2009/01/08
My Favorite Mogwai Song Ever
I actually just learned a couple days ago that Gruff Rhys (aka SFA's lead singer is responsible for the beautiful welsh-language vocals on this track)
Why Stop
I ought to just put all these fucking videos in the same place. So I'm gonna give that a shot nowish.
Whoa...
Sometimes you are trying to google image search Tyrone Hill photos while attempting to locate your prostate's pleasure zone with your offhand. Then, all at once, an orgasmic result is smeared all over the screen:
Everything I've ever wanted to randomly find in a sports blog and more.
If this is in fact the age of access, as I will overuse because the New Yorker taught me that's the right way to introduce a new term by using it repeatedly in slightly varying contexts, then how lovely that we can live in a world when people who are not from Philly can write about missing the Spectrum.
Remember the Asian groundskeepers from Major League? Of course you do.
I couldn't actually find a clip with them in it; I wasn't looking particularly hard either. What I really want to talk about is how over the top and wacky Major League is, and how it is rather hypocritical that we blow up at Spain's borderline criminal racist displays by its athletes; Dennis Haysbert, el presidente on 24, played Pedro Serrano, an intriguing stereotype of several different West Indies cultures; he worshipped an idol called 'Jobu' (Joba Chamberlin foreshadowin?) and smoked cigars that might make Michael Jordan blush. The groundskeepers are inexplicably Asian and occasionally scream utter nonsense or celebrate in incredibly homoerotic fashion (not unlike the plethora of locker room scenes). The one 'uhmerikan' black guy, in an incredible coup by not-so-subtly racist Hollywood, Willie Mays Hays, is portrayed by two different actors in Major League 1 and 2 (Wesley Snipes in the first and Takeshi Kitano fan Omar Epps in el segundo) and is predictably more athletic, more graceful and less intelligent than his teammates; any movie where Tom Behringer's screen presence carries things makes me pine for the days when I could happily masturbate to scrambled porn.
So you have to ask yourself, sport reporter, where do we really draw the line of what is cultural relativism (blissful ignorance?) and what is a perverse, deliberate and blatant denigration of another race?
Let's take a look at a recent example in the news:
via Deadpsin.com: Rick Chandler ponders aloud, "So Spain, what's wrong with you guys? Was it all the mid-20th Century fascism, or is it that your athletes are just nuts? Please get back to me." In this case, Real Madrid defender/Captain of the Portugese national selection Sergio Ramos was dressed up in blackface for a parade celebrating the 3 wise men. From an American's perspective, in the Obama era we are beginning to enter, this is another example of poor taste and judgment by an individual with a particularly high profile; the thought being that athletes ought to consider themselves role models for the youth. This clearly isn't the first time that a Spain has been linked to this type of activity; whenever I do show up to work at the Elementary school 4 blocks from my apartment, I pay somewhat close attention to what they are actually teaching these little spaniards, and the truth is that they spend a lot of time trying to emphasize diversity through the lens of homogeneity. What I mean is that Spain is essentially a tiny island that has developed a parallel existence to many other cultures through the successful expulsion of jews, moors and whoever else didn't qualify under royal laws back in the day. Why is it proper grammar in English to capitalize proper nouns; I don't consider 'jew', 'christian', 'muslim' to be proper nouns. In a way their 'racism' is actually just their way of trying to decode the myth that there are in fact other cultures out there; some parts of Andalucía are more blanche than Helen Mirrin getting antiqued in a snowstorm. Also, when the kiddies were coloring the three wise men, the vast majority elected to use black crayons to color the skin of whichever one of them is supposedly darker skinned; I don't know shit about the Christmas story, perhaps there are perks to learning the Hannukah prayer and waking up late on the 25th because I was at an all night bowling party with a Jewish fraternity called Sigma Alpha Roe, whereabouts Nick Koenig and I cemented our legend in the lore of tri-state area jews by taking over the Stu-Gotts occasionally intriguing, punk-tinged, half-covers performance to set the peyos of every good boy and girl in a 5 mile radius ablaze with our technical mayhem on guitar and bass; local and often referred to douchebag, Peter Abram said it was an impressive showing; good enough for me. Just goes to show, racism isn't funny, but it is real; and who better than a member of Real Madrid to remind us of the most important lesson of Christmas; the dark dude gets the pimp ring.
Everything I've ever wanted to randomly find in a sports blog and more.
If this is in fact the age of access, as I will overuse because the New Yorker taught me that's the right way to introduce a new term by using it repeatedly in slightly varying contexts, then how lovely that we can live in a world when people who are not from Philly can write about missing the Spectrum.
Remember the Asian groundskeepers from Major League? Of course you do.
I couldn't actually find a clip with them in it; I wasn't looking particularly hard either. What I really want to talk about is how over the top and wacky Major League is, and how it is rather hypocritical that we blow up at Spain's borderline criminal racist displays by its athletes; Dennis Haysbert, el presidente on 24, played Pedro Serrano, an intriguing stereotype of several different West Indies cultures; he worshipped an idol called 'Jobu' (Joba Chamberlin foreshadowin?) and smoked cigars that might make Michael Jordan blush. The groundskeepers are inexplicably Asian and occasionally scream utter nonsense or celebrate in incredibly homoerotic fashion (not unlike the plethora of locker room scenes). The one 'uhmerikan' black guy, in an incredible coup by not-so-subtly racist Hollywood, Willie Mays Hays, is portrayed by two different actors in Major League 1 and 2 (Wesley Snipes in the first and Takeshi Kitano fan Omar Epps in el segundo) and is predictably more athletic, more graceful and less intelligent than his teammates; any movie where Tom Behringer's screen presence carries things makes me pine for the days when I could happily masturbate to scrambled porn.
So you have to ask yourself, sport reporter, where do we really draw the line of what is cultural relativism (blissful ignorance?) and what is a perverse, deliberate and blatant denigration of another race?
Let's take a look at a recent example in the news:
via Deadpsin.com: Rick Chandler ponders aloud, "So Spain, what's wrong with you guys? Was it all the mid-20th Century fascism, or is it that your athletes are just nuts? Please get back to me." In this case, Real Madrid defender/Captain of the Portugese national selection Sergio Ramos was dressed up in blackface for a parade celebrating the 3 wise men. From an American's perspective, in the Obama era we are beginning to enter, this is another example of poor taste and judgment by an individual with a particularly high profile; the thought being that athletes ought to consider themselves role models for the youth. This clearly isn't the first time that a Spain has been linked to this type of activity; whenever I do show up to work at the Elementary school 4 blocks from my apartment, I pay somewhat close attention to what they are actually teaching these little spaniards, and the truth is that they spend a lot of time trying to emphasize diversity through the lens of homogeneity. What I mean is that Spain is essentially a tiny island that has developed a parallel existence to many other cultures through the successful expulsion of jews, moors and whoever else didn't qualify under royal laws back in the day. Why is it proper grammar in English to capitalize proper nouns; I don't consider 'jew', 'christian', 'muslim' to be proper nouns. In a way their 'racism' is actually just their way of trying to decode the myth that there are in fact other cultures out there; some parts of Andalucía are more blanche than Helen Mirrin getting antiqued in a snowstorm. Also, when the kiddies were coloring the three wise men, the vast majority elected to use black crayons to color the skin of whichever one of them is supposedly darker skinned; I don't know shit about the Christmas story, perhaps there are perks to learning the Hannukah prayer and waking up late on the 25th because I was at an all night bowling party with a Jewish fraternity called Sigma Alpha Roe, whereabouts Nick Koenig and I cemented our legend in the lore of tri-state area jews by taking over the Stu-Gotts occasionally intriguing, punk-tinged, half-covers performance to set the peyos of every good boy and girl in a 5 mile radius ablaze with our technical mayhem on guitar and bass; local and often referred to douchebag, Peter Abram said it was an impressive showing; good enough for me. Just goes to show, racism isn't funny, but it is real; and who better than a member of Real Madrid to remind us of the most important lesson of Christmas; the dark dude gets the pimp ring.
Am I
I haven't been to my "job" in a heinously long time; part of this is my own personal goal to take it easy in 2009, but, at times, my pathological laziness worries me to no end. Am I supposed to laugh it off and just move on when I realize I forget my keys in my apartment and I have to take a shit? Maybe my mind/body just misses athletic competition and needs an excuse to get the adrenaline going. I see how working with kids really helps you realize that you are not one, and I love that aspect of going to work (when was the last time I was in a position to teach someone something besides where Paul Millsap went to college? [Lousiana Tech]).
I guess I'm just holding out for the day when Rafael Capo Garcia Rodón thaws his icy façade and starts recording commentary of nba games with me. I would be the Mike Breen of sorts; I would talk about what is happening while occasionally engaging my colleagues in some kind of jovial pop culture reference that relates in some abstract way to the game we are watching. (Example: Lousiana Tech's all time rebounding leader Paul Millsap grabs another offensive rebound over Kevin Love. Speaking of which, it's been over 40 years since the landmark album Forever Changes was released by the band Love. Judging by the rookie from UCLA's family ties to the Beach Boys, his uncle was a founding member, he might actually know what we're talking about.) Ian Eagle, a cosmic second least favorite voice in the history of broadcast television behind Fran Drescher, was the YES network's dude for a while and it made me hate myself for obsessing over the ambiguous nature of Aaron Williams' existence.
In Spain, at least the Spain I know, there is no need to discuss sports in general. Nobody really cares about anything but their hometown squad and ex-pat/international players with high profiles. In fact, in a roundtable discussion of sorts with a couple of the male faculty at my school, I learned that Spaniards value winning over anything else; therefore all of Spain LOVES basketball because the national selection is the second best in the world. The same rule of thumb applies to Tennis (Nadal, and the Davis Cup Champs), Formula One Racing (Fernando Alonso) as well as more peripheral sports like handball and oh right, Soccer.
I guess I'm just holding out for the day when Rafael Capo Garcia Rodón thaws his icy façade and starts recording commentary of nba games with me. I would be the Mike Breen of sorts; I would talk about what is happening while occasionally engaging my colleagues in some kind of jovial pop culture reference that relates in some abstract way to the game we are watching. (Example: Lousiana Tech's all time rebounding leader Paul Millsap grabs another offensive rebound over Kevin Love. Speaking of which, it's been over 40 years since the landmark album Forever Changes was released by the band Love. Judging by the rookie from UCLA's family ties to the Beach Boys, his uncle was a founding member, he might actually know what we're talking about.) Ian Eagle, a cosmic second least favorite voice in the history of broadcast television behind Fran Drescher, was the YES network's dude for a while and it made me hate myself for obsessing over the ambiguous nature of Aaron Williams' existence.
In Spain, at least the Spain I know, there is no need to discuss sports in general. Nobody really cares about anything but their hometown squad and ex-pat/international players with high profiles. In fact, in a roundtable discussion of sorts with a couple of the male faculty at my school, I learned that Spaniards value winning over anything else; therefore all of Spain LOVES basketball because the national selection is the second best in the world. The same rule of thumb applies to Tennis (Nadal, and the Davis Cup Champs), Formula One Racing (Fernando Alonso) as well as more peripheral sports like handball and oh right, Soccer.
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