The Chronic Curmudgeon

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October 30, 2005

The Chronic Curmudgeon Pop Culture Influence #8 and #7

8. Harry Potter - 1998 - present I've never read even a word of J.K. Rowling's series. Probably never will, either -- I just have no interest in them. But tens, if not hundreds of millions of kids around the world do have interest in them -- to the point of obsessiveness. And that alone earns Harry Potter a spot on this list. Kids staying up late and lining up around the block on premiere night... 'in my day,' we did that for Star Wars at the movie theater. But thanks to the magic of Rowling's books, this generation of kids does it for a book. As in, Harry Potter doesn't just have kids willing to read, it has kids wanting to read. And when there's a new Potter book out, neither video game nor mall nor TV show will keep kids away. Seriously, imagine the impact and influence of a series of books that encourages children to love reading?! If you'd have suggested in even 1997 that soon a series of books would come out tht would result in midnight bookstore openings, paranoid secrecy about shipments of books not being opened too early, people lining up for blocks around the bookstore, and virtual riots breaking out when they're first put on sale, no one would have believed you. Had you said the same thing and then told them that it would be a series of books aimed at pre-teens and young teenagers, and you'd have been locked up.

But somehow the world at Hogwarts, with its spells and potions and talk of Muggles and all the rest, has captured the hearts and minds of a generation (excepting those with repressed, uptight, doctrinaire, fascist extremist parents who fear the "witchcraft" the series allegedly promotes), become a billion dollar series of movies, become the most successful book series of all time, and has made JK Rowling wealthier than even Queen Eliazbeth II. Not bad for being written in a coffee shop by an unemployed single mom, whose series and character come in at number 8 in this countdown.

7. Miami Vice - 1984-1989 It's become such a punchline now, the subject of put-down lines in "The Wedding Singer," and a symbol of the cheesiness that was the 1980s, that's it's sometimes hard to remember that Miami Vice was at one point cool. Very cool. So cool, in fact, that it dominated not just television, but music and fashion for a couple of years. In 1985, "Miami Vice" was Lost, Desperate Housewives, Prison Break, 24, and CSI all rolled into one.

The formula seems simple now: take your standard issue cop show, set it in south Florida (which at the time was a relatively exotic idea for a TV series) where lots of bikinis and elsewise scantily clad scenery could be featured, hire two good looking, fashionable leads... and adopt the style of the new MTV zeitgeist, incorporating fast edits, extended sequences with no dialogue but rather action set to music, and put it to a soundtrack of the hottest contemporary music. In fact, the entire show was born from a famous two word Brandon Tartikoff brainstorm: "MTV cops."

Miami Vice was a revolution, albeit a short-lived one. Nothing on TV had ever looked like it, or sounded like it. The pacing and style did channel MTV, and not only did MTV artists provide the soundtrack, they guested on the show (namely Phil Collins and Glenn Frey). Don Johnson made stubble hot instead of sloppy -- and somehow made the blazer over t-shirt with no socks look trendy. The show borrowed the pastel coloring that predominates south Florida, and made teal and coral the hottest colors around. The theme song went to #1 on the Billboard charts. Glenn Frey took "You Belong To The City" to #2 based on the show, and then turned his appearance into a song, "Smugglers' Blues," that broke the top 20. Advertisers couldn't get enough of the show; not only did they clamor to get air time during the show, but several -- including Pepsi and Budweiser -- built entire ad campaigns around it.

The show's police heroes also exhibited the until-1983-unheard-of-but-now-all-the-rage trait of moral ambiguity. You definitely knew that Crockett and Tubbs had their own agendas of revenge and retribution, and that being cops simply gave them the legal imprimatur to pursue them. It added to their appeal. Beyond that, but the show's Miami setting lent it a tangibly Latin/Caribbean feel -- the first time Latin/Caribbean style, music, and culture found such a broad audience on American network television. (Chico and the Man doesn't count.)

Nothing that burns so brightly so quickly can ever last; American culture likes to eat its own, especially anything that becomes too hip too fast. Besides, once you got past the slick packaging, Miami Vice just wasn't really that great of a police drama. But you couldn't touch it for pop culture impact -- music, TV and fashion followed one TV show for a couple of years. So grow out that stubble, break out your loafers and teal blazers, and celebrate Miami Vice as the #7 pop culture influence of the last 25 years.

Posted by Christopher at 04:32 PM | Comments (2)

Blog Stew: Halloween Edition

For those of you who celebrate or otherwise mark the occasion of Halloween, have a happy and safe one. Here's a few recipes for you (in keeping with the "stew" theme).

Anyway, it's time to resurrect "Blog Stew," which we do here from time to time when there are a few items that capture my attention but don't warrant a whole post to themselves. We just throw a whole bunch of little stories into the pot and make stew. WIth that...

1. NASA builds a giant penis. From Boing Boing comes this delightful piece of humor: In an attempt to demonstrate the capabilities of its new robotic "skin" to sense and respond to movement and the environment around it, NASA engineers arranged for a dance between a ballerina and a giant robotic... um... "arm." This video -- made at taxpayer expense, mind you -- reminded me that this is an agency that has spent its lifetime building giant phallic symbols and launching them into space. Not that I mean to be that dismissive of science, but come on! You watch this video, and tell me that you're not thinking the same thing I was?! (Especially at the end when she lifts her back leg high into the air... funny, I think a lot of us guys have the same reaction as the NASA robot when women do that around us.)

2. Mr. Sulu comes out. George Takei, who played Mr. Sulu on Star Trek, has come out of the closet and acknowledged publicly that he is gay. I'm of three minds on this: a) It's a somewhat courageous move; not that Takei was still in massive demand and could have really dented his career, but he does have a dedicated fan base that could conceivably have been alienated (dig my pun? Get it? Star Trek? Alienated?), so this took guts; b) It shouldn't be a big deal at all, because a person's sexuality is their own damn business and the fact that we still make such a big deal of something like this is kinda sad; and c) could the AP have used any more "gay" a photo of Takei to accompany its story? I mean, I swear they went through their files going, "Okay, give me the most festive shot you can, people!"

3. 250,000 Superballs in San Francisco. Also from Boing Boing... to promote its new line of LCD televisions, Sony decided that their new commercial needed some bounce. So they went to one of the hilliest cities in the world -- San Francisco -- and dropped 25,000 brightly Superballs out of a window and down the street. While you're pondering the connection between Superballs and television (and while I ponder just how -- or if -- they collected and removed 250,000 Superballs that had been bouncing all over San Francisco), take a look at the new commercial here. (For the record, San Francisco is still one of my favorite cities anywhere in the world, and I will live there some time before I die.)

4. Quarterback worth just a dime. The more I watch Michael Vick, the more convinced I am that he is the best athlete in professional sports. And the more I watch Michael Vick, the more convinced I am that he is one of the ten worst quarterbacks in the NFL. You can be a great athlete without being great at your position, Vick is.In fact, he's a poor quarterback. It's time to make him a running back, a receiver, a free safety... anything where his natural ability and nose for the game can really work for him. But leave the quarterbacking to Manning, McNabb, Brady, Palmer, Big Ben, and Culpepper.

5. Daylight savings time. As grateful as I am for the extra hour of sleep today... should I really be excited that from now on, even if I leave the office at 5 pm, it's going to be dark outside? Or that sunlight will wake me up before the alarm does at 5:30 am?

Posted by Christopher at 12:22 PM | Comments (7)

If It Says Libby, Libby Libby On The Indictment....

Yes, the first shoe of the Plame investigation has dropped, with Dick Cheney's chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby getting indicted on Friday and resigning. (I'm going to avoid the too-easy comments about a grown man allowing himself to be called "Scooter," although Pete has an amusing twist on the joke.)

First of all, there's so much to discuss here... first of all, for an outstanding overview of the case, of what Libby's indictment means, what could be next, and why this matters so much in the first place, I urge you to check out Fire Dog Lake, whose authors have really gone very in-depth in their analyses.

Libby's indictment is being whined about incessantly by conservatives, many of whom seem to believe that they are above the law and that any effort to challenge them on that assertion results from a conspiracy of liberal politicians or the liberal media. It's been almost amusing to see the froth coming from their mouths over the Fitzgerald investigation, the claims of it being a politically motivated witch hunt in which the primary goal is less investigating a crime than charging someone with one; in Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson's words, "And secondly, I certainly hope that if there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn't indict on the crime and so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation was not a waste of time and taxpayer dollars."

Gee, sounds an awful lot like what the Ken Starr investigation debacle was, doesn't it Kay-Kay? Ken was supposed to be investigating Whitewater, was he not? And yet the charges against Clinton stemmed from his lying to the grand jury about Monica Lewinsky (who was totally unrelated to Whitewater) -- whom he was asked about in relation to his testimony relating to Paula Jones (also uninvolved with Whitewater). So even assuming for one moment, for the sake of argument, that there were no crimes committed in the leak of Valerie Plame's name (there were, but let's just pretend). Hutchinson, her Republican cronies, and conservative toadies across the country are now telling you this: When Republicans spent $52 million of your taxpayer money seven years ago to find something -- anything -- on Bill Clinton, that was okay... but now that someone's doing it to us, it's really not fair and we don't like it.

"I think we should be very careful here, especially as we are dealing with something very public and people's lives in the public arena. I do not think we should prejudge. I think it is unfair to drag people through the newspapers week after week after week," Hutchinson has said. Okay, Kay. Whatever you say. See Bill Clinton, 1998-1999. These're some ugly chickens come home to roost, ain't they kids? That's simply assuming that there were no crimes committed.

(By the way, is anyone really surprised that Libby and Rove are already trotting out the tried and true Republican response of "I don't recall?" It's a pathetic insult to the intlligence of the American people that every time some member of this party -- Oliver North, John Poindexter, Bud McFarlane, Ronald Reagan, just to name a few... and now Scooter Libby and Karl Rove -- gets their misdeeds suddenly exposed to light, they suddenly develop an epic case of amnesia. Just one more reflection of this administration's lack of character.)

There is a very real question that has still yet to be answered: just how did Valerie Plame's name and identity manage to find their way into Robert Novak's column -- especially when Plame's identity and role within the CIA was under cover? Bob Novak didn't just walk over to Langley one afternoon and ask the gate guards if anyone associated with Joseph Wilson worked there. He didn't find out casually. Someone told him. The two questions left are: Who? And why?

The why seems self-evident: because someone was seeking to discredit Joseph Wilson for his public declaration (you know, the one that time proved incontrovertibly true?) that the yellowcake uranium from Niger story was bogus. Someone wanted revenge. Someone wanted to cover up this administrations lies, to keep the cover from coming off the carefully constructed yet wholly phony story that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that he was ready to use against the United States and its allies. And that's the bigger picture people shouldn't lose focus on here.

There were two crimes committed in this case. The first is that somebody leaked Valerie Plame's name and identity to the press, thus potentially endangering national security. (No, that's not a stretch. If you've ever had any exposure to the intelligence community, you know that association means everything. Even though Plame was back in the US and doing work at CIA headquarters, she had previously been in the field... and in her job would have had to associate with foreign nationals. Lots of foreign intelligence agencies, not to mention terrorist organizations, have long memories when it comes to associating with Americans... it's likely that anyone who associated with Plame during her time in the field now has some 'splainin' to do to someone who wants to know what exactly they used to say to the CIA agent, and whether they knew who she was. If the person in question had since infiltrated a sleeper cell or was letting the US know what a hostile government knew about things in their part of the world, that person may well now be in mortal danger -- and the potentially life-saving information the US might have gotten from them is now lost. Sure, it might not be that dire. But it could be -- and this administration irresponsibly ignored that, and put our national security potentially at risk, in a petulent, spiteful attempt to extract revenge on a domestic political opponent.

The second crime is a larger one, and I fear it's being lost in the noise around Libby, Plame, and what Rove may have said to whom. The allegations at the heart of this matter -- that Saddam Hussein tried to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger -- were completely and totally bogus, based on forged documents. Someone assigned by the CIA -- not to mention other members of the intelligence apparatus -- told George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and everyone as much. And yet rather than acknowledge the reality before them, this administration -- Rove, Libby, Cheney, and up to this president -- made the choice to instead try and discredit the messenger, and pressed forward full speed ahead with their invasion plans. This government knew that its pretense for war with Iraq was a lie, and they took our nation to war anyway.

2000 lives and $2,000,000,000 later, people are focusing on who said whose name to whom, and when. I just hope that this is not the iceberg, but merely the tip. If the Plame scandal takes down Libby, and maybe Rove, over the leak of a confidential name... it's a defeat wrapped in a victory. For if this is the extent of the prosecution -- or even of the focusing of attention -- than we the American people will have missed the critical larger point.

Posted by Christopher at 11:32 AM | Comments (0)

Baseball Hall of Fame, 2006: The Curmudgeon Votes

Because baseball season is over and I have nothing to fuel my obsession until pitchers and catchers report the second week of February (right about the time I'll start obsessively preparing for our fantasy baseball draft, currently slated for April 1, 2006), I have decided to share with you my votes (were I to ever have any) for this year's class in the baseball Hall of Fame. I'll preface this by saying that none -- zero -- of the players appearing on the ballot for the first time will get my vote; I just don't think that anyone HOF-worthy is arriving this year. Many have shared that thought -- and so the feeling is that perhaps some great players who've been overlooked in past balloting might have their best last shot this year.

Here are this year's nominees, with the Curmudgeon votes bolded: Rick Aguilera, Tim Belcher, Albert Belle, Bert Blyleven, Joe Carter, Will Clark, Andre Dawson, Kevin Elster, Alex Fernandez, Gary Gaetti, Dwight Gooden, Goose Gossage, Ozzie Guillen, Juan Guzman, Keith Hernandez, Orel Hershiser, Greg Jefferies, Doug Jones, Tommy John, Lance Johnson, Roberto Kelly, Jim Leyritz, Mike Maddux, Don Mattingly, Kent Mercker, Mickey Morandini, Hal Morris, Jack Morris, Dale Murphy, Randy Myers, Jaime Navarro, Dave Parker, Luis Polonia, Jim Rice, Lee Smith, Bruce Sutter, Alan Trammell, Walt Weiss, John Wetteland, Mark Whiten.

Click through to read my reasoning behind my voting.

First, my dead lock cinches.

Jim Rice is a Hall of Famer, and it's hard to understand why he's not already in. An 8-time all-star, Rice hit 389 home runs in an era when 300 was an accomplishment; he won three home run titles, two RBI titles, led the league in total bases four times, racked up 2,452 hits and hit .298 for his career in a pitchers' era, and -- most importantly -- for a stretch was the most feared slugger in baseball. Rice was AL MVP in 1978, and could have been in 1983 (led the league in both HR and RBI, just played for a 98 pound weakling sixth place Red Sox team that year, while Cal Rpiken took his team to a World Series title). He seems victimized by two things: one, his career dropped off dramatically toward the end, after 1986 he was pretty bad; and two, he was not good to or wth the media -- and the writers make the picks. But for his time and compared to his peers, he absolutely belongs.

Goose Gossage was simply dominant, the most feared pitcher -- not just reliever, but pitcher -- of his time, and was a key reason the Yankees of the late 70s and early 80s won. (He then was closer on the 1984 Padres team that went to the World Series too -- not a coincidence, I don't think.) He also pitched two or three innings when he was brought in to close a game.He led the league in saves three times and was second three more times, but the numbers don't tell it all with this guy, though. It was the dominance with which he did his job. If Dennis Eckersley is in due to his run from 1988-1992 or so as A's closer, then Gossage should go in for his run from 1978-1982.

Bruce Sutter was the National League's dominant closer during the late 70s and early 80s; he led the league in saves five times, was the 1979 Cy Yong Award winner as a reliever, and revolutionized the game -- the league's first dominant closer, he made hitters' knees buckle with his split-fingered fastball (which he invented, by the way... the splitter's a part of many pitchers' arsenals now, but Sutter invented the pitch). And anyone arguing "relief pitchers shouldn't be in the hall of fame" should have his/her favorite team be forced to go a season without a relief pitcher in order to remind them of the importance of their role in the modern game.

As for the guys who get weaker, more tentative votes from me...

I admit it, Andre Dawson looks a lot better after the steroid scandal; being a 400 HR guy and a 300 SB guy is impressive enough on its own, and he won eight Gold Gloves in the ten seasons of the 1980s. 2,774 hits and 1,591 RBI are also hard to sniff at. But his numbers look so much better now that I know what fueled so many that came after him. I've never voted for him before, and I could list reasons not to now (he never won a batting title, only finished in the top 5 in home runs four times in a 21 year career, and only finished in the top five for RBI twice in that 21 year span), but in hindsight and in comparison to his peers, I think I'm going to say he belongs.

Jack Morris is admittedly a weaker choice; he never won a Cy Young, he led the league in strikeouts only once, no pitcher in the Hall has an ERA higher than Morris' 3.90. But the man won 162 games in the 1980s, more than any other pitcher -- averaging 16 wins per year. He was in the top five in wins nine out of ten years that decade. And anyone making the argument that "he just played on good teams, that's why he won" should take a long hard look at whether they plan to vote for Andy Pettite or Tom Glavine someday. More than his numbers though, Morris was an intense figure who not only knew how to win, but how to bring out the best in teammates. He was the ace of three separate staffs for three separate World Series champions (1984 Tigers, 1991 Twins, 1992 Blue Jays). And his 10-inning shutout performance in Game 7 of the 1991 World Series is the stuff of which legends are made. Out of deference to his position as the winningest pitcher of a decade, and of his ability to win, I'm voiting Morris in.

Close but no cigar: Albert Belle had a stretch there where he was the most feared hitter in the game because of his skills. Of course, during this same time he was also the most feared player in the game, because he was an unstable psycho. Wasn't around long enough, and he was too big of a jerk to get the Kirby Puckett sympathy vote. Don Mattingly was great for four seasons and very good for another two, but injuries just cut him out too soon. Besides, too many Yankee fans keep insisting he belongs, simply for being a Yankee -- not realizing that anyone with Mattingly's stats not playing in New York wouldn't be getting even this level of consideration. Others in the "close but..." category: Bert Blyleven, Joe Carter, Tommy John, Dale Murphy, and Alan Trammell.

What about you, baseball fans? What do you think?

Posted by Christopher at 09:39 AM | Comments (6)

October 29, 2005

Take My Left Fielder... Please

Yawn.

Boston Red Sox left fielder Manny Ramirez has apparently asked (again) to be traded away from the Red Sox (again). This would be Manny's 28th trade request in the past three years. Frankly, as a Sox fan, I'm tired of it. It's time to give this little pissant his wish.

Ramirez' constant whining is among any number of frustrations Sox fans have with him. He's a defensive liability. He frequently doesn't hustle or run out balls -- causing should-be doubles to become long singles, letting balls fall in front of him, turning potential singles into routine ground-outs. You never know whether you're going to be able to count on Ramirez to play at any given time; I've never forgotten, nor will I ever forgive, the September 2003 incident in which Ramirez claimed to be too sick to play during a crucial three game weekend series against the Yankees... only to magically recover to feel well enough to go out drinking Saturday night with one of his pals on the Yankees, Enrique Wilson. (Says something about the man's priorities.) And the same excuse is always made for him: "That's just Manny being Manny."

You know, if it's Manny being Manny to quit on his team in order to go drinking with the arch-rivals... if it's Manny being Manny to not run out a ground ball, or to stand and watch a fly ball in the assumption that it's going out, only to find out that it didn't... if Manny being Manny involves embarrassing mental lapses from a so-called professional... if Manny being Manny means having to deal with lockerroom disruption and gossip page distraction over his bi-monthly trade whining... then Manny is not worth Manny.

No matter how talented he is, no matter his likely Hall of Fame-level of performance on offense, no matter what he brings to your lineup, Manny Ramirez is still a punk who is more trouble than he's worth -- even if his salary were cut in half. If anyone out there's a fan of a team that wants Manny Ramirez, you can have him. I'd actually rather watch the Sox have a down year while missing his offense, assuming we get some good pitching in return (even if it's young pitching that has to mature for a year or two), if it means that we don't have to deal with Ramirez' punk schoolyard antics anymore.

To paraphrase Dr. Seuss. "Manny Ramirez, will you PLEASE GO NOW?"

Posted by Christopher at 07:16 PM | Comments (0)

October 28, 2005

The Chronic Curmudgeon Pop Culture Influence #9: Live Aid

9. Live Aid - 1985 Joan Baez opened the US portion of the show with the boomer-indulgent line, "This is your Woodstock, and it's long overdue." But the truth was, it was nothing like Woodstock. Rather than symbolizing its era the way Woodstock came to, Live Aid was an anomaly of its time -- a celebration of altruism in an era of greed and self-indulgence.

In the aftermath of "Do They Know It's Christmas" (still a classic that inspires to this day) and "We Are The World" (a self-congratulatory piece of schlock that's embarrassing to play on the radio 20 years later), Bob Geldof reached for the stars, seeking to mobilize the rock industry to aid the starving in Africa. It was a gesture that seemed futile to some, naive to others... but virtually no one said no. And the result was an incredible day -- July 13, 1985 -- where music and society intersected and helping the less fortunate was, for the moment, very cool. 50 million pounds (about $72 million dollars in those days) was raised on that single day.

20 years later, the concert's lineup causes a combination of awe and laughter; some of the greatest bands and musicians ever to play were on stage that day, and so were some 1980s pan-flashes who seem out of place. The Who, U2, Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Madonna, Queen, Led Zeppelin, Santana, Ozzy Osbourne, B.B. King, Teddy Pendergrass, Elton John, the Beach Boys, and Sting played Live Aid; so did The Hooters, Autograph, Spandau Ballet, Style Council, Billy Ocean, Rick Springfield, and The Thompson Twins.

20 years later, so many musical moments still stand out: Bob Dylan busts a guitar string, so Ron Wood takes his own guitar off his shoulder and hands it to Dylan... then plays air guitar and mimics Pete Townshend's windmilling until a stage hand gets him a new one... Mick Jagger ripping off Tina Turner's skirt while they sang "It's Only Rock and Roll, But I Like It"... Paul McCartney's microphone giving out during Let It Be, but the showman going on with the show... Madonna, fresh off her first nude photo controversy, announcing to the crowd in Philadelphia that "I ain't taking s**t off today"... U2's incredible coming out party-style performance, which cemented their aura in the UK and busted through the doors in America; it was this performance that took them from being "some Irish band" to being U2.

But far and away, the moment memorable moment from Live AId was given to us by Freddie Mercury. His performance at Wembley Stadium is one of the seminal moments in rock history. Few singers, if any, have ever held such complete control of, and earned such reverance from, a crowd that large. His legendary performance, with 90,000 eating from his hand and clapping in unison and on cue to "Radio Ga-Ga" and then "We Will Rock You" go on any short list of the most arresting visuals in music history. When he died six years later, it was this footage that aired as his epitaph, this moment that served as his legacy. There have been few showmen like him, before or since, and if you've never watched that part of the show, I can't urge you strongly enough to rent the DVD and watch it... you'll never see a rocker do better or be in such synch with his audience; capturing, feeding off the energy of the masses, and them amping that energy up another 10 notches and giving it back to them. That day, Freddie Mercury channeled lightning.

Since LiveAid, celebrity charity efforts have begun to be seen with increasing cynicism (thanks, Bill O'Reilly), and it may never happen again that such an open-minded, altruistic, taken-at-face-value effort can be pulled off at such a scale. But in 1985, it still could -- and did. That, combined with the sheer power of the performances by Mercury, U2 and others, and the fact that the rock community came together to raise what would eventually become about $200 million for the starving of the world as a direct result of these concerts -- makes Live Aid the #9 pop culture moment of the last 25 years.

Posted by Christopher at 06:42 AM | Comments (2)

October 27, 2005

I'll Show You Mine If You Show Me Yours!

Got this idea from the Linkmeister, and it's kind of a cool little toy. Because it's fun to know where the people who read you are coming from (anyone else seeing a blue-state-loaded distribution coming for me?), I'm all about this new thing from Frappr that lets your blog's readers sign in and put a pin on the map telling you where they're coming from.. So please... do me a favor. Satisfy my curiousity. Sign in here to the Curmudgeon Community, and sound off. Who are you, and where's home?

Posted by Christopher at 11:08 PM | Comments (6)

Be Careful What You Wish For...

... you just might get it. Harriet Miers today withdrew her nomination for Supreme Court justice. Almost immediately, the Christian Taliban began, in between screeches of glee eminating from their visceral depths, began clamoring for George W. Bush to nominate someone further to the extreme right -- someone who will do their bidding on the Court and do their best to turn the American judicial system into a policy arm for the evangelical Christian right.

And you know what? The forces of good just might not have the votes to stop it. Of the 55 Republicans in the Senate, only 8 are pro-choice, meaning the Christian Taliban has etched 47 carved-in-granite, lockstep, carry-out-your-orders votes for whatever extremist right-wing loony they want to throw at us. Think it's going to be all that hard to capture four more votes, between those eight Republican mavericks who will be threatened with exile from their party if they stray, and the dozen or more Democrats who represent Republican states (Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Tim Johnson of South Dakota, Evan Bayh of Indiana, or Bryon Dorgan of North Dakota, for example) and whose constituents will be bombarded by pressure ads from extremist right wing groups around the country?

I was worrying about this three weeks ago; and as much as I don't want to have been, I think I might have been right. Face it, friends. Miers, as underqualified a Bush toadie as she may have been, was the safest choice we were going to see. Forced to pander to the extremist base that installed him in office, Bush is now going to nominate an "acceptably" extreme candidate who will represent a grave danger, both in their principles and in the swing vote they'll represent, to the most basic freedoms that too many Americans have taken for granted. And unfortunately, there may be little that anyone can do to stop it.

Sometimes, the devil you know really is better than the devil you don't. Let the evangelical theocracy begin, America.

Posted by Christopher at 10:44 PM | Comments (3)

The Chronic Curmudgeon Pop Culture Influence #10: Sports Center

I'm finally winding this little countdown down... we're Into the top ten pop culture influences/moments of the last 25 years.

10. ESPN SportsCenter Originally a once a day show, SportsCenter eventually evolved into the mainstay of ESPN -- airing as often as 12 times each day. And while in its early years SportsCenter was little more than a national version of a local sportscast, somewhere along the line something changed. It became a cultural icon.

First it was the anchor team of Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann who became stars, contributing sports catchphrases like "en fuego," "the whiff" and "GUH!" to the sports lexicon. Later, Kenny Mayne and eventually Stuart Scott also became household names (although Scott's annoying tendency to attempt a catch phrase every third word has worn very thin). SportsCenter also generated some of the funniest commercials of the late 1990s. And for guys or sports nuts everywhere, the concept was heaven: highlights of every game we couldn't see, every big play we couldn't catch. The six note theme song - dun-nuh-NUNT! dun-nuh-NUNT! - got ingrained into our collective heads. ESPN grew into a billion dollar media entity largely on the back of SportsCenter. Heck, even late night TV got one of its stars of the late 90s and early 2000s, Craig Kilborn, from SportsCenter. The show wasn't just about sports, it was a cultural touchstone.

But there was an uglier side to SportsCenter. Little by little, it helped change sports -- and not always for the better. The sudden 24/7 availability of sporting news and highlights began contributing to the egos and air of invincibility surrounding many athletes, who began seeing their own omnipresence on television as entitling them to special treatment and a separate set of rules. The emphasis on the highlight and the big play meant that an entire generation of kid-athletes grew up simply not caring about the fundamentals of their sport; a sacrifice to advance the runner or a really good pass or running a good decoy route wouldn't get you on SportsCenter, so why bother? So athletes began focusing on the home run, the slam dunk... it became better to look good for yourself rather than doing the little things to win. Baseball players began standing at the plate, watching the ball and showing up a pitcher after a home run; football players started thumping their own chests for an 8 yard catch on a 3rd and 15 play; basketball players who couldn't be bothered with the fundamentals got shoe contracts for thunderdunks. And I honestly think that the SportsCenter-fueled obsession with the home run may well have contributed to the pervasiveness and extent of the steroid abuse of the last decade in Major League Baseball that we've only become more fully aware of in the past year or so.

The impact has been both good and bad, but it has been undeniable. SportsCenter changed the way we watched sports, and it changed the sports themselves. Given the role sports play in our lives (a role made significantly larger by SportsCenter), the show earns the #10 spot in this countdown.

Posted by Christopher at 03:46 AM | Comments (1)

When Camcorders Attack!

You may have already seen this video; apparently, it's been making the rounds of the Internet in viral fashion since July. I saw it for the first time this morning when a friend forwarded it to me at work. Since then, I have learned that it was on the Today Show this morning during an interview with Boing Boing's Xeni Jardin, and it's also featured on Boing Boing itself. But even if I'm late to the party, I have to say that this video is one of the funniest things I've ever seen... two Chinese art students lip-synching to the Backstreet Boys' "I Want It That Way."

From the first few seconds, this thing is a classic -- check our guy in front as his eyes roll up into his head as the music begins! And check out the choreography; these guys had their moves planned out in advance. And dig our second singer in the headband; apparently, the only appropriate thing to do when it's your partner's turn to sing (or when you obviously have forgotten the words to your part) is to overexaggeratedly purse your lips as if you were about to kiss your aged great-aunt.

Tell me that the first kid's "dance" during the first chorus doesn't remind you of that crazy head-turning dance that Franklin used to do in the Charlie Brown Christmas special? And what attention to detail: while one sings the lead, the other dude is making sure to mouth the echoes Am I (am I? am I?) your fire, indeed! And when they get into that last, passionate chorus... well, I don't think I've ever seen anyone head-banging to the Backstreet Boys before.

You'd think that between the Star Wars Kid , the Titanic Pimp, Numa Numa, and the Whisper guy, people would stop filming themselves performing music on camera.

Posted by Christopher at 02:04 AM | Comments (3)

October 26, 2005

The Chronic Curmudgeon Pop Culture Top 50: #13-#11

Sorry about the delay in getting the next items on the list up for you... I've been running around a bit for work and been a little bit busy the last few days. But, better late than never, right? So here we go.

13. "The Real World" premieres on MTV - 1992 The show itself was relatively unremarkable (quick, name me a cast member from the first season of "Real World New York."... I didn't think so.). But it had some incredible long term impact -- ushering in two huge new eras in pop culture. First of all, the Real World was the beginning of the end of MTV's format of actually being a music video network; the number of videos on MTV began a steep decline starting at about this time, and by the time we reached 2000, it was damn near impossible to find a video on MTV other than the same ten they ran during "TRL" every day.

More significantly, though, "The Real World" launched the era of reality television. And as insipid as I think reality television is, there's no denying that it has been the dominant genre, the defining element of television in the 2000s. Without "Real World," we couldn't be watching people stuff 25 live cockroaches into their mouths, pick their noses while living in a house with seven other people, deliberately trying to break up established couples, or marrying perfect strangers for a million dollars. Not precisely a proud legacy, but it's an established one just the same. "The Real World" both changed the face of television, and killed a once-beloved format on a once-beloved network; for those "accomplishments," it ranks as the #13 pop culture influence of the last 25 years.

12. Madonna performs "Like A Virgin" on the first MTV Video Awards -1984 I was 16, so at the time I thought this was about the most awesomest moment in TV history ever. Madonna, in her first incarnation as the Boy Toy, taking the stage to sing her new hit, "Like A Virgin" (which was on its way up the charts but hadn't yet reached #1)... coming out in a combination bustier and wedding dress, complete with her "Boy Toy" belt buckle. As she sang, she began rolling around on the stage, revealing her lacy stockings and garters... and proceeded to bump and grind her way through the rest of the song. By today's standards few would now even blink an eye; but 20 years ago, this was uncharted territory, something very new, very shocking, very sexual, very freaking hot. The then-controversial performance shot the single into the #1 slot for six weeks, and firmly established the sexual, Boy Toy Madonna persona into pop culture.

It was only a harbinger of things to come. Above all other things, Madonna was a shrewd businesswoman who knew how to market herself; the next two decades would bring incarnation after incarnation: each one wildly different than the last, some even more controversial than her first persona, always pushing boundaries and making her persona and off-stage antics and attitudes as important to her CD sales as her music was. For 20 years, she was the dominant female force in pop music, pretty much the dominant female force in pop culture... and that role for her was locked into place the night she writhed and grinded for MTV cameras in a wedding dress. Madonna's career, and the sheer sexiness of that performance, earn her the #12 spot in pop culture influences from 1980-2005.

11. Michael Jackson's moonwalk on the Motown 25th Anniversary special - 1983 It's sad now, knowing what a wacked out guy he really is, and after repeated accusations of pedophilia, to remember just what a great performer Michael Jackson used to be. His "Thriller" album was already out, with one #2 single (the duet with Paul McCartney, "The Girl Is Mine") already charted and his follow-up single "Billie Jean" racing up the charts and changing MTV. But in May 1983, CBS aired a special celebrating the 25th anniversary of Motown records. With all the luminaries and eventual Rock and Roll Hall of Famers who were present that night, Michael Jackson still stole the show. His performance of "Billie Jean" can only be described as "electric." The sequined jacket, the single glove, the matching hat... and the incredible dance moves that made him one of the towering figures of entertainment (and that would have kept him at the pinnacle had his pecadillos and eccentricities not cut him down). He owned the crowd from the moment he stepped on stage -- and it was clear by the time he reached the instrumental bridge in the middle of the song that this performance was already going down in history.

But then he broke out the moonwalk -- that seemingly effortless amazing sleight of foot that almost no one had ever seen before... and the crowd went delirious. Nothing was ever the same after that; Billie Jean went #1 for seven weeks and dominated MTV, Beat It only cemented his reputation further as the master of the new domain of music video, and by the time he got to the "Thriller" video, he was stratospheric. Michael Jackson in 1983-1984 was an entertainer at a level perhaps only reached by Elvis and the Beatles before him, and by few if any after him. If you weren't around back then, it's hard to believe or understand how crazy Michael-mania was... it didn't necessarily start with the Motown anniversary moonwalk, but that was the night that etched it in stone. No one who watched it will ever forget it, and it's the #11 pop culture moment on this list.

All we have left now is the top ten, kids. Think you know what they are?

Posted by Christopher at 06:45 AM | Comments (1)

The True Republican Character Revealed

You've got to love when the Republicans keep showing us incontrovertibly the kind of people they really are.

"The principle of the rule of law -- equality under the law and a clear standard for perjury and obstruction of justice -- was the overriding issue in this impeachment," said Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, who also voted 'guilty' on both counts." -- Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Republican Senator from Texas, talking about a Democratic presidentDallas Morning News, February 13, 1999

"And secondly, I certainly hope that if there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn't indict on the crime and so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation was not a waste of time and taxpayer dollars." -- Kay Bailey Hutchinson, same Republican Senator but now talking about a Republican administration, Meet The Press, October 23, 2005

There it is, ladies and gentlemen. Republican strategy -- and Republican values -- out there for the world to see. When a Democrat does it, it's grounds for impeachment; when a Republican does it, it's a "technicality" that's a waste of taxpayer money. This is the kind of people they are. Thiese are the "values" that they purport to share with you and I. (Well, not me, I guess. I'm one of those evil elite liberals who've wrecked this country. But these are the values they purport to share with you.) Seems to me that unless you value blatant two-faced hypocrisy, abuse of power and the idea that selected people can place themselves above the law, the Republican Party is a mite out of touch with the values of real Americans.

This is who they are, kids. Don't ever forget it.

Posted by Christopher at 03:29 AM | Comments (0)

October 25, 2005

She Stood Tall

One of history's great ironies is that Rosa Parks made her stand by refusing to stand. On a Montgomery bus in 1955, Ms. Parks changed America. And so it was that when she left the world today, it was a better place than when she entered it. Her death today at 92 is a reminder of many things: how far we've come, how far we have to go, how much of a difference any one of us can make, and how inspiration can come from any source.

I've heard, in the past, people bring up the fact that Ms. Parks was not the first black person arrested for the "crime" of not giving up a seat on a Montgomery bus... and remark with some cynicism that those that came before her weren't of the "right" character to make into a symbol of dignity in the face of inequality and prejudice. They say this almost dismissively, as if these things diminished her contribution somehow.

This always struck me as flat out stupid. So she was not the first, and she did work with the local NAACP long before she was arrested? Does not being first make being arrested in an act of civil disobedience any less courageous? If those who may have been looking for an opportunity to challenge the bus rules were indeed looking for a more "acceptable" public example, does that in some inexplicable way make the cause they -- and she -- stood for any less noble? If she was "selected" for her character, should she be somehow be punished for being not only an upstanding soul, but was recognized as having the kind of dignity and character to stand up to all that she would go through? (Especially in the 1950s south, when being the public face of resistance might well have presented a threat to her well-being or even her life?)

She need not have been first, nor need anyone apologize for the contacts she had in the activist community. Her act of bravery, defiance and strength may not have been a singular one, but that doesn't make it any less brave, defiant or strong. Rosa Parks was a giant among us, a woman of extraordinary grace and courage whose life came to symbolize dignity and the will to stand for what is right. Her loss saddens us all, but her life made us all better people.

We should all be so lucky to have that as an epitaph. Goodbye, Ms. Parks... and thank you.

Posted by Christopher at 05:40 PM | Comments (1)

October 23, 2005

Weekend Edition

The happenings in the suburban New York life and the rambling, unrelated thoughts of a self-important blogger.

-- Went out in Manhattan Friday night with Ethan, Ivy and Kelly, hanging out in the East Village at "Company" -- one of those many Manhattan bars that becomes cool precisely because it tries so hard not to be cool. In truth, it actually was pretty cool. They're marketed as a place you can go and "just be" (not too many of those in this town), and they fit the bill -- pretty casual, and a good deal on drinks (we were there for two hours and our bill was only $30, thanks for the two for one deals -- and Ivy had water), and decent music. It was a really nice night on Friday, the best one we got all weekend, and it was a good night to kick back and talk about Kelly's bizarre dreams (Freud would have a field day with her), Ethan's highly philosophical class schedule at the New School (after having read Hegel last weekend, he's reading Marx's Communist Manifesto), and how three midwesterners (Ethan and Kelly are Ohio natives, and I'm originally from South Canada) now perceive New York (they each are huge fans who have completely adopted the town, while I'm still stand-offish to it).

A couple hours later, we left the bar to find dinner; Kelly had to split, but Ethan, Ivy and I found an outstanding Thai restaurant called Montien just a couple of blocks away. Seriously, this was best Thai food I've had since I got to New York; Montien's now vaulted way up onto my "favorite restaurants" list, and if you're in the New York area I can't recommend it strongly enough. Anyway, it was over a fabulous Thai dinner that I faced a full court press from E & I about me needing to move to the city. It's a debate I've had with myself a bunch of times, especially each time I have to consider where I'm going to settle in (DC? Florida? Westchester? Manhattan?)... won't bore you with the pros and cons (most of which involve the criminal overexpense of this city), but suffice it to say that they made a compelling case, and they had no intention of relenting. Will I end up heading down to Manhattan instead of staying up here in the sticks? Stay tuned.

Yesterday I had the chance to watch Game 1 of the World Series... not sure why, but I'm definitely cheering for the Astros this year. So of course, Roger Clemens came up lame, pitched poorly for only two innings, and the Astros ended up loaing the game. Why is it that Roger Clemens can only come through when I don't want him to?

I haven't seen any specific reports yet about which resorts in Cancun have been leveled, and no one knows detaile yet about how badly devastated Playa del Carmen is, but here's hoping that the Moon Palace and Playa -- both favorites in the world of Mudge and friends -- as well as the rest of the Mexican Yucatan coast are okay. And for my friends in Florida, watch out for yourselves as Wilma bears down.

I'm reading Leigh Montville's biography of Ted Williams right now. I almost wish I hadn't. Don't get me wrong, it's a good read. But the thing is, for as great as he was, Williams was also cantankerous and petulent. I knew he'd had a temper, but I'd never really realized how immature he really could be. Sometimes, you kind of want to leave your heroes the way they existed in your mind, rather than learn how they really were, you know?

Songs on my listen to list right now:

1 - "Speak Slow" - Tegan and Sara Yeah, I know I am way behind the hipsters in discovering this sister act from Canada; they've been critical darlings for a while now, and the album this song came from made a whole bunch of best of 2004 lists. But oh well; I just discovered them, and if I'm about a year behind on cool stuff, so be it. Good song, catchy chorus, and they've got both the vocal chops and the writing skills to be around for a while.

2. "Wine, Women and Song" - Harvey Danger Kelly's been recommending this one to me for a week now, and I finally got around to downloading it yesterday. Actually, Harvey Danger is releasing their entire new album, "LIttle by Little" for free over the Net on their Website, and this is the lead track. It's a fun song, with a Beatle-esque piano line, and this gem of a line: "You can’t fool all the people all the time... But if you’re trying, if you’re looking, if you’re lucky... You can always fool a few and feel fine."

3. "Only" - Nine Inch Nails Reznor's back, man. One of the few bands I was into in the 90s that's still doing anything you listen to because it's good, not out of nostalgia. This single manages to be cool despite a pure disco drum line that leads off the cut. Industrial meets the discotheque, I guess. Whatever you want to call it, I'm digging it.

4. "The Price You Gotta Pay" - Buddy Guy and Keith Richards Did I mention that Buddy Guy has a new CD out? And that he duets on it with both Carlos Santana and Keith Richards? And that this is a fun, laidback, old-style number that reminds me of a sixties soul song (it's actually written by Keb Mo).

More later. Got some stuff I gotta do first.

Posted by Christopher at 12:23 PM | Comments (6)

Republican Hypocrisy, Exhibits 23,409,898 A and B

Couldn't help but notice a whole bunch of hypocrisy floating around the Republican party in the last week. Not that this is really newsworthy, of course -- kind of like blogging about another smog day in L.A. or that a gangsta rapper has a song out about his "bitches and hoes" and fronting about what a bad-ass he is -- but there were two cases this week so laden with irony that I had no choice but to mention them.

1. Bush calls for UN hearing on Syria. Let me see if I get this straight: In 2003, George W. Bush and his administration violently removed a sovereign regime's leader in the Middle East from power, based on that leader's perceived hostility to his own nation's agenda and interest. Bush ignored the UN through this whole process, except for the times when he or his administration were insulting it.

In 2005, Syria apparently violently removed a sovereign nation's leader in the Middle East from power, based on that leader's perceived hostility to Syria's agenda and interests. In this case, Bush is wailing and gnashing his teeth and calling for the suddenly-relevant-to-him UN to hold hearings on Syria's involvement?

Okay, neither Saddan Hussein nor the Syrian regime are the kind of folks you'd invite to your neighborhood barbecue, true. But for George W. Bush to call for UN meetings over one nation's involvement in the violent overthrow of another's government in the Middle East... well, that's like OJ Simpson complaining about justice not being served in the Robert Blake murder case.

2. Tom DeLay wants his judge removed. Gee... Tom DeLay can't intimidate the judge hearing his case, and the durn ol' judge appears intent on actually going through the legal process... so of course, DeLay wants no part of him. He's calling for that judge, Bob Perkins, to be dismissed on the grounds that Perkins is a -- gasp! -- Democrat.

First of all, the "evidence" presented by DeLay's lawyers is close to flat out perjury. They're claiming that Perkins bought an anti-DeLay t-shirt from MoveOn.org... only MoveOn's not selling any such t-shirt. But let's pretend for a moment that this isn't just a case of a slimy, criminal, cockroach of a man who knows he's pinned to the wall and is doing anything he can to wriggle free. Let's pretend for just one second that DeLay is right -- that he's been targeted for prosecution by a zealous partisan political opponent intent on undoing through court proceedings what elections have not done.

Consider it deferred karmic payback for Ken Starr, you sanctimonious, bombastic, slimy, self-righteous piece of fascist crap. Burn in hell, and enjoy your sentence sharing a cell, the weight room and a communal shower with Razor, Snake, and Buzz.

Posted by Christopher at 11:51 AM | Comments (0)

Poor Little Rich Kids

I read this story a week ago and kept meaning to post on it and then forgetting. This might have been one of my favorite "Take that!" moments of all of 2005. A Long Island Catholic high school principal has sent a note to parents at the beginning of the school year noting that he has cancelled his school's spring prom.

When I first read the headlines about Brother Kenneth Hoagland's decision, I dove in fully expecting yet another hardline religious diatribe about the rites of passage that accompany a prom -- namely, spiking the punch bowl/getting drunk on four beers before arriving, and the losing/chasing far away of what was left of one's virginity. Given that prom night has been drunken sex night for generations, I was ready to wonder what the hand-wringing was all about. And then I read further, and found out that Brother Kenneth Hoagland is one of my new heroes. He's cancelling prom because too many spoiled little rich kids and their overindulgent Hamptons parents are spending obscene amounts of money on the prom, and he no longer wanted the school to be part of it.

"It is not primarily the sex/booze/drugs that surround this event, as problematic as they might be; it is rather the flaunting of affluence, assuming exaggerated expenses, a pursuit of vanity for vanity's sake -- in a word, financial decadence," Brother Hoagland said, fed up with what he calls the "bacchanalian aspects" of the prom.

Well, other than the fact that "financial decadence" is two words, not a word, I love this.

Not that Farming Exurb Senior High in Minnesota had what qualified as rich kids -- not by New York or John Hughes movies standards, anyway -- but to the extent that we had 'em, I hated 'em. One reason I don't think I want to stay in Westchester County is because in a hyper-affluent county that glorifies consumption and its financial standing, any kids I'd ever have here would have a far greater chance to turn into the kinds of kids I'd have deliberately bumped hard while walking down the hall when I was in school. But I digress. Before you go off howling at me about why I'm so bothered by rich kids having a little fun, realize that we're not talking about a limo ride and a $300 dress that gets worn for three hours and then tossed on a floor somewhere in a teenage-lust-induced frenzy.

In his letter, Hoagland cited a litany of problems that he says have developed over the years. He began a dialogue on the future of the prom last spring after it was discovered that 46 Kellenberg seniors made a $10,000 down payment on a $20,000 rental in the Hamptons for a post-prom party. When school officials found out, they forced the students to cancel the deal; the kids got their money back and the prom went on as planned.

But Hoagland said some parents went ahead and rented a Hamptons house anyway.

I don't know what I turn my nose up at most -- the fact that a bunch of 17 year old Hardy Jenns-from-"Some Kind Of Wonderful" types would run off and book a $20,000 a night Hamptons house for prom night, or that their daddies and mommies felt that their spoiled little children were so entitled to such a display of their wealth that they went ahead and booked it anyway even after the school said no. Either way, Brother Hoagland took a stand against conspicuous consumption (which is, if any of those parents had actually ever read any of the basic tenets you get taught as a Catholic kid, goes against the faith's belief in helping the poor and aiding the least of God's children), and for that he's one of my favorite people of 2005.

Posted by Christopher at 11:24 AM | Comments (3)

Somewhere Between Hilary Clinton and Robert Redford...

... is where I sit on the political fence, at least according to one of those oversimplified and snarky Internet insta-tests. Okay, this one actually wasn't so bad, even if I do find 'em to be simplistic and reductionist in general. I've lifted the idea of taking it from Vestal Vespa (who as of today makes it to the Blogroll). Apparently I am a social liberal who is 63% permissive, and an economic liberal who is 25% permissive. Score. It also says I am best described as a Democrat. Um, duh. And, it says, "You exhibit a very well-developed sense of Right and Wrong and believe in economic fairness." I needed to sit through five minutes of clicking buttons to answer internet questions to learn that? Anyway, the test is in the click-through below.

You are a Social Liberal (63% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (25% permissive) You are best described as a: Democrat Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

Posted by Christopher at 11:04 AM | Comments (0)

It Wasn't Me, Parts I and II

Okay, yeah... I live in New York. Fine. But contary to what you may have thought, and no matter how much these stories might sound like they could be me, I'm denying 'em. It wasn't me. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

1. Guy rings up a $241,000 bill at Manhattan "Gentleman's Club." This isn't an accumulated bill, by the way. It's from one night.

We've all had those evenings out on the town where the fun and the drinks are flowing, the tab is running, and at the end of the night when you see the bill, it's a lot higher than you thought. (Hell, a bunch of us just had one of those at karaoke night three weeks ago.) But to rack up a $241,000 bill in one night -- even at Manhattan's priciest and most "highbrow" adult entertainment palace -- reveals a Bacchanalian appetite beyond even my fertile imagination. Yet, that's apparently what Missouri business executive Robert McCormick managed to pull off (no pun intended).

I've never been to Scores (honest!), so I have no idea what their prices are. But I can't imagine that this dude simply paid for three $75,000 lap dances and a few drinks. He had to have at least some sense that the price of his evening might be, uh, inching up.

In the mirrored room, popular with high rollers and celebrities, the stripper enthusiast demanded 10 dancers lavish him with attention at the eye-popping cost of $4,000 an hour. When their time was up, McCormick insisted club managers bring more girls - and keep them coming. "I need 10 more," he would say after the hour's entertainment was over, waving his arms like he was motioning a jumbo jet in for a landing, according to the source.

Of course now, McCormick doesn't want to pay his bill; he's pulling the old "one of the dancers stole/misused my credit card" routine. Amex isn't buying it, and they're suing McCormick and the company he is the CEO of to recoup the quarter million dollar charge. And OJ is out there right now, searching for the real killer.

2. Fat guys fill up Madison Square Garden. First of all, I don't own one of those combination jock-strap/diaper contraptions. (I read now in the article that they are called "mawashi." For the love of god, I hope they wash their washi.) Secondly, I was nowhere near Madison Square Garden on Saturday. But 8,000 people were in Madison Square Garden to watch the first World Sumo Challenge -- complete with sumo wrestlers from Norway, Hungary and Bulgaria. (As if the image of cellulite-encased Japanese asses wasn't bad enough, now we have to think about cellulite-encased pasty white Scandanavian asses.)

"It's been my life's dream to see live sumo," said Laurie Huenteo, 43, with a straight face.

Wow. Now there's someone who dared to dream big.

Posted by Christopher at 08:03 AM | Comments (0)

October 21, 2005

The Chronic Curmudgeon Pop Culture Top 50: #15-#14

And here we go into the home stretch, kids. 35 pop culture touchstones down... 15 to go.

15. The emergence of Britney Spears and the pop tart girls - 1998 - present Before you start howling, let me make one thing clear: I am not placing this woman's muscial "contributions" anywhere near this list. I realize that there was as much musical talent displayed during the four year run of the Gong Show. And let's establish something else: despite my admitted appreciation for Ms. Spears', uh, charms, I'm not putting her on this list because of her considerable assets (although I'll fully admit that I'm looking ever so forward to the "I'm still hot even after my baby and divorcing that leech ex-husband of mine, I want to jump start my career again and my sex appeal is all I've ever really had, so..." Playboy pictorial that will inevitably accompany her next album.)

No, I am putting Britney (and others like her) on this list because of the larger social implications of their rise. Britney, Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson, even Avril Lavigne... all these girls made it big as teenagers. And all of them used their sexuality as a large part of their personal brand. (Simpson coyly proclaimed her virginity, true... but don't think for a second that it was to set an example; her perverted father knew that such a revelation would work the dirty old man crowd, and don't you believe otherwise. As for Lavinge's staunch protestations that she's a musician, not a pop tart... yeah, right. She doesn't ever use her sexuality. Not at all.) Suddenly, it seemed culturally acceptable for 16 year old girls to be flaunting their sexuality not at 16 year old boys (which they've been doing forever), but toward those boys' fathers; suddenly, America was a nation of Humbert Humberts, staring lecherously at oh-so-willing Lolitas. Beyond the disposable music, beyond the belly-baring, hip-bone exposing (insert sound of Homer Simpson-esque drooling here) fashion styles... there was a larger shift, one I doubt was healthy but which must nonetheless be acknowledged: the social construct shifted with these girls' emergence, somehow making it "okay" for thirty and fortysomethings to be digging on teenage girls. (Right, Madonna?) No matter how much one may be uncomfortable with that, it's hard not to acknowledge the pop culture impact of such a shift.

14. Straight Outta Compton, by N.W.A. - 1989 True, it wasn't the first gangsta rap album (thank you, Ice T and Schooly D). But it was the first gangsta rap album that was wildly successful both in the hood and in the affluent suburbs. And it was this album that truly spawned the "gangsta rap" explosion. Musically and socially, that's an undeniable impact on pop culture.

Musically, the album broke ground with undeniably angry lyrics combined with accessible beats from Dre and MC Ren. Public Enemy had been angry before N.W.A., but on a larger, more societal level. Rap had been more accessible (and "acceptable") in the suburbs since Run DMC had teamed with Aerosmith in 1986. But it was this album that lit the match for rap going suburban by combining the two and providing kids with another avenue of "rebellion." And despite the fact that N.W.A. disbanded after just two albums, their musical influence is undeniable. Dr. Dre and Ice Cube remain infuential to this day; Bone-Thugs-N-Harmony tied the Beatles for the fastest rising chart song to that point with their 1995 tribute to their mentor Eazy E; Eminem was produced by and collaborated with Dr. Dre; Snoop Dogg also was a Dre protege. And not to dismiss the influences of Tupac Shakur or Biggie Smalls, but without N.W.A. there'd probably not be the rap scene there is today without N.W.A.

Socially, the impact of gangsta is also hard to deny.First of all, there was a message in the music that went unheeded by the mainstream; anyone who'd listened to the album or wondered why it seemed to strike such a chord among its community should not have been surprised at the 1992 L.A. riots; the rising anger that would boil over in the Rodney King aftermath was on full display on "Straight Outta Compton." Meanwhile, not only did gangsta set the musical tone for much of the last fifteen years, it's helped set style for more than a decade now. The slang, iconic images, and anti-authoritarianism of gang life have been adopted by white kids in the suburbs trying to emulate what they think is inner city culture. On the positive side, the impact has been increased diversity and open mindedness (in the sense that white kids have adopted black role models, anyway); on the negative, perceptions of black culture (especially by white suburbanites who'd really be in no position whatsoever to understand or pass judgement on it) have been skewed and distorted by it. (Think of the impact it might have on the perception of "white people" if the only portrayals we ever saw on television or movies, or heard in music, were the trailer park denizen-styled things like "Cops.")

Still, for both good and bad, "gangsta" culture has been one of the primary pop culture influences of the last 15 years, and it began in popular consciousness with "Straight Outta Compton."

Coming up, #13-11. (I told you this would be scattershot.)

Posted by Christopher at 04:10 AM | Comments (2)

Overpopulating the World... One Ignroant Redneck At A Time

Thanks to Eden for linking to this -- one of the funniest columns I've read in a while, and one whose sentiment I couldn't agree more with. I'm sure you've read/heard about that idiotic redneck couple down in Arkansas (where else could they be?) that has set about becoming personally responsible for trying to increase the world's population by another billion. The Duggar Family (hmm... sounds kind of like the Manson Family, doesn't it) just whelped its 16th child from the same mother. (No word on whether it's her husband, brother, uncle or son who's responsible for knocking her up this time.) Well, Mark Morford of the San Francisco Chronicle has trained his considerably acerbic sights on this couple and the mindset that leads to people like them... with heavily saracastic, hysterical result.

If I re-pasted every great line from this column, I'd end up pasting so many excerpts that I'd need to go to a "click here for more" link in order to not take up too much real estate on the main page here... so I'll lead with his angry and dead-on conclusion. That's the part I'm endorsing most strongly -- his denunciation of these idiots and the mindset that massive overbreeding is God's wish. That's the part I want people to see even if they don't click through to read this guy's great funny lines throughout the rest of the column.

Note to Michelle Duggar: If God wanted you to have a massive pile of children, she'd have given your uterus a hydraulic pump and a revolving door. Stop it now.

Ah, but this is America, yes? People should be allowed to do whatever the hell they want with their families if they can afford it and if it's within the law and so long as they aren't gay or deviant or happily flouting Good Christian Values, right? Shouldn't they? Hell, gay couples still can't openly adopt a baby in most states (they either lie, or one adopts and the other must apply as "co-parent"), but Michelle Duggar can pop out 16 kids and no one says, oh my freaking God, stop it, stop it now, you thoughtless, selfish, baby-drunk people.

A-freaking-men, man. Preach on, brother Morford. I like children. Many of my friends have children. I'd like kids myself at some point (if I ever decide to stop being one, that is). But what these Cletuses have done isn't about liking children. It's about having some serious wires loose. I'd like to formally and officially petition the US government that not one dime of my tax money should go to any social services these irresponsible yokels are sucking up. Hell, use all of my money for bombs and I'd still feel ethically better than encouraging crap like this.

But I have to tell you... the rest of the column masks that anger in some absolutely hysterical lines, man. Just one example, about their family picture...

.... this might be the most disquieting photo you see all year, this bizarre Duggar family of 18 spotless white hyperreligious interchangeable people with alarmingly bad hair, the kids ranging in ages from 1 to 17, worse than those nuked Smurfs in that UNICEF commercial and worse than all the horrific rubble in Pakistan and worse than the cluster-bomb nightmare that is Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise having a child as they suck the skin from each other's Scientological faces and even worse than that huge 13-foot python which ate that six-foot alligator and then exploded.

Great stuff, man. Great stuff. He's got great one liners about how they're naming these kids, and about how scary it is that this mindset seems to only afflict three-toothed red-staters... and he's got a really funny sacrastic call for some good left-coasting, blue-stated, thinking types to start matching these folks brood for brood to equalize the voting blocks later on. It's one of the funniest columns I have read in a while -- all while making an outstanding point. Read it here.

Posted by Christopher at 02:57 AM | Comments (1)

October 20, 2005

The Bestest Picture In The Whole Wide World

No further words necessary. This might be the greatest photograph in the history of photography.

Posted by Christopher at 07:28 PM | Comments (8)

October 19, 2005

The Chronic Curmudgeon Pop Culture Top 50: #19-#16

What does it take to get into the top 20 of the Chronic Curmudgeon list of Top Pop Culture Touchstones? Sometimes, it takes an incredible individual moment. Other times, it takes a body of work that has had lasting impact on what came after it, and has weaved its way like a meme into public consciousness. Either way, pop culture is defined by the inclusion of these top 20.

19. The Oprah Winfrey Show premieres - 1986 Other than maybe Cult Boy doing his couch jumping act, I'd be hard pressed to identify a specific moment from the Oprah Winfrey Show. But can you doubt her influence? The most prominent and powerful black person in the entertainment industry? Oscar nominated? 39 Emmys, including 9 for Outstanding Talk Show and seven for Outstanding Host? Producer behind Harpo films? Pioneer of daytime television who changed the face and direction of the genre? Founder of a book club that was largely credited with reviving a slumping publishing industry? The first -- and so far only -- billionaire black woman ever? Known by a single name the world over? Yeah, she gets on any list of pop culture touchstones.

18. The Andrew Lloyd Webber/Cameron Mackintosh musicals - 1980s - present Sure, only New York gets to see musicals on Broadway ... but traveling productions have played around the country, have shown on PBS, have been made into movies. It's hard to believe now, but the musical was virtually written off 25 years ago. But then a series of blockbuster musicals began roaring out of London and taking their place among the greatest Broadway shows ever: Cats. Evita. Les Miserables. Phantom of the Opera. Miss Saigon. Five of the biggest theater shows ever -- and all had Andrew Lloyd Webber, Cameron Mackintosh, or both as their creative forces. The music ranks among the greatest showtunes ever; their original cast recordings have sold more than 20 million copies. Not bad for a genre that was supposed to be borderline extinct. Broadway theater might not be a national cultural touchstone, but the British extravaganza musicals dominated Broadway like nothing TV, music or movies saw. They belong.

17. John Lennon shot - December 8, 1980 Easily the saddest pop culture moment of the last 25 years. (I don't count September 11 as a pop culture moment, that's history.) Not only was Lennon one of the most influential musicians in history, he also became an icon of peace and love for not only the generation that knew him first hand... but even the generations that came of age after his death. The night of December 8, 1980, the New England Patriots were playing the Miami Dolphins on Monday Night Football.... there was no Nightline yet, nor were there 24 hour cable news networks. So it fell to Howard Cosell to break the sad news to America and to the world, in the middle of a football game. And nothing was ever the same. Thinking of that moment, it's impossible to think of the songs never written, the gentle guidance never offered, the graceful aging that never happened. It's impossible not to wonder what Lennon would have said about the excesses of the 1980s... or about the deliberate campaign of lies that led to the Iraq invasion. Lennon wasn't just a celebrity who had a cause; he lived his principles, and stands as a role model to this day. The night of his death goes on this list not just because of its crushing impact when it happened, but as a symbol of what we lost.

16. The Bronco chase - 1994 The whole OJ trial -- both then and now -- revealed deeper racial divisions than most in America wanted to admit to. The trial represents a lot more in American culture than just a trivial pop culture moment. But the event that gave the first indication of the circus it would become... now that's a pure pop culture nugget. In L.A. a car chase on TV is commonplace; but the networks carried this one nationwide. They stopped a game in the NBA finals to watch the chase. The three hour odyssey that Al Cowlings, OJ and his passport went on in the white Bronco on June 17, 1994 quickly became part of the pop culture legend. It was lampooned on late night talk shows and prime time sitcoms. And whether you thought OJ was not guilty or guilty, you have to acknowledge the Bronco chase as one of the most bizarre, and memorable, pop culture touchstones of the last 25 years.

Coming up... #15 - #12.

Posted by Christopher at 11:07 PM | Comments (2)

A Wise Man Explains Dating in New York...

One of the things I enjoy most about the gig I am in right now at my company is that in the new role, I am working directly now with colleagues who also happened to be my friends before I started the new job. Makes the day go faster to be doing conference calls with people you have beers with, you know? One of those folks is also on my blogroll off to the right side of the page -- my friend Ethan. In his most recent entry, Ethan summarized a frustration that I share about life in New York -- but that I have never articulated quite so clearly or effectively. He has a friend in town from Europe, and the friend asked him about what it's like to deal with the dating scene in New York. His response was pure brilliance.

Imagine, if you will, an economy that suddenly has unlimited currency and you'll have an idea of what it's like to date in NYC. Suddenly, all the value is gone and the currency is cheapened and buying anything is out of whack. Look at me: great career, going to school for an interesting degree, musically inclined, I have hair and teeth, not a sociopath yadda yadda. But right next to me is a guy with all that and 10% more. And next to him is another guy likewise endowed, but he's taller, or more handsome, or funnier or whatever. And the same goes for the ladies.

He's right. It's an incredibly daunting scene here, because of the way New York is. Too many perfect people come here -- because we've all been raised on the idea that this place is the pinnacle (you know, the whole "if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere" thing), so everyone here was a big fish in their own small pond somewhere. It's like living in a city full of homecoming kings/queens and Big Men/Women On Campus. And so no matter how good looking, how funny, how charming, how successful, how kind, how nice you are... you will never be the best looking, the funniest, the most charming, the most successful, the kindest, the nicest, the most anything fish in the sea -- there is always someone more so. Odds are, a lot more. So no matter how much of a catch you would be anywhere else, here you're just one of the crowd; the competition is that fierce, and so you have to come up with other ways to try and stand out. Which can be damned frustrating. The scary thing for me is that a younger, hipper, good-looking guy like Ethan feels that same kind of pressure. I'm older, wider, much more suburban/less cool, and have less hair (not to mention that what I have is largely dependent on Clairol Men's Choice for its brown-ness)... I do okay, but it's still a daunting task. I'd feel better thinking I was just neurotic, and that no one else had observed the same thing.

Ethan also puts his finger on the other half of the unique NYC dynamics...

What's more, everyone who has come to NYC has come here to pursue a dream - or most of the people anyway. And in all likelihood, that dream is not "get married and have kids before I'm 30." But at the same time, we're all on the same mortal timeline as the rest of the world. Our hair and teeth and ovaries are failing at the same rate. So at some point we have to give in to that pressure (desire?) to have children - and have them somewhere clean and nice. And so, Philippe, it's complex. Dating in New York has given rise to all kinds of new definitions and substrata of relationships. Are we friends? Are we lovers? Are we friends with benefits? Are we f*ck buddies? Are we a one night stand? And it's all terra infirma until there's a ring or a lease or a marriage certificate involved. But I hear even then it's not so unambiguous!

Yeah, I know, dating is tough all over. But I've dated in five other states plus the District of Columbia, and I'll swear to you that the dynamics are more confusing and complicated here than anywhere else. Like Ethan says, this place is full of extraordinarily ambitious people (hell, I'm among them) who have their plan all mapped out, and those plans rarely involve anyone who could slow their progress toward ruling the world. But no one's immune to the pressures of aging -- and so you end up with a whole bunch of people (women and men) who will swear on the graves of their ancestors that all they want is the occasional human contact and need-meeting (you know what that means).

So we develop a set of progressively casual relationships that remain wholly undefined because no one wants to define them, except for when somebody does, though the one who may want it doesn't even admit as much to themselves, much less to the other person... see, that's the part that makes it different here. The same confusions and complexities that make relationships a universal challenge are exacerbated here, because everyone here isn't just trying to figure out the other person, they're fighting their own battle between their id and their ego, and the behavior they want from you changes with whichever one is winning that day. And conversely, the behavior you want from them changes depending on whether your id or ego is winning that day. So that's why those strata that Ethan mentioned begin to evolve.

This is the only place I've ever been where "friends with benefits" is different than f*ck buddies. Both of which are different than dating, by the way, which implies something more, but isn't as serious as lovers. Not that either of you want that -- nothing involved that would complicate your plan to be king of the mountain is allowed. Except when it is. Does your head hurt yet? And all this confusion is there even assuming that neither one has baggage from a previous situation. Get a divorce or a messed up past situation into the picture, and then there's virtually no way to maintain sanity.

I have no idea what the point of this post was.

Posted by Christopher at 08:35 PM | Comments (6)

Say Hello To...

The Linkmeister. He is a baseball fan, which automatically gains him entry to my blogroll and recommended list. His own blogroll has plenty of lefty links, which automatically makes him one of the good guys. And his posts are a mix of sports, pop culture, technology, and snippets of his own life.

Linkmeister comes to us all the way from Hawaii. That's about 10,000 miles from our friend and TCC regular McRob over at The Bothy. Which means that my plan to spread my gospel and take over the entire world via blogs is now approximately halfway complete. Mwoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hah-hah-hah-hah!!!!!

Posted by Christopher at 07:51 PM | Comments (1)

The Chronic Curmudgeon Pop Culture Top 50: #22-20

Sorry for the rush job on these three - I fell asleep early last night and need to get going to work this morning. But never let it be said that I left you hanging on a countdown list.

22. Who Shot J.R.? - 1980 The mother of all cliffhangers, this was the pop culture touchstone of 1980. All summer long, fans of the show kept up the guessing game. By the time the secret was finally revealed in September, even people who never watched the show tuned in to find out. (Hell, even my 12 year old self who never watched "Dallas" watched that episode.) But this moment makes the list not only on its own merit -- how many other TV shows have their between-season plot lines on the cover of Time? -- but because of its influence on television. The cliff-hanger is what it is today because of "Dallas;" and though it's been often imitated, it's never been duplicated to the same effect.

21. Pac-Man fever - 1981/1982 Ah yes... I remember when I used to hoard quarters not for the laundromat, but for more amusing (if equally mind-numbing) pursuits. While there had been other video games before it (Space Invaders), none had the runaway popularity of the little yellow ball eating up dots. Suddenly, arcades popped up in shopping malls everywhere; books came out discussing Pac-Man patterns and strategies (and even sold well!); there was even one of the worst novelty songs ever recorded. Compared to today's games, the lack of sophistication of Pac-Man is laughable, but few video games have ever spawned such a frenzy in non-gaming culture, or spawned an entire industry like Pac-Man.

20. Titanic - 1997 Another one of these items that I loathe. I could never figure out why so many girls and young women felt this story was so romantic... I mean, I'm more than happy to draw if a woman wants to pose for me (I can't draw, but hell if I'd ever admit it... "it's Picasso-esque, baby - it's all in the interpretation. Can you pose some more?"), but I don't particularly feel like dying a few hours later, you know? What kind of romance is it if the guy's an ice cube at the bottom of the Atlantic? This was by far the most overrated Oscar winning movie in history. It had the cheesiest line of the 90s ("I'm the king of the world!"), the most wooden characters of any movie nominated for an Oscar, and took loooonger to get to its plot point than any movie period. The fact that it won Best PIcture over the far superior "L.A. Confidential" baffles me to this day. But the two things to hold most against this waste of celluloid were (in reverse order) that it turned scrawny string bean Leonardo diCaprio into a teen idol, and that insipid, caterwauling theme song by Celine Dion. The only redeeming thing about this entire three hour experience was seeing Kate Winslet nekkid for a few minutes. That said, between the movie taking in $1 billion at the box office, DiCaprio's ascendancy to teenage bedroom walls everywhere, and that hideous song going to number one for about three months, it's hard to deny the pop culture influence of Titanic, and hard not to recognize its place as a touchstone of the late 90s.

Coming up soon... #19-#16.

Posted by Christopher at 05:22 AM | Comments (4)

October 18, 2005

For the Ages

I'm not saying that the Houston Astos won't still win the NLCS. And I am well aware of the tendency to be overly effusive about events that have just occurred. Even so, I have to rank the home run hit by the St. Louis Cardinals' slugging first baseman Albert Pujols last night as one of the top five home runs I have ever seen -- and I think that even if his team loses and Houston goes on to the World Series, his massive shot still will rank in the sport's top 25 home runs ever. But if St. Louis manages to come back to win the NLCS after being one strike away from elimination, Pujols' moon shot will easily vault into the top 10 home runs of all time in baseball. (Hmmm.... sounds like another list.)

Credit to David Eckstein, whose scrappy at-bat kept the Cardinals alive -- and to Jim Edmonds, whose plate discipline kept the inning going for Pujols. But what I saw from Pujols last night was one of the greatest moments I have ever seen in 30 years of watching baseball. As the Washington Post's Thomas Boswell wrote,

"Many playoff series have momentum shifts. But this was something different. Pujols's blast, a gargantuan, tape-measure drive that would have gone entirely out of the ballpark if the roof had not been closed, was one of the seminal moments in postseason baseball in this generation -- whether the Cards come back to win the pennant or not. That one swing on a hanging 0-1 slider was an act of singular greatness by one of the best baseball players who has ever lived in a moment of supreme need by his team."

Houston-St. Louis has already given us some of the best post-season basbeall of the decade. Whichever of them win, I'll be cheering for the National League team to win the World Series.

Posted by Christopher at 07:26 PM | Comments (5)

October 17, 2005

The Chronic Curmudgeon Pop Culture Top 50: #25-23

Thanks to Cookie Jill, who gave me a plug over on Skippy the Bush Kangaroo over the weekend, which drove some extra traffic my way on Sunday... and she mentioned this little top 50 list as the reason people should drop by. (Well, she also said, "he is a wonderful writer, with a wry sense of humour and an articulate "blogger voice."" Heh, heh. Jillian, your check is in the mail.) So with high praise like that, we're on to the next items on the countdown of the Top 50 Pop Culture Touchstones of the past 25 years.

25. "NYPD Blue" premieres - 1993 I know what you're thinking... it was an okay show, but a top 25 culture moment?? Mudge, are you insane? (Well yes, I am - but that has nothing to do with my list.) See, I'm not putting NYPD Blue on this list for its own sake; I'm putting it on for what it represented. For it was this show that broke the last taboos on broadcast television. NYPD Blue introduced us to swearing and nudity on broadcast network TV. The show's first episode featured Andy Sipowicz calling people "douchebag" and a few shots of Amy Brenneman's ass -- the first time anyone had done a bare-butt scene on broadcast television. The show broke down barriers and opened doors for similar themes, language, and butt shots -- most of which were good, but did we hafta see Dennis Franz' ass so often? But for being the first to cross the lines and changing the face of network TV, the show belongs. How many other shows can you honestly changed television forever with their very first episode?

24. The return of cartoons for adults: 1989 - present Way back when, prime time was full of cartoons written with adults at least partly in mind (The Flintstones and the Jetsons were prime among them). Then, for a quarter century, cartoons designed for adults pretty much disappeared. But starting in the late 80s on the Tracey Ullman show (more on that later), and continuing through the 1990s and into the 2000s, a spate of hysterical cartoons sprouted up that were decidedly not just for the kids -- factoring in adult humor, social satire, and pop culture references that children wouldn't pick up. Ren and Stimpy. Beavis and Butthead. Daria. South Park. King of the Hill. The Family Guy... and on up to my current favorite on Adult Swim, the Aqua Teen Hunger Force. The return of animation for adults contributed catchphrases galore: "Stimpy... you eediot!" "I am Cornholio!" "Respect mah authoritah!" among them. Moreover, some of the best satire and social commentary on television over the past 15 years has come from these shows. (Not to mention some of the most juvenile and crude, laugh out loud humor as well.) Make it cool for thirtysomethings to watch cartoons? Enough to make it on this list.

23. Appetite for Destruction - 1987 It's not that metal-pop didn't exist before the Guns... but despite Motley Crue, Dokken and others, metal-pop didn't hit the big time or the singles chart until Guns-N-Roses came along. Moreover, they crafted not only one of the best albums of the 80s, but one of the few from the metal-pop genre that still stands up today, nearly 20 years later. And with its release, the Guns became the unquestioned Biggest Thing In Rock for a stretch of five years: 1987-1991 belonged to them. The video for "Welcome To The Jungle" from its very beginning screeched the arrival of a new era in music, and gave us the iconic image of Axel Rose in the straightjacket and Slash's top hat; "Sweet Child O' Mine" wasn't the first power ballad, but it's one of the only ones you wouldn't be afraid to be heard singing along to now. The five years of Guns-N-Roses' ride were as monster as any five year run any band not named the Beatles has ever had -- they were the unquestioned top thing going. And while I'd like to put their entire run on this list, Appetite announced their arrival... so it's as good a moment as any to select from the myriad GnR moments for this list.

Up next... #22 through #19.

Posted by Christopher at 11:47 PM | Comments (1)

Wide World Of Sports

Lots of things have been happening in sports in the last few days... here's a brief take on some of them.

1. The Chicago White Sox win the AL pennant. For the first time since 1959, the Chicago White Sox are going to play in the World Series. They got there courtesy of a heads-up play by a catcher, a momentum-changing blown umpire's call, timely clutch hitting by Paul Konerko, and an historic staff-wide pitching performance -- four consecutive complete games from their starters. About the Game 2 blown third strike call... you can say that the Angels still had three games to get the job done, but there is no question that teams play differently when they're tied 1-1 than they would have played down 2-0. That call did change the momentum of the series. (That said, AJ Pierzynski did exactly the right thing by running when he didn't hear an out call.) That said, the White Sox absolutely deserve their win. They did everything you're supposed to do to win. And if their pitching holds up as it did in the ALCS, they're going to be tough to beat.

2. College football's weekend of classics. I'm not really too big a football fan anymore -- guys like Randy Moss, Terrell Owens, Maurice Clarett, Bill Romanowski, and pretty much the entire Minnesota Vikings team have killed the sport's image in my mind, and I really don't care about what happens in the NFL anymore ... and since the college game serves pretty much solely as a breeding ground for the pros, I don't usually pay attention to college football either. But this past weekend was magical. I admit it; the NCAA put on a show this weekend. Minnesota, my undergrad alma mater, snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by blowing a 34-24 lead with 3:00 to play, losing to Wisconsin 38-34. Michigan and Penn State scored a combined 39 points in the fourth quarter, with Michigan winning 27-25 by scoring a touchdown as time expired to end the game. And the USC-Notre Dame game was an instant classic, one of the best ever and certainly the best college football game I've ever seen. Most seasons, you're lucky to get three games like that all year; this year, we got three in one weekend.

3. The NBA institutes a dress code, and the players cry poverty. Odds are, where you and I work, there's a dress code. Me, I have to wear a suit and tie. Most other jobs, whether they involve a salary or an hourly wage, come with some sort of dress code. But in yet another example of many of the NBA players believing that they don't have to follow the same rules as everyone else, they're complaining about the NBA's having insituted a simple dress code. The dress code is listed here; I guess I just don't see what's so draconian about it. But Allen Iverson says it sends a bad message to kids, because they want their heroes to look like they look. (Yeah, because lots of kids from the hood have diamonds the size of hubcaps in their ears and enough bling to set off metal detectors from fifty feet away, right Allen?) And even more unbelievably, Marcus Camby (who makes nearly $8 million per year) of the Denver Nuggets said that the dress code was unfair unless the NBA gave every player a clothing stipend. (The average NBA salary is more than $4 million.) Between this stupid jackass and Latrell "Choke" Spreewell saying that he couldn't feed his family on $14 million, does anybody wonder why I hate basketball?

Posted by Christopher at 10:31 PM | Comments (5)

Now That's What I Call Folk-Hop! Volume 1

A friend of mine at the office instant messaged this link to me this afternoon, and I laughed so hard at it that my colleagues heard me and asked what was so funny... I am proud to tell you that I then played this song in the headquarters halls of Corporate America, thus setting off laughter across three cubes.

If any of us were asked the question, "What song of all songs in the last 20 years would best lend itself to a gentle, country-folk cover version?", I know we'd all answer the same way. Of course, there's only one answer:

Baby Got Back, by Sir Mix-a-Lot.

You haven't lived until you've heard a white folk music voice crooning about his anaconda while a gentle banjo keeps rhythm behind him. Gotta tell you, I don't know who Jonathan Coulton is, but I'm blogrolling his site from now on. Hysterical stuff, kids.

Posted by Christopher at 09:59 PM | Comments (1)

Cover Art

The American Society of Magazine Editors, who would probably be in the position to know about these things, have come up with a list of the top 40 magazine cover images of the last 40 years. I guess I can't really argue with their top choice: the now-even-more-poignant Rolling Stone shot of a naked John Lennon embracing a clothed Yoko Ono, taken by Annie Liebovitz on December 8, 1980. Lennon was shot and killed later that night, and the photo served as Rolling Stone's memorial to him about a month later.

The rest of their top five, in order: Demi Moore posing naked and pregnant on the cover of Vanity Fair in August 1991; Muhammed Ali pierced by arrows on the April 1968 cover of Esquire; probably the most telling drawing in history, the self-absorbed and arrogant March 29, 1976 cover of the New Yorker, showing New York City dwarfing the rest of the country; and the May 1969 cover of Esquire, showing Andy Warhol drowning in a giant can of soup.

Here's the rest of the iconic images in the top 40. Other Curmudgeon favorites (in terms of both liking the shots or considering them iconic and unforgettable) include #10, #11, #13, #25, #33, and #36.

Posted by Christopher at 09:14 PM | Comments (4)

October 15, 2005

The Chronic Curmudgeon Pop Culture Top 50: #29-26

We'll close out the first half of this countdown with four infuences that span virtually the entire 25 year range of this list.

29. The Miracle on Ice - 1980 This was, almost unquestionably, the greatest sports story ever. It had every element neceesary for an epic by one of the ancients: the overachieving underdog vs. the overwhelming favorite, the young vs. the old; the team that had to overcome personal and regional rivalries to unite and play as one; the wise, unirthodox coach who bucked the system to do things his way and not the way "they" wanted things done -- and who was a master motivator and teacher who was first hated and then loved by his players; the political backdrop that added significance beyond the game; "good" vs. "evil." It had everything... and the 1980 US Olympic hockey team delivered on the moment's promise. There's not a sports fan who is old enough who doesn't remember watching that game or doesn't know where they were when they heard... we beat the Russians. The exuberance of those 20 kids from Minnesota, Massachussetts and Wisconsin in their moment, and the sheer joy they set off in their fellow Americans are enough to put this moment on the list. Add in the fact that this was the moment that gave us the now overused "USA! USA!" chant, which has become required for any event that a US team plays in, and this is definitely a moment that impacted pop culture.

28. Dirty Dancing - 1987 Remember when I started this list, and I said that I loathe some of the moments or influcences on this list? This one, Dirty Dancing, is probably the one I loathe the most. I hated this movie, hated its insipid soundtrack, and hated the inexplicable devotion it inspired among most of the girls I dated. And frankly, the line "Nobody puts Baby in a corner" is one of the cheesiest lines in movie history, But despite my loathing, I'll admit that this movie and its story captured a large part of the public imagination during 1987 and 1988; it's grossed more than $163 million in the US alone (after being made for only $6,000,000). The soundtrack contained both the most annoying duet this side of Lionel RIchie, "(I've Had) The Time Of My Life," as well as definitive proof that Satan still buys souls (Patrick Swayze scoring a #3 hit with "She's Like The Wind"). Any movie that can land Patrick Swayze in the Billboard Top 5 earns the right (albeit painfully) to be in the Curmudgeon Top 50.

27. Princess Diana dies - 1997 For our friends across the Atlantic, this would obviously be much higher. The whole thing - the crash in the tunnel, the conflicting reports about the seriousness of Diana's injuries, the announcement that she had in fact died... the revulsion for and condemnation of the paparazzi, the splendor and sobriety of her funeral... even the conspiracy theories years later. As far as I can rememebr, it was the only funeral carried worldwide on live television that decade. The best-selling single of all time, Elton John's rewritten "Candle In The Wind," was reworked for the memorial service. And for many Britons (not to mention quite a few Americans), Diana Spencer's death ranks as the "Where were you when you heard?" moment of the 1990s.

26. Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction - 2004 Depending on who you are and your general level of uptightness, this was either the straw that broke the camel's back when it came to the entertainment industry's disrespect for its audience... or it was a ridiculous case of posturing and overreacting. EIther way, this was the most hullabaloo over a boob since George W. Bush's inaugural parade. Was it a "wardrobe malfunction?" Was it a deliberate attempt to deliver the "something shocking" Janet promised before the game? And just what the hell was that star-shaped thing she had on, anyway? Once the incident was over, Michael Powell's FCC used Jackson's breast as an excuse to begin a draconian crackdown on the entertainment industry, one that estabslihed a climate in which stations declined to show the film "Saving Private Ryan" -- on Veterans Day -- for fear of the culture police deeming it indecent and levying fines on them. The reprecussions of this indicent rippled long after Janet's exposed nipple.

That concludes the first half of the program, kids. We're halfway through the top 50 pop culture moments/influcences of the last 25 years. Coming up, we'll have the top 25 moments -- starting with #s 25 through 21.

Posted by Christopher at 12:01 PM | Comments (2)

Milestone: 1000th Entry

More than two years ago now, I finally gave in to my early adopter friends who kept pushng me in the direction of this new thing "everyone" was doing, called blogging. I'd be a natural for it, they said. I checked into it and thought, "What the hell - why not? It'll be nice to have a place to write about something other than business."

Fast forward 27 months. Today, this very post you're reading right now is the 1000th entry by the Chronic Curmudgeon. 1000 entries... 1000 seems to be a nice, round number -- perfect for the kind of navel-gazing self-congratulatory post that I'm not going to write. I've done the "I started this thing up as an outlet and look what happened" post -- in fact, I've done it more than once -- and I won't subject you to it again.

I will say, however, that I'm grateful for the unexpected roads this thing has led me down. Through this blog, I've become friends with people from central Florida to Houston to Los Angeles to Erie, and many other places -- along with reconnecting with family back in Minnesota I'd sort of drifted out of touch with. Hell, in the most amazing development of 'em all, it was this blog that got me promoted at work this spring into a dream gig that's turned into the break of a lifetime, a job in which I literally learn somethng new every day, and one that's brought me more attention and accolades than I'm probably worth. I started this thing as a place to hack around and anonymously vent, and it got me the job that's pushed me over the top in my career trajectory and put me into a suit. How messed up is that? Alternately, how cool is that?

Thanks for reading, everyone.

Posted by Christopher at 11:19 AM | Comments (6)

October 13, 2005

The Chronic Curmudgeon Pop Culture Top 50: #34 - #30

After the sixth stinkin' day in a row of pouring rain -- and after having shown up to work almost an hour late this morning because both of my usual roads to the office were literally flooded out and unpassable, forcing me to try and figure out how to get to where I was going on the winding and convoluted back roads of Westchester County, New York (about a third of which were flooded out as well this morning) and getting lost in the process -- I'm starting to get really sick of precipitation. This list could start gettin' a little weird unless we get some sunshine soon. I'm just sayin'. Anyway, on we go to numbers 34 through 30 on my list of the top 50 pop culture moments or influences of the last 25 years.

34. The Terminator promises, "I'll be back" - 1984 Until this movie, perhaps only with Darth Vader in Star Wars had such a henious villian been cheered by audiences so gleefully. The Terminator was a ruthless, cold, unceasing killing machine -- and audiences couldn't get enough of him. There was something just... cool about it, such a single-minded, heartless thing that went about its bloody business without remorse. And when Arnold walked emotionlessly into that police station and glowered, "I'll be back," it cemented not only a catch phrase that still exists 20 years later, but the Terminator's image as one of film's most enduring bad guys.

33. M.C. Hammer pants - 1990 Sure, it was one of the worst rap songs -- or songs of any genre -- ever released. Sure, it was a cheesy video with cheesy dancing. And those pants were one of the twin high fashion crimes of 1990 (the other being Vanilla Ice's fade). But somehow, for some inexplicable reason in 1990, that video, that song, and those pants were actually popular. I'm not sure what was funnier then, and is more pathetic now: hearing suburban kids thinking they were street by running around going "U can't touch this!" or the fact that people used to wear these pants when it wasn't even Halloween.

32. Pam and Tommy's home movie - 1997 You know, once there was a time where the release of an explicit private bedroom home video would have destroyed an actress's career -- or an actor's. But by the winter of 1997/1998, the climate had shifted; just such a video made Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee bigger stars than they'd been before. And for the first time since Deep Throat in 1972, it was suddenly vogue to talk openly about having seen a specific adult movie. Pam and Tommy's honeymoon movie gave us an up close and very personal view of the newlyweds -- and introducing the world to the T-Bone gave millions of guys an inferiority complex. (The dude drove a freakin' boat, man!) After the Pam & Tommy incident, releases of home sex tapes became not an embarrassment, but a career move (just ask Paris Hilton).

31. Hannibal Lecter's meal - 1991 Anthony Hopkins won a Best Actor Oscar for a role that kept him on screen for only 16 minutes of a two hour-plus movie. But in those 16 minutes, he created perhaps the most unforgettable screen villian ever, one who infamously lived in dark corners of our memory. And nowhere in those 16 minutes is Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter more fabulously creepy, more horrifically intriguing, more wholly mesmerizing than when Jodie Foster pushes a psychological profile through the sliding drawer into Lecter's cage. The line he uttered next is quite possibly the most famous villian's line in movies: "A census taker once tried to test me... I ate his liver, with some fava beans and a nice chianti." If there was any magic left to tap in the moment, Hopkins found it by following the line with that perverse slurp through his teeth against the glass of his cell. Pure movie magic -- if in a highly creepy sense -- and the moment that etched Hannibal Lecter permanently into our collective culture.

30. The Cosby Show premieres - 1984 I could blame this show for many sins: pioneering and then paving the way for the bland and generally unfunny "family" sitcoms of the 1980s would be chief among them. (As would be the fact that the Cosby Show itself was bland and unfunny.) Without Cosby, there couldn't have been a Family Ties, Growing Pains, Kate and Allie, Mr. Belvedere, or ALF. Which means that without Cosby, we could have actually had interesting television comedies during my teenage years. (The oft-repeated maxim that Cosby single-handedly saved the sitcom as a genre discounts the fact that Cheers premiered a season before Cosby, though it didn't widely catch on in its first season... but most 80s sitcoms followed Cosby's lead in tone and content, not Cheers'.) That said, Cosby was remarkable in that it was the first portrayal of an upper-middle class black family on network TV -- a long overdue, if somewhat temporary, correction. And, even though I didn't like the show then and don't like it now, I'll readily admit that the scene when the family lip-synchs Ray Charles' "Nighttime is the RIght Time," complete with then-tiny Keisha Knight-Pulliam belting out the "Bay-bay!" line in the bridge, is a classic television moment, one of the more smile-inducing clips in TV history. The Cosby Show undeniably influenced television across the 1980s, and earns its place among the pop culture top 50.

Posted by Christopher at 10:34 PM | Comments (0)