Monthly Archives: April 2010

Videocracy

YouTubery Friday: “Miracles” and Tiger Woods Parody

It’s Friday! Procrastinate and count down to happy hour with these lovely bits.

Earlier this week, a video debuted for a song by esteemed musicians Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope–collectively known as the Insane Clown Posse. It was immediately shared across the Twitterverse and the Faced-Book pages as an example of majestic stupidity.

By now, pointing out ICP’s lack of talent or smarts is–while incredibly easy and fun–almost cliche. Between The Best Show’s skewering of The Gathering of the Juggalos, Saturday Night Live‘s take on a suspiciously similar subject, and general internet snark, this is not exactly uncharted comedic territory. And even though they have a cult audience, they’re not chart toppers, so mocking them seems pointless and a little mean.

But this video…holy goddamn, this thing is…words fail.

Truth be told, it’s not really the video itself, which has some cheesy graphics but isn’t all that funny on its own. No, it’s the song featured in the video, “Miracles”. It’s about the extraordinary features of everyday life. It sounds like a musical version of a Mitch Albom book, but with tons of F-bombs.

Kudos to ICP for trying to get deep, but very few things mentioned in this video count as “miracles”. Almost all of them can be explained with some basic science. That doesn’t prevent Shaggy 2 Dope from wondering, “Fuckin’ magnets, how do they work?” And Violent J shares his tale of the time a seagull in San Francisco stole his cell phone, which is less of a miracle and more of mildly amusing anecdote.

But maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m the jaded, cynical one. Maybe I’m the guy just can’t see the miracles of “fuckin rainbows” and “pet dogs and cats”. Watch the video and judge for yourself.

Have you see the new Tiger Woods Nike commercial? You’ll love it if you like Inappropriate. In it. the disembodied voice of Tiger’s father, Earl Woods, admonishes him, as the camera slowly pulls in on his face as he looks stoic and competitive. Did you know Earl Woods is dead? Yeah, he’s dead. That, plus Tiger’s dead-eyed stare, make this really uncomfortable to watch.

Naturally, this has inspired almost as many re-workings as the bunker scene in Downfall. My favorite: This one, which uses a certain speech from Shawshank Redemption. (This is un-embeddable, but I forgive you, whoever you are.)

The Parallel Universe Fake Mets

The Parallel Universe Fake Mets: Opening Series

Thumbnail image for show_castillo.jpgFor future installments of The Parallel Universe Fake Mets, I hope to have little screencaps and so forth. That was not possible for these entries, because as I mentioned earlier this week, this week has been a bitch and a half. For now, you’ll have to make do with this realistic animation of Luis Castillo getting forced out at second.

One aspect of the unfairness of MLB10:The Show I forgot about in my first post: If you throw a breaking pitch, there’s a 50 percent chance it will skip past the catcher. Regardless of the pitcher, regardless of the catcher, there are a huge amount of wild pitches/passed balls in this game.

Game 1: Fake Marlins 4, Fake Mets 2
The Fake Mets jumped out to an early lead on Josh Johnson, when Jose Reyes led off with an infield single, moved to second on an errant throw, and scored on a David Wright RBI single. But the Marlins stormed back with four straight hits against Johan Santana in the top of the third, sparked by a leadoff single by Johnson of all people (pitchers in this game are way better hitters than their real life counterparts), and the Fake Marlins went up 3-1. Carlos Beltran thrilled the crowd with an inside-the-park homerun (aided by Chris Coghlan bouncing off the left field wall), but Cody Ross hit an out-of-the-park homer of his own, and the Fake Mets could not catch up, getting just one more hit the rest of the way.

In real life: Amazingly, the Real Mets managed to beat Josh Johnson for the first time. Wright hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the first, Santana was his usual sharp self, and the Mets capitalized on some typically shoddy Marlins defense to cruise to a 7-1 win.

Game 2: Fake Mets 2, Fake Marlins 1
Fake Mike Pelfrey was sharp through 7 innings, and David Wright clubbed a two-run homer off of Ricky Nolasco to provide all the offense the Mets would need. The one run Pelfrey “allowed” should not have scored at all. John Baker hit a ball up the middle, and I tried to make Jose Reyes dive at the ball. But what often happens in The Show is that the computer switches your fielders very quickly. By the time I was diving, my fielding capabilities had already transfered to Carlos Beltran. That meant Carlos was sprawled out on the turf instead of chasing down Baker’s grounder, and he got a gift double, then moved to third on another grounder and scored on a sac fly. Pedro Feliciano and Kelvim Escobar combined for a scoreless eighth, and Frankie Rodriguez set down the Fake Marlins 1-2-3 in the ninth for his first fake save of the year.

In real life: John Maine struggled through five innings, ceding four runs and falling behind every batter he faced, and the bullpen let up two more (including Jennry Mejia in his MLB debut). The Mets somehow “rallied” to tie the game at 6, thanks to a leaky, wild Marlins bullpen. But the Marlins took a lead in the top of the tenth, and the Mets went down quietly in the bottom half.

Game 3: Fake Marlins 5, Fake Mets 3
Fake Oliver Perez was pretty much what you might expect, and struggled through five innings, giving up three runs. The Fake Mets rallied against Anibal Sanchez, taking advantage of two walks in the bottom of the fifth to score two runs, then tie it up on a Jeff Francoeur homer in the sixth. But set-up man Kelvim Escobar got slapped around for two runs in the top of the eighth, and the Fake Mets could not recover.

In real life: Jon Niese had a decent debut, which might have looked even better if he had any defense behind him. He gave up three runs over six innings, but the anemic Mets bats couldn’t catch up and never mounted any threat against Nate Robertson or the suddenly unhittable Marlins bullpen.

Parallel Universe Fake Mets record: 1-2

Real Mets record: 1-2

Politics Schmolitics

Virginia Is For Lovers of Selective Memory

mcdonnell.jpgGovernor McDonnell here! I wanna let alla y’all know that April is officially Confederate History Month in the Great Commonwealth of Virginia. Or Virginny, as my grandpappy used to call it. He didn’t have much of what you might call book learnin’, and he liked to get in fights with parking meters, and he used to drink gasoline with his evenin’ vittles, but he was still a good son of The South. Though he mighta been born in Springfield, Massachusetts, now that I think about it. But I’m not here to talk about the past. I’m here to talk about history!

Confederate History Month will celebrate all the brave men who defended their homeland against invading aggressors from a foul foreign land: The North. Yes, Northerners are different from Southerners, and that’s the way God intended it. If not, why’d He put the North all the way up there?

No, The South did not want this war. Our leaders did everything they could to prevent it from happening: Fomenting bloodshed in Kansas, refusing to compromise on any slavery issue, beating a senator savagely with a cane, and several other things that escape me at this moment.

The South believed there should be two Americas. Those who liked snow and books could have The North, and those who liked mint juleps and rigid social strata could have The South. Just like another proud son of The South, Colonel Sanders, thought Americans should be able to enjoy extra crispy and original recipe.

But for some reason, The North didn’t like this idea. How else could The South have proved the merits of this glorious experiement unless we seceded and took up arms against our former countrymen? If you have a better idea, I’m all ears!

We have many exciting events planned for Confederate History Month. First, we’re gonna take down all these damn Yankee stars and stripes and burn ’em, just like our ancestors did. This will be okay because I declare for the next month that Virginny ain’t a part of the Union! Then we’re gonna replace them wretched things with the good ol’ stars and bars. Hang ’em from every window in the governor’s mansion! And then we’re gonna crank some Molly Hatchet.

One thing our celebration will not involve is any mention of slavery. I don’t think it was a significant part of Confederate history. Some might say it’s the reason why the whole war started. And when I say “some”, I’m referring to every historian ever. But that doesn’t make it significant.

Is milk a significant part of cheese? Is water a significant part of ice? Once something is transformed into something else, what caused that to happen is of no concern to us. History isn’t about figuring why things happened. It’s about puttin’ on funny ol’ timey costumes and charging 20 bucks a head to look at an old cannon.

And while we’re at it, let’s get rid of those ingredient panels on boxes of food. They just mess with your mind!

I’m also introducing legislation to celebrate the heroes who resisted that second heinous act of Yankee aggression, the so-called Civil Rights Movement. I want to honor the brave men and women who blocked high school entrances and turned hoses on protesters, and even the ones who did something as simple and noble as throwing eggs at children, so Virginians could continue to enjoy those lovely signs we took the time and care to hang on separate water fountains.

Did some bad things happen in The South during the Civil Right Movement? Beats me! The schoolbooks I grew up reading never mentioned it, and neither will any schoolbook produced under my administration. But I will add a special chapter on the bands of the 1970s and why Molly Hatchet remains a shining beacon of rockitude. And I will also commission a new cover to these textbooks painted by Frank Frazetta.