Buy Quality Marc Merchandise!

Monday, December 13, 2004  
THE STORY OF THE YEAR

Looking back at the year in popular culture, on the surface it could be difficult to pinpoint the most important story of the year.

On television you have the emergence of shows like LOST and DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES. The continued excellence of SCRUBS. WITHOUT A TRACE began to find the audience it truly deserves as ER steadily declined. In movies, the year opened with RETURN OF THE KING dominating the multiplex and the Oscars. SHREK 2, SPIDER-MAN 2, and THE BOURNE SUPREMACY proved that sequels didn’t have to suck. Jamie Foxx stepped up and became a mainstream star. In music Usher essentially took over the world… until U2 returned and reminded people why they’ve long been thought of as the world’s greatest rock band. Great stuff all around. On a personal note, Sirius Satellite Radio came to Dish Network, and I’ve never been happier to listen to my television in my life. God bless Alt-Nation and the new music and bands it has brought into my life.

But this year, the medium was the message.

2004 was the year that the battle lines were drawn between the forces of freedom and the pencil-dicked bureaucrats and censors at the FCC who decided that they were the arbiters of America’s taste and culture (well, them and the self-appointed PTC). 2004 was the year where Janet’s tit put us on a perilous path towards the totalitarian state.

What’s obscene? What’s indecent? Everyone has a different definition. However, people like the PTC asshats believe that their definition is the only one that counts, and for whatever reason, they have their hands far enough Michael Powell’s ass to make him puppet along to their spam efforts at filing complaints about programming. What these jackoffs don’t seem to possess is the capability to change the damned channel. I guess you can only train a monkey so much before it just starts to get bored and starts throwing his shit at the passersby.

Lawsuits, threats, idiocy… if it wasn’t real, you wouldn’t be able to write it, because it’s too goddamned dumb. But there’s a war underway now, one in which we are actually forced to cheer for FOX?

Hit with a nasty fine over one of their programs, FOX has come up with a novel (and likely successful) way of challenging that fine: the V-chip. You remember that, right? Legally has to be in all Vs built these days? Backed heavily by Al Gore? Well FOX’s viewpoint is that because the TVs are all equipped with the chip, and people can control it, they shouldn’t be fined because the stupid motherfuckers who want to protest didn’t block the damned show and it’s their fault for not doing so.

Brilliant, really.

I could go on and on about the hate that the FCC and the PTC inspire in me, but my blood pressure might get a little wonky. Frankly, I think it’s a matter of time before a group of people band together and sue the shit out of the PTC under RICO statutes. Some of their tactics are pretty close to being problematic as far as restraint of trade issues and interstate commerce issues. Out there is a clever lawyer looking for a way to make them suffer for being the fuckwits that they are. I can’t wait. I want to join. But in the meantime, there’s a war to be fought, and there are multiple fronts. I know which side I’m on…

I’ll see you on the battlefield.

7:38 PM

(0) comments

Sunday, November 21, 2004  
INSANITY

Leave it to sports to upstage the rest of the pop culture world in the last seven days.

Last Monday had the MNF controversy with Terrell Owens and Nicolette Sheridan, and what an abysmally hypocritical stink that caused. I love the game of football, but the NFL continues to fucking embarrass itself when it does things like complain about how that intro was unworthy of its family audience. Excuse me?!

Is the same NFL that is in an active sponsorship partnership with an erectile dysfunction drug? Yep. Not to mention that the other ED drug companies sure seem to find it easy enough to advertise during the games as well. Maybe they just should have teamed up to assault the “family audience”; after all, I suspect there were plenty of fifteen-year old boys who had four hour erections after watching Sheridan drop her towel.

And honestly… there was no bad language. No actual nudity. And you could see just as much skin on the sidelines watching the cheerleaders… or buying their calendars (God bless the Eagles cheerleaders and their lingerie). The NFL’s response is merely so much bullshit.

How about they apologize to the family audience for their role as a haven for scum? That’d prove they actually care about their image. When they remove Leonard Little (killed someone drunk driving, got a slap on the wrist, arrested for DUI again), Jamal Lewis (federal drug trafficking), Ray Lewis (obstructing a murder investigation), Michael Pittman (multiple arrests for assaulting his wife), and so many others from the field and from their licensed products like their video games, I’ll take the League office seriously. Until then, they need to shut the fuck up.

And then Friday night, the NBA exploded with the fight in Detroit. As a lifelong Pacers fan, I was incredibly distressed by the whole proceedings. There was absolutely no excuse for the conduct that occurred, players or fans. Today, the league laid down some stiff suspension penalties, including Ron Artest for the rest of season. It suspended the next two worst Pacer culprits for what amounts to a third of the season as well, and that means that the tam has lost its three best players. Indy went into this season a good favorite to go to the finals out of the Eastern Conference, and now they are basically reduced to also-ran status. And rather than complain or whine…

…they need to shut the fuck up and take it, too. I don’t want to see union representatives moaning and pissing. I don’t want to see pointless appeals. I don’t want to see those players suing the league because they were disciplined for their stupidity. Just this once, I’d like to see an athlete say “You know what? I fucked up, badly, and I deserve to pay for it. No matter how much I was provoked, I knew better, and I shouldn’t have done it.”

Pardon me if I don’t hold my breath.

7:38 PM

(0) comments

Friday, November 05, 2004  
As what I would consider a moderate, centrist Democrat, I walk away from the 2004 election with no sense of surprise, a ton of outrage, and a marked sadness about what exactly the events of November 2nd mean.

I’m not surprised Bush won, no matter what the late polls said heading into Tuesday. If there’s one thing history has taught us, it’s that the Republican party is the better of the two in energizing its voters and getting them to the polls, particularly the older and more conservative members. If the Democrats could ever solve this problem with the younger, more liberal voters, they’d be golden. Pardon me while I don’t hold my breath. It isn’t like they’d have a platform to draw them in with anyway.

My disgust with my party might actually outweigh my disgust with the 59 million people who actually cast a ballot for George W. Bush. Putting their faith in a good man with an unfortunate lack of charisma might have been acceptable in some election years. But not in a year like this one, when the polarization of America was on its way to being fully complete. The double talk and the slipshod nature of what the campaign had to say basically boiled down to “John Kerry Is Not George W. Bush. You Hate Bush? Vote For Kerry.” Now, for someone like me, that’s plenty reason enough to vote Kerry, let alone my party affiliation. I think Bush and his cronies are about the most evil sons of bitches to roll down the pike since Woodrow Wilson was in office, and that’s no small feat. But for that voter who is somewhere on the fence, you have to give them a better reason to choose your candidate than “I Ain’t Him” and the Democrats never did a credible job of doing so.

They never even put up a fight, really. No matter how many opportunities Bush’s blatant stupidity and Cheney’s arrogance offered during the debates, neither Kerry nor Edwards ever dropped the veneer of staying “on message” and went for the throat. It was awful. Chance after chance went by. Four years removed from the Democrats’ finest leader of the past forty years, they ignored everything that Bill Clinton taught them about standing their ground, digging into the trenches, picking the fight, and still coming out of it looking like a good guy. It was a telling fact that James Carville wasn’t running this campaign; no one else has the stones to go toe-to-toe with Karl Rove.

I am still pretty pissed, though. Even through all the stupid mishandling of the campaign, I still had hope that people would be smart enough to figure out just how they’d been had by the Bushies. I guess that makes me even dumber than I believe them to be. I read one account of an African-American male who called into a radio show and spoke out about why he voted for Bush on a moral basis, that he liked his anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage stances. Now, I can almost take this at face value on the abortion thing. But the gay marriage thing?

It wasn’t too long ago that miscegenation laws were still on the books in this country. For those who don’t know what that means, it means that it was an offense punishable by imprisonment for blacks and whites to marry or have sex. Those laws weren’t put on the books or enforced by nice moderate and liberal folks. They were enforced by people of pasty skin who believed that African-Americans were less than human, the types of folks who burned crosses on lawns. It was liberal activists, and quite frankly, no shortage of gays and lesbians, who provided strong emotional and public support for their repeal. Scant years later, the Bushies have managed to help folks forget, and it saddens me immensely. On the bright side, I am close to three couples of mixed race, and they all voted Kerry. I guess maybe it’s a question of being in direct benefit that helps you remember.

On the flip side, there’s the area I grew up in, central Indiana, where open racism helped Bush. I finished with it a long time ago, escaping before the hatred and deep religious conservatism could corrupt my life any further. This is an area of the country where there is a barely subtle undercurrent of feeling that it doesn’t matter where we’re fighting a war or why, all that matters is that non-white people are being killed, and that’s okay, because they aren’t really people anyway. It’s sickening. Ironically, it’s the younger generation of the poor there who are most likely to wind up in the armed forces, whether by choice or eventual draft, and they’ll be the first to wind up in pieces on the front lines. Vote or Die, indeed.

And now, we are left with the arrogance. Bush and Chaney are claiming a “mandate” has been given for their agenda. What a load of crap. If 49% of the electorate has rejected your agenda, you don’t have a mandate. In fact, it’s pretty difficult to believe that all 59 million who cast a ballot for the Bush ticket actually believes in their agenda. There are plenty of people who weren’t comfortable changing presidents in the middle of an armed conflict. Many folks just weren’t convinced that Kerry was right for the job. I even know of one person who just hated Teresa Heinz Kerry and refused to vote for John out of spite. Instead, I have to figure that Bush might have drawn 50% of support at best. The question is: what does that really mean?

I think it means that Osama Bin Laden has already won, and he’s probably gloating like a bastard right now. Thirty-five years ago, a fracture developed in this country over the war in Vietnam, and it has never really healed. There have been periods where the sutures held up well enough, but right now, they’re torn out and blood is leaking at a pretty decent clip. Half the country is interested in creating a more faith-based nation and repudiating laws that offer equal opportunities for everyone, no matter who they love, or how. The other half is a disorganized wreck, made up of so many subcultures that it cannot field a unified voice. And that leaves America as a tinderbox, dangerously close to igniting in an inferno of pain and desperation. Things haven’t been this close to the edge since 1861… and 1776 before that. More people than ever are even giving up, as websites and embassies for other nations are seeing record inquiries from Americans considering getting out while the getting is good. I’m not sure I can blame them. Watching as this happens, the enemy can only be rubbing his hands with glee as America is destroyed from within.

I’ve always been an idealist when it comes to this nation. I was raised with a strong sense of fair play, and the belief that equality was for everybody. I believed in a nation that was strong enough to accept all ideas, all peoples. But now, that is a dream deferred, a dream dead at the bottom of a shallow grave in the desert. If November 2nd showed us anything, it’s that no matter how many times we try to resuscitate it, that America is beyond our grasp now. What remains is to see what comes next. The revolution started November 3rd.

5:30 PM

(1) comments

Saturday, October 30, 2004  
ALMOST A COMET

I’ve been away for a little while, attending to some personal business, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been paying attention to the pop culture-sphere. I’ve been faithfully following LOST, DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES, and SCRUBS. I’ve made time for BEST WEEK EVER. Sirius’ satellite radio channels are now on Dish Network, so I’ve been listening to excellent commercial free radio through my television. I’ve devoured the DVDs of THE PUNISHER and FARENHEIT 9/11. I’m not laying down on the job.

But none of it compared to the nights of Sunday, October 17 through Wednesday, October 27.

Watching the Red Sox complete the single greatest comeback in sports history and go on to sweep the St. Louis Cardinals to win the World Series is one of those things I will remember for the rest of my life. Seeing this event happen, absorbing the awe-inspiring stories that took place on and off the field- it was a truly priceless experience.

My earliest experience with the Red Sox and their curse came in 1975, before I was fully cognizant of what it was all about. What I did know was that my grandfather and I were big Cincinnati Reds fans, and they played a hugely tough series against Boston and won in seven games. I had no clue how much that would have devastated New Englanders at the time. Then 1986 rolled around.

In high school, one of my favorite friends was a guy named Alan Ely. Alan was a jock, but an unusually witty one. He was as amiable a personality as I’ve met in my life to boot. And like me, he loved all sports, perhaps none so much as baseball. And we both had an abiding appreciation for the New York Mets of that era. Doc Gooden, Keith Hernandez, the rest of them… they were a gas to watch, and at the time, the public had no clue of just what fuckups they were behind the scenes. So even though Alan had graduated the spring before the series, we were both cheering hard for the Mets. And the Sox?

The fuckers were a strike away from being eliminated by my beloved California Angels in the playoffs. One. Fucking. Strike. I was aware of The Curse at that point, and when the Sox finished off my team, I hoped and prayed for The Curse to live on. And thanks to stupid managerial decisions, it would for another eighteen years.

But time passes and your outlook changes and fate intervenes. Alan is lost young to cancer, leaving behind a wife and new baby. Eventually, I fall ass over teakettle in love with a diehard Red Sox fan. You watch her and feel her pain as the Sox fall short again in 2003. Then your hometown team trades your favorite player, one of the best playoff pitchers in baseball history, to her ballclub, and you find yourself following the team right with her. And then they do the impossible and come back against the Yankees. And then they allow generations of New Englanders to die in peace when they dominate their way to the title.

So it became a dual victory in a way. Sometimes, you realize just how much you love someone simply by watching how they feel about things that have nothing to do with you. Feeling her relief and relaxation after the Sox recorded the final out on Wednesday was worth any price. When I mess up, I at least have the capability of trying to do something about making her feel better. This one has been out of my hands. I am grateful to this bunch for picking her, and the rest of Red Sox Nation, up and carrying their broken hearts home and mending them. Now, and hopefully forever, the rest is up to me.

3:29 PM

(0) comments

Sunday, October 10, 2004  
While I Was Out...

I've been busy. Honest.

Life has been pasing by pretty quickly, and I just haven't had a lot of time to write in the past couple of weeks. But rest assured, the world of pop culture hasn't been passing me by. I've become addicted to LOST, and not only that, but ABC has captured my imagination with another of their new shows, DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES (Eva Longoria is just about the yummiest thing to hit television that wasn't cooked by Emeril Lagasse in years). I spent the last few years turning on that network for Monday Night Football, and that was only if it was a decent match-up. So I tip my hat to them on their turnaround.

I have about another week or two of things to catch up on, and then I'll get back to a regular postings here. I promise.

Thanks for your patience.

5:55 PM

(0) comments

Monday, September 20, 2004  
My Prerogative

I almost feel sorry for Britney Spears. Almost.

Look, at this point, the girl can’t take a shit without someone taking a picture of it. But when she’s stupid (and gross) enough to take that shit in a gas station restroom and walk in and out of it barefoot? Come on. Eventually, you’re either smart enough to think it out ahead of time, or you deserve the public trashing you’re going to take.

She snuck off and got married this past weekend for the second time this year, this time to her skuzzy looking backup dancer Kevin Federline. That’d be the same guy who dumped his seven-month pregnant girlfriend to take up with Ms. Spears. Obviously not a genius, ya know? So now Brit, at the paltry age of twenty-two, is a step-parent of two. Hopefully she’s not in charge of teaching them hygiene while the two kids are around on Kevin’s weekend.

Honestly, though, does anyone expect this marriage to last? Her first marriage was a Vegas affair that was quickly broken up by her parents. That guy was a childhood friend from her hometown, and he almost seemed like he had a few things going for him (like, say, not abandoning the mother of his children while she’s pregnant), but apparently things like actually being single and knowing their daughter for a long, long time weren’t cutting it for the Spears clan. They’d rather have the guy with stupid looking facial hair and a gift for future paternity suits. Good thinking, those Spears folks.

If I were from the south, I would find the entire Spears family an embarrassment to my heritage. Britney is pretty much the living embodiment of every “Farmer’s daughter” joke ever told at this point, and her family are right behind her. Jeff Foxworthy must watch these people and take copious notes. You might be a redneck if… you appear in public wearing a t-shirt that says, “I’m A Virgin… but this is a really old shirt.” Classy. Brit mad such a big deal out of her virginity early on in her career, before Justin Timberlake got to hit it, but now you wonder if it wasn’t all a big smoke screen. Maybe she was warming up so that down the road she can marry a cousin or something and it will all just seem natural. Has she covered a Jerry Lee Lewis song yet?

Oh yes… speaking of covers. Her latest song is a cover of Bobby Brown’s “My Prerogative,” and it’s an abortion. I’m sure Brit felt like she was making a statement about taking control of her life and not caring if people thought it was fucked up and absurd. Whatever. Brown’s song was a danceable “fuck you” to those who felt like he shouldn’t do anything but sing with New Edition for the rest of his career, and it rocked out. But poor Brit… poor, poor Brit. I think it’s much more likely that her attempt at “fuck you” will be met with a mighty yawn from the buying public. And that’s their prerogative.

7:15 PM

(0) comments

Saturday, September 11, 2004  
Legends For The Fall

Over the summer, I made the mistake of adding another TV show to watch that I hadn't before. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

One night, relaxing after a long and hideous day, I found myself sucked in by a marathon of SCRUBS being shown on NBC. It was so well-written, so strongly acted... God, was I pissed. Because I knew the ratings for the show were always a bit shaky, I found myself cringing inwardly. It was absurdly unique television, witty and smart, expecting the viewer to play on its level and refusing to back down and play dumb. Normally, this is a sure sign a show is doomed, particularly on network television. Immediately, I was addicted.

The new season is off to a tremendous start. Episode two last week was a gem, with a joke at the denouement that was both disgusting and subtle at the same time. One of the episode's plots revolved around a man arriving at the ER with a light bulb fully inserted and stuck in his rectum. Now, plenty of jokes were made about this predicament, and yet they still didn't cross the line into obvious or stupid. It was astonishing. Instead, the episode played out as a treatise on conflict resolution and receiving proper credit for doing good work, the light bulb playing an ultimate role in righting a wrong against the doctors who are able to eventually remove it without breaking or it putting the patient into surgery. It was brilliantly, awesomely done.

The show's cast is a terrific ensemble, having found its rhythm at an early point, I'd guess. The star turn belongs to supporting cast member John C. McGinley, an outstanding character actor for years who has found the role of a lifetime as the mentor to the younger doctors on the show. Every scene, every bit of dialogue from his mouth, is a revelation of just how good an actor an be when paired with the right role.

Adding film actress Heather Graham has not been nearly as intrusive as I would have figured upon, and the show has made good use of her "outsider" status, having her build a full relationship with only Sarah Chalke's Elliot while their friendship creates tension with the rest of the cast. It's the perfect way to blend her in to the show.

It's also worthy to note that Zach Braff's success with GARDEN STATE hsn't gone to hie head, as he continues his low-key approach to the show and his willingness to humiliate himself at the drop of a hat. SCRUBS is, without any doubt in my mind, the best written comedy on the air right now. I just hope it sticks around.

3:22 PM

(0) comments

Monday, September 06, 2004  
”QUARTERBACK… NEW YORK JETS…”

I was sick one day last week, and I couldn’t help myself. I suppose that means I was sick in two ways.

Flipping through the program guide, daytime was its usual wasteland of shitball programming. But crossing through the movies section, one listing jumped out at me: FLASH GORDON. Yes, that one. The horrible, cheesy, piece of shit sci-fi “classic” from 1981. Featuring the acting “talents” of Sam J. Jones and Melody Anderson.

I couldn’t turn it on fast enough.

When it came out, I loved it without reason. Somehow the horrible acting, witless plot, garish sets, and laughable special effects whizzed right past me. Max Von Sydow slumming his way through the scenes, trying his best not to laugh about the fact he’s stuck in that turkey. Brian Blessed chewing the scenery like he hasn’t been fed in weeks. Topol offering up enough ham to feed New York at Easter. A pre-Bond Tim Dalton doing his best to play the film seriously and praying it doesn’t take his career down the tubes. It’s brilliant in its badness.

Seeing it now, not only are those things magnified to the viewer, but also the sheer level of monetary waste and skimping is amazing. Where the special effects look like they cost about $6.99, the ornate costuming is stunning. Each world of Mongo has differently dressed natives, but none quite so well dressed as Ming’s local subjects and concubines. Apparently the production spent the majority of its budget on silk and sparkles. I suppose that ensured that erections-a-plenty would spring up in their teenage audience and bring them back for repeated viewings.

I have no idea if that worked.

Still, it was worth the two hours to walk down that nostalgic path. And yes, I will admit, I giggled like a kid more than once, and not only because of how bad the film is. It’s instructive to go back and look at the things that helped us along on our way into becoming who we are and developing our tastes. Sometimes, it’s the best way to make sure we don’t make the same mistakes and regurgitate the meal.

4:12 PM

(0) comments

Thursday, August 26, 2004  
One Guy Got It Right

Thanks, Allen Johnson.

Not for falling and skidding, scaring the life out of me and making me wonder if half your face had peeled off before you looked up. That I could have lived without. No, I want to thank you for showing restraint and class when so many would not have done so.

You laid on the track for a couple of minutes absorbing what had just happened. You came to Athens the Captain of the U.S. track team. You were expected to win a medal in the hurdles. And yet the dreams of gold were dashed so quickly, so harshly. It was painful for you, and for your countrymen who were behind you cheering. But your actions on the ground and after you got up made you a champion.

There was no screaming. No yelling. No swearing. You didn't cry. You didn't claim that the race was rigged. You didn't suggest that your hurdles were at a different height than everyone else's. You didn't blame other racers for bumping you. You didn't protest that the track conditions in your line were inappropriate. You simply sat there, stunned, and then picked yourself up with dignity and left the track. Dear God.

I suppose it says a lot of bad things about track that I am quick to praise something horrible that happened, but there you have it. Watching that moment, I was proud to be an American. Unlike the obnoxious Maurice Greene and his "bring out the fire extinguisher" nonsense, I knew right then that if yuou had crossed the finish line first in the finals and claimed a gold medal, you would have comported yourself with quiet dignity. And frankly, in an age where sportsmanship seems to be at an all-time low, especially among male athletes, you became, to this writer, a national hero.

7:40 PM

(0) comments

Saturday, August 21, 2004  
Olympic Thoughts

I'm not just saying this because I'm a stright male. Seriously. But aside from the men's swim team, who provided maximum entertainment with a heavy dose of class, I find it difficult to watch or care about any men's sports in this Olympiad. It is the women who continually provide the most interesting and competitive moments in these games. Mainly because, when you stack one gender against the other, the women have a lot fewer dicks on the playing fields.

Granted, Svetlana Khorkina isn't exactly a charmer, but even then, she's far more compelling to watch than the U.S. hideously awful "dream team" of men's basketball players. I've grown to loathe the NBA over the last seven or eight years, as the quality of play and actual skill level of the players has gone way down and the preening fuckheadedness and macho bullshit of the players has gone way up. Khorkina is at least out there on the floor, age-wise past her prime, busting her frozen personality's ass in one last grand attempt to retire fulfilled, while the "dream team" just seems to care about getting their minutes and shot attempts. Wake me when they finally get knocked out without a medal, won't you?

I'd rather watch true dominators at work. Misty May and Kerri Walsh are destroying the field in beach volleyball. Jenni Finch, who I watched when she was a collegiate player at the Dreaded U. of A., is helping lead the monstrous women's softball team towards a medal. Then there are the swimmers: Natalie Coughlin, Amanda Beard, Kara Lynn Joyce and the rest. What an amazing group! I knew early in the day that the 4x200 relay team had broken the last standing (and tainted) East German swimming record in shattering fashion, and yet watching it, I found myself literally on the edge of my seat with excitement. That's great sport.

So if you give me the choice between watching the men's sprinters in track and field puffing out their chests and showing more machismo than Erik Estrada in 1979 or watching Jenny Thompson end her storied career by struggling in her last two races... I'm going to take Thompson, a true champion who has been doing it for a long time and doesn't talk about herself in third person.

Throw in the women's basketball team, and there's not even a question about what this Olympics is about. In a year when the games have returned to their cradle, in a city named for a goddess, for sixteen nights in a row... it's ladies' night. And oh, what a night it is.

11:09 PM

(0) comments

Wednesday, August 18, 2004  
CRUSHED

I should have known it was coming.

CBS' publicity machine had really cranked up in the last week or so, and we began to see AMAZING RACE contestant and "little person" Charla Faddoul popping up all over the place. Charla was the inspirational story of the summer; equally cunning, charming, and determined, she had set out to change peoples' perceptions about what those who are short in stature could do. She succeeded wildly.

Partially, she was helped by the fact that her racing partner, cousin Mirna, acted the part of weakling and halfwit too often. While Mirna was one of the few people in the five years of the show who actively tried to appreciate and enjoy the opportunities the race provided, all too often it was Charla who bailed out the duo, either by eating two pounds of caviar in one sitting or in carrying a slab of beef that was damned near the same size as her.

Their continual squaring off against the asisnine and hot-tempered Colin and his way-too-good-for-him girlfriend Christie made for interesting drama as well. In short, Charla and Mirna make for great fucking television. So like I said, I should have been suspicious when Charla began appearing more in the media over the last week.

Because last night, the race's foibles caught up to them, and they finished last at the pit stop, leaving them eliminated from the contest. I wanted to throw things at my TV.

No more Charla. No more Mirna trying to cop a feel off of beleaguered host Phil Keoghan. No more watching someone with all that heart and determination succeed in the face of overwhelming odds. The Race continues, and I with it... but it has a lot less personality.

3:22 PM

(0) comments

Thursday, August 12, 2004  
The Best Show On TV

As the summer months continue to pass, and TV continues to sink further and further into the morass (Thanks, Fox!) I find that there are really only three programs that are must viewing for me, a total of two hours a week that I don't want to miss. Those are some slim pickings, considering how many channels I have.

I've discussed THE AMAZING RACE already. BEST WEEK EVER is a televised form of crack cocaine, stunningly addictive in its blythe and withering looks at our popular culture. I sort of consider it an inspiration to this column. But right now, I cannot imagine a better show on television than the brilliant, subversive, and non-sequitor laden SEALAB 2021 on the Cartoon Network.

The geniuses behind the "Adult Swim" block of programming came up with a doozy on this one. Taking one of the worst cartoons of all time (SEALAB 2020) and fucking up the characters and premise, each episode is a bizarre and senseless bit of perfect pop culture that tickles the brain as well as the funny bone.

Season one's "All That Jazz" might just be one of the single best pieces of animation ever made. It opens with Captain Murphy entering a highly secured chamber in Sealab, only for the audience to discover that the chamber simply contains the soda machine. However, the machine steals his money, and in an attempt to free his soda, the achine tips over and lands on the Captain, crushing his ribs. And that's where the real fun begins.

For no apparent reason, of course, there's a scorpion in the room, and it begins to taunt him mercilessly, stinging him randomly. Trust me- it's appallingly funny. Then the soda machine begins to randomly fire sodas at Murphy's head, knocking out his teeth. Honest- it's a pants wetter. Now here's where it gets completely off-the-hook bizarre: the rest of the crew has left Sealab and gone to a concert, and rather than return, they go on tour as roadies for the band, which leaves Murphy trapped beneath the machine... for fourteen months.

The episode's brilliance explodes from there. There's a cleaning robot (the same robot that was with the good guys in the awful Disney sci-fi flick THE BLACK HOLE) that keeps coming into the room and cleaning up Murphy's teeth, and it begins to make a necklace out of them. Murphy begins to be able to communicate with the scorpion, allowing it to lay its eggs in his naval and becoming addicted to the sting/venom. He also begins to have flashbcks to his childhood as the son of a carny. And right now, you think I've lost my mind.

However, I'm serious. Not only does this mess stick together in awe-inspiring fashion, it elicits huge laughs at every turn. For these amazing writers to turn out material this clever, time after time, is truly a rare feat. I honestly never get tired of watching and re-watching these tasty little masterpieces, and I recommend that more people get on the bandwagon. All you need is a bit of a twisted sense of humor and about ten minutes of your time.

6:32 PM

(0) comments

Sunday, August 08, 2004  
WHY I DON’T OWN A HOME VIDEO GAME SYSTEM

• Well, first and foremost because I don’t ever want to be so much of an asshole that I take it seriously enough to murder for the damn console. There’s a story running right now about some people being murdered for the theft of an X-Box. Fuck almighty. If you need one that bad, steal another one from the fuggin’ store. There is no game of Doom 3 that can’t wait until you’ve outrun a fat old security guard. Kids get dumber every year.



• I like to read books. Beyond that, I like to read magazines and comics. I like listening to the radio and the occasional album. It’s baseball season, and I can almost always turn on a game. These are all qualities that it seems, on the surface, no one in American society under the age of 22 actually possesses anymore. I think I’d prefer to hold on to my uniqueness.



• The prices for new games is ridiculous. $50 for a new release like Doom 3? Blow me. In fact, you could get a hooker to blow you twice for that. Maybe more if she’s addicted to drugs. Or, you could buy Paris Hilton’s porn tape and jack off for years to it for that kind of money. Hell, for $50, you could pay a girl to dress up like Paris Hilton and blow you. And any of those ideas beats the shit out of losing hours of sleep playing Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. “One Night In Paris,” indeed.



• I know there are a lot of nice, normal people who have them, but honestly, I would feel like a complete loser if I had a home video game set. That’s just who I am, no apologies.

Tuesday, August 03, 2004  
THE INNOCENT’S A BROAD

There aren’t enough “broads” anymore in pop culture.

Sure, we have plenty of dainty and “Gosh, aren’t I feminine?” types littering the landscape. I suspect we’re stuck with Jessica Simpson for years to come. But where are the tough women? Where are the women you wouldn’t arm wrestle on a bet, because you know they’re gonna kick your ass? I can only think of one place:

The Amazing Race.

If you aren’t watching the best “reality” show on television, a show that doubles as one of the best shows on TV, period, then you’re missing out. Certainly, the bandwagon appears to be growing; it’s one of the highest rated programs on the air this summer. But it has room to grow, and you really ought to be watching, because as the race sheds teams, the toughness of the challenges and the travel increase dramatically, and more screen time is devoted to the human drama facing each duo. Brilliant, brilliant stuff. Plus, it has broads.

One pair of racers in this edition are so-called “soccer moms.” I think of them more as “bowling partners,” as they are featured in the introductions on the lanes and in their league shirts. They also have a (disturbing) tendency to wear matching clothes during the race legs as well. They’re fun, loveable, and you can cheer for them because they play fair and with a sense of integrity, even though you get the sense they’d kick you square in the balls if it proved necessary. They’re also not stick-thin models like some of the competitors, instead looking like normal, sturdy women of fortitude. It’s easy to make the jump to believe that they could throw back a couple of beers and watch a game with you and be right at home. In short: broads.

A different type of broads in the race are little person Charla and her cousin Mirna. Controversial in their style and demeanor, these two have captured my heart and my rooting interest. Charla is a kick-ass wonder, not backing down from any challenge thrown at her, and yet savvy enough to play on people’s pity factor because of her stature. I like that she uses every available weapon in her arsenal to succeed. Mirna can be damned annoying, but she also has a nifty verve, at times taking longer in the challenges than necessary in order to enjoy the experience of being halfway around the world and doing things she never felt possible in her life. One of the best early moments of the race involved Mirna lagging a bit at a Uruguay destination in order to dance the tango with a local man. Looking at her face, you could see that she was immensely turned on and could have stayed for quite some time. Most contestants don’t have this attitude, focusing solely on the next stage of the race, and I dig that about her (and Charla). Again: they are two fun-loving broads.

It feels weird to say the TV is missing Bea Arthur. But, I think it is. Where have all the good broads gone? And will this age of PC casting and body obsession, will we ever see any great ones again?

3:41 PM

(0) comments

Sunday, August 01, 2004  
RETURNER

Not only is that the name of a kick ass Japanese sci-fi action flick (rent it- trust me), but it's also ME. I'm going to be working over the next couple of days to add a couple of bells and whistles to this bad boy as I get underway with a brand new mission, so keep your eyes peeled. Happy Nonsense is back in business...

Marc

3:28 PM

(0) comments

Friday, July 02, 2004  
The return is nigh.

I've even figured out exactly what the change is going to be.

When Happy Nonsense returns at the end of this month, it will no longer be an every Friday type of deal. It will be a "whenever I'm damned good and ready" deal. Maybe even multiple times a week. Plus, the focus will turn away from my personal life and onto our popular culture. I have done a poor job of putting my pop culture expertise to work for a long time now. Those days are over.

Happy Nonsense: Pop Culture Confidential...

Coming August 2004.

Marc@MarcMason.com
10:21 AM

(0) comments

Friday, May 28, 2004  
-30-

It isn't forever. I promise.

There are a lot of people out there who have faithfully tuned into this column, week in and week out, some since it started in October of 1999. I can't even remotely begin to tell you how much that has meant to me.

There are also plenty of people who have just occasionally dropped in here and there, and I'm grateful for them, too. Every single person who came and read. Thank you. Thank you.

Right now, I just can't do it for a while. Everything has gone horribly, horribly wrong, and I just don't have the energy, the focus, or the drive to sit here and write. I have other writing assignments that I am going to have to turn what's left of my energy and focus upon. So something has to go on hiatus. That something is Happy Nonsense.

In fact, hiatus is a good word. Give me a month. Six weeks. It might be less. I don't know. Maybe I'll even couch the return in TV terms: Happy Nonsense, season two. Who can say?

I invite you all to follow me at Movie Poop Shoot and The Comics Waiting Room in the meantime. Again, my many thanks.

Mason out.

Marc@MarcMason.com
6:49 PM

(0) comments

Friday, May 21, 2004  
27

It took 30 years.

My grandfather started taking me to major league and minor league baseball games when I was around four years old. From the earliest possible age, I fell in love with the game. The history of it, the greatness of its players from generation to generation, the purity of the sport. Baseball was my very first love affair.

I played. In fact, I played really well. In the ten or eleven seasons that I put on a uniform and went out on the diamond, I played in hundreds of games. And I never saw it happen.

When you love the game, there’s always ways to express that love. I subscribed to Baseball Digest for years. I collected baseball cards as an almost secondary religion. And of course, you cannot resist the lure of the crack of the bat, even when it doesn’t involve your team.

So over the years, I have been to hundreds of major and minor league games. Hundreds. That doesn’t include all the high school, Base Ruth League, or Little League games I’ve been to. And I‘d never seen it happen. Each and every season, I have also found ways to watch probably a hundred games or better on the television as well. Thousands of faceless games flashing across the screen. Occasionally, I’d see something truly great, but there continued to be one small gap in what I wanted to finally experience.

Sure, I’ve been watching one game and had the network do cut-ins to let the audience follow what was happening. I’ve seen the end, the jumping, the joy. But never start to finish, pitch one to pitch last. More often, I have seen pitch one to pitch break-up, like Reggie Jackson snatching one away from Nolan Ryan after eight and two-thirds back in 1979. Ben Davis chicken-shit bunting to take one away from Curt Schilling in 2002, violating one of the oldest “off the books” codes in the history of the game. Each tantalizing time, I’d wonder if I would ever get lucky enough to see it happen.

Tuesday, I came home from work feeling more than a bit lost and stranded. Many crises had beset me, and would continue to through the week. But I remembered to turn on the TV and watch the Diamondbacks game. Randy Johnson was scheduled to pitch, and he was in a dark place after his previous start, having lost a 1-0 classic. I was wondering how he’d react to the media firestorm he started when he criticized the team.

27 up, 27 down. That’s how.

Finally, after decades, I got to see a no-hitter from start to finish. Even better, I saw a perfect game, only the 15th of the modern era. It was as thrilling as I could have asked for, and even more gut-wrenching to watch late in the game as he got closer and closer to history. But Johnson did it, and it was amazing. I shed a tear of joy that I was fortunate enough to have been able to see it. I only wish my grandfather could have, as well.

Marc@MarcMason.com
1:02 PM

(0) comments

Friday, May 14, 2004  
SHHHHHHH!

Silence is golden. Let's take a moment in honor of the dead.

Marc@MarcMason.com
9:13 PM

(0) comments

Friday, May 07, 2004  
That's With Two "P"s

Appalling. That's the only way I can describe this week.

Gross abuse of prisoners by American soldiers. A school coach who gave one of his athletes an award named "The Crybaby" because the kid had the audacity to want to play, rather than sit on the bench. And Major League Baseball selling the right to Sony Pictures to put Spider-Man2 logos on the bases during a late June weekend.

At least the public outcry made MLB wise up and yank the promotion.

Each and every week it seems more and more like I no longer actually live on a sane and rational planet. Instead, I wake up, read the papers and the internet, and feel more certain that I have been transported to an alternate reality. A couple of teenagers on a boys volleyball team were pissed that the junior varsity kids beat them to the chance to eat first while on a trip and assaulted a JV player by whacking him in the head... with their dicks. Come on... tell me there's a portal back to the other, happier place.

Tell me that I didn't read an article today where the citizens of the town where of one of those soldiers busted for torturing Iraqi prisoners came from didn't back up her actions, refer to any person of ethnicity or color as "subhuman," and suggest that Iraw should just be eradictaed off the map because of that.

Assure me that a big-time liberal activist and writer wasn't forced to expose himself as a fraud this week when it turned out that all that motivation he took from his experiences as an Army Ranger was bullshit, considering he'd never been in the service.

Explain to me just exactly how everything is going to be "okay" when I read about a marauding pack of drag queens who, deciding that they must arrive at DQ beauty pageants in the finest style, have been stealing the finest cars from southern dealership lots en masse.

Anyone?

Anyone?

Marc@MarcMason.com
4:51 PM

(0) comments

Saturday, May 01, 2004  
Normal

It's nice to be normal. This has been the most normal week Rebecca and I have had in I don't know how long.

Monday, we went out to a movie test screening. Tuesday, we went to a Diamondbacks/Cubs game. We enjoyed nights at home the past two nights. And tonight, we went to a concert and hit our favorite bar afterward.

This isn't something that we get to do frequently. It's something I am going to treasure.

And now, we're off to go to bed, to lay together as man and woman, lovers. It's the perfect way to finish.

Marc@MarcMason.com
12:05 AM

(0) comments

Friday, April 23, 2004  
Half-Mast

Pat Tillman was my all-time favorite Sun Devil.

Even before Pat went on to the NFL, and eventually made his fateful decision to join the Army and serve his nation, I had a deep and abiding love and respect for how he played football and how he played life. He was the kind of person that, in your weaker moments, you wished you could be. Honest. Dependable. Someone who put 100% of himself in everything he did. And yet somehow, he managed to stay humble.

The announcement this morning that Pat had been killed in action in Afghanistan was a blow, not only to people like myself who were fans, but to the campus where I graduated from and still work at. The Governor ordered flags flown at half-mast here at ASU, and things are unusually still and quiet today. It's like the wind was knocked out of 45,000 people.

Most of you have seen or heard the stories about what Pat did. Looking at free-agency and a healthy $3.6 million payday from the Arizona Cardinals, Pat instead came home from his honeymoon in May 2002 and decided that his life needed something else, and that he had a purpose elsewhere. He declined to sign, and instead he and his brother Kevin joined the Army and went for Ranger training. Pat declined every interview request made of him at that point, preferring to be just another guy who was going to serve his nation's armed forces. He promised that after his three year commitment to the Army he would return to the NFL, and you never doubted him for a second. He was just that kind of man.

How many of us could have done that? I like to believe that I am a relatively principled person, and someone who sticks to his beliefs, but if accepting $3.6 million meant keeping myself out of mortal harm, I'm not sure there's a guiding ideal on Earth that would stop me from cashing those checks. I don't know anyone else who feels differently, either.

As the casualties have mounted in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last few months, there has been a quiet anonymity to the fallen. We're no longer being fed bullshit stories like Jessica Lynch's rescue, and heroes like Lori Piestewa have dropped off the radar. In fact, since the official "war" ended, we aren't really seeing any names at all. Today that changed.

The death of Pat Tillman might well turn out to be a pivotal event in the Middle Eastern conflicts. He wasn't just a young kid from North Dakota; he was a public figure, someone that people had seen on television and known of before he went into the service. What worries me is that the politicos on each side will find a way to get propaganda value out of Pat's sacrifice, and what will happen to his family, who don't deserve that pain. His brother Kevin serves in the same unit with Pat. How frightened must they be right now?

Wars are generally fought by, and compile the deaths of, forgotten heroes. That's the very nature of conflict. The generals, those with stars on their uniforms, are the ones who write books. Pat Tillman, had he lived and returned to play football again would have never written a book. But his story is one in which we will all be forever able to share. Rest in peace, PT. You did the Sun Devils, the Nation, and your family, proud. God bless.

Marc@MarcMason.com
1:48 PM

(0) comments

Friday, April 16, 2004  
Kill Marc

Marc worked. Marc lunched. Marc saw the excellent Kill Bill V2. Marc stuck around. Marc went to dinner with friends. Marc got home very late.

Marc will be back next week.

Marc@MarcMason.com
10:39 PM

(0) comments

Friday, April 09, 2004  
Throwing Feces

All stories are better when they include a monkey. This was concluded tonight at happy hour, and there were no dissenting voices. So mote it be.

Yesterday, national security advisor Condy Rice finally lied testified in front of the 9/11 commission. Her remarks were widely interpreted by various pundits, and the meanings were never clear. But the highlight of the day's testimony came when the senior monkey on the commission reacted to Rice's denials by shitting in his hand and flinging it at Miss Rice's brifecase, where it settled in between some OPEC price reports and a small bag of lipsticks.

Much better.

This week at work I received one of my two annual evaluations. I kick total ass at my job, so there really wasn't anything of substantial interest in it, except for when I was praised for my quick thinking and the lives saved when I stopped a rampaging monkey from re-programming our computer network to make it endlessly re-type the complete works of Shakespeare.

That works for me.

But the problem with that second one is that the monkey didn't throw any excrement. Stories where monkeys throw excrement are better than the ones that don't. It's a rule.

Maybe what that really means is that our human stories would be much better if humans took the time to throw their own feces at other people and objects. I have a wonderful picture in my head of John Kerry, mid-debate, tiring of W's incessant blather and whipping a nice, steaming fresh, pile of turds at him. That would give a new definition to what makes someone Presidential material; we'd vote for the guy who eats the most fiber.

I should be in charge of the world. Me, and my pet monkey, who shall be called "Fatdick." (Don't ask.) I wonder how to get on the ballot for that? Who do I have to shit on to make that happen?. Oh yeah- if I were a Republican, that answer would be "the electorate."

Marc@MarcMason.com
9:26 PM

(0) comments

Friday, April 02, 2004  
Lone And Level Sands

My depression began to shift and evolve into other outlets this week. It wasn't that I felt better or anything like that- I don't. But I did begin to acquire a sensation and feeling of rage that flickered and flamed inside of me at various times this week.

In certain ways, the rage was beneficial: I was working out one evening while completely in its grip, and the 24 minutes was almost literally over before I realized I had started. I wish it were always that easy to do Tae Bo. Of course, that would also mean I might be ready for the next level tape.

On the flip side, there are few things that hurt more than rage unexpressed. It's one of those feelings that moves around your gut and begins to eat away at you from within. Unexpressed rage is a soul-eating virus for which there is not an antibiotic treatment. It blows.

It may sound funny or even stupid, but I did manage at one point to find a creative and useful way of working through it. It may be only because I love science fiction, but I'll take what I can get. I sat and closed my eyes, and I tried to filter out the noise in the vicinity. Then (don't laugh) I pictured myself sitting on a pile of stones, holding a broken bone in my hand, and began to just beat the holy living fuck out of everything in sight. I swear to you, I thought I felt the wind from my rapid arm movements cascading across my face. There was no monolith in my visualization, and I didn't finish by throwing the bone straight up in the air, but it was all good nonetheless.

See? Being a semi-geek does have its usefulness.

Marc@MarcMason.com
9:17 PM

(0) comments

Friday, March 26, 2004  
Long Day Down

Early and long day. Up early so I could go to bank for Bec and then work 8-12 shift. Spring training baseball game with my friend Julie and my friend Orchid, whom I haven't seen in a year. Fantastic ballgame, and it was "hat day" to boot. My new Angels cap rocks.

Sidebar: we get to the game, and Julie looks down to see that she's essentially out of gas. Not good when you drive an SUV. So after the game, the traffic backup was so bad that we couldn't risk getting into it. We'd have expended the fumes before we ever got out of the lot. So we pulled under a tree to hang out and listened to music while staring at the hill in front of us. Much to our good fortune, the hill was populated by an ugly RV, and the users of the RV came back pretty quickly. Turns out, these guys (all in their 30s) were road tripping from San Diego and they invited us up for alcoholic beverages and to hang out. It was a great way to kill an hour, I'll tell ya that. Then we set forth to meet friends at our current favorite watering hole.

So I finally dragged myself in around 10pm from the bar. Tired. Worn out from the time away, and the time spent outside in the warm. I'm filthy, my hair is disgusting, and I am in desperate need of a shower. It was a pretty damned good day.

It's nice to know I can still have them, you know?

So after a very stressful week, I am ready to rest. I am doing all the right things for depression, particularly making sure to get out and have an active life. We'll see what today may have done for me in the long run.

Marc@MarcMason.com
9:32 PM

(0) comments

Friday, March 19, 2004  
Looking For A Handhold

You see various means of escape here and there. Wednesday, you go see one of your favorite bands in concert. The NCAA Tournament begins, and that's always an interesting diversion. There's more live music on tap for tonight. It's something to keep you busy as you try and find a grip on the side of the crater and start climbing out.

But there are always forces aligned against you, even when you are happy, and this week is no exception. Those poor people in Spain who died in an action that allowed terrorists to essentially rig an election. Work pressing down on you and stressing you out. Horrible, strange dreams that plague and haunt your nights. What good is it to sleep for ten hours if you wake up feeling physically destroyed? Not to mention the recurring nightmare that the most evil and corrupt administration running this country since Woodrow Wilson still has a chance to be re-elected. Fuck almighty.

When I get depressed, I experience an unusual "disconnect" that makes me feel like I am operating my life from just left of my body, shuddering and screaming helplessly as I watch the events around me taking place. I guess this probably stems from my ability to remain detached from a great deal of life's emotional chaos even when I am feeling well. But the shitty thing about depression for me is that there is no remote control... and I can't shut off the damned TV.

Marc@MarcMason.com
3:07 PM

(0) comments

Friday, March 12, 2004  
Crater

Been more tired than I should be. Realized that I have slid into a bit of a depression in the past week. Life is making me feel smaller and lesser, as though I am at the bottom of the crevasse looking up the sides for freedom and escape.

Sort of leaves me not in a place to be here right now. It happens, I guess. I'd rather not give less than my best, so I won't.

Marc@MarcMason.com
9:06 PM

(0) comments

Friday, March 05, 2004  
It's Late

Long day. Went to Tucson for some job training stuff. Rebecca went with me and we made a day of it, driving around a bit and going to El Charro for the U.S.' best Mexican food. Came home, and we had a bit of a wine tasting, popping the cork on two different reds. I even let her win at Scrabble. So I now have a buzz and am really tired. So I'm off to bed. Until next time...

Marc@MarcMason.com
9:46 PM

(0) comments

Friday, February 27, 2004  
Valedictory

Four years. In four years, you can complete high school, to which I paid very little attention. In four years you can graduate from college, which I did not, nor did I care to. In four years you can also build a life with someone you want to be with forever, which I have done, and I can certainly verify that I've put more effort into that than college and high school combined.

Rebecca and I celebrated four years together this week, and we did it quietly for the most part. Choosing to go out and celebrate tonight rather than on a weekday, we instead passed the time cuddling on the couch and watching me pass out on the loveseat at 9:30pm. From this, great romances are made, yes? But really, it was nice, as nice as any anniversary we've had, because it was calm and stress-free, which is sort of unusual for us.

We've been very lucky to get past some of the obstacles placed before us in the last four years, but at every turn, it seems like we've realized that it is worth the effort and the occasional troubles, if it means we get to be together. And isn't that what it's all about?

My friends Linda and Sally just celebrated their 17th anniversary together a few weeks ago. I have no idea how that feels for them, but I do know one thing: Rebecca and I really want to find out.

Marc@MarcMason.com
2:48 PM

(0) comments

Friday, February 20, 2004  
Horror

This week I've been watching the scandal over the Colorado football program like a hawk. It seems like the bigger it grows, the more it distresses me.

I'm not an alum of CU. Never even visited the campus. And that's one of the primary reasons why I am concerned. You, too. Because any person of conscience should be eyeing these events with disgust and horror, wondering what can be done and how it can be stopped everywhere else.

Rape is not a crime to ever take lightly, and it does not deserve anything less than forceful response from the law and the community. Confronted with the allegation that one of his players was raped by another, the Colorado coach forgot to even pay lip service to being appalled. Instead, he derided female place kicker Katie Hnida as a "girl" and a "bad player." As if this excuses the crime! Supposedly, we have evolved past the point where we think that rape is "acceptable" in any form, let alone as a punishment....for not successfully putting the ball between the uprights.

But hey, if Coach Scumbag wants to set us back to a prior era, then let's run with it, shall we?

My McBurger didn't come plain, as asked? Everyone in line gets to tie the cook to the fryer and start pounding away. Tears could be special sauce, right? Cut me off at the stoplight? You get pulled over, bent through the window, we all nearby pedestrians get a turn. I'm sure the traffic backup won't mind the show. And hey, if you want me to play football for your school, and the girl you sent to show me around doesn't want to give me any ass? Well that ain't gonna fly. It's her fault for being there, right?

It's the cook's fault for screwing up, right? The driver's for cutting me off? So taking by force is justified, right?

What a load of horseshit. Coach Scumbag just doesn't get it.

Maybe you don't actually know someone who's been a victim. I do. The first girl I ever loved was victimized by a neighbor, and no one helped her or believed her. Instead, she got the blame. So hearing Katie Hnida's tale brought back a large, painful memory, and seeing Coach Scumbag turn around and intimate that her plight was brought on just because she was a girl and not a good football player... it made me want to vomit.

I want to believe that Barnett will finally get it, but he won't. The neanderthals never do. I hope and pray that someone puts a stop to the nonsense in Colorado, and at all the other schools across the nation that we aren't hearing about, but I find it hard to believe it will. And I wish to God that we'd evolve way past ever even having the idea to forcibly sexually assault anyone, ever, as a species. But I won't hold my breath on that either. It seems big and pointless to leave yourself open to even care.

So I ask for this instead: if we're going to de-volve, and if we are going to still have a segment of the population that believes that this crime is acceptable, and blaming the victim is the way to go, it's time to take it to the next level. If you lie to the American public, and you waste lives in a foreign nation on a personal war, and you send American jobs out of the country and call it a good thing for everyone... you get fucked up the ass by the entire Colorado football team. And you have no one to blame... but yourself.

Marc@MarcMason.com
8:57 PM

(0) comments

Friday, February 13, 2004  
Not Tonight, I Have A Headache

Have spent the week battling a vicious cold. Damned near completely lost my voice. Definitely lost my energy and enthusiasm. So this week is a bust. Enjoy Hallmark Day tomorrow, though. If you can.

Marc@MarcMason.com
7:32 PM

(0) comments

Friday, February 06, 2004  
Fear And Hate

I am a deep liberal. I believe so deeply in civil liberties that I'd risk my life for them. But yesterday's decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Court allowing gay marriage was probably the exact worse thing that could happen. Not because I'm not in favor of gay marriage- I am hugely in favor of it. But it comes at the worst possible time I can imagine.

The Democrats have a front runner for their choice to try and beat Bush, a goal I think we're all behind. But he's also from Massachusetts. And that's a killer.

No one is better at playing the politics of fear and hate than the Bushies. No one. They frightened people of terrorists so badly that they stopped believing that it was acceptable to question the government's actions. And you can be goddamned sure that they'll seize on John Kerry's MA roots to stir up old ladies in Iowa who are scared to death of homosexuals.

It won't matter what Kerry's opinions are. Karl Rove and company will link Kerry and gay marriage like green eggs and ham. They'll go to Mississippi and convince every backwater hick missing all but three teeth that Kerry is going to send the married homos to live in their neighborhood and to destroy their church. It gives them a way to demonize Kerry by linking him to the Different, and people are terrified and hateful towards the Different.

Can you imagine if the gay couple was black? Oy.

So there will be a huge effort to destroy Kerry this way. The focus will be moved from Iraq, lies about WMDs, AWOL National Guard service, and the biggest deficits in history...in short, Bush and Rove will steer the conversation about our nation's future away from anything important.

Gives you a really bad feeling doesn't it? Because it's exactly how they work, and they're relentless. Ask Bill and Hilary Clinton. And pray for John Kerry. Pray for him hard. Because he's about to get fired upon by an enemy who won't rest until he is destroyed. God help us all.

Marc@MarcMason.com
6:49 PM

(0) comments

Friday, January 30, 2004  
Gah.

Bowlin', bowlin', bowlin'....though my thumb is swollen... keep them pins a rollin'.... raw hide.

Just bowled for the first time in over a decade. I was okay at first and sucked worse and worse as the game went on. Pain in the arse game. My shoulder is killing me and my thumb hurts like a motherfucker.

Spare me a column this week, please.

Marc@MarcMason.com
9:47 PM

(0) comments

Friday, January 23, 2004  
Childhood's Dead

Literally.

Completing a sadness that just about every kid in my generation can feel, Bob Keeshan, known to us as the great Captain Kangaroo, passed away today. Following last year's loss of Fred "Mr." Rogers, our icons are now gone, a gaping void left in children's entertainment. There is no more safety, and precious little joy left in the what children now consume on television.

Don't get me wrong- I love SpongeBob, and a good chunk of what Nickelodeon puts on the air is entertaining for young and old. But there's no real flavor or character to the shows beyond the animation, and the most high profile kids TV that feature real humans, Out Of The Box and The Wiggles, are creepy. The humans lack the capability to speak to kids the way Keeshan and Rogers did, and they come across as condescending and trite.

Keeshan, Prince Valiant haircut and all, was a man who seemed to have a limitless patience and compassion for youth and how they felt. He had an honesty that most young kids feel like adults lack; young Bobby and Susie have a bullshit detector that sniffs out Mommy's nonsense very easily, but Captain Kangaroo never set off that detector. He inspired trust in kid and parent alike. You knew he wouldn't lead you wrong.

So, thanks Captain. You left an indelible mark on my youth and made things just a bit better every day that I tuned in. I hope that Heaven' children are sitting in a studio waiting for you. The show, as always, must go on.

Marc@MarcMason.com
3:58 PM

(0) comments

Friday, January 16, 2004  
Whatever Happened To?

Whatever happened to musicians who understood what it means to be a musician?

The main goal of most bands used to be: play loud music, then fuck hot chicks. It didn't matter if the guys in the band were attractive or not, and they didn't have to try to be. They were in the band or they were the starring solo artists. Period. Music+Songs= Poon. A very simple equation.

The last thing that they were supposed to do was write songs specifically for the purpose of getting themselves laid.

John Mayer has to be the worst offender these days. You listen to his songs and you can just imagine his face in the studio as he lays down another track. "Ahhh. Another effort that will assure me all the chicks I can handle and more. Woo hoo!" It's no coincidence that the chorus lyric "Your body is a wonderland" can easily be replaced with "I'll get all the ass I can." For fuck's sake.

Even Aerosmith, a band that used to be kings of the "pick a groupie to blow me backstage" scene has slid into making wretched power ballads like "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing" that make the young girls swoon. Christ. It's like they finally realized they were older than dirt and decided to whip up musical Viagra.

I miss the old days.

Marc@MarcMason.com

7:16 PM

(0) comments

Friday, January 09, 2004  
No Forgiveness

Pete Rose has reared his ugly head again this week, releasing a "tell-all" book in which he finally admits he bet on baseball...after lying and denying for fourteen years. Rose seems to hope that this will help him earn reinstatement to the good graces of Major Leage Baseball.

I hope it helps him burn in Hell.

When I was four years old, my grandfather came back from a trip to Cincinnati with a copy of a book that Rose had written, a diary of the 1973 season titled "Charlie Hustle." I was captivated by it, especially as an early reader, and Rose became my favorite player, my idol. I was young, and life was good.

I was born a right handed hitter, and I was a real good one from the start of my first season of play at five years old. This was back before T-Ball, when adults actually threw the ball to kids underhanded. But at the age of seven, I decided that I wanted to be more like Pete, and I began learning how to also hit from the left side of the plate. Rose was a switch hitter, and I didn't want to let my hero down by not trying and succeeding at it. So I did.

And that was the way my youth played out. If Rose put another book out, I bought it. If there was a new Rose baseball card, I did my damnedest to get one. If Rose was going to be on TV, I either set the VCR, or I was home to see it. I cried when he broke Ty Cobb's all-time hit record. Baseball was my first love, and Rose was the representation of that love.

Then I moved off to college, that intensity behind me perhaps, but those memories and those feelings golden. I'd even wear number 14 in his honor that first year of college. But then the shit hit the fan.

Reports surfaced that Rose had been betting on baseball, and that the Commissioner was investigating him. I didn't want it to be true. At first, I believed Rose's protestations that it was nothing but a huge witchhunt with no valid purpose. But it seemed like every week that I opened my mailbox and pulled out the latest Sports Illustrated, the allegations and the proof got more and more detailed and it was harder to deny Rose's actions in my heart.

Then came his banishment, his refusal to admit his wrongdoing, and his utter absence of anything resembling an apology. Prison followed because of tax reasons, but the damage was already done...to every kid like me.

Rose has now published his horrid, and ultimately un-contrite, book admitting his wrongs, but he still doesn't get it, and he still hasn't turned his apologies or contrition in the direction they should have gone fourteen years ago.

How many of us were there? How many kids worshipped Rose's clay feet, and were destroyed inside by that ordeal in 1989? How many had so much of their childhood darkened and ruined by Rose's greed and stupidity?

But Rose doesn't care. He only cares about getting that plaque in Cooperstown and about making money. For years, I felt as though he should be re-instated if he apologized, and apologized to the right people and meant it. But he hasn't. Instead, he's cast a pall over this year's Hall Of Fame selections by drawing the attention to himself, rather than waiting his turn. So fuck Pete Rose. Fuck him, and don't ever let him in the Hall Of Fame. Not while he's drawing breath on this planet. Because he's destroyed and ruined to many things; kids' dreams, the integrity of the game of baseball; and any feeling that he could ever be rehabilitated into someone worthy of the Hall. Never. No forgiveness.

Marc@MarcMason.com

5:49 PM

(0) comments

Friday, January 02, 2004  
The Future

I'm waking up to it every day. I roll over, rub the crap from my eyes, brush my teeth, and there in the mirror it stares at me. A great gaping maw of "what next?" eyes me with bemusement and waits for me to decide what to do.

As the new year dawned yesterday, I was feeling like I should have been ready and primed for deep and serious action, but instead I found myself buried in the past, watching a marathon of I LOVE THE 80S on VH1 for around ten hours. It was pathetic. On the day of renewal, I was rotting away on my sofa, shutting off my brain. What a waste I was. I avoided the future like it had an STD.

I think the events of the last couple of months have left me in a bit of a fugue, to be realistic. Blown assignments, spaced out priorities...I've been functionally useless. It's amazing that I've managed to bathe myself. Tuesday I forgot to brush my hair, and I managed to leave my house looking like that. Horrifying. If I were a horse, someone would have put a bullet in my head.

But there is no escape, you know? The future is there, awaiting me, planning for me, knowing that I have no other course but forward in the long term. So I'll do my careful best to plot a decent path...and hope that can make all the difference.

Marc@MarcMason.com

9:16 PM

(0) comments