Archive for January, 2012
|Enter the Void
[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 26, 2012 by admin in Popular Media
Thursday, January 26th, 2012If you’ve never died, done hallucinogenic drugs, had an out of body experience, or been in a serious car crash, you may have trouble connecting with the film “Enter the Void”. I’ve done pretty much all of those things, so this may be one of my favorite films in a decade.
If you’ve never died, done hallucinogenic drugs, had an out of body experience, or been in a serious car crash, you may have trouble connecting with the film Enter the Void
SOPA DE MIERDA – An Open Letter To The Entertainment Industry
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on January 21, 2012 by admin in Editorial & Opinion
Saturday, January 21st, 2012Including a simple recipe for self-destruction: one part MPAA, one part RIAA, one part Washington, and three parts greed and ignorance.
I’m sorry movie and music industries, that you’re so goddamn stupid that since you can’t figure out how to make money with one of the greatest technological achievements in human history, you want to destroy it. No really. I feel bad that the mostly white, fatass males that run a multi-billion dollar industry that pays most of the hardworking working people struggling to get into it a pittance in comparison to their own incomes can no longer lounge in ease by the pool with a bevy of hookers. I’m also sorry that after buying Led Zeppelin IV
Is It Wrong To Pee On Dead People?
[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 13, 2012 by admin in Editorial & Opinion
Friday, January 13th, 2012Call me old fashioned, but I think this debate was framed all wrong.
 Let’s face it. LOTS of things may have contributed to this despicable act. |
I’m so (ahem) relieved that world leaders have finally taken a stance on that whole peeing on corpses thing. Afghan leader Hamid Karzai’s heart seems to be in the right place; I think most of us would agree with his assessment that peeing on dead people is wrong. And I guess it was pretty big of the Taliban to not take offense over the whole affair, but I imagine that whatever public statements were reported by the press omitted the part at the end where the spokesman muttered “Hell. We do it to YOUR guys ALL THE TIME”. Call me old fashioned, but to me the weirdest part about the global dialogue about the appropriateness of urinating on the dead was the way it was framed in the first place. I mean sure, pissing on someone – whether they’re alive OR dead – is just plain rude. But isn’t it even RUDER to KILL them? So there’s that. But having accepted that you’re going to put a bunch of men in killing suits, and then having trained them for several years to get into a calculated frenzy to kill OTHER guys in killing suits, what do you expect? Imagine you’re one of these soldiers. You’ve just spent months in the desert with a small band of comrades who are the only thing between you and certain death at the hands of ANOTHER small band of comrades – whose biggest ideological difference with you is really just that they want to kill you – and you finally achieve the goal. Which is of course not getting killed, and often involves killing the other guy in terrifying night time conflicts where half the time you’re more worried about not getting your family jewels blown off by an IED, or not killing your pals in the dark by accident than anything else. Face it. A person is pretty pent up and stressed out at this point, and has been driven beyond any sense of rational human behavior. What are they supposed to do? Re-enact some cheesy scene from an old war movie, and hold the guy dying in his arms while he says something quotable for his Wikipedia page? The absurdity of this whole debate about peeing on dead soldiers led to a heated argument with a friend of mine. We were talking about warrior conventions, and he said something about how Klingons – the quintessential expression of the warrior spirit in Star Trek films – would probably find few things more dishonorable than urinating on their dead comrades. I pointed out that there were numerous incidents in the Star Trek sagas that specifically highlighted the Klingon’s lack of concern for what was done with their lifeless bodies. But then my friend asked “In any of these instances, was someone trying to PEE ON THEM?” I had to concede on that one. If you know a Trekkie who can answer that question with any authority, drop us a line. But in the meantime, I have an idea that will help avoid the sticky question of whether or not it’s appropriate to pee on someone after you kill them. How about we don’t kill each other in the first place. And heck, for good measure, let’s also just generally agree to not pee on each other either. Unless of course it’s someone like Kim Jong Il, who – now that his body will be lying in state for ETERNITY – stands a pretty good statistical chance of getting peed on. Which reminds me for some reason of the video below Read the rest of this entry »
Seven BEGINNING Of The World Ideas For 2012
[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 3, 2012 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012If we’re all expecting the end of the world as we know it, we might as well plan the new one.
Okay, we’ve all had our fun pondering the end of life as we know it this year. I even took a humorous stab at it just the other day. I guess we needed to get it out of our systems again. I mean, it’s been over ten long years since the last time we got all nutty about the impending apocalypse. Personally, I’m of the opinion that this yearning for a dramatic end of the world scenario is driven largely by the collective unconscious guilt of the human race. On the one hand, the guilt that wealthy elites unconsciously feel, knowing that the tablet device their ten year old is watching Disney movies on as they fly to a tropical retreat was made by the cracked and bleeding fingers of ANOTHER ten year old, half a world away. A ten year old that gets paid a dollar a day so that the company that made the tablet can “retain the talent” of the overpaid CEO that was largely responsible for taking that dollar-a-day kid’s crappy job away from some former middle class American because they got paid 20 times more for it. And on the OTHER hand, the collective guilt fueled by the laziness and apathy of that same former middle-class American, who didn’t vote, didn’t pay attention while their country got gutted by robber barons, and instead sat around ordering out for pizza and watching “reality TV” and cable news while their home got repossessed and the cost of education skyrocketed so high that their kids will be doomed to the same second-rate first-world life that they are. Do I sound cynical? I’m not. In fact, I figure if we DO finally have to face the end of the world this year, that just means we have opportunities to create a new one. And the ball is already in motion. From the recent massive protests in Russia, to the Occupy, Tea Party, and “think local” movements in America, to the “Arab Spring”, regular people all over the world are demanding a better world. I think we can make one. How about you? Below is my starter wish list. Feel free to chime in or tell me what an idiotic Utopian I am. Read the rest of this entry »