Movies and Politics, mix at your own risk

Although the subjects of this post are relatively old, I recently, as of last night, got another smattering of the subject. The most recent facet of the concept is derived from the release of the movie, 300, a stylized blood-thirsty adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel of the same name. The story itself is built, however loosely, on the tale of the 300 Spartans who fought a horde of Persians at the battle of Thermopylae. The idea of this battle has been romanticized for several millenniums now by those involved in the military, or those simply outnumbered by intimidating opposition.

Although 300's take on history is farcical at best, and its stylish representation screams that the images on screen take place in some pseudo-reality separated from the real world by at least ninety degrees, some people have been incapable of believing that the film is nothing else but a commentary on the war terror. Depending on one's interpretation, the Persian Hordes can either be symbolic for the "direct" metaphor of Islamic Fundamentalists or not so directly represent the formidable, and "evil" American forces staunching out "freedom" in the middle east today. On the other side, the 300 Spartans, to the denizens of political commentary, can represent the unilateral, and ultimately justified as represented in the film, American forces or the technologically limited "freedom"-fighters of Iraq. Of course, the president of modern day Iran, denounced the film as western propaganda against his Muslim nation which is descended on some level from the Persians involved in the war against Greece. But of course, President Ahmadinejad failed to acknowledge that the Persians represented in film, or even in documented history, were not Muslims. In fact, Islam did not even exist until over a thousand years after the battle of Thermopylae. So a direct correlation between the film's content, and the "Infidel's unjustified war on the righteous" is unfounded. Despite this, people in the middle east and within the the United States, fail to see the film as anything but commentary on the current state of the world. To those people I have one thing to say. It is a movie based on a comic book written years before America's War on Terror ever commenced. Get over it people. Go see the movie if you like violent action combined with great visuals. Do not expect to be enlightened, educated, or informed in any way. If you do, you are as intelligent as those who believe George Clooney should run for president.

Now this rant, if it can be called that, was fueled last night when I sat around with peers of mine while watching the 2005 film V for Vendetta. This film, based on a graphic novel by Alan Moore, was and obvious attack on fascism. The type of fascism that grows from apathy and fear. At the time he wrote the story, Moore was commenting on a right-wing shift happening in England (Which is obviously far far more left leaning than he would probably admit) and it's potential to mirror the horrors wrought by the Nazis given the right global catastrophes. These catastrophes included terrorism, a nuclear war, and the virtual collapse of the American Government not to mention the rest of the world, leaving England virtually untouched by most of the madness. During the process, fascists seize power over England using fear and the willingness of the public to sacrifice their liberties for security as foot-holds. With a holocaust under their belts, and the English people under their boot-heel, these fascists are assaulted by a terrorist/freedom-fighter named V, who destroys their government within a year and exacts vengeance on those who wronged him. The film version of this story becomes a lot more relevant to the current political situation in the world, replacing the world war three aspect entirely with terrorism and the like. Compliments of this slight shift in the exposition and other tweaks to the story, many instantly believed the film was a commentary against President Bush. Yet, most of the key elements from the comic book written in the early 80's are still intact, providing a clear argument against fascism of any sort, let alone the mild variety many people attribute to Bush and his cronies.

I guess my point, if it exists at all, is that movies should be seen as entertainment first, especially in the case of 300. Although I won't argue against the possibility that the producers of V for Vendetta were taking pot-shots at the current administration, I do believe that such aspects of the film should be taken as comments against fascism and sacrificing one's liberties as opposed to a direct attack on Bush. So go ahead and complain about such films and ignore any source material that is far removed from current events at your risk.

The Upside of Smoking

For some reason, people do not like me. The reasons for their disdain are numerous and even justified and range from my desire to save money (cheap-skate) to my possible clinical depression (weakling who just can't accept that life inherently sucks). Now I can hardly defend these reasons to hate me, since I do agree with the majority of them. Hell, I don't I like me most of the time. But the one aspect of my persona, my individual selfness that I hold dear are my views on politics, whether these are on local, national, or even personal scales. My political views are the one thing I believe are right. Of course, the "rightness" of my views depends on whatever philosophy they are based on. In my case, these political views are based on half-assed objectivism (read Atlas Shrugged) or whole-assed Libertarianism (i.e. not Republican or Democrat). In a nutshell, the basis for my views is centered around personal freedom and personal responsibility (includes violations of other's rights). For example, if one wants to shoot a gun in his own back yard with a silencer, he should be allowed to do so. However, if he shoots his weapon and a bullet ricochets which in turn kills his neighbor, he should be held responsible (possibly through legal and/or monetary means).

Now, as I hear many of you normal people (we call you "Normies" under the surface) gasp and proclaim "But He shouldn't be allowed to have a gun at all!!!!" or the flip-side "He should be allowed to have all the guns he wants, and if a bullet ricochets on his property, its not his problem because it's God's will," I know that my views are not popular. Hell, they are downright controversial to you normies. Some people (Communists Fruit-cakes who do not believe people can take care of themselves) side me with the fascists, and others (Religious Zealots with a flare for running worthless Corporations reliant on government handouts) put me in the homosexual hippie pot-smoking devil-worshiping crowd. For those of you who are not idiots, please read between the lines. However, as I have stated before to many friends, I do not consider myself on the left side of political spectrum, or on the right. I am up. I am above the petty disagreements, the religious arguments, the handouts to individuals and corporations alike. I can see through all that garbage and narrow the issues down to roughly black and white by bringing it all back to personal freedom and personal responsibility.

So where am I going with this, you ask? Well, this set up is to prepare you normies for a view of mine that I have found to be tremendously controversial. In my many travels on this tainted orb, I have never found a human being who agrees with me on this one issue . The issue itself is whether or not the government should outlaw smoking in any domain, public and private. Most recently, New York City had outlawed smoking in all bars throughout the city, a policy which is being copied by other large metropolitan areas.

Before I continue my argument, I would like to make something clear. I do not like smoking (cigarettes in particular). I have difficulty conversing with people who smoke because the stench gives me nosebleed inducing headaches. I hate it when I walk into a bar, and instantly I smell like the ol' tabaccy. This being said, I do not think someone who owns a bar should prevent his customers from smoking just because I hate it.

Obviously, I do not think the government should have any say whether or not private establishments should have smoking on the premises, especially if they comply with fire safety regulations. Such laws violate the rights of the property owners, who should be allowed to do whatever they want, whenever they want, on their property as long as their actions do not violate the rights of others. Of course, the first salvo from my opponents is usually "But smoking is health hazard. That surely violates the rights of the employees and the non-smoking customers. " Nope. Not at all. As long as the property owners clearly emphasize (possibly in a window, or on the front door) that smoking is allowed on the establishment and imply its already well known dangers. "But I want to go to the bar, and have a good time without the smoke." Tough. You have a choice of which bar, dive, or hole in the wall you decide to contract syphilis and develop cirrhosis of the liver in. Some bar owners, seeing a market for it, will inevitably make their bars non-smoking establishments. This will be done for two reasons 1) most people today in the U.S. are not regular smokers and 2) most hot girls will not work in environments that cause them to age quickly (like a smoke-filled bar). Without hot girls working at a bar, it becomes infinitely harder to attract the male sex (and lesbians) to one's establishment. Men being roughly 50% of the population, and the heavier drinking sex, definitely are required for the success of a bar. No horny male college student is going to stumble into a smoke-filled dive full 40 something single mothers with bags under their eyes and cottage cheese thighs if he does not have to.

Another argument presented by you normies usually is "But if the government doesn't do anything, smoking will be everywhere." Wrong again losers. I have first-hand proof of a private establishment that has a self-imposed no smoking policy. The Universal Plaza Hotel in Orlando Florida is one such establishment. The Universal executives at one point made a conscious decision to keep smoking out of their grand hotels. The reasons for this are simple, the most glaring being the family-oriented theme park laden city of Orlando. If one wants families to come to his hotel, he will keep smoking out, to protect children and pregnant women, or else he will lose such valuable business to more competitive hotels.

The issue here is not whether or not smoking is bad for people. The issue here is that proponents of such regulations against private establishments believe that people do not have a right to do what they want on their property, whether this property is some crappy bar or their crappy body. This is the same reason people can not smoke marijuana in the eyes of you normies. "Pot is bad for the body and mind, so therefore you can not do it." So what did you normies do? You made a law making the possession of marijuana illegal. Well, just because it is illegal this does not mean people will abide by such a law. The same applies to property. "What? My house is not zoned for a swimming pool in the basement? Well nuts to you. I own the well which supplies the water to my house, and if anything happens to my house as a result of my swimming pool, it will be my problem." If such laws are imposed, they inevitably broken sooner or later.

A prime example of this is the institution of Prohibition, which had deprived Americans with the privilege to legally destroy their livers and their lives with alcoholic beverages. Well, after this law was imposed many Americans, bar owners included, disregarded such a fascist demand and continued, mostly in secrecy, to sell and consume spirited beverages. Not surprisingly, the law was repealed when people realized that they love to drink and such a law makes a lot of people criminals for simply destroying their bodies.

Now, of course, smoking is different from drinking. Second-hand smoke expelled from smokers can be inhaled by unwitting bystanders. Over the years these bystanders have demanded separate non-smoking sections, and eventually instituted such restrictive regulations. As I said before, I hate smoking and if I were to come to a restaurant that had a sign informing me that the establishment allowed smoking, I would consider going to another establishment. If there are options available, people will take them. Advocates of non-smoking regulations are riding in the same uppity boat as prohibitionists and others who think they know what is right for every single person. Soon, similar trolls will demand that Americans must exercise regularly or face excessive fines. These same trolls will then say, well if you have a guest bedroom you must let a homeless person stay in it for free, or face the aforementioned excessive fines. No one should have the right to tell people what to do with their lives or their businesses (as long as they properly inform customers and employees of potential danger). Its called covering one's ass. If perhaps years down the road, a former employee tries to sue the owner of a then smoke-filled bar, the employer can legally show that the employee signed a contract stating that they were informed they would be working in an environment filled with second-hand smoke.
Its that simple. But apparently, some people have to complicate things by imposing on other people's rights and responsibilities.

And this is what gets to me. This is what wakes me in the night in a cold sweat and a urine filled bed. The fear that someday, someone will come and tell me how to live life or face repercussions wrought by a governing body I support through my taxes. In other words, in this nightmarish dystopian future, I will be paying for my own enslavement. We all will. So next time you complain about a smoke-filled bar, realize that you are there by choice. No one forced you into an environment filled with smoke. And if you spend enough time in smoke-filled bars that you actually contract lung cancer, that is your own problem. Besides, you would have to spend at least thirty years of your life in such bars to actually contract said disease. Wise up you dumbass normies.

Some Environmental Musings

OK. We have all heard about this global warming thing, and if you haven't you either need to come out of your coma or just die. That type of ignorance is just inexcusable. Al Gore released a "documentary" this summer titled "An Inconvenient Truth" in which he essentially portrays our doom at the hand of our own industrial ignorance resulting in global warming and then Armageddon. Funny, the Republicans said Armageddon will come when Jesus comes back. Perhaps he'll be surfing on the waves of melted glaciers drowning Manhattan. Now I haven't actually seen this movie, since I usually avoid preachy self-inflated entertainment from uncharismatic Ex-Vice-President/Presidential Candidates, but what I do know was pieced together from the random images I have seen of this film in previews.

The reason I decided to bring up this environmental forecast of our self-imposed destruction is because as I read endless tripe on internet blogs, video game websites, self-help don't kill yourself sites etc. I always run into vehement jabs at the Bush administration whether it be in the criticism of the war, No Child Left Behind, or a complete lack of interest in environmental control. Now, I am no fan of the Bush Administration. The mistakes of this presidency are glaringly obvious at the least and crushingly tragic at the most. I do not need to go into the specifics of the failings of this administration (and at least half the American public), but the environmental criticism always got to me. I grudgingly agree with some criticisms of the craptacular domestic and foreign policy set forth by W, but when it comes to the environment I can not find the "strength" to lay all the environmental woes of the Earth on the hands of the current administration.

The fact is that despite the claims of the violently angry environmentalists, the Bush Administration can only be blamed for a small portion of the fabled global warming that might be looming over the horizon. We, as a nation, have been driving gas guzzling cars and burning chemicals for a century under numerous presidential administrations. It was the American public in its need to better its life that built the industry that supposedly inflicted the nightmarish destruction of the ozone layer. People wanted the ability to go to work or somewhere on a whim, hence the car. Sure, it could have been electric, but through whatever series of events, the electric models were never pushed onto the consumers, and for whatever reason, no other automobile manufacturer seemed to care until 1996, when California imposed strict regulations that forced GM to produce electric cars if they wanted to maintain their market in the Golden State. The electric car conspiracy theories aside, Bush himself had buttkiss to do with the nation's dependence on environmentally damaging industry and transportation. Furthermore, the office of the American Presidency has little or nothing to do with the environmental policies of other nations, particularly emerging juggernauts like India and China.

And herein lies my problem with the environmental frustrations over W's apathy toward the environment. Suppose tomorrow that the Bush Administration decided to impose strict environmental controls on the nation, reducing industrial output and the number of gas-guzzlers on the road to 10% of their current value. Now also suppose, that W also decides to use the military to force anyone who will not comply. "What? You don't want to take the train." KABOOOOOM!! "Well now you have no choice since we just blew up your infernal gas powered car. By the way, in 10 days the trains won't be operating because the coal power-plants that provide electricity will be shut down. So you better get used to walking 10 miles to work everyday." In this scenario, the United States is reduced in industrial output and overall productivity. But the environment is saved, right? Wrong!

Remember those emerging behemoth nations like India and China. In 20 years, China's industrial output will equal that of 3 billion SUVs. Thats right, 3 fucking Billion. That's one SUV for every man, woman, and child in the U.S. today 10 times over. Other nations ramping up their industrial output to match and eventually overtake our own yields a new problem. Any void left by our industrial absence will be easily filled by other developing nations. Plus, China is not going to bow to some hippie American president willing to relegate his nation to throwing their feces at each other in trees. The only thing keeping the people of China from eating each others brains out of sheer hunger is the newfound power of the "Communist" government bolstered by the nation's somewhat recent advances in industry. So what will the militaristic environmentalists say about ol' China? "Let's shoot 'em all and let poor mother Earth sort 'em out!"

Of course, this leads to another paradox in the environmentalist's desire for more control of mankind's destructive impact on nature. If the U.S. goes to war over the environment with China, the ensuing nightmarish apocalyptic results will of course cause further harm to poor Mother Earth . But for advocates of strict environmental control, the ends justify the means. "Sure, the war might burn up more of the precious ozone layer, but in the end it will be worth it."And this, ultimately, is what it comes down to.

Militant environmentalists don't care about humanity. If they had their way, we'd be eating our own waste while dying at the age of 20. A war over the environment would only cause them to lament the resulting destruction on nature and not the deaths of untold men, women, and children. The only reason these enviro-nazis don't kill themselves now to help mother nature is because they need to exist in order to force their will down the throats of their brethren.

So next time you read something vilifying the Administration or even the United States for it's apathy regarding the environment, think of a prospective war with China before agreeing with it. Do the ends justify the means? I think not.

The Untouchable Books

When I was younger, I hated to read like every other red-blooded, TV-watching, god-fearing, Wal-Mart shopping American. I would get a headache just staring at the pages of a picture book with more than a few lines of text on it. Hell, sometimes in class, I would pretend to have slogged through the assigned reading while instead, I had just stared off into space imagining what it would be like to watch TV while playing video games and eating at the same time. Ok, sure I still do that from time to time. But at some point, I actually began to look at the squiggly black characters on the pages of young adult novels (and adult novels too....heh...heh....Oh screw you) and I began to use what meager brain power I have to muster the ability to decipher the hieroglyphic code. Once I realized that these archaic symbols actually meant something, my opinion on reading had changed drastically.

Now folks, as many of you know, us 'Mericans aren't into all that book learnin'. We have better things to do, like buy shit we don't need and fight pointless wars for ungrateful liberated peoples instead of bettering ourselves by making the most of our own individual potential. We don't have time for all those books, they take too long too read and besides, if they make the book into a movie we can just watch that pile of filtered Hollywood schlock. Well 'Merica, I have some news for you. We are dumb. I am going to let that sink in because I don't think you understand (partially a result of the aforementioned stupidity). We are near retarded, Forrest Gump, Whoops the Condom Broke, Intelligent Design is too a Theory levels of inconceivable ineptitude. Half the people in this country would have a hard time identifying Canada on a map, much less spell it. Obviously, due to the massive amount of debt this nation is in, we can't even balance our cursed checkbooks. ITS ADDITION AND SUBTRACTION PEOPLE. YOU LEARNED IT RIGHT AFTER "Z."

Ok, so maybe I am being harsh. Why do we as a people shy away from becoming smarter? Well, for one, it hurts. Learning is painful for most people (me included) because you have to ram information into your brain over and over again just to make it stick to that dried up husk of an organ. Two, for a long time in our public schools, being intelligent, especially through book learnin',has always had a negative stigma among the students. Intelligent kids, being the meeker in frame in most cases, are shoveled into their own isolated group. This group consists of the nerds and the dorks but, I think there is a far more apt term for this ragtag group of harder-working misfits: the Untouchables.

To clarify, Indian (Not woo-woo, the red dot) society is broken into different hierarchal levels (or was...can't remember. Damn Alzheimer's), the lowest of which being the Untouchables. This group is shunned by society and for the most part dehumanized . The fact that really strikes me about the Untouchables is that they must wipe away their foot-prints as they are walking in the dirt roads, as to not disturb the harmony of the better castes or some shit like that. So for anyone with half a brain stem, comparing the Untouchables to the nerds in public schools is valid. Nerds have to get by everyday by not disturbing their classmates while trying to succeed. They are shunned for their intelligence (mostly garnered from the demonized book-learnin') even though it gives them a better shot at success in life. Even "nerdy" girls would shun the nerdy guys if it meant a chance at pleasuring an ungrateful muscular dimwit football player in the janitor's unsavory closet (Let's face it people, it has happened). The nerdy guys have no such outlet since cheerleaders would not be caught dead touching pizza face and his wire-rimmed glasses. So here we have a completely ostracized group of young men who will never procreate until they pay a hooker for sex and the condom accidentally breaks. Nine months later the baby is left on his door-step etc. etc. Etc. and the nerd is punished once again. But I digress.

Since reading is associated with the Untouchables at a young age, the negative stigma of reading sticks with people for the rest of their lives despite advice from teachers and Reading Rainbow. Sure some of these Untouchables grow up and make enough money to buy their way into the Touchable castes and possibly even win a semi-attractive non-abusive spouse (yeah....sure). But even well into adulthood, reading is seen by many as the activity of the weird hermits destined to live out their days in a basement until they hang themselves off a bridge (Hey.........wait a sec!).

In order to exemplify the reasons many people choose not to read I compiled some examples:

"Books are boring, I'd rather watch SpongeBob while telling my parents I hate them." --whiny brat deserving a punch to the face and a couple of bruised ribs

"Books give me a headache."--someone who has never heard of Tylenol

"Shit man, I can't read a book. Coach told me only fags read books. I'm not a fag, are you?" --Future recipient of a broken leg, ruined "career" and winner of "Who wants to be a gas station attendant?"

"Oh, I don't read because Brad says I am too pretty for it. Too much reading can you give you acne, you know." --Future member of the Society of Worthless, Empty, and Unproductive Housewives who Cheat on Their Husbands and are Killed in a Fit of unbridled Rage (SWEHUHCTHKFUR).

"I am too busy, and besides, I read too much at work anyway."--- A sad broken man i.e. me in 4 weeks.

"No habla Anglais..." --The best gardener this side of the Rio Grande

"Shit man, I can't read a book. Cheney told me only terrorists read books. I'm not a terrorist, are you?"----Ok ok, I couldn't resist


By actually forcing myself to read, I used my meager brain to create whole worlds filled with characters (admittedly, many of them were 1-dimensional and all looked like movie stars). I was able to translate the ideas of one human being and turn it into something I could understand, something I could envision and almost touch. That is what reading is to me. It is not some boring chore designed to force you to waste your time so teach' can go out and have a smoke while complaining about her ex-husband, but rather, a means to flex the pathetic organ lodged between those "heary" things. I believe you apes call it a brain. Through reading, I have become prententious and standoffish. My vocabulary is obscure enough to make Joe Nailedmycousinatthehodownintheoldbarn Smith scratch his head and say "Boy, are you from Italy (Eye-tally) or somethin'?" You see, reading can enable to you be weird and unapproachable. It can make you able to put somebody off with the dry wit one could only build from years of reading sarcastic murder mysteries or dystoptic science fiction. Essentially, it can make you a jerk.........Wait. Scratch that (its true regardless). The point is folks, if more people read in this country a majority of us might actually to be able to identify whatever country we are currently blowing to bits on a map, rather than just refer to it as the "Desert that should be nuked into glass" (I'm looking in you direction Texarkansalaborgia).

So read. Don't go quietly into the slow dumb night. Become a prententious prick and make more money because of it. You want to know why Europe is supposedly so much smarter than us? It's because the whole damn continent is full of prententious pricks that read (among other things) who look at us like we are the gun-toting apes from Beneath the Planet of the ......Apes. Now, I am not saying we should be like Europe. I am saying that this is the United States and we should not give any quarter by becoming obese slow couch potatoes who put more stock in people getting hit in the junk (which is awesome by the way) than a good classic leather bound edition of War and Peace.

Lethargy...AHOY

I am tired. Very tired. Inexplicably tired. I am convinced I either have mono or I am turning into a male version of my mother. In a couple weeks, I will probably start getting hot flashes.

To exemplify my somewhat newfound yet, unwanted lethargic nature, I will recount my behavior over the past couple of days. Last Friday rolled around like any other Friday. I went to work like all the other mindless drones and stared at a computer screen, feeling drained the entire day. I expected this, I mean hey, it was Friday. I did just push my self through 4, 9 hour mindless days. So being a little lethargic come the fifth day should be expected. I get back home and instantly pass out. I lay down and enter the unconscious bliss known you normal people as sleep. After this nap, I awake only to find myself feeling even worse than before. "What the hell is wrong with me?" I questioned myself, like I often do when I am alone (i.e. 80% of time, I think this makes me clinically insane). "Well, first of all jackass, you never get enough sleep, and your mild insomnia is probably starting to kill you," I said in surly Moe-like voice, Knyuck-Knyuck. "SONOFBITCH!" I respond in a heavy Romanian accent (assuming I actually know what a Romanian accent sounds like). This insane soliliquy/insane outer monologue goes on for about 4 hours as I hobble around my cesspool of an apartment while bumping into objects (like walls) like some sort of mentally handicapped (retarded) Mr. Magoo. On average, I end up saying "SONOFBITCH" ten times a day, yielding further reason for people to avoid me.
Next thing I know, I am back in bed, probably crying myself to sleep as always, and soon find comfort in the sweet bosom of the dream realm once again.

Saturday and Sunday roll around and the same thing happens. Nothing gets done except some modest vacuuming which in turn, destroys my vacuum. Being the cheapskate I am, I know I will never buy a vacuum, since luxuries like clean floors are not valid enough to deserve the purchase of a 50 dollar appliance. I bump into more walls, cry, and realize that I have been walking around wearing week-old boxers. In response to this disgusting revelation, I just roll back into bed for a nice pre-noon nap that lasts for a solid 3 hours. Fun. Luckily, my land-lord broke the monotony by teaching me how to properly shoot a shotgun. Much to my surprise, I actually was able hit the very broad side of a very large barn. You hear that farmhouses?! You are no longer safe from my modest shooting abilities! No longer will you lord your superiority over me, as I long as I can put some buckshot into your very broad walls. Fear me, or know my wrath. HAHAHAHAHAHAHHHAHAHAHAHAH. But I digress...

The point (if any) that I am trying to make is that, a weekend of pure sleep and nigh-inactivity, resulted in me being just as lethargic, if not more today. In conclusion, I either have mono or I am officially over 50 years old and female. Since I have done nothing in years that could induce mono (Yeah it's pretty damn sad. Go ahead and laugh. It's funny. And sad) the only logical conclusion a la' Sherlock Holmes is that I am at least 50 years old and female. It's official folks. I am old. Very Old. Inexplicably impossibly old. And I am going through Metapuase. Hurrah.

Tribute to the Bad Movie

Recently, I have become enamored with bad movies. Movies so bad they will either drive someone to anger or pure silliness. Movies that one has to ridicule just to survive. Rumor has it that Gene Siskel was killed by too many bad movies, and I wouldn't be surprised if that is not far from the truth. Besides, you can get cancer from everything these days so why not god-awful entertainment.

For those of you unaware of the almost cultish bad movie following hovering somewhere out there on the internet, let me get you up to speed. There are several movies soooo bad that they have achieved near cult status. The most famous of which is Manos: The Hands of Fate. This film, produced for about 20 thousand dollars achieved god-awful status when it was screened for the unsuspecting citizens of El Paso, Texas. The audience began tearing the film apart within minutes of it commencement. Most of the actors escaped before the movie ended, and the actor of the infamous Torgo ended up killing himself. Apparently the movie was that bad. The only "watchable" version of the film was screened on Mystery Science Theater 3000, which comes with pre-packaged commentary tearing up this celluloid disaster. The story, if it can be called that, involves some idiot taking his family to house where some cult worships some guy with a mustache..er something like that. The house is watched over by Torgo, a hilariously awful actor in a hilariously awful satyr costume, while the master is away. This movie was a bad for several reasons:

1. The actors were amateurs
2. The director was a fertilizer salesmen (he didn't stray far from his trade since he was able to create shit on screen)
3. The camera could only film for 30 seconds at a time, making each scene choppy and disjointed
4. Torgo would make anybody squirt milk out of their nose even if they we not drinking milk. He's that bad.
5. All the actors were dubbed over using only 3 people.
6. The budget was well,.....pretty small
7. There's about 10 pointless minutes in the beginning of the movie with just driving and shots of sleep inducing countryside. Apparently the credits were supposed to roll during these pointless scenes, but someone (probably our heroic purveyor of fertilizer) forgot to add them in. Whoops.

Manos: The Hands of Fate stands a testament of not how to make a movie. It is so exponentially awful, every second you watch it, you know some angel is getting the crap kicked out of it. Jesus (HEY-ZEUS) himself would have a hard time turning this Baltimore city water of a so-called film into a fine red wine. Needless to say, it sucks.


In recent memory, the so-called worst movie of the 21st century scarred audiences with its awful direction, nonsensical story, and John Travolta. Battlefield Earth, based off a book by famed crackpot Scientology creator L. Ron Hubbard, brought a new meaning to the word awful. This film had a budget. This film had Forrest Whittaker. This film occasionally had tolerable special effects. In every way, this film should have avoided Manos territory, but in every way, plummeted to the depths of pukedom. John Travolta, being a crackpot scientologist, took it upon himself to create this film, probably as some homage to his god L. Ron. The story involves gold seeking aliens taking over the earth and somehow being beaten by cavemen 1000 years from now. This movie is bad for several reasons:

1. John Travolta is in it. Watch Face/Off if you don't agree.
2. The director uses sidewipes, tilted angles, and slow motion constantly to make things look cool. All he achieves is laughable dribble.
3. The story is based on a mediocre book by a guy who created his own "Religion."
4. The aliens, called Psyhclos, look awkward because they wear stilts. Plus their idiots. There idiocy makes the audience ask the question: "How in the hell did they take over the planet? These schlubs couldn't take over France."
5. Somehow superstitious cavemen learn how to fly 1000 year old harrier jets in a matter of days. It takes trained pilots years to become adept in such aircraft. Yet, somehow we are forced to believe that these cavemen can jump in these planes and just take back the Earth?
6. The aliens desire gold, but somehow in the course of 1000 years, they were never able to locate, let alone ransack, the repository of Fort Knox.
7. Forrest Whittaker, the only notable and respectable actor in this pile of shiite, failed to emit anything but laughs and jeers from audience members
8. The movie has John Travolta. Nuff said.

This movie was so bad that critics had to re-evaluate their lives after seeing it. I am pretty sure Roger Ebert sent Travolta a couple of death threats. Hell, I sent him death threats. God this one was bad. At least Manos had the MST3K crew to buttress the audience through the turmoil. A viewing of Battlefield Earth makes some feel like they have been through prison and war: thoroughly sodomized and thoroughly scarred.

So why then, am I even talking about such assaults on cinema? Well, for one, they are hilarious. With the right group of friends, and possibly some very stiff drinks, any bad movie can be turned into instant knee slapping, self-wetting comedy. That's the whole reason Mystery Science Theater 3000 existed. The bad movie itself had created an off-shoot form of entertainment: ridiculing the movie. As the MST3K boys proved, there is nothing quite as satisfying as an appropriate jibe at the appropriate moment, destroying ones suspension of disbelief and exposing the faults of the filmmakers.

In another sense, the bad movie shows the film industry what not to do. These movies are testaments to monumental hilarious failure. And lets face it, failure is pretty funny. Its like seeing someone drive a F-1 race car into an unsuspecting audience. It may be terrible, and awful.......and depressing but as long as you aren't involved in the failure it can be the funniest thing since flatulence.

Over the past year, Hollywood tried to capitalized on the bad movie idea by exploiting the cultish following. Snakes on a Plane, a movie bad enough to wear its crappiness in its title, opened to so-so reviews and dismal box office returns. The film industry thought it could formulate a bad movie and subsequently create a following. The net had been buzzing with the possibilities such a lame idea could bring to the screen, with fanboys giggling themselves into spastic fits over the very idea of Snakes on a Plane. I have not seen this movie, which I really do not want to pay to see. However, I do admit the inherently bad idea did appeal to me. But the dismal returns should serve as a lesson to Hollywood. You can't just make a bad movie. There is no formula. The stars must align and the Gods must sneer for the truly awful flick to be made. The right combinations of idiocy in so many places must exist in order for the awful movie to made. So here's to you bad movies. You are the lessons learned and you are the late-night giggle inducing entertainment and although you do make me shove pencils into my ears and forks into my eyes, you will always have a dark, evil, demented place in my heart.

The Endangered Renaissance Men

Today, as I was sitting in some meeting at work, I took stock of the world since this meeting was far from enthralling. As my head lulled around like my neck was made of pasta and my eyes turned inside my head desperately searching for something to occupy my mind, it became apparent to me that my generation (20 something) is a generation of one hit wonders. In other words, it's a generation where most individuals can only do one thing (if anything) worth anything to anybody. For example, I am sort of an "engineer," and this is the only occupation I can perform to achieve maximum profit while contributing something valuable to my employer. Other people, who have made extremely poor choices, must work at fast food chains because their skill set only allows them to perform menial tasks. The point I am trying to emphasize is that we (as in my pathetic, pampered, and lazy generation) does not contain many (if any) Renaissance Men.

So..."What is a Renaissance Man?" you ask. Wikipedia, a great reputable undeniable source, equates "Renaissance Man" with Polymath: someone who excels in multiple fields, especially the arts and sciences. Polymath is in turn equated with Philomath: a seeker of knowledge. The greatest example of a Renaissance Man/Polymath is the originator of the term Leonardo D'Vinci. For those of you who don't know who Leonardo D'Vinci is, you should probably go stand in front of traffic right now. Leonardo was an engineer/designer/artist extraordinaire who although held back by his mother's "whore" status, religion and the royal powers of Europe (primarily Italy), excelled in multiple fields and at the very least, stirred the imagination and abilities of others. A Renaissance Man, then, is almost like a lightening rod, whose knowledge can be transferred to others through amazing work and concepts.

Another notable Renaissance Man/Polymath is Benjamin Franklin, a founding father of the United States. Franklin's pursuits consisted of politics, electricity, printing newspapers, and of course, banging French chicks. The latter pursuit is by far the most admirable, especially considering his age and appearance. Franklin was not alone in his time, since Thomas Jefferson also had many talents in the realms of architecture, archaeology, higher education, and of course, banging slaves.

Now why do I go on and on about a bunch of dead men? Well that is precisely the point, they are dead. Who has picked up their enlightened torch in our generation. Sure, you can look to your grandparents or perhaps even your parents for extraordinary multi-tasking individuals, but where are they in you. Can you paint, build a house, hunt wild game, and play music? Well of course you can't do all those things since they require time and therefore money. The Renaissance Man outlasted pirates and cowboys but is now a dying breed in today's world of unscrews excess and laziness.

Why should you learn to play music or get multiple educations, since it is so much easier to sit and watch some bullshit on MTV? Besides, you have to go to some crappy job everyday just to make ends meet. Where would one have the time, money, and energy to become something more? I guess at the least, we (my crappy generation) can try to do at least one more thing of worth to somebody, most importantly ourselves. There is no reason for man to become nothing but a robot designed to buy crap and work pointless jobs to pay for said crap, but the responsibility falls on the individual. The individual lets his dreams wilt and die and become nothing in the dirt of life. The individual buries himself in mistakes and never recovers, breathing through the straw of pity. The individual is the one who fights to live and become something more to himself and hopefully the world. Multiple pursuits can safeguard individuals from the eventual lay-off here or the unforeseen accident there. If Leonardo broke his legs, he could always paint and sell his art to royalty at the very least. If Franklin suffered brain damage he could still have sex with loose French women. Those men, although fortunate on some levels, still had to work to be what they were. Perhaps with a little effort, some of the apathetic beaten 20 somethings can become lightening rods for other apathetic 20 somethings. Besides, it can't be that hard to bang European women.