John McCain seems to have eluded his sex scandal unscathed as far as in the court of public opinion; at the very least it appears that it won't have too much of an effect on his bid for the White House. The thing that surprised me the most was not the fact that according to the NY Times he allegedly had an improper relationship with a lobbyist during his 2000 presidential campaign, but rather that a Republican man could be involved in a sexual scandal with (gasp!) a woman.
Their recent track record seems to make this the exception to the rule. Larry Craig, Mark Foley, Jeff Gannon, Ed Schrock--the list goes on and on. I don't want to say that all Republicans are gay, but apparently there's more closeted homosexuals in the Republican party than on American Idol.
What's worse is that all these repressed hypocrites are always the first in line to speak out against homosexuality, and the ones holding political offices vote against gay rights any chance they get. I can't think of a more ass-backwards betrayal to one's self. If they would just come out maybe they'd stop being such douches and be happy for a change.
It truly is the party of repression and self loathing.
I'm still crossing my fingers for ex-Senator Rick Santorum to be photographed in all his glorious and shiny leather S & M gear at some Pittsburgh-area gay underground sex club. Wait, I take that back. I bet he's totally a pedophile. That makes much more sense.
Disclaimer:The following blog is not meant to specifically discredit or demean the Islamic faith. I indiscriminately believe that all religions are tribal, superstitious nonsense that should be publicly ridiculed and exposed for the sham on humanity that they are. Don't hate the player, hate the game. Enjoy.
Note to self: don't flirt in public while in Saudi Arabia.
While reading this BBC news item, I came across my new favorite government agency name--the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice--courtesy of the ever benignant Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It's right up there with Nazi Germany's Reich Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda and the US Department of Homeland Security. Funny stuff; not ha-ha funny, but funny nonetheless.
On the heels of banning red roses on Valentine's Day (along with VD altogether), it seems that the gravely named bureau of Islamic religious police took issue with 57 men allegedly wearing English laden t-shirts while publicly dancing to loud pop music in order to attract the attention of girls (btw, I'm not sure how discriminate these guys were in their taste in women since the CPVPV is also the agency that makes sure that women are properly covered head to toe and not wearing make up). The men were promptly arrested and are now under investigation and awaiting trial.
Needless to say, the CPVPV would have their hands full in any American high school parking lot at 3 o'clock in the afternoon on any given weekday (god knows I do--ZING!)
But alas, interaction between the sexes before marriage is forbidden and highly punishable in Saudi Arabia. And as much as I love restricting personal freedoms--and I really do--I find this example of religious fervency a tad bit ghastly (much like the backward law that says that you can't buy alcohol at the grocery store on Sundays in Georgia; this inconveniences me greatly).
Incidentally, this debacle coincided with George W's irony filled reaction to Fidel Castro's historic step down from power this week. His complete silence regarding the unsatisfactory human rights record in Saudi Arabia makes this speech so much more displeasing and aggravating. Not to say that I haven't grown accustomed to completely ignoring everything that comes out of that idiot's mouth, but I still occasionally find the time to be outraged.
I think the embargo against Cuba is just about the dumbest, most outdated piece of foreign policy left over from the Cold War. It is designed solely to hurt the Cuban people and has never been effective at doing anything else. I always faulted Clinton for not only perpetuating the embargo but for expanding it in 1996; it was definitely a black cloud on his presidency. I thought there was a bit of hope in 2002 when Jimmy Carter visited Cuba and met with Castro but it proved quite unsuccessful at making headway.
Maybe Raúl Castro's proposed changes towards a more democratic approach will help, but I doubt it. Oh, if only Cuba could sit on top of a shit ton of oil, then they would have license to do whatever the hell they pleased.
At the very least we could get a direct flight from the US to Havana to go on vacation.
Japanese culture has always fascinated me. I think this is mostly due to the fact that it seems so palpably foreign to a Westerner like myself that it might as well be from another planet. Some aspects of it appear utopian, some seem alien and extrinsic, and others are downright wacky.
There's a Japanese television show on G4 that you might have seen called Ninja Warrior (Sasuke is the original title) that I find fascinating on several levels and taught me a thing or two about our Asian friends. If you haven't seen it, it's basically a game show where 100 people attempt to complete a set of increasingly difficult physical challenges in order to be crowned the ultimate Ninja Warrior.
The 4 Stages involve obstacles that test the competitors' agility, strength and stamina, all characteristics vital to a stealthy feudal assassin. Most stages are stringently timed in order to weed out the unninja-like weaklings and ensure that only the Darwinian cream of the crop advance. The contestants range from Olympic athletes, to common working folk, to downright crazy people seeking some notoriety. The show has been very popular in Japan since its inception in 1997 and some of the recurrent contestants have become local celebrities.
Here's one of the show's more colorful elderly contestant, known as The Octopus, going through Stage 1:
As you can see, watching people fail is a pretty entertaining part of the show. It's also the typical outcome since only a handful of the original 100 contestants even make it to Stage 2, and it only gets exponentially harder from there in Stage 3 and Stage 4. This is what really fascinates me about the mindset of the show (and, in turn, of Japanese culture) because over the course of nineteen seasons, only two men have ever completed all four stages, Kazuhiko Akiyama and Makato Nagamo.
100 contestants have competed for every one of the show's 19 seasons, so that means that there have been 1,898 failed attempts at becoming the ultimate Ninja Warrior. Only 0.00105% of the people that participate reach the ultimate goal.
This ratio of success to failure would never fly in the United States, where the ostensibly trivial Ricky Bobby motto, "If you're not first, you're last", is pretty much the raison d'être and the basis for all state sponsored propaganda. It's so American that it might as well be on the tail side of all the coins and engraved on the crown of the Statue of Liberty.
In the U.S., after one season of no one reaching the end, the producers would have certainly made the stages progressively easier until someone could reach the ultimate goal and sate the audiences' intrinsic appetite for a conventional victory at the end of every show.
But this is where the Japanese are different. Not only did they NOT make the stages easier after multiple seasons of failure, but they kept making them intensely harder. This is why no one even finished the challenge until season 4 and not again until season 17.
I love this irreverence to the notion of what it means to succeed and what a true challenge should be.
Could you imagine this approach to competition in American game shows?
It's inconceivable.
If a show is deemed too difficult on American television, the bar is lowered until someone wins. This is why we get the "Million Dollar Mission" on Deal Or No Deal where they keep changing the odds in favor of the contestants until someone eventually wins. This is why most of the current game shows don't involve any skill whatsoever but merely rely on chance--or in the case of Fox's Moment of Truth, just telling the truth gets you money.
American Gladiators is the closest in spirit to Ninja Warrior (they actually lifted a few of the new challenges from it), but there's always a winner and a loser at the end of every show and the challenges are reasonably winnable by most contestants. If they weren't, people would not watch it.
The American audience seems content with the perception of success even though the reality is only made possible by establishing lower standards. So in this case, the means are inconsequential to accomplishing an end. In Japan, it's all about the difficulty of the means, therefore making the end more fulfilling when it finally materializes.
Which viewpoint do you think is a more favorable approach to progress and benefits the advancement of the human race?
The answer is pretty clear to me.
If game shows are a barometer for the values of the culture itself, we're in deep trouble. It's yet another sign of the dumbing down of America to appeal to the lowest common denominator, and evidence to the growing glorification of ignorance. Instead of giving people something to aspire to, we're given something that's easily accessible but ultimately less substantial. Without the challenge, the rewards are less meaningful.
And I, for one, can't get behind that.
The Japanese, however, are setting the bar high and not only that, they're constantly raising it. They seek and glorify the perpetual pursuit to produce perfection. And that puts them ahead of us as a culture.
It is also worth noting that the Japanese seem to revel in public humiliation and, as far as competition goes, favor a good effort and humility over domination and boastfulness. Ego takes a backseat. This is evident in Ninja Warrior as the audience always seems to laugh with, instead of at, the contestants that epically fail, and always applaud their efforts, feeble as they may be.
Contrary to this, in the U.S., seemingly every reality show is based on ridiculing people's shortcomings and pointing out their flaws with no redeeming value whatsoever to the viewer, except maybe for a cheap laugh. This only perpetuates the importance of the individual over the masses and the lowering of expectations. It's easy to see that in turn an individualistic world view is only self-serving and does not lead to betterment of the species.
And again, I can't get behind that. I want to be inspired by true greatness, I don't want to be appeased by mediocrity.
You should want the same for yourself.
You can start here with sailor Makato Nagano making his glorious run through the various stages and proving to us that he is the ultimate Ninja Warrior:
My reconnaissance abilities have determined that it's two college-age white males. Their interests include yelling for no apparent reason, stomping their feet while walking and playing Rock Band at high volume for several hours.
All of these became apparent mere minutes after they moved in.
The latter really became apparent when an ailing Adrienne and I were violently woken up from our NyQuil-induced slumbers by the sounds of Weezer's "Say It Ain't So" at 1 o'clock in the AM, complete with strained, atonal, gang vocals provided by our new archenemies.
That unequivocal infraction prompted the first unleashing of thee ol' hickory stick which I banged vigourously on the ceiling so that they might discriminately discern our deep displeasure with their dastardly deeds (can I get a "whoot-whoot" for that alliteration?).
And this is on the first day of residence. So much for first impressions.
Today, as the sacrilegious sonic transgressions extended to songs such as "Blitzkrieg Bop", "Wanted Dead or Alive", and "Sabotage", the only thoughts that crossed my head were how I could procure myself a pistol equipped with a silencer so that I could regain the peace I once knew a few short days ago.
A few, carefully placed bullets to their center mass and head would do the job just fine. Nobody would miss them. It would take weeks before anyone would even know. The world would be a better place.The words "bro", "brocifer", and "brocifus" would be heard a little less frequently.
The future would be a brighter vision of hope.
All right, I better stop; this has already proven incriminating enough. I've shown copious amounts of intent and I don't need those extra years added to my forthcoming, imminent double murder sentence.
Maybe I'll find some peace in solitary confinement.
To extend my streak of seeing movies with central themes revolving around deserts and ruthless men, I saw There Will Be Blood last night (okay, two in a row is not much of a streak--the other being No Country For Old Men--but the similarities were worth noting).
Apart from having seen a pretty outstanding movie, I came away from There Will Be Blood with the certainty that Daniel Day-Lewis is the greatest living actor. I had suspected this after his portrayal of Bill "The Butcher" Cutting in Gangs Of New York, but now I'm sure that he's at the top of the profession. His dedication to staying in character even when the camera isn't rolling is borderline crazy¹ but it definitely pays off because he's always really convincing. And the fact that he only makes a movie every two years or so keeps the quality of his work elevated.
A huge part of his impressive portrayals is always his accents. He has a knack for finding these über-regional accents that are ambiguous yet quite distinct. He doesn't really do many interviews so I'm not even sure if I know what his real accent sounds like but I suspect it's something resembling Irish. So when he does a peculiar American accent, he's that much more remarkable. He also always seems to have a different build to his body for his characters, as if he has a kit of interchangeable torsos and limbs that he picks through and rebuilds himself like a human Mr. Potato Head.
My respect for Daniel Day-Lewis is noteworthy for I'm usually not one to overtly praise actors because I believe they already garner a bit too much reverence from the public. I mean, most actors are basically animatrons that are given words and actions to act out by writers, told how, when and where to act by directors and made better looking by hair and makeup people and costume designers.
For the most part, actors have surprisingly little to offer other than a face and the ability to remember lines. In a way, they're not much different from the monkeys they sometimes share the screen with, in that they're only as good as their handlers.
We have to keep this in mind when the writers' strike seems to be keeping us from enjoying new episodes of our favorite shows. Without them, Steve Carell is probably only as funny as Evan Almighty (although he was a writer for the Daily Show so he can probably hold his own; I just wanted to make a cheap Evan Almighty joke). So, Hollywood, let's pay the writers accordingly for their contributions.
Oh yeah, before I forget:
There was blood, but not that much.
¹He insisted on staying in character 24/7 when he played a severely paralyzed man in My Left Foot by having the crew of the film push him around the set in a wheelchair. When filming The Last Of The Mohicans he lived off the land and carried a rifle everywhere he went. When he played a boxer in, huh, The Boxer he trained for 2 YEARS(!!!) as, huh, a boxer. He apprenticed under a butcher for Gangs Of New York and refused treatment for pneumonia because it was not in keeping with the period. Needless to say, the dude is serious about method acting. I'd hate to see what he would have done had he been cast as Hannibal Lecter.
