Monthly Archives: January 2009

Boob Tubery

Dance for Me, My Subjects!

I would like to applaud NBC for their brand new show Superstars of Dance. Not because the show is any good, but because it demonstrates that the network has mastered time travel.

At least I assume they did, and used it to pluck a producer from the 1950s and bring him back to modern times. Because there’s no way that any producer born in the last 40 years would take grown-ass men and dress them in such demeaning costumes just because they’re from foreigny lands. 

Or maybe they went back to the late 1800s, and got old timey editorial cartoonists to do the costume design. Because all of the judges on this show are forced to wear stereotypical garb from their native land. The audience couldn’t possibly enjoy a well-performed dance routine from, say, a Japanese man. No, he must wear a samurai robe and carry a katana at all times!

The Chinese judge wears a saffron Buddhist monk’s robe. The Russian judge wears a traditional puffy blouse, like he’s gonna start step-dancing with a bottle of vodka on his head any second. I’m pretty sure I saw a Swiss guy in Tyrolean hat, and a Samoan guy in a muu-muu, and an African with those weird neck rings. It’s really a spiritual cousin to It’s a Small World After All: an attempt at “international understanding” that just betrays the superior, condescending attitude of the perpetrator.

Remember when Michael Richards said some crazy racist stuff a few years back and it ruined his career? Well, if he said anything as racist as this show looks, he would have been stoned to death in the street.

NBC also turned back the clock to get its audience. They must have come from a time before Dancing With the Stars premiered, because these people are simply AMAZED that dancing has returned to television. They must also be blissfully unaware of So You Think You Can Dance, Pants Off Dance Off, Someone Marry My Mom While Dancing, and the roughly 8 billion other dance-reality shows that have aired in the last 5 years.

Or they got their audience from roughly 15 years ago, the last time Michael Flatley was famous and relevant and didn’t vaguely resemble Lawrence Welk.

Actually, they probably got their audience from a lot farther back than that. Some time when entertainment hadn’t been invented yet. Because these people will apparently applaud anything done in front of them.

Irish step dancing straight out of Celtic Nightmare or some other bullshit diddly-dee PBS special? Yippee! Indian dancing that wouldn’t fly in the cheapest Bollywood movie? Huzzah! Some Argentinean chick convulsing in something that barely resembles rhythm? Oh joy!

Kudos, NBC. When you’re done raiding the past for inspiration, see if you can figure out that whole “who killed JFK” thing.

Baseball, Literary Endeavors

Profiles in Righteousness: Joe Posnanski

If you’re a fan of baseball, or a fan of sports, or just a fan of good writing, do yourself a favor and start reading Joe Posnanski’s blog at SI.com. Or his own blog, which publishes a lot of his SI stuff plus some other tasty bits.

Posnanski belongs to that rare breed of baseball scribe who isn’t allergic to numbers and doesn’t hate things invented within the last 50 years. And he is also a joy to read, prose-wise. The only other writer I’d put in his category is Tim Marchman, who–near as I can tell–remains unemployed now that the NY Sun has folded, which is a shame. (Marchman’s joblessness, I mean. The defunctory-ness of the NY Sun is neither here nor there for me.)

Prime example: A recent post wherein he argues that just because a particular stat wasn’t considered important during a player’s career (or didn’t exist), that doesn’t mean said stat isn’t important. In Posnanski’s opinion, new stats (or renewed focus on older stats, like OBP) recognize that certain things are not random or unimportant aspects of a game, but skills that should be recognized as such.

He’s been around for quite a while, most notably as a columnist for the Kansas City Star. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’m coming late to the Joe Posnanski Is Awesome Party, but I figured I’d pass it along. My first New Year’s Resolution for 2009 is to berate people for doing things I should have been doing all along.

Life In These United States

Me and My Shadow

I wouldn’t call myself claustrophobic per se. But I do have an intense dislike of confined spaces, a trait I share with pretty much every animal on the planet. So naturally, I’ve chosen to live in New York City, which is a series of confined spaces piled on top of one another.

For reasons I can’t quite place right now, I decided to go to a different deli than usual to get my coffee and breakfast. And for reasons that are even harder to determine, I went to the deli that once served me the worst sandwich ever made. So I should have expected to be a little disoriented and confused. What I didn’t count on was starring in a mini-French Connection subway platform scene. (I played Popeye Doyle in this version.)

Like most NY delis, this one doesn’t have a lot of room to spare for coffee preparation. It needs the space for 1700 different kinds of energy shots and wasabi peas. Even when judged by NY standards, however, this deli is aggressive in its waste of space. You know how there are design consultants who can help you maximize your space in a crowded urban environment? This deli went with these consultants’ bizzarro counterparts. “This guy comes highly recommended–he spiffed up the Collyer Brothers’ place!”

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