lastly, If we're going to go with a washed up Vegas-performer for the live performance of the death montage song, lets at least get someone sweet like Tom Jones, Carrot Top or Dani Gans' corpse. Dennis Hopper would puke if he knew that he was remembered on national TV by someone whose second best song was "its all coming back to me now."
-What does Helena Bonham Carter actually look like? Does she always look like a clay-mation character from a Tim Burton movie? I get that he is her husband, and he probably digs it, but come on, you're nominated for Best Supporting Actress, take a shower before you show up.
-Loved Aaron Sorkin just plowing through the play-off music without skipping a beat, I would rather hear him talk about anything then waste another moment of my life watching James Franco roll his eyes and be "artistic".
-Great subtle lesbian moment when the two male and one female Inception sound-mixer winners thanked their "wives".
-How badly did Spielberg look like he wanted to mention Saving Private Ryan, ET, Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Color Purple, or Munich when he was telling the nominated but won't win Best Picture candidates and how impressive of a list they will be joining?
-Lastly, the most under-appreciated man in the game is Christopher Nolan, just no love at all from the Academy for the Dark Knight or Inception (not including the technical stuff) and the guy is a perennial ace.
For years I've noticed certain devices used in movies that seem to get repeated without anyone ever questioning them. Thus, I've decided to add a new segment to the QBDL, known as Ridiculous Movie Device.
Today's RMD is the Forced Real Action at the End of a Training Movie.
Everyone loves a good war training movie. Top Gun, Stripes, GI Jane, The Guardian, Pearl Harbor, well, nobody really liked Pearl Harbor, but you get the idea. What is one thing all these movies have in common? Great training sequences, followed by ridiculous contrived "real life" scenarios. Why do the producers of these movies routinely tack on a completely ludicrous one-off half-hour scenario in order to show the cast of characters "in action". Just end the movie at graduation and let us extrapolate their success after that awesome coming together training piece.
Top Gun may be the most absurd of all of these final half hours. The film is an iconic 80's classic, it has great training sequences, ahead of its time action and visual effects, emotional highs, emotional lows, questionably homo-erotic volleyball scenes, cool handshakes...its all gravy for a solid hour and a half. Sadly though, this near masterpiece almost crashes and burns when then these maniacal producers feel the need to incorporate a pre-text for World War III at the end.
Lets set the scene here - its 1986, the Cold War is very much a going concern, and a "stricken communications ship" has drifted into hostile waters. For the sake of time lets set aside the completely fabricated concept of a "communications ship," and focus on the "drifted into hostile waters". This ship is apparently in the Indian ocean, and there are Russian MiG's in the area. Why are Russian MiG's randomly patrolling the Indian ocean? It's nowhere near the USSR or any Eastern Bloc countries. I'd MAYBE give you Chinese MiGs, but Russians? Sorry, not buying it. Furthermore, what waters off the Indian Ocean are hostile to the US? The setting is ludicrous, but fine, lets set aside disbelief on this one and just go with it.
Given this alternate universe with Soviet-controlled waters in the Indian Ocean, and some fake US ship dead in the water drifting towards an enemy with thousands of nukes, we now find ourselves in a potentially huge international crisis. So what would it make the most sense to do at this point if you're working at the Pentagon? Why of course let's send our newest recruits with absolutely zero combat experience half way around the world from their school in California to engage Soviet fighter planes before they get close enough to blow up a US aircraft carrier with their exocet missiles. Excuse me for interrupting this clearly sound logic but DOES ANYBODY REMEMBER THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS?!?!?! How about the Gulf of Tonkin Incident? Where are the diplomatic channels? Why are we trying to engage Soviet airplanes? Why are they trying to blow up US aircraft carriers? I mean its 1986, tensions are cooled, we have phones and computers, PICK UP THE PHONE AND CALL GORBACHEV!! Its a communications ship not a nuclear submarine. Moreover, there are no existing well-trained fighter pilots on this aircraft carrier already? Why are we wasting 36 hours getting the clearly spooked and not ready Maverick to this aircraft carrier when this ship is a sitting duck in enemy territory? Where are all the former TOP GUN graduates? WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?! Am I taking crazy pills or is this not the most poorly handled international conflict escalation since the USS Maine blew up by accident and started the Spanish American War? And how dismissive is the token bald commander guy at the end? "The other side is denying it happened," he says. WHAT?! How was this near-war with fucking RUSSIA being kept under wraps! Is anyone else concerned that Soviet airplanes are just firing missiles at US planes? This is declaration of war from our sworn enemy! Lets not just laugh it off and send Maverick back to the bar to sing Great Balls of Fire.
Terribly absurd scenes like this are routinely added into these great training movies and nobody even blinks to think about how big of a deal some of these things are. The Stripes guys perform an unauthorized US incursion into Soviet Czechoslovakia with top-secret weapons in 1981! The GI Jane Seal unit just casually orders helicopter gunships into Libya! These Hollywood producers are the dogs of war.
Get rid of this ridiculous movie device before we end up in a nuclear holocaust.
P.S. Everyone celebrating Maverick's big win at the end, GET BACK TO WORK, your at war now, act like it. How unprofessional can you get?
Whenever I board an airplane and head towards the back to find my seat in low class, I'm always amazed at how settled in the passengers in first class have managed to become in the mere 10 minutes they've been on the plane. How do they do it?
I'm always sitting in or around the 3rd to last row, so I'm usually in the first group to board after the high-rollers, orthodox jews (always have like 5 kids and 3 strollers), and "old" people who get that bullshit pre-boarding. (side note: the "old" person pre-boarding is complete malarkey, just because you're on the other side of 60 doesn't make it that hard to board a plane especially given how fit these 60 year-olds are these days. They already get cheap movie tickets and those sweet Sopranos-style sweat suits you get to wear in those over 55 only sex communities in Florida, they can wait until zone 2 is called to board).
Anyway, so I'm doing that awkward sideways walk down the aisle so I can push my carry on with my knee and not smack people in the face with my backpack, and there are these judgmental assholes sitting there sipping orange juice and reading the newspaper with their shoes off. They're just lounging around with no cares in the world, and making absolutely zero eye contact with the heathens heading back towards Steerage. They're propped up in their double wide thrones and probably looking for a honey moon couple to invoke their right of primae noctis on.
It routinely takes me a solid ten to fifteen minutes on a plane before I settle in. I have to make sure I've optimized my leg room by snaking more than my allotted amount of overhead bin space, done a quick terrorist sweep, checked my nearest exits in case of a never going to happen water landing, and read the airline magazine to check the movie so I can decide what my next three hours look like before committing to a book or magazine. Yet, I get on the plane and there is some guy in a crisp suit and tie with a full work spread, reading notes and building models on his Sony Viao laptop with wireless internet. We get it bro, you work hard, you can afford first class, why dont you sit back, wait until take off, eat your overrated airplane food and stop being such a douche. God Damn It.
So I like hippie music. Screw it, everyone's a hater. The jams are too long, you have to be on drugs to like the music, the people are weird and smell, nobody wears shoes, you got hit in the eye with a glowstick once, I get the criticisms. Most of this stuff is valid. But let me tell you one thing: you will never find people like Bundangbear here at a Miley Cyrus concert or paying $275 on stub-hub to see Lil Wayne at the Wachovia Center in Philly.
I stumbled onto Bundangbear while casually listening to music on YouTube, and let me tell you, this guy altered the course of my week. Hes like a hairy Buddah without the wisdom, emitting the same good vibes from his fantastic belly. Having been to a number of hippie concerts I can tell you that a pure hippie like this guy just doesn't come around anymore. Most modern day hippies are weird, useless people with borderline personalities. They contribute nothing to society, and give the God Damn It vibe that us normal hippie sympathizers have to constantly fight against. However, Bundangbear breaks that mold.
Upon further research, he teaches English to Koreans over the internet, he travels, and he goes to parking lots to spread happiness and check out scenes for his over 3,000 YouTube followers. I challenge anyone not to smile when Bundangbear sing-shouts "Bundangbear! Its me, its really me." People take themselves too seriously, and Bundangbear is just out there taking it all in. Hats off to you Bundangbear, you joyful cave creature you.
I want to meet this guy and ask him what he does the other 9 months of the year when jam bands aren't on their summer tours. I have $20 on "Plays Dungeons and Dragons" (-110)
Everyday I encounter people I like to call God Damn It people. These are people who fill their own stereotype in such an annoying, textbook and frustrating way that you have no response but to shake your head and say "God Damn It". It works for members of your own people too. Like if a Jewish kid from Long Island were to say "all I do is smoke blunts and play beer pong," I would have no response but to shake my head and say "God Damn It".
Today's God Damn It person of the day is the tourist who takes 10 minutes to pay for a cab.
Here's the situation: you're late to work, or the airport, or a train, at an annoying hour of the day, and there are no cabs. Oh cabs are coming by, but they're full, and you say to yourself, "where the fuck did all these people get these cabs if I've been staring down 6th Avenue for 20 minutes and I haven't seen a single light?" But then the miracle happens, someone has miraculously chosen your pickup point as their destination. The cab pulls up and some fat woman in a mickey mouse print shirt with a fanny pack sits there for the next 8 minutes trying to figure out the credit card machine while you freeze your nuts off. The technology is simple enough, you select the credit card option, the tip and then you swipe. It works like every credit card machine has since 1987 across the entirety of the United States. You've had the entire trip to consider your tip, select your credit card, and make a god damn decision. But no, you feel the need to take your time, slowly peruse your options, only to change your mind on the $1.18 tip three times.
Meanwhile, I'm sitting out here, and all of a sudden unoccupied cabs suddenly start whizzing by, but I can't take them. Why? because I'm pot committed now, and I'm going to wait until this tourist from South Dakota figures out the miracles of modern day technology before she gets out to wait in line for tickets to the matinee performance of "Spamalot." Oh and don't give me the "this crazy technology never works right" look as you get out, I watched the entire thing go down. You clicked cash, then clicked back, then got declined. If your traveling on a fixed budget, take the fucking subway, its not rocket science down there either. God Damn It.
