Category: No Politics Friday

It has been almost sixty years since Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzig Norgay became the first people to ascend Mount Everest and live to tell the tale (I've always been convinced that Mallory and Irvine made it, based on circumstantial evidence and the fact that it makes for a better story). Since their success more than 3000 people have reached the summit, and in fact it is considered something of a tourist trap among climbers – the mountain for rich people who don't know anything about climbing but want a cool story to tell their friends. The climb costs well over $100,000 now, but nearly anyone with the cash and good physical condition has a decent chance of summitting if the weather holds.

Not so back in 1953. Much like we look back at the space program of the 1950s and 1960s in amazement at how much was done with so little technology by today's standards, Hillary and Tenzig made the best out equipment that modern climbers might wear to a costume party. National Geographic has an interesting gallery comparing the tools, clothing, and other equipment used by the famous pair to the modern equivalents. It won't tell you anything you don't already know – technology has made everything far lighter, stronger, and more effective – but it's interesting to see nonetheless.

Two more interesting facts. Did you know that Tenzig and Hillary were steampunk?

At San Diego Comic-Con, 2008

And that Hillary was the Gyro Captain in Mad Mad 2: Road Warrior?

True story.

I suppose Archer on FX is popular enough to make for decent posting material. Given that I don't usually do much in the way of talking about movies or TV, I might be somewhat rusty here.

When Archer was announced I was beyond excited, but at the same time I understood that I would be disappointed by it. The previous show from this production crew, Frisky Dingo, remains my favorite show of all time and possibly the best thing that has been on TV since Fawlty Towers. What Frisky Dingo was not, however, was popular. It limped through two seasons on Cartoon Network and then suffered the fate of all things that are too bizarre to attract a wide, mainstream audience. So when Archer was announced, I realized that creator Adam Reed (the voice of Agent Ray Gillette in the new series) would not want to end up being cancelled again. The show would aim for a wider audience. Meaning it would probably be a little dumbed down. More importantly, even if it was great it would probably fail to live up to my expectations. So I knew part of me would be disappointed no matter what.

Overall I enjoy the show. It's funny. For the first few episodes I said "This is no Frisky Dingo" quite a bit. Eventually I made peace with that.
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Something about it has always nagged me, though, as I've kept up with these first three seasons. It wasn't until the last few episodes that I finally put my finger on it (snicker). It's the writing. And the writing isn't bad, per se. It's just lazy. Really lazy.

Two things have stood out throughout the series. One, it's full of anachronisms. The setting, particularly the time period, of this universe are never adequately explained or established.
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The creators wanted a Cold War era Bond-like spy story. Then they realized that it would be way easier to write the storyboards with things like the internet, cell phones, and other modern technology/plot devices that promote narrative efficiency. So we're constantly made to realize how awkward this universe is, with plots about billionaire Videotex magnates, Soviet generals, and characters using cell phones. Maybe you don't notice it, but your brain does.
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Even if it doesn't bother you explicitly, it makes everything feel slightly off and unbelievable.

Second, the humor is overwhelmingly lowbrow. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good dick or fart joke. Crude is funny. There's very little other than crude humor, though, except for the occasional and brief reference to some piece of historical arcana. The laziness is also apparent in the frequency with which "shit" is uttered in every episode. The viewer can almost picture the writers saying, "Hey, we can say 'shit' on this network! Let's say it as much as possible so it's really edgy!" In some episodes the humor is derived almost entirely from the use of language that isn't permitted on other networks. Yes, hearing Pam say "I'm like a Chupacabra, but for dicks" is funny. But is that all you've got?

The lazy writing is evident in other places as well. In the two part finale to Season 3, the action takes place on a space station that has gravity. Why? Because they probably realized it would be easier to write and animate if they didn't have to incorporate weightless physics. Is the presence of gravity in space a big deal? Of course not. It only bugs me because it's so apparent why they wrote it that way. Furthermore, the series' most glaring weakness and biggest single difference from Frisky Dingo is the lack of a villain. Archer, like Xander Crews before him, needs someone with whom he can banter and develop a rivalry. Instead the protagonists just go on random adventures every week with a different "antagonist" who barely qualifies as such. Archer is pitted against characters about whom we know nothing and thus care little. Why? Again, it's easier than writing a plot with continuity across episodes. As it is, the writers have a cheap way to put the characters in ridiculous, random, and interesting settings (Monaco! Pirate island! Space!) without having to write them into the storyline. There is no storyline.

It's a funny show. I watch it and I intend to continue watching it. Regardless, I won't stop feeling that kind of disappointment that comes from seeing something that's OK and knowing that with a little effort it could be great.

The Vegas post from last Friday spawned one of my favorite comments of the many thousands that have been posted here over the years:

Vegas is what people who have never seen America, or who have never seen an America that exists past the nearest Circle K, imagine when they think of "having a good time." All the things one can do in Vegas–Eat, Drink, Gamble, Watch Sump'n Purty/Dirty–these are not recreations of substance, but of quantity. They appeal to people who literally have no idea how to have a good time, because either their culture or their income doesn't allow it.
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Vegas offers them plenty of what they've been *told* is a good time–or a *lot* of what they've had to made do with in order to have a good time (booze and carbs and throwing a little money away at the OTB parlor.) If "Steak" is good, "All You Can Eat Steak" is better. If pissing away a few bucks on the Lotto is good, pissing away the mortgage at the slots is better.

But what I'm aware of in Vegas is how *forced* it all seems–how the people there are actively *trying* to have a good time. Because they came all this way, and spent all this money, and yet somehow, *somehow*, it's not quite filling the emptiness inside. So they overcompensate, with "Wooo"s, and drinking-dares, and forming into roving gaggles.
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But you can see it in their eyes, especially when they're briefly stuck–waiting for the elevator–in line at the buffet–at one of the endless lights on the Strip's crosswalks. They're worried that everyone else seems to be having such a good time, and what's *wrong* with them?

This struck me as an excellent description of Vegas and why I find it more sad than fun. Then on Monday of this week I had the – misfortune? luck? blessing of divine providence? – to visit Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Briefly. But for far too long. And I staggered away from that experience feeling certain that the core of this comment is absolutely correct; Americans are so psychologically off kilter that many of us do not appear to know how to have fun. We follow the rest of the herd and do what Everyone describes as fun. I am unsure what conclusion is reached at this point – Do we convince ourselves that we had Fun even though we didn't, or do we conclude that Fun isn't actually fun and resolve that it's not worth the effort? – but I do know that you'll never see a more confused, disappointed, and defeated mass of humanity than you'll find wandering the streets of American tourist traps. At least Vegas has liquor everywhere.

If you've never been to Gatlinburg, you probably have. It goes by lots of different names in this country. Myrtle Beach. Wisconsin Dells. Panama City. Niagara Falls. Williamsburg, VA. Ocean City, MD. The Bourbon Street part of New Orleans or the Wharf in San Francisco. Any place that looks like a state fair (where anything can and will be deep fried or airbrushed), smells like an outdoor toilet, boasts establishments that feature the terms "Ripley's" or "Guinness Book of", promises "handcrafted" things from "natives", and where the local economy appears to be based entirely on t-shirts bearing the name of the town, the Confederate flag, Jesus, or all three. If you like watching middle aged people who have trouble walking roam aimlessly (with their sullen, miserable children) while gorging themselves on fudge, funnel cakes, cotton candy, and corn dogs, book your visit today. Otherwise, pass.

As a former Midwesterner I have taken many trips through Wisconsin Dells, to which Gatlinburg is strikingly similar (albeit without the Jesusy overtones, which the Dells replace with "Indian" kitsch).
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Other than Noah's Ark, which I suspect would be fun even as an adult, I was always struck by how not-fun it was. And I was not alone in that regard. My parents looked miserable. Everyone looked miserable. Everyone looked like they were about to start screaming, pointing fingers, and accusing each other of dozens of personal failings at any moment. It looked like the kind of place that pushed bad marriages into divorce and made kids realize that if this is Good Clean Fun then maybe drugs aren't so bad after all. Everybody simply went because everyone else went, and then presumably returned and told everyone at the office that it was great – the cheap buffets, the dingy motels, the tsunami of Chinese souvenirs – for fear of going against the prevailing wisdom. It's a great place to take The Kids!, thus ensuring that another generation will grow into adulthood with a warped, pull-lever-to-receive-pellet understanding of how to have fun and that another generation of Eastern European summer workers will experience America at its sweatiest and most miserable.

In closing, 45 minutes in Pigeon Forge made me want to join al Qaeda. If people honestly enjoy that place, we are beyond saving. Bring on the flood.

I have now been to Las Vegas four times in my life, twice in the last six months.
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This is, in my view, a sufficient amount of direct experience to conclude with confidence that I don't get it. The phrase "_____ is why people hate America!

" is overused, but it is tempting to say that Las Vegas is in fact why people hate America. Tempting, but wrong. At least based on the vast quantity of Japanese, European, and Middle Eastern tourists blowing obscene amounts of money there on any given evening.

That Vegas is garish and overdone requires no discussion.

For many people this appears to be part of its charm. It creates for its visitors a unique experience. Bear in mind, however, that getting kicked in the nuts is also a unique experience. My primary issue, however, is not that the Strip is an incredible sensory overload, nor that everything that passes for entertainment – gambling, strip clubs, celebrity chef restaurants – is staggeringly expensive and leaves one with the feeling of being on a steam locomotive, shoveling piles of money into the roaring fire of the boiler.

Not pictured: taste, restraint, dignity

No, my problem is that I developed my mental image of Vegas as a kid from things like James Bond or old Rat Pack movies. And when you visit for the first time, it hits you: no one is wearing a tuxedo or playing high-stakes baccarat. It's a bunch of slobs walking around in flip-flops, their rolls of fat and Tweety Bird tattoos protruding from clothes that might have fit 5 years ago, stumbling up and down the strip with giant novelty frozen drinks in a container shaped like the Eiffel Tower. It's every jackwagon you see riding the average city bus, except they're piss drunk at 2 PM and they won't get out of your way.

The casinos, despite the amount of time people seem to devote to discussing their relative merits, are substantively identical once inside.
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And the patrons are almost universally depressing – old people, some attached to wheelchairs or oxygen tanks, listlessly pressing a button on a slot machine for hours and hours until the Social Security check is gone. The younger people are a mix of fratboy types and the kind of crowd one would meet at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in the bad part of a rural Midwestern city. You see people who look like the only time they leave casinos is to tend to their meth labs or sell whatever they can burglarize from the seedy apartment blocks set just off the strip. You see a lot of old cocktail waitresses who look like they've lived indescribably rough lives, the kind that makes you look 60 when you're 42. You see pawn shops with lines of people out the door (and around the building) displaying baby strollers in the front window. There's nothing even fake-classy about the city. It's just sad. Apparently I'm more disturbed than most Americans by throngs of sex workers who look beaten up and strung out.

I enjoyed myself because I was with my friends and that's where they wanted to go. I will go again if it gives me the opportunity to be near people I like. But I do not get it. I do not understand the appeal, other than that many people enjoy an adult version of a low-rent Spring Break – say, whatever destination is two or three steps down from South Padre in terms of cost, class, and vomit coverage. Lots of people see Vegas as paradise, but all I see is one of the ugliest things in America built in the midst of one of the most beautiful. For the thousands upon thousands of dollars people spend there – throwing money away in casinos, paying for bottle service in tacky clubs with $30 drinks, seeing overpriced shows, shopping in "luxury" mall stores, or jamming $100 bills into the thong of some runaway from Beloit, WI – it blows my mind that none of the city's visitors could come up with a better destination on which to spend all that money.

I was half-tempted to skip NPF and eulogize Andrew Breitbart, but instead let's do A Little Politics Friday: here's a link to Andrew Breitbart's FJMing from 2008. That was back when he was merely dumb. It took him a few years to work up to being a malignant tumor on our public discourse.

And I'm sorry to be hitting you with all of these random links on Fridays, but HOLY BALLS THE BULGARIANS BUILT A GODDAMN JAMES BOND VILLAIN LAIR ON TOP OF A MOUNTAIN back during the Cold War.

Check out this site for a photo tour of the property. Usually I find blogs full of "Hey look, an abandoned building!
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" pictures somewhat trite, but this is no ordinary abandoned building and the photographer relays some interesting history behind it too.
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It's like a flying saucer / monument and it's covered with Communist-era frescoes. Someone graffiti-ed the entrance with the phrase (in English, curiously) "Forget Your Past." Not a chance, buddy. This is the kind of thing that needs to be remembered.
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Oh, and incidentally, do any other fans of modern architecture note more than a passing resemblance to Oscar Niemayer's Congresso Nacional building in Brasilia?

Maybe "resemblance" is the wrong term, but there is clearly some shared stylistic DNA there.
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Generally I'm not the paranoid type, and I wouldn't say I devote much mental energy to the topic of "online privacy." I take it as given that every search engine, social networking site, and free email service is collecting staggering amounts of data about me and my online habits. I also accept the fact that every email I've ever sent is probably stored in some gargantuan NSA database, every text message I've ever sent can be subpoenaed from my service provider, and any cell phone call I make is potentially being monitored.

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None of that is paranoia – it's just reality. These new ways in which we communicate offer very little privacy. Read up on ECHELON, 641A, Titan, the Interception Modernization Program, and all the other very real ways in which whatever expectations of privacy you might have are being compromised.

One thing we can stop, at least to some extent, is having information about our online habits packaged, sold, and put to various commercial uses. To that end Google, the 900-pound gorilla of online information harvesting, is altering its privacy policies on March 1. You can limit the amount of information you surrender and the extent to which it is used for commercial purposes by opting out. Quoth the Electronic Frontier Foundation:

On March 1st, Google will implement its new, unified privacy policy, which will affect data Google has collected on you prior to March 1st as well as data it collects on you in the future. Until now, your Google Web History (your Google searches and sites visited) was cordoned off from Google's other products. This protection was especially important because search data can reveal particularly sensitive information about you, including facts about your location, interests, age, sexual orientation, religion, health concerns, and more.
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If you want to keep Google from combining your Web History with the data they have gathered about you in their other products, such as YouTube or Google Plus, you may want to remove all items from your Web History and stop your Web History from being recorded in the future.

To opt out, follow these simple instructions: sign in, go to google.com/history, and choose "Remove All Web History". This also revokes your consent to have your search history recorded going forward.

Let's not kid ourselves, we'll probably learn a few years from now that they're recording all of our search habits anyway (Shocking scandal! Online giant becomes Big Brother and sells out users!

) but I don't see any reason to give them the satisfaction of consenting to it.

Everyone loves getting blown on a Friday.

Mind-blown, that is. So without further ado, here's a bunch of stuff for your "I could work, but why?" period this afternoon.

1. The proper plural for "octopus" is "octopodes", and Britney Spears is a perfect anagram for "Presbyterians.
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"

2. In this staggeringly interesting Fresh Air interview, voice actor Billy West (Futurama, etc.) describes how his research and preparation for voicing Popeye required mastering the art of Tuvan throat-singing. Apparently original voice actor Jack Mercer had unwittingly employed it to create the classic Popeye voice in the 1940s.

Listen to this interview. It's fantastic.

3. Chinese officials were forced to shut down a supercomputer this week because it was learning. What was it learning, you ask? To give vaguely sexual answers to queries from users.

Apparently when supercomputers finally become sentient they will be like 15 year old boys.

4. I'm probably late to the party on this one but apparently iPhones aren't just tracking you everywhere you go – that data is being sold to, well, anyone who pays Apple for it. Sounds cool! I don't see what could go wrong.

5. File under Pitches Lobbed Directly in Ed's Wheelhouse: someone has scanned and shared a collection of brilliant propaganda posters from the Soviet space program, 1958-1963. Holy balls.

6. Dueling is legal in Paraguay. I'm getting in on the ground floor of a new industry I call Grudge Tourism.

7. Had we known this in our trivia tournament a few weeks ago we might be $1000 richer: the only film to win the Oscar for Best Picture without its director also being nominated for Best Director is Driving Miss Daisy (1989). If you ever win money for knowing that, I want a cut.
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Enjoy.

I had been looking forward for quite some time to two comedy experiences from the past week – seeing Mike Birbiglia live and seeing John Mulaney's new album/TV special. Birbiglia has the combination of a dry delivery, traditional joke structures, and the tendency to get weird that I really like. Mulaney's first album, the "criminally overlooked" The Top Part, is hands-down the best comedy album of the Obama years. His measured delivery and tenor voice on that disc helped make him one of the more unique and recognizable new comics in recent years. On the basis of that album I was beginning to wonder if John Mulaney might be the funniest man alive at the moment.

So I saw Birbiglia's live show and listened to Mulaney's new one (New In Town). I laughed at both. A few times I even laughed hard. But I can't hide my disappointment.

Unbeknownst to me, Birbiglia has been appearing on NPR quite a bit lately, which guaranteed that the audience in the large venue in which I saw him was predominantly old white people with a smattering of young hipster types. Accordingly, his 75 minute set was more of the one man show variety than a true stand-up act. He delivered the kind of material (dating is hard, being a kid was hard, etc etc) that might appeal to the widest possible audience. He definitely was funny, but he pushed the boundaries of…nothing, really. It's not even a clean-vs-dirty thing; there was profanity, a few sex jokes, and so on. In terms of the ground he covered, though, it was all very safe. Standard comedy tropes.

Mulaney's new special has him using an entirely new delivery – why he went from the slowest build-ups this side of Stephen Wright to this rapid fire approach is not clear – and a similar reliance on less creative subject matters. He's a bad driver. He has a girlfriend (and hilarity ensues). Wacky stuff happens when you live in New York City.

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And he actually closes with an 8 minute ass/poop joke. There are laughs to be had, but nothing at all to make the listener say "Wow, this guy is something special."

Both of these guys are now far more popular than ever before. Birbiglia has a movie coming out and is selling out 1000-2000 seat venues with high ticket prices. Mulaney is a writer for SNL and is all over Comedy Central now. I doubt they are looking for any tips or have any reason to question the choices they've made recently. They've done what makes sense from a career perspective. If the choice is between doing dark, weird material and touring in a van 10 months per year or recording TV specials, getting high profile writing work, and making big money headlining, then the choice is pretty obvious. It saddens me, though. All of the weirdness, all of the edge, is gone. They feel flat compared to their earlier stuff.

Is that inevitable? I mean, is that what we have to do to become successful?

I'm not talking strictly about comedy here – any creative pursuit (and a lot of non-creative ones) has the same dynamics. Is this simply part of a maturation process or is it selling out, consciously or otherwise? It feels counterproductive to push the envelope for years in order to get noticed and then immediately retreat to what I like to call Meet the Parents territory – that is, a product three generations can enjoy simultaneously without anyone getting bored or offended.

Hell, if you put me in that position I'd probably make the same choice to soften the material up a little and make it more accessible. A skeptic might say that the previous sentence is a fancy way of saying "dumb it down", though, and he or she would have a point. I wish there was some magical world in which John Mulaney could be richly rewarded for being John Mulaney rather than for taking a step, however small, toward being more like everyone else. I don't want to sound like the 15 year old who shit-talks bands who sign with record labels for "selling out, man." These guys need to eat and I have learned quite well the lesson that comedy does not pay well if at all on the lower rungs of the ladder. It simply depresses me that the market for real creativity is so small. I wish that people who write, paint, play music, act, talk, or whatever didn't have to work within such narrow confines in order to earn recognition and achieve success.

Because being a starving artist is neat and all that, but so is being able to afford, you know, medical care and rent.

Two things I was fairly certain I would never do: say "You should all read this thing in Marie Claire!" and comment on the death of Don Cornelius. Having already done the former this week, let's go ahead and knock out the latter.

The famous Soul Train host died on Wednesday, leading to many topical Facebook posts and shared video clips. I remember the show well from childhood – it followed Saturday morning cartoons and was also popular on Sunday evenings – but it is hardly an integral part of my life or memories. It has been a good 25 years since I watched or thought about it. But this clip, of the much-loved "line dance" portion of the show, caught my eye:

A lot of things have changed in 30-plus years, obviously, but it is striking how much different these people look than the ones we see on TV today (or would see if Soul Train was still on the air). They look like real people. No fake hair, fake boobs, fake nails, fake collagen-pumped lips, fake eyelashes, or fake smiles. The women don't look like porn stars and the men don't look like steroid addled He-Men with abs like cheese graters and zeppelin arms.

They're all dressed loudly but quite differently. And they look like they're having actual fun rather than wearing fake, practiced personalities for the camera.

Nothing's easier than idealizing the past – usually unjustifiably – so I'm trying to tread lightly here.
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It's just surprising to me in a way that has probably already occurred to older readers to see how the idealized image of cool people listening to cool music has become so overwhelmingly fake and detached from reality in a relatively short period of time.
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Would any of these women make it on an MTV-type program today without a boob job and/or lipo? Would any of those guys be trying to make it in Hollywood today without hitting the gym until they looked like UFC fighters? And we wonder why kids transition to adulthood with such horribly distorted self images these days. I'm sure the pressure to be thin and pretty has been around forever, but it would be nice if Hollywood suggested that you could look like an actual human being and still be cool.

I have no logical way to connect these things by way of an introduction, but this has been a banner week for discovering aesthetically pleasing things that you should waste your Friday afternoon perusing at work. Click any image to embiggen:

1. Graphic artist Mike Joyce has put together a gallery of dozens of old rock & punk show flyers re-done in the International Modernist style. It works eerily well for reasons I can't pinpoint.

As an added bonus, maybe some of you old bastards actually went to one of these shows.

2. For the comic book nerd dwelling deep inside of you (or perhaps right on the surface) here is Marko Manev's gallery of "minimalist designs" for superheroes.

Something tells me that if they actually existed and needed to advertise, this is how they'd do it.

3. Photographer and artist Lilly McElroy has a series entitled "I Throw Myself At Men" wherein she would find men through Craigslist, meet them in some public place, and proceed to literally throw herself at them (while what I assume is a colleague of hers took photos in mid-throw). The reactions of her unsuspecting (victims? dates?) are priceless.

4. You've probably seen this one already; NASA released a 21st Century version of its famous Apollo 17 "Blue Marble" photo courtesy the Suomi (Finland?) satellite. The original resolution (8000 x 8000!) makes it the most detailed picture of the entire planet ever taken. That's stretching the truth, though, since this is actually a composite image that, as is the case with so much photography of natural phenomena, is probably "enhanced" and Photoshopped in a dozen different ways. Still, this is pretty amazing. Zoom in on a few different spots to get the full effect. The amazing level of detail reminds me of my favorite Earth-from-above photo, of Sicily's Mt. Etna volcano erupting in 1999.