Prospective Superheroes

Tape Measure Man -

Watermelon Smile

Most uncomfortable Youtube...

Depression Christmas

murderhiking

Funniest thing I've seen in the past hour -

Doin' Dirt Is A Part Of Livin'

I skim off the top like a politician. 2 mash-ups using Dead Prez -





It surprises me that rap-rock sucked so bad cause some of my favorite remixes use indie rock as the beat. I haven't spent much time listening to it yet, but Blakroc (the guys from The Black Keys with rappers like Q-Tip, RZA, Raekwon, Mos Def...) might turn out to be an exception.

The Phoenix Suns All Night Long

It's impossible to hate the Suns.

David Simon Interview

Vice has a gigantic interview with David Simon up. It is fantastic and worth the 40 minutes you'll have to devote to read it. A lot of information I was unaware of with The Wire and his response to how people reacted to The Wire.

The Wire tried to imply—and I felt it being from Baltimore, and I think Baltimoreans felt it, but I’m not sure how well it conveyed for the rest of the country—the value of the city as the essential American experience. We’re an urban people. Eighty percent of us live in metro areas. I don’t buy the whole Republican convention with its small-town values and “We represent the real Americans.” I live in Baltimore. I’m concerned with big-city values and I live among real Americans. I could give a fuck about the other 20 percent of the country. I care about how we live together in cities. I think there were some people who watched The Wire and said to themselves, “You know, why don’t they just all move away? That city’s unredeemable.” We never felt that. I’m vested in Baltimore and I love it, just as I now spend part of my year in New Orleans and I’ve always loved New Orleans.

Oll Right

An Italian musician wrote this song in gibberish to sound like English -

See more funny videos and Music Videos at Today's Big Thing.

Where's Wallace?

Where's Wallace?!

Astronomically Accurate Ant-Size

Feel it.

A Star Wars Man

Alyssa Rosenberg has a nice response to a weird article by Wesley Morris in the Boston Herald. Morris is dredging up the tired argument that Hollywood has a representational void of the American brand of masculinity. Alyssa addresses the absurdities of the argument well -

He sees elements of it in everyone from Clark Gable to Clint Eastwood, and complains that it, whatever it is, is lacking in younger men of today. If he had a firm definition to work from, it might be possible to make that exclusion definitively. But Gable and Eastwood are really only two points on a continuum, and not even definitive end points of it...But just because we've moved beyond once kind of dominant performance for men doesn't mean a total loss: if you lose one kind of role, but gain many others, I think that's probably a net benefit for male actors across the board.

Morris sees the beginning of the end for the Gable-era masculinity with the popularization of the Method form of acting, which doesn't make much sense at all. I can't be certain at all, but were people complaining about the loss of real men in Hollywood when Paul Newman and Marlon Brando and Al Pacino were the leading men? Instead, I think, like most things in my lifetime, the argument can be traced back to Star Wars. As Chuck Klosterman put it -

Studied objectively, Luke Skywalker was not very cool. But for kids who saw Empire, Luke was The Man. He was the guy who we wanted to be. Retrospectively, we'd like to claim Han Solo was the single-most desirable character - and he was, in theory. But Solo's brand of badass cool is something you can't understand until you're old enough to realize that being an arrogant jerk is an attractive male quality.

But the argument that the new generation of American male actors was not masculine enough, at least in my lifetime, I think started with Titanic and Star Wars: Attack of the Clones. You could try, like Morris, to validate your argument by couching it in historical comparisons, but a more defensible argument would be to say that Kate Winslet looked too old for DiCaprio, and that turning Darth Vader into a whiny brat and casting Hayden Christensen were two decisions that even my 13-year old self knew was completely wrong. And so, when all those kids who grew up wanting to be Luke Skywalker realized that Han Solo was the cooler character (and the only one with a chance at getting the girl) they were forced to watch the single most evil character of the trilogy turn into Luke Skywalker Sr. It might even lead people to speak in rhetorical circles trying to argue the lack of stoically cool male characters years after the fact - and especially whenever DiCaprio has another movie coming out like The Aviator where his youthfulness can be a distraction - when there is no such crisis at all.

Griffy & Valentine II

I posted this picture of my grandmother's and aunt's dogs back in October and since then they've both passed away. Griffey, the golden one, was on his way out for awhile. Valentine, though, was only 7 when a tumor was discovered in her mouth on Monday. Valentine's health deteriorated way too quickly. We had just gotten her to jump through a hula hoop. Last month I had her jumping in the air 15 times in a row before a cookie reward. She got real tired over the past couple weeks, and couldn't coax much more than a tail-wag on the suggestion of a walk. I thought it was surprising, and a good sign, that on Tuesday she gave a poodle jump before a walk, but apparently it was just a last hurrah. She had an appointment for a specialist today at 8:30 am, but she suffered two seizures yesterday and had to be put down.

Lakers + Refs > Bucks

Yo, that's a proof. Yahoo! discusses the heartbreaking 'loss' last night -

Ep. 486: Cry Foul from The Basketball Jones on Vimeo.

Brew Hoop does the necessary work in pointing out that the Bucks did, technically, miss many opportunities to put the best team in the NBA away, but that sort of mature view, placing the responsibility on the players, is just a bullshit fairy tale when you're playing against the Lakers at home. They don't need the help!

The Yahoo guys focus on the most egregiously bad call in the game, but there were many others. Just horribly officiated, but the Bucks hung in there and are still making this a very enjoyable season and making me glad that I decided to follow the NBA again. Here's Brew Hoop detailing the rest of the officiating -

The game officials (Joe Forte, Marc Davis, Phil Robinson) didn't wear Kobe jerseys themselves, but from start to finish they favored the Lakers. They were bad enough to make some calls that went in Milwaukee's favor too, but even if the score was tied after 48 minutes, nothing really evened out tonight.

The Lakers got the 50/50 calls, sure, but they also got 60-40 calls, 100/0 calls.

Just not good. The worst at the Bradley Center this season, and I've only missed a couple.

There are myriad specific instances, like when Bogut felt the slap heard 'round press row. No call. Or when Kobe got that and-one call on Bogut to bring the Lakers within one in overtime. You remember, the one when he may have traveled, may have charged, and definitely didn't get fouled.

"I don't think it was a foul on Bogut, or whoever they called the foul on. But he's (Bryant) a great player and he's going to get the benefit of the doubt," Charlie Bell said.

Nobody thought it was a foul on Bogut, except the onlybody who matters.

To make matters worse, Los Angeles felt entitled to get calls, you could see that, and despite the foul disparity in their favor, they still griped; both Ron Artest and Lamar Odom picked up technicals for dissent, and at (at least) one point Bryant gave the official the stare-down all the way down the court.

The refs were applauded a few times tonight. Sarcastically, by the crowd.

Forgetting Aaron Rodgers

The last couple of days has found Matt Taibbi's name pop-up over and over again on the blogs over his recent piece on the Rolling Stone piece he wrote about the ubiquitousness of the finance industry in Obama's White House. Unfortunately, it seems that everyone missed the other article Taibbi wrote in the December 10th issue of Rolling Stone. For some reason, it's not online (neither are any of his other sports articles) so I'll copy the important bit down, see if you spot the glaring omission -

But Favre not only hasn't made the big mistake, he's actually played like a Hall of Famer all season. The list of quarterbacks who can throw the deep out with regularity and challenge the whole field is really short - it's basically Tom Brady and Peyton Manning and Drew Brees, occasionally Philip Rivers. And Favre. And that's it.

Even Ben Roethlisberger, accuracy-wise, has been a mess this year compared with Favre. The supersophemores Joe Flacco and Matt Ryan both took big steps back. Jay Cutler has completely sucked balls. Eli Manning lately is playing he's got a giant tick sucking on his decision-making center. And Matt Schaub and Matt Hasselbeck are just guys.

I don't know if I should thank Taibbi for being able to write an entire article about Brett Favre without mentioning the Packers or if I should ignore him completely for failing to mention Rodgers' very good year and most obvious comparison point to Favre. Regardless, I'll double down on this -

There is a school of thought out there that Favre shouldn't get credit for any kind of feat this season because (a) he whined and schemed his way out of two different teams, the Packers and the Jets, and (b) he did so precisely to get himself to the Vikings, playing opposite an A-list defense and behind a monster offensive line, handing off to a snarling beast of a running back, Adrian Peterson, whose very name makes strong safeties everywhere shit their pants in terror...you'll hear people say that even JaMarcus Russell might look like an NFL quarterback on this current Vikings team.

I do feel protective towards Aaron Rodgers, though, against the criticisms of Wisconsinites who can't divorce themselves from Favre and against the national narrative that seems to view him as the kid sitting alone on draft day, the kid sitting on the bench for 2 years, and then the kid who, having usurped the QB throne as Favre whined about loyalty, has to be compared to the predecessor's myth. Despite the 6-10 record he played well last year, better than Favre, but because Favre had that 6 touchdown game early in the year it seemed every week brought a new lamentation that Thompson backed the wrong QB.

Now this year, Rodgers is having a fantastic season, basically carrying the offense despite a weak line, but Favre took his revenge in the 2 regular season games, which feels like the only thing that matters. It's obvious the Vikings are the better team, but I'm still hoping for the Packers to run into them in the playoffs. Regardless of whether the Packers win or not, or whether Rodgers has a good game or not, or whether Favre continues to tear my soul from my body, this story isn't over. As TNC put it regarding Vince Young -

Likewise, for Vince Young, but even more. That drive yesterday is why I watch football. For people who think it's only about the hits, I'd show them this. There's something almost super-biographical about it. I called football a narrative earlier this year, and maybe that's not quite right. Myth, maybe? Watching a guy go from the bottom, watching him come back better at his job, and then, against incomparable odds, arrive at a moment where it all depended on a choice, is resonant. (Especially when, like me, you've spent a good part of your life considering yourself a fuck-up.)

The ending I want to see is Rodgers destroying the Vikings and Favre throwing a pick to Woodson to end the game, but if Rodgers and the Packers lose to Favre in the playoffs it'd be devastating in a way that matters. In a way that would alter the lens people viewed them with. And I'd continue to back Rodgers.