The Inevitable Blacklash

I was reading an article yesterday on HuffPost about how the honeymoon between the media and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barak Obama might be coming to an end. It was quoted in the article that Obama has been coming off as "arrogant" as of late.

So hold on for a second here? You mean to tell me, this guy, who just about every media outlet (aside from probably FOX News) has been fawning over for the last twelve months is just now starting to get a little cocky? Really?

I recall an episode of The Daily Show where Obama was a guest, and as we was being teased into the show by Jon Stewart, they played "Halilujia," as if he was the democrat's Messiah.

And you're upset he'd developed what you may think is a "complex?"

Truth be told, Barack Obama is the Democratic Party's Second Coming, and with good reason. Here you have this Kennedesque politician (gasp, a minority at that! I'm sure the ACLU creamed their pants when he became the front runner, finally picking up Hilary's limp swollen head, placing her open mouth on the corner of a curb, and stomping her into oblivion, ala "American History X" or that one episode of the last season of "The Sopranos") who for the first time in almost a decade doesn't come off as either a boring college prof robot or a dick who talks out of both sides of his mouth. You have a candidate with a spine, good looks, and a plan.

The motherfucker went to Germany, and put more people in one place than a Scorpion's concert.

He's a rockstar, and yeah, maybe he's getting a little bit of a big head over all of this shit. I mean, while he's speaking to the krauts, his chief rival, John McCain is doing a club show in Wilkes -Barre, PA in some shoe factory or some shit. I mean, seriously.

But then again, who seems more down to Earth?

I did a little soul searching on that question, as in, who would I be more comfortable with as president, the rockstar or the everyman? Who would lead us better?

Back in 2003 or 04, a poll was taken and Americans stated that they'd be more comfortable sitting down at a bar and having a beer with G-Dub than John Kerry. Bush was more approachable it seemed, and at that point in our Nation's History, we hadn't totally fucked ourselves in Iraq "too hard" yet.

Based on this, (and some other things I considered that will remain in private) I want a rockstar for a president. Clinton was a rockstar, Regan was a rockstar, from what I can remember, Kennedy and both Roosevelts were rockstars. The country needs a cocky coxswain to steer us on a right course, not some swinging dick that you wouldn't mind having a beer with.

You could argue that Bush is/was cocky and arrogant as well, but he didn't become that way until he locked down his second term, and no longer gave a flying fuck about his administration. He basically treated his second term and the country like I treat my beat to shit 1998 S10, where I know it needs a lot of work if I want it to last another few months, but fuck it, I'm getting rid of it soon anyway, why not beat it into the ground a little harder for a goof?

Media: Let Obama be. When and if he takes the throne, he's going to have a lot of work cut out for him, so why not let him play up the part a little bit, and give the world the idea that America's still on track wth being a little pretentious, a little arrogant, and a little dashing all in one. Let him have his swagger and loose tie. Let's be progressive for once and ditch the whole "Old white guy as president" thing. I mean, yeah it's safe, but only because we've never experienced anything else.

Let the old white guys do their thing with running Mtv, The GAP and Congress. Let's put a rockstar on the stage and watch him perform.

You're An Idiot, Vol 1.

Sometimes people don't know they're completely retarded. Other times, people around said idiot don't realize that person is completely inept in all facets of life, either. The latter is the case of Carlos Mencia.

So I figured that I would start breaking down ways to tell if you yourself, or someone you love, is a collossal idiot. This month: How Your Choice in Movies Makes You an Asshole.

My roommate tends to go see a lot of movies because he's only 19 and there's not much else the poor boy can do legally in these parts. As a by-product of this, he sees a lot of shitty films, only, he doesn't realize what a shitty film is.

Tell tale signs you're watching a shitty film:

-Stars Mark Walhberg in a leading role (excemption: "Boogie Nights")

-Is from "two of the six writers of 'Scary Movie'"

-A Wayans touched it.

-Star mugs for the camera every chance they get, during the preview.

What's unfortunate is that the majority of the American movie-going population falls under the same umbrella as my hapless roommate. No one really knows what a shitty movie-going experience is. Sure, they can be annoyed as they sit in the theatre by other patrons/sticky floors, but they neglect to realize that what's on the screen plays a large part in dumbing themselves down.

I pay a lot of attention to film reviews, but mostly I can just tell if a movie is going to be utter shit. I can see the preview either at the theatre, or on tv, and just know. It's hard to explain, and yes, it's just short of judging a book by it's cover, but I know when there's a film not worth my ten dollars. It has a certain stink to it; an aroma that's not unlike dead fish under a hot sun.

I've also been wrong before too, but not often. I had both written off "Gladiator" and "Ironman" as forgettable summer "blockbusters" and pleasently surprised how much I enjoyed those two films. "Gladiator" is actually one of my all time favorites. And I've missed the call too, thinking "The Kingdom" last Fall's forgetable Jaime Foxx-middle eastern terrorist cash-in pic was going to be epic, but found it was largely disappointing.

This was an actual (albeit paraphrased for these purposes) conversation I had with my roommate a few weeks ago:

RM: Dude, let's go see 'Love Guru!'

(He constantly tries to bait me into going to movies. Honestly, I feel awful that I don't go with him, but given his taste in film, I'd rather inject rat poison directly into my eyeballs)

Me: Umm, no.

RM: Why not?!

Me: Because it looks terrible, Mike Meyers is a one trick pony who thinks that because he dresses in various fat suits and costumes, he can fool movie goers into thinking he's talented and has range as an actor. His latest film only reinforces that. Except for the first Austin Powers, each one of his films to date is basically a stretched, unfunny SNL skit.

The RM gives me a blank stare.

RM: Ok, let's go see 'Meet Dave.' I know you want to see that!

And I appriciate his enthusiasm. I really do. But again, to infer that I 'want to see' 'Meet Dave', the abysmal Eddie Murphy - 'Men in Black' - Bootleg - Vehicle, is somewhat insulting.

Me: No.

Rm: Sigh, why not?

Me: Have you seen the previews of that movie?! I'm not going to subject myself to another one of Eddie Murphy's ego-tripped-tipped yawnfests. You know why all of his movies in the last ten years have starred just Eddie Murphy playing different characters? It's because no other actor in Hollywood will work with him. He's an enormous asshole, and he continues to make films that make me want to eat a bagel laced with broken shards of glass and AIDS needles.

RM: Well, I'm gonna go, peace out.

And so he goes, and sure enough, two hours later, this is what I get:

RM: Yeah bro, "Meet Dave" sucked.

In other news, I tell my roommate that the stove top is hot, he touches it, gets burned. More at 11.

Seriously though, I browse through rottentomatoes all the time, and read through the (obviously) bad reviews for some of these films I know to be bad. I don't know why I do it, I just do it. Maybe I'm reinforcing my talent for picking stinkers a mile away, or maybe I like seeing a man being kicked while he's down. Regardless, what blows me away is some of the POSITIVE reviews that are kinda sprinkled over the critics review pages for movies that should otherwised be banned from viewing.

This gem from the 'Hancock' page:

"Smith proves again, he's the king of summer blockbusters in this truly genius alt-concept of Super Hero (his caps) genre movies!" -Kit Comner, Ain't It Cool News.

Now I understand studios sometimes pay off film critics to write "good reviews" on what the studio will know to be a film DOA at the theatre. But I mean, these people look like complete assholes next to the other 97% of the critics, who were not being paid, who actually wrote down what they thought.

Only if you were say, a President of the United States, had an approval rating hovering around 26% and still thought you couldhelp the presumptive GOP candidate would you be a bigger idiot.

Mountain Dew is Making Me Sick For Other Reasons Than its Taste

As always, I'm up late sitting at my computer with my iTunes on and the tv on at the same time. Why do I do this? Because everyone else between the ages of 15 and 30 do this. We all sit in front of our computers, typing away, whether it's in an IM box, a Facebook wall post, whatever, and we keep our music on with the tv on at the same time.

It's part of our culture: to have as many screens in our faces at any given time, being overloaded with as much media as possible. We literally want to stuff out faces with as much stimulus as we can get our hands on.

What will our predecessors think of this? Not much, considering they'll be too busy uploading the latest episodes of The Real World to their rotting organic brains, slowly being replaced by cybernetics like something out of "Ghost in a Shell."

Speaking of "Ghost in a Shell" I haven't watched that in forever. Damnit I miss my tivo.

Anyway, I'm getting super off track. My gripe tonight is this commercial I saw while watching Kevin James' stand up special on Comedy Central. Apparently the people at Mountain Dew want to experiment in open democracy by having their... um, drinkers? Fans? What do you call people who religiously buy a product, anyway? ... Consumers falls short. Whatever, not important.

Anyway, Mountain Dew wants YOU to join the "Dew-ocracy" (groan). You, the consumer, get to choose the color scheme, name, possibly the flavor, how much Yellow-Five, whatever, goes on the new Mountain Dew. This tells me two things: Mountain Dew has either fired it's entire ad department/the ad department is on vacation, or Mountain Dew wants to take it to the "Extreme!" and have a carbonated drink named "Shizzle Dizzle Fa Rizzle Soda" or "Yo This Shit Be Good Soda."

At this point in the article it'd be easy for any of my readers to claim I have zero faith in democracy in any capacity, from Presidential Elections on down to the naming of soft drinks, and my readers would be right. I mean, we got the Presidency wrong - twice - America, do I really trust us with naming a can of soda?

Fuck to the no I don't.

And besides, who the hell drinks Mountain Dew so religiously that they would jump at the chance to be the guy who names and designs the latest Pepsi product to be born stillborn? Need I bring up Mountain Dew Red Alert? How about Chrystal Pepsi? I could name a hundred more, but I don't keep a long-term memory for things that totally suck on balls.

Hence why I can't make hilarious "Fraiser" episode references.

The point I'm trying to make is that as noble of an attempt it is for the people down at Pepsico to get kids (and it's primarily kids this is targeting. You should see the ad, it's a ridiculous amount of production. I'll try to find it and embed it at the end of this article, but you'll see who exactly this is geared towards. They make no attempt to try to hide what demographic they're targeting.) interested in voting for something. But it's all for not; no one is going to be interested, no one wants to be that guy who's going to be walking down the street, see "his" Mountain Dew being consumed and go "Yo DUDE! I fucking named that SHIT!"

What would the response be? What would you say to someone who came up to you and said "hey I named that product you're using." You know what I'd say? I'd say:

"So?"

So here's the bottom line (cuz Stone Cold said so...), ignore this propaganda. The fact that I'm talking about it sickens me anyway, but I've been dry on articles since resurfacing into reality last week, and I'm trying to catch up. But c'mon, to insinuate that your average skate boarding 17 year old is the next jungle war fighting revolutionary because he picked which berry the next Mountain Dew is going to taste like is disrespectful to actual jungle war fighting revolutionaries.

Besides, jungle war fighting revolutionaries drink actual mountain dew, from a dented canteen.