Monopoly cards for the New Great Depression, Part 4

Oranges and Reds first

Everyone around the world is familiar with the beloved game of Monopoly. You know Monopoly. It's the board game where you spend two hours (if you play it correctly) or three hours (if you don't) slowly tightening the financial noose around your friends until you're able to toss them out into the street to starve.

This is hilarious for at least three reasons:

1. Monopoly was based on The Landlord's Game, a teaching device meant to expose how landlords bled tenants dry.
2. That game was eventually stolen by one Charles Darrow, who'd lost his job after the Stock Market Crash of 1929.
3. It made Darrow a millionaire. The inventor of the Landlord's Game wound up with a cool $500.

Monopoly taught generations to become ruthless capitalists, including me. (The secret to winning? Buy as much property as you can, as fast as possible, no matter what you have to do to get it.) But the original game became outdated, especially those pesky Chance and Community Chest cards. "Poor tax"? "Building and Loan"? "Life insurance"?

A few years back, Parker Brothers Hasbro finally updated the old cards for a modern audience, and as you might have guessed, the result looks like shit. So I've kept the stylish old look of the original cards, yet added some new ideas for what the kid of the 21st century will have to expect. Enjoy!

Part 1              Part 2              Part 3

Review: Red Hot Chili Peppers, "I'm With You"

I'm With You 
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Warner Bros.
08.29.11

Maturity used to seem like the worst thing that could happen to a group like the Red Hot Chili Peppers. After all, when a bunch of old men show you their cocks, even on stage, it leaves the realm of "sexy" and enters the realm of "litigious." But the Peppers always had a subtext deeper than the demon in Anthony Kiedes' semen: As befits a band of native Los Angelenos, their hedonism was always undercut by a sense of brotherhood, a blended family of freaks brought together by the personal tragedies of their own journeys. So it's been a little disconcerting to watch them turn into the Rolling Stones of the 21st century -- a youth gang smart enough to know when its finally time to grow up, but also wordly-wise enough to realize they'll never be that interesting as adults.

At first, RHCP dealt with the stylistic breakthrough of their 1992 hit "Under The Bridge" by endlessly rewriting it, as they became less interested (and less adept) at rocking out and more interested in sober reflection. But sober reflection doesn't pay the bills in the real world. So after By The Way threw the fans a curve ball they didn't appreciate, and the return to arena-rock form on (the aptly-named) Stadium Arcadium left the group itself feeling creatively unfulfilled, I'm With You finds the band settling into (and up with) middle age by exploring new ways to be a pop-rock band. The band who invented punk-funk finally has very little to do with either.

Sure, they still make the occasional attempt. "Ethiopia," "Look Around," "Goodbye Hooray," and the jazzy "Did I Let You Know" are gonna sound just fine on the next tour, sandwiched between "Give It Away," "Knock Me Down," and "Party On Your Pussy." (Did I mention the Rolling Stones?) But a closer listen reveals that even these lifelong miscreants are dealing with some very mature subject matter: friendships left behind, life lessons learned, regrets let go, damage spun. It's probably a coinidence that one of the most adventurorus tracks here, "Even You Brutus," finds Anthony still fucking young girls... and realizing the world now has a problem with that. Maybe. 

As for the music, they keep it refreshingly upbeat and experimental following a lot of soul-searching and the recent departure of longtime guitarist John Frusciante. Now essentially Swan and Flea's band, they stretch out, aiming for dance-rock on the opening "Monarchy of Roses" and "Factory of Faith," then exploring the edges of what they're allowed to get away with and still stay on the radio. "Brendan's Death Song" is suprisingly effective at country, "Happiness Loves Company" is a piano-based shuffle with a good bit of rhythmic heft, "Meet Me at the Corner" utilizes so many blues and jazz touches it almost leaves their back catalog behind. But so far, there's only enough experimentation in this reinvention to raise expectations -- like the Stones, the Peppers would probably reap bigger creative and commercial rewards by breaking free of their old selves entirely and attempting a full-on sellout move. Middle age is no time to be reckless and impulsive. Unless you're an artist.

Graded using the Third Eye Method:

Impact: 62. The visceral thrill is gone, replaced by a lot of brooding. Unfortunately, they had a lot more to say when they were fucking everything.
Invention: 70. The Peppers are still searching, though they may be hamstrung by three decades of expectations. 
Integrity: 80. It's always great to hear from a rock band that's not full of shit, especially one dealing with life's hard lessons. But being full of shit is also what keeps you interesting. 

The Loaded Question: East Coast Katrina

Why didn't Hurricane Irene destroy New York City?

Who's the New Girl? Episode 112: Untamed Youth

the babes of MST3K

Having both an unhealthy obsession with classic pin-up style, which is coming back, and Mystery Science Theater 3000, which lives on forever, I've decided to combine my two lusts and create yet another series, this one based around pin-ups of the lovely ladies that starred in the b-movies MST3K skewered so hilariously. I will be taking on every single one of the relevant episodes, in order, because I have problems. Enjoy!

The series begins here. 

Episode 112: Untamed Youth (1957)

One of the worst "rock and roll" films in a decade utterly littered with them, Untamed Youth is notable for two things: a rare on-screen appearance by doomed rockabilly legend Eddie Cochran (not at his best) and a bevy of three, count 'em, three, b-movie cheesecake legends -- all of whom were brunette beauty pageant contestants who wound up running from monsters on screen and off. This being a rock, not horror, movie, it existed mainly to let "real" Americans leer at the sweaty, steamy, writhing primal urges of today's troubled teens before assuring us that our youth, at heart, are really okay. Five, count 'em, five bad musical numbers, one catfight, a beatnik cook for comic relief. Unfairly trapped picking cotton for a rancher who is fed teen labor by a corrupt judge, the kids toil and fight and rock and shimmy until they get a little solidarity and rise up against the zzzzzzzzz. It doesn't matter, because such a thing would never happen today. And now, the babes.

Lori Nelson

"We were so hot, and we walked for miles!"
"She's still hot."

Santa Fe's Dixie Kay Nelson was a pageant baby and failed child star who found b-movie success after Universal worked her into the studio system at age 17. She palled around with Debbie Reynolds, dated tab Hunter, Dean Martin, Burt Reynolds, and James Dean, before finally settling down with songwriter Johnny Mann, effectively ending her movie and TV career. She's also seen in MST3K episode 801, Revenge of the Creature.
  

Jeanne Carmen

"Am I the sultriest person you've ever seen in your whole entire life?"

Arkansas native (and trick-shot golfer!) Carmen was a teen runaway who made it to New York to find fame and fortune any way she could. Dancing on Broadway led to her B-movie career, where the brunette was at first shoehorned into vampy Mexican roles. Tired of trying to pull off a Latina accent, she went blonde and never looked back. Her role in Untamed Youth led to co-star Eddie Cochran penning the rockabilly classic "Jeannie, Jeannie, Jeannie" in her honor; though they never dated, Carmen wound up going around with most of Hollywood's leading men, including Frank Sinatrra. It was this liason which led Jeanne to a close friendship with Marilyn Monroe; after Marilyn's suspicious death, she was reportedly told to leave town by mob boss Sam Giancana, and she became a housewife in Scottsdale, AZ. She re-emerged in the past few years to work the convention circuit, and passed away from cancer in 2007.

Mamie Van Doren

"You have more than a modicum of talent, my dear." 
"Oh, you mean these?"

Born Joan Lucille Olander, Mamie Van Doren escaped South Dakota with her family to find work in Los Angeles, and by 15, she was an usher at Hollywood's famed Pantages Theatre. With those looks, it didn't take long to get noticed; by 17, she was singing in a big band, embroiled in a tumultuous and abusive marriage, and a fixture on the beauty pageant circuit. By 18, she was out of the marriage and possibly dating Howard Hughes, who placed her in several of his films at RKO. By 20, she was a Vargas girl and Esquire cover model, and by 22 Universal had snapped her up as their answer to Marilyn Monroe. Unfortunately, even though she was a better singer than Monroe and a comparable actress, she never made the A-list, and when Universal dumped her at the end of the '50s, she made the usual sexpot circuit -- men's magazines, Vegas, the USO, and a series of steamy romances with seemingly everyone in the business, from George Hamilton to Steve McQueen to Joe Namath. By the '80s, she'd begun to find a new career as a retro icon, one which she proudly works even today. A true Hollywood survivor.

How to move lumber

or, when is a hurricane not a hurricane?

My dad, who essentially taught me how to be a bitter cynic, likes to refer to it as "selling lumber." It happens every year from June 1 to November 30: the endless drumbeat of fearmongering that engulfs Southern meteorologist types, The Weather Channel, and, scandal permitting, the 24-hour news networks. It's a classic example of modern "sticky" programming, a way to keep viewers glued to their TV sets (laptops, phones) in between commercials. Commercials that are, very often, for places which sell hurricane supplies. And Katrina gave this practice enough juice to keep it ramped up for another two decades. There are other examples of this kind of thing in modern news media, of course: every winter, the flu scare begins. But you can't track an approaching virus every four hours on a map. Let's hope not, anyway.

Of course, lumber's not as big as some industries, but in between moving plywood (to board up your windows, which is actually not all that necessary) or bottled water (which will probably gather dust in your garage) or batteries (which you probably already have, but why take a chance?) there are endless other ways to get the economy moving again. So here's a handy guide for all you budding media types, in order to maximize your potential to keep America's sphincter clenched in suspense, and move some product in the process.

DUN DUN DUN DOODLY DOO DOO DUN DUN

1. Give them The Big Picture.
Hurricanes are big. Whoa, they're big. The major Atlantic ones are sometimes big enough to fill up the entire Gulf of Mexico. Let's look at the current threat to America, Hurricane Irene:

Oh my God we're all fucked! Our Father, who art in heaven...

But wait. Maybe we should take a look at the actual winds of this hurricane, and see how bad they are:

Whew! The actual hurricane-strength winds of a hurricane do not extend out very far. In fact, on the projected path, the majority of the inland American continent wouldn't see any hurricane-force winds at all. Not Category 2 or 3 winds, any hurricane winds. At all.

At. All.

Let me further prove my point. Here is a map showing the entrance point (red target) of Katrina, the Worst Hurricane of All Time. And the black target to the left? That's where I was during the storm.

Looks bad, doesn't it? And it was. But not as bad as you were led to believe. As the handy scale at the bottom has no doubt informed you by now, I was approximately 50 miles west of the eye. And yet, I watched the storm from my family's back porch. With about 15 other relatives, some of whom were old. Why? Well, the power had been out for a while at that point, and it was much cooler outside. We were also behind a section of the house. But my point is this: unless you're within 50 miles of the eye of a hurricane, you're not actually in a hurricane. You're in a tropical storm. 

Here are the actual wind speeds for Katrina all over the area it affected.

Now, Atlantic storms tend to be strongest in their NE quadrant, due to circulation and other factors. So being to the East of the eye would have been a somewhat different story. And Katrina was a King Kong championship motherfucker of a weather event, legendary and historic. It eventually caused tropical storm-force winds in Ontario. Yet you can still see here that the gusts (and this map represents gusts, not sustained winds) only made it to Category 1 strength where I was. So we brought the plants in, and tied everything down. But we didn't die.

The lessons of Katrina were actually about decaying infrastructure and the threat of storm surge anyway, at least in New Orleans. Not about wind. But that is for another day. Storm surge can be a concern, especially for a big, powerful storm that's come a long way. But it has to do so over deep water, like in the Gulf. A storm zipping up the coast, like Irene, doesn't have much water to churn up.

So for God's sake, don't tell your public any of this. 100 miles of Southern backwater is no kind of target audience to have. Show them the satellite image. Because Hell is coming, and Irene is her name.
  
2. Take a trip to the Islands.

Aruba, Jamaica, ooh I wanna take ya.

For all its problems, America is still a first-world nation. For the moment. However, our brothers and sisters in the Caribbean are not so lucky. Largely because of colonial imperialism. (Practiced by America. Let's leave that one there for now, too.)

They get hurricanes quite often, passing right over their tiny island dwelling. And when they do, because they don't have our infrastructure, the power goes out there's massive flooding and people die and buildings collapse. So be sure and use this to scare people. Give 'em statistics, see if you can get some video. People will think that the homeless children in Jamaica will soon equate to homeless children in America. They'll lose their minds. And keep obsessively watching for updates.    

3. Ignore Nature.
Did you know that when hurricanes pass over mountains -- or any kind of land, actually -- they get severely damaged? It's true! Hurricanes need open water to survive; that's why Iowa doesn't get any. They also need warm water, the warmer the better. Katrina went from a Cat 2 to a Cat 5 in a matter of hours because it hit a pocket of superheated water. But if you live in New York, they usually don't have to worry about hurricanes. Because the water's not warm enough up there to keep them potent. So when that hurricane heads up the East Coast, just tell them how strong it is now, not how much it'll weaken. Also, when the storm passes over Cuba or the Yucatan peninsula, concentrate on the damage it's causing, not how weak it's getting -- and always, always assure the public that the storm could strengthen. Speaking of which...    

4. Speculate, Speculate, Speculate!

Karl Rove and David Frum must really
admire the phrase "cone of uncertainty."  

Who knows what will happen in the future? Criswell, maybe. And perhaps God. Not even those geniuses at the National Hurricane Center, however, know for sure, leaving a giant hole for you and your team to march right through. There could be massive flooding, structural damage, and loss of life. The Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man could also turn out to be real and march right down the streets of your fair metropolis. Of course, one is more likely to happen than the other. But not that much more. The terms "could be" and "possibly" are your best friends; use them.

Here's a classic example of how to do it, straight from Reuters.

Irene Could Spell Disaster for New York

In the annals of natural disasters, it doesn't get much worse than a major hurricane directly striking New York City and Long Island.

Hurricane Irene is on a course that will take it up the East Coast from the weekend. While there is still uncertainty about where it will hit and when, the forecast models increasingly suggest some parts of the greater New York area will face some type of storm or hurricane impact.

According to New York City's Office of Emergency Management, the last hurricane to pass directly over the city was in 1821 - and it caused tides to rise 13 feet in one hour, flooding all of lower Manhattan to Canal St.

But for Long Island, the threat is much worse. People still talk about the Long Island Express of 1938, a Category 3 storm that the U.S. government has said would cause $40 billion in damage if it hit today.

I've highlighted the bullshit to make it stand out. 

Notice that the article assumes that Irene will be a major hurricane (Category 3 or higher) "when" it hits downtown NYC, a statement it immediately backs off of, replaced by the more vague "some parts of the greater New York area." It then raises the specter of a hurricane hitting Manhattan, while glossing over the obvious takeaway: this happens about once every two centuries. And the massive flooding of downtown in 1821 was perchance somewhat exacerbated by the fact that it was the early 19th century.

Manhattan in the late 19th century looked like this:

That '38 hurricane? It mostly missed downtown NYC. It hit Long Island, though, causing $4 (not, as the article incorrectly states, $40) billion in damage in 2011 dollars. And about 800 people were killed, which was not uncommon for a major hurricane in those days. Most of those deaths, however, occurred in Rhode Island. Which apparently does not merit a story. 

5. Generate the Cycle of Fear.
This is an easy one. People, as Howard Beale once informed us, think like the tube. So when you scare everyone half to death, be sure and send a local camera crew out to show everyone freaking out, lining up to buy gas, stocking up on water and bread, eating each other's babies, etc. That makes the fear seem justified, which frightens people even more, and then you can show that. It's a great scam. (Bonus points if you film old ladies crying. That's always a winner.)

People lining up for gas in Miami.
Which Irene did not get near.

6. Pretend you're helping. 
Yeah, I know. The station sent you to meteorology school for some six-month course. You don't actually know a lot about the weather. You get the latest updates and probability estimates from the National Weather Service, you read them on the air, and then you head to the bar downstairs and knock back a few before the next hourly update, which will find you saying the exact same things over and over again, because the next real update doesn't happen for three hours. It's exhausting.

So spice it up! Read some report of a farmer who thought he saw some rain. Send some poor bastard out to the beach to show how the waves are slightly higher than normal. Take the stray aberrations in those spaghetti models and spook your audience with a "what if." Talk about what would happen if that high pressure system moved away, which you already know it won't. Above all, remind the viewers that you're only doing all this to protect them, and that they can never be too safe with this kind of thing, and that you're mere tireless public servants. And now a word from Home Depot.

The actual National Weather Service probability forecast
for Hurricane-force winds hitting New York City.

One Hundred Bad Drawings: Page 6

EVERY FIFTEEN YEARS
or, the story so far

America said, "You are free,"
and her children believed it.

America said, "Have as much as you want,"
and her children said, "more."

America said, "Don't look at those dirty people,"
and her children went over to dance with them.

America said, "Put on a suit and go to work,"
and her children fucked in the mud.

America said, "Everything is in order,"
and her children formed a pit of thrashing bodies.

America said, "Numb yourself,"
and her children slit their flesh open.

So then America said, "You can't have any more."
And her children came after her.

Review: Game, "The R.E.D. Album"

The R.E.D. Album
Game
DGC/Interscope
08.23.11

From a purely sociological point of view, it may be a good time to be a West Coast gangbanger, what with California's infrastructure falling apart, but from a cultural point of view, it's a terrible time to be rapping about it. Game (he's dropped the "The," the kind of post-fame alteration that's usually a sign of desperation for a MC) has been fighting to drop his latest joint longer than Obama's been in office. He's rolled off three mixtapes, collaborated with everyone under the sun, had his tracks passed from hand to hand, and released eight "advance" singles, all of which died on the vine, in a futile attempt to keep himself on Interscope. Dr. Dre was the main label exec behind The R.E.D. Album, largely in an attempt to keep West Coast gangsta rap on life support, but he mostly pulled out, leaving in some suspect between-track biographical narration. Game's career may be over before the President's.

In desperation, therefore, the man who saved Los Angeles from the Dirty South goes all in on his two remaining hole cards: swagger and cameos. It makes sense to an extent: back when he had a definite article, The Game was a one-man thug history book, famously absorbing every rapper he could in a six-month period in prep and lacing his flow with references to everyone who'd laid the groundwork. Back in the middle of the last decade, it played not only as a resurrection, but as a mural, as if he were being quizzed on Blood rap history before being jumped in to heavy rotation.

But in 2011, when hip-hop has faded completely into mainstream pop, The R.E.D. Album comes off like bluster. Never the best at the technical stuff, he rhymes "window" with "endo" and "Los Angeles" with "scandalous" and "cannabis" and, for some reason, "Christmas." And if the rhymes are lazy, the boasting is drenched with flop sweat. Hey! He fucked Erykah Badu! He wants to hurt Rihanna! Spiderman's a pussy! Here's how he sees his lyrical peers: "Biggie, Hov, prolly Pac, Nas." Uh-huh.

This is Game's game to lose, so it doesn't help that the beats are competent, but unsurprising -- like his shoutouts, they seem stuck in 2006. He's definitely not getting the best of Cool & Dre or Mars, who produced the bulk of R.E.D. Most of the big-name guest productions designed to create buzz for the album -- Dr. Dre, Kanye, RZA, Timbaland, Scott Storch, will.i.am -- didn't make the album cut because of their failure. And he sounds utterly lost on what should have been the one fresh track, a comic collaboration with Tyler the Creator entitled "Martians vs. Goblins."

Only when Game dials back the hardness, ironically, does he come up with something real and, better yet, unique: the R&B ballads "Hello" and "Pot of Gold," and the tender flashback "Mama Knows," specifically. But in the middle of this album-ending upswing, as DJ Premier comes to the rescue with the black anthem "Born In The Trap" and provides the rapper with the kind of lush-yet-dangerous backdrop he hasn't had for years, this happens:

Just had a daughter almost named her Katrina

If I raise her right then maybe she can take over FEMA

Spike Lee in New Orleans shooting documentaries

And Game still in Cali eating off "The Documentary"

Take him to the cemetry, I mean the cemetery

Where everybody boxed in, Refrigerator Perry

Fitting, then, that the chorus to this nonsense is about blaming Obama for everything because he's black. When you have this much trouble getting your message across, you don't deserve a second term.

Graded using the Third Eye Method:

Impact: 60. Hardcore Game fans, grab the best 10 tracks here, stick them in your player, and just let this go.  
Invention: 32. If he planned to jog in place, he should've gone all the way retro and made a NWA album. 
Integrity: 56. When the only thing at risk is your career, and your core base doesn't care about your career, where are you? 

The Loaded Question: What's Gaddafi up to?

What do you think Muammar Gaddafi is busy doing right now?

Decadence on Ice: The New Orleans Snoball Culture

damn yeah.

Like so many other things about New Orleans, it's easier to define a snoball by what it isn't than what it is. Notice is served: a snoball is not a sno-cone. Nor is it an ice. It is not a Slush Puppie or a Raspado. It is uniquely of the Crescent City, although its influence has spread throughout the South and somewhat beyond, in part due to the Katrina diaspora, which had the unintended but pleasant effect of introducing America to the really weird things we eat and drink (and listen to) down here. So in case you were wondering...

Many countries across the world served chopped, cracked, crushed, or just plain big chunks of ice with sweet syrup on them. It's an inexpensive way to cool off in the summertime, especially in tropical or subtropical locales where cooling off can be essential to one's health and well-being. New Orleans being New Orleans, we somehow found a way to make that process unhealthy. But more on that later.

The snoball differs from the more widespread snocone in that it is built on a cup full of very finely shaved ice. Although New Orleanians (and others) have been eating flavored, finely shaved ice since the 19th century, it was an Uptown machinist named Ernest Hansen who kicked snoballs into the modern, mass-production age by inventing and patenting the first motorized ice-shaving machine in 1934. Modern devices shave the ice even thinner, so thin it actually looks like snow when the modern metal monster blows it into your cup. If the ice isn't shaved this fine, it isn't a snoball.

The other thing that makes a snoball uniquely New Orleanian is the flavor. As befits the city's culinary heritage, the sweetened syrups that soak the ice (usually bottles bought from a regional distributor, but sometimes made in-house) are equally reminiscent of early-20th-century kiddie candy -- the hard, pennycandy stuff -- exotic alcoholic beverages, or rich pastries and desserts. In fact, a real New Orleans snoball stand is simply not complete without the following flavors:

what real snoballs look like.

Wedding Cake: Almond and coconut, sometimes with pineapple.
Silver Fox: Almond and vanilla.
Pink Lady: Sort of a pink lemonade with berry flavors.
Blue Bubblegum / Pink Bubblegum: Only the syrup manufacturer seems to know the taste difference between these two; to most snoball fans, they simply taste "blue" or "pink," much like their cotton candy counterparts.
Nectar: Vanilla, peach, and nectarine.
Popeye: Spearmint and peppermint, like a doublemint gum. And colored spinach green, naturally.
Tiger's Blood: Coconut and strawberry (sometimes with orange added).

In addition, a real NOLA stand will offer fruit flavors, especially tropical ones, which always work best -- you can never go wrong with a pineapple, banana, coconut, or even watermelon flavored snoball. And it's also a tradition to have flavors based on kids' cartoon characters. At almost any stand, you'll see Ninja Turtle and Batman flavors, sometimes a Smurf, or even a Pac-man. Usually these flavors merely replicate the color of whatever the character is, so a Batman is black and yellow (that is, black cherry and banana) and a Ninja Turtle is green and yellow (lime and banana). There are endless variations. And endless other flavors. If you can think of something sweet, or even cool, or even snacky, it's been done: Strawberry Shortcake. Iced Tea. King Cake. Hurricane. Dreamsicle. White Russian. Tiramisu. Pina Colada. Dill Pickle. Buttered Popcorn.

it should be juicy all the way through.

But even if you find a stand with the right flavors and shaved ice machine, you won't necessarily get a great snoball. Believe it or not, there's actually an art to dumping syrup onto ice -- with flavors this sweet and rich, too much syrup will make you sick on a hot summer's day, while not enough and you start to see the color go out of your drink about halfway down. If you wanted to be left with a flavorless iceberg, you'd just have yourself a snocone, wouldn't you?

Getting the mixture right actually involves layering the ice and the syrup bit by bit -- layer of ice, layer of syrup, layer of ice -- until the cup is full, then adding a giant cone of ice on top, packed down by an inverted steel funnel. The final step is to punch five flavor channels, like points on a imaginary star, all the way down into the snoball with a straw, then pour even more syrup in, to make sure every last bit of ice is soaked. The proper snoball should be completely saturated but have no residual syrup floating around the top or sides.

When that's done, it's time for the topping. Any real vendor will offer, for about .75, the option of having condensed milk poured on top, which sounds strange but is actually super delicious. (In Baltimore, the only other American city with a similar snoball heritage, they like to use marshmallow fluff.) You can also sometimes get chocolate syrup, or an extra flavor on top, or "sourness" added, or even a stuffed snoball, where ice cream is inserted into the middle of the ice for an extra treat. The high-end, Uptown NOLA shops will use real fruit and fruit juices in their creations, and real creams, but usually you're dealing with syrup and ice.

topped with condensed milk.

There's nothing like coming upon a snoball stand on a blisteringly hot day, leaning into the tiny window of the prefab shack, and feeling the blast of the AC window unit, not to mention the effect of all that ice, smacking you right in your sweaty, tired face, mixed with what seems like the culmination of every sweet, fruity, tart, creamy, candylike flavor there ever was. I once had the good fortune to visit the headquarters of SnoWizard, the machine-and-flavoring empire built up from Hansen's original small Uptown shop, and entering the cool confines of the syrup warehouse was like walking into Willy Wonka's snoball factory.    

So! Let's review. Very finely shaved ice. Absolutely soaked in some decadent flavor. Possibly topped with something even richer. Served with a spoon and a straw. This is a New Orleans snoball. And you can get a super large, "garbage can" sized one (32 oz.), with all the add-ons, for about $4. Because eating like a king for next to nothing is a large part of the culture, too.

One Hundred Bad Drawings: Pages 2-5

THE DEFINITION OF ELECTRICITY

One of the newer gods,
Yet distressingly similar to the rest:
It flickers and gutters during turmoil
And none can identify its source.
It returns when it returns.
We speak of Power and Light
As if everyone can afford it.

And yet, in the cold darkness
You find yourself acutely aware
Of what is Important.
You do not jump at shadows, like children;
It is surprisingly easy to move around.
The voice of your actual self
Speaks very close.

I WAS A POET AND I DIDN'T EVEN REALIZE IT

Someone decided to give the crab back its legs
And tear down the net on the tennis court
Because life was messy
And also mainly because rhyme has power:
A pattern of soundalike grunts
That suggest
truth.

small t truth, small r rhyme.
We don't capitalize dead gods.

So the wind rises
And so does the river
And you climb up onto the roof
And cling to nothing
And wait for no-one
And you feel a little more sane
But a lot less safe.

And very few people understand what the fuck you're screaming about
Even as they go under.

RECENT STUDIES SHOW

The Word IF,
when held up to the light,
studied under a microscope,
rubbed away with nervous hands,
dissected by academics,
bathed in righteous tears,
thrown against a wall in frustration,
smashed into your lover's face,
or ripped apart with bare hands
like a child looking for a prize,
will always adapt to its surroundings
and reveal the word
NO.

When plugged into any equation,
it will always reduce itself
to one divided by one times one.
Rendering it meaningless.

In a bar, or a prison,
it is a bad joke
that can get you killed.

But The Word IF
has proven to have some uses in
driving a nail,
turning a screw,
mixing mortar,
propping open a door,
rewiring a habit,
scraping old paint off of an insult,
balancing a desire,
or acting as a fulcrum
to move just about
anything.

ODE TO BRANGELINA
from a NOLA native

O! golden coupling,
god and goddess of modern screen,
envy of untold millions,
how strange is it to spy you bi-cycling at dawn,
with your children of many lands,
barely pausing to gently admonish a lone paparazzo,
and cast my mind back
to a night I visited that selfsame spot,
and, hurrying my carriage curbward,
did lean out above this now-holy ground
and vomit from drink.

A public service announcement

THINGS THAT HAVE A BETTER CHANCE OF HAPPENING
TO YOU THAN WINNING THE POWERBALL LOTTERY

• Dying from a fireworks explosion (57,588,244:1)
• Contracting AIDS from heterosexual, protected sex with someone who isn't a member of a "high-risk" group (50,000,000:1)
• Contracting mad cow disease (40,000,000:1)
• Winning the jackpot on the world's tightest slot machine (33,554,000:1)
• Becoming a saint (20,000,000:1)
• Being attacked by a shark (10,000,000:1)
• Spotting a UFO (3,000,000:1)
• Being dealt five aces (2,869,684:1)
• Earth hit by an asteroid (909,000:1)
• Giving birth naturally to quintuplets (729,000:1, assuming you're a pregnant woman)
• Drowning in the bathtub (685,000:1)
• Being struck by lightning (600,000:1)
• Having your house bombed (290,000:1)
• Dating a supermodel (88,000:1)
• Striking it rich on Antiques Roadshow (60,000:1)
• Getting a hole-in-one (42,952:1)
• Being murdered (this year) (20,000:1)
• Winning an Academy Award (lifetime) (11,500:1)
• Finding a four-leaf clover on the first try (10,000:1)
• Being possessed by Satan (7,000:1)
• Carolina Panthers win the Super Bowl (200:1)
• Getting on a plane with a drunk pilot (117:1)

Winning the Powerball lottery (195,249,054:1)

Review: Jay-Z and Kanye West, "Watch the Throne"

Watch the Throne
Jay-Z and Kanye West
Roc-A-Fella, Roc Nation, Def Jam
08.08.11

Hip-hop is dead. You know it as well as I do. Dead like jazz. Dead like the blues. Like those things, it will continue, because there will be a small sect of people who will always enjoy and appreciate it, but it will never advance. The tide has gone out, creatively and almost financially, revealing two giants still standing: Kanye West, the world's first post-rap star, and his old boss Jay-Z. Who, taking into account flow, versatility, lyricism, insight, and street cred, could arguably be considered the greatest rapper of all time.

So what does that leave us? This summit meeting, an improbably great pop album with hip-hop influences, one in which two monsters of the genre, rather than destroying downtown, get in a car and go clubbing. Usually when two musical heavyweights meet, the only way to make things mesh is to severely lower all expectations: the informal jam. But these two have never gotten anywhere being loose or low-key. Which makes the effect they have on each other on Watch the Throne all the more stunning -- Yeezy gets Jay to expand his consciousness and look at the game behind the game, while Hov, like a good friend arriving from out of town, convinces Kanye to get over himself and man up. Consider the way they dovetail verses in the bizarro sampling opus "Otis." Jay: "I got five passports, I'm never goin' to jail." Kanye: "I made 'Jesus Walks,' I'm never goin' to hell."

Stylistically, what we're dealing with here is a continuation of West's beautiful dark twisted fantasies as a blueprint for Jay's new blueprint. Which makes sense, given their history together. (That '09 beef looks more and more like PR.) When it works best, like on the opener, "No Church in the Wild," it's a world-beating combination -- the smooth mogul in constant control of his surroundings tortured by the doubt of a visionary playa who can't help but wonder what it all means.

It functions perfectly well as something to annoy people with at stoplights: hooks, beats, floss. What makes this collaboration something that'll hold up in the future when hip-hop is dad-rock, however, is the larger context. This may be the first such album to stop and turn around in the middle of the party and ponder who and what gets left behind when you shoot into the stratosphere. Not the bourgeois shit where you pretend to be hard even as you leave the street, but the ruminations of kings literally without a country -- these two are all alone in a field that will never challenge them again, and that frustration permeates every song here. 

By the time you dig in to the meat of the album's middle, Jay is realizing he's "all dressed up with nowhere to go" and "God damn I’m so high, Where the fuck did I go?" Kanye: "It’s time for us to stop and re-define black power / 41 souls murdered in 50 hours." And Jay again: "Niggas watchin’ the throne, very happy to be / Power to the people / When you see me, see you." In the end, their response to that distance is to retreat: get drunk on haterade, treat women like pets, and reminisce about slinging rock. But that's the only knee-jerk thing about this album, and that may be only because there's no one left to take the throne away when they misbehave. Watch the Throne is all about accelerating into a dead end. 

Graded using the Third Eye Method:

Impact: 90. Jay's bravado and Kanye's paranoia fit like a velvet fist in an iron glove. I said that right.
Invention: 85. Not quite as sonically impressive as Kanye's Fantasy, but Jay's lyrical heft makes up for it.
Integrity: 82. You have to come full-strength to record your album in plush hotel rooms from Paris to New York, and still catch the mood of the street. Still a little unfocused from the rush job, though.

The Loaded Question: London's Burning

Why DID those riots happen in England, anyway?

Who's the New Girl? Episode 111: Moon Zero Two

the babes of MST3K

Having both an unhealthy obsession with classic pin-up style, which is coming back, and Mystery Science Theater 3000, which lives on forever, I've decided to combine my two lusts and create yet another series, this one based around pin-ups of the lovely ladies that starred in the b-movies MST3K skewered so hilariously. I will be taking on every single one of the relevant episodes, in order, because I have problems. Enjoy!

The series begins here. 

Episode 111: Moon Zero Two (1969)
 

"If we don't die, you want to catch a movie or something? I mean, if you're not alive I'll totally understand, it won't hurt my feelings or anything..."

Moon Zero Two was Hammer Films' low-budget answer to Kubrick's 2001, a "Space Western" where a renegade space-shuttle captain is blackmailed into mining sapphires or something for an evil space fop replete with space monocle. Not even a bad movie, just a really goofy and instantly dated one, what with the go-go dancers and the jazzy horn sections and the animated opening sequence that looks like Schoolhouse Rock meets Yellow Submarine. It also features a lot of what the Brits call "totty," mostly in dancing scenes. Most of these lovely ladies were never heard from again, although Mick Jagger's ex, Chrissie Shrimpton, gets a line,  and one of the fop's girlfriends is Amber Dean Smith, one of the first Penthouse Pets (NSFW!), featured here as the dumb blonde who can't play -- wait for it -- Moonopoly. (Okay, the film's kind of stupid.)

There were two ladies featured, however, who went on to bigger and better things:

Carol Cleveland

Although she only plays a shuttle waitress with few lines, Carol looks smart here in her Nazi stewardess uniform, which unfortunately leaves very much to the imagination. But even though the film was a flop, two weeks before it opened Cleveland had already secured her place in history when the first episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus appeared on the BBC. An accomplished actress, she actually studied at London's Royal Academy, but as the show's resident hottie, she wasn't able to show off her considerable comedy skills as often as she might have. The Pythons being very adept at playing women, Carol was left with famous lines like "But it's my only line!"  However, the show still locked down what was already an impressive TV career, and she's been beloved in Blighty ever since. Her talents were somewhat better served in the Python films, especially this famous scene.

Catherine Schell

Born Katherina Freiin Schell von Bauschlott, this Hungarian actress was the daughter of near-royalty until Nazi Germany and then the USSR robbed her family of their assets; she ended up at a convent school in New York and then acting school in Munich. Moon Zero Two was her third British film, and it led to her most famous roles: Bond Girl in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, comic jewel thief in Return of the Pink Panther (where she can be seen corpsing quite often), and as the shape-shifting alien Maya in TV's Space: 1999 series. In the mid-90s she retired from acting and opened a small hotel in France with her second husband, actor Bill Hays. After his death she closed it down, and is now fully retired; she retains a close connection with her Space: 1999 fans.

The Age of Epic Bullshit Translator

Despite what you might have heard over the past two decades or so, "politically correct" speech has been with us as long as speech itself has. And it's used by everyone on all sides of the political spectrum. It's all just PR to make ideas less frightening and thus somewhat acceptable, anyway, which is how, over the course of the last century, "shell shock" got turned into "battle fatigue" and then "combat stress fatigue." Sometimes, as is the case with "colored," "retarded," or "crippled," the words are changed in order to remove a stigma unfairly  placed on an entire subset of human beings. Most of the time, though, it's there to trick us into avoiding looking life square in the face, in fear that we might have a natural human reaction to it. Here's a short list of words journalists, speechwriters, and flacks use to accomplish that.  

For Celebrity Stories

alleged = guilty
embattled = incredibly guilty
controversial = asshole
politically incorrect = huge asshole
troubled = doomed
rocky = screaming
stormy = life-ruining
amicable = bitter
celebrity = nobody
reality tv star = village idiot
radio personality = con artist
heatstroke = coke binge
exhaustion = assload of pills

For Scandals 

thank = strangle
supportive = naive
ridiculous = true
absurd = very true
unsubstantiated = even more true than you think
allegations = discoveries
trying, humbling = embarrassing
failings, mistakes = crimes
sins = felonies
remorse = anger
deeply = not really
heal = forget
Jesus/God = my lawyers
the people = the corporations
you/your = lobbyist(s)

For Political Groups

concerned = outraged
Americans, citizens = corporations
family = Christian
Christian = Republican
values = laws
gaming = gambling
united = spending money
for = against

For Political Speeches

disappointed = enraged
honorable = crooked
distinguished = old
colleague = jerkoff
job creators = obscenely rich
middle class = working class
working class = poor
climate change = global warming
death tax = estate tax
detainees = political prisoners
enhanced = violent
freedom = money
communist = socialist
socialist = centrist
far left = center
troops = war
play the race card = be not white
play the blame game = investigate
flip-flop = listen to reason
faith = Christianity
God = special interests
bless = use
America = you

I'm sorry, but Michele Bachmann actually has Crazy Eyes

Michele Bachmann has crazy eyes. I'm sorry, she does. I know even Jon Stewart has taken Newsweek to task for their unflattering photo of the Representative from Minnesota's Sixth District, and, as her God is our witness, leading Presidential candidate. But no, she does. She has the crazy eyes. They're anime big and ice-blue and clear and unfortunately accentuated by eyeliner in such a way as to make them look even bigger and crazier than they are. But they're pretty crazy on their own.

Now, this does not make Bachmann herself crazy. But it also doesn't make me a woman-hater, as the right oh-so-disingenuously claims. It just means she has weird eyes. And it wouldn't matter if they looked like Angelina Jolie's, because we already know what's going on behind them is crazy. Michele believes that gays are slaves waiting to be delivered from their chains (coincidentally, her husband runs just such a business on the side!). She thinks Democratic presidents engineer swine-flu outbreaks. She thinks the minimum wage is why we have unemployment. She thinks there's a threat of teachers encouraging children to try gay sex. She thinks it's okay to breathe in carbon dioxide. She thinks the Census will be used to put you in a concentration camp. She's crazy.

This may not have anything to do with her eyes. They might be as innocuous as Obama's jug ears, or Boehner's man can tan, or Sarah Palin's MILFy goodness. You can't really draw any connection to those things and where those people stand politically. But it doesn't mean those things aren't there. If Newsweek had used the very first picture of Bachmann with crazy eyes, ever, there would be reason to complain, like when Time decided to darken OJ's skin tone. I don't defend their decision to add the title "Queen of Rage" to the photo, because she's actually not that ragey, as tea partiers go. But this "crazy eyes" issue is nonetheless a real thing. As I will prove.

First, however, I'd like us to have a good old fair and balanced non-partisan cleansing of our social taboos. We'll never get out of this mess we're in unless we, as Americans, look these hard elemental truths in the face. So here we go: Obama is a smug, distant, emotionally unavailable person. Sarah Palin is a hot celebrity. John McCain is a bitter old hand puppet, which is only partially a metaphor. His wife is so cold you could use her blood as liquid nitrogen. Nancy Pelosi is shrill and unlikable. Harry Reid is a sad basset hound. John Boehner is a country-club metrosexual douchebag. Ditto for Mitt Romney, who is so dull he barely exists. Newt Gingrich needs to go lay down. Keith Olbermann and Bill O'Reilly are egomaniacal blowhards who eat schadenfreude for breakfast. Chris Matthews is a blithering idiot. Ann Coulter writes porn. Lou Dobbs hates Mexicans (except his wife). Bill Maher is a smug sexist pig. Al Franken is kind of an asshole. Sean Hannity and Fox News are ® the Republican Party. Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh are laughing at you, and all the way to the bank. The entire cast of The View should never voice an opinion about anything, ever again. And Michele Bachmann is an attractive woman. From the 18th century. With some crazy, crazy eyes.  

Please note: I did not use any images of Mrs. Bachmann where she was opening her eyes wider than usual in shock or exclamation or joy. I was fair. 







Okay, still don't believe me? Here are the photo outtakes from that same cover story. Much more attractive and flattering photos, certainly. And not ragey. But crazy eye everywhere.