Apocalypse Now

I have never claimed to have the ability to see into the future and predict events before they unfold. I leave that sort of work to the professionals like Nostradamus, that creepy little boy in The Shining, and Patricia Arquette. All three of these prognosticators used different methods or had different powers that enabled them to make accurate predictions about the future. Take little Danny as an example: using something called the "shine," Danny successfully predicted that his already-insane father would try to murder both he and his mother with an axe while trapped in a haunted snowbound hotel for the winter. Danny’s ability differs from Arquette’s ability in that Arquette sees both the future and the past in her dreams and can communicate with ghosts. Danny sees ghosts in his visions but really only likes to communicate with Tony (an uncredited role played brilliantly by Danny’s finger) and Scatman Crothers. Finally, Nostradamus used his considerable powers of obscurity, equivocation, and ambiguity to make nearly everything he wrote come true in hindsight.

My abilities are something more akin to the Magic 8-Ball, Ouija board, or La Toya Jackson. Regardless of my semi-professional status in the hallowed circles of the occult, I’ve received a message that can only be explained as a sign. But not just your ordinary everyday run-of-the-mill sign: this sign most certainly foretells of the coming apocalypse. How do I know? Well, using the spiritual medium known as "HBO," I've just learned that every time we elect a black president, the world faces annihilation, either from aliens, an asteroid, or Earth crust displacement brought on by massive solar flare-related neutrinos. Of course there are other signs that have happened or are currently happening that fit specific descriptions of the apocalypse as written in the Bible (don't ask me where). Let's take a closer look at three of the most popular:

"And there shall cometh a girl, young, magical, and nonsensical, that shall sing and dance and sometimes rhyme, as a witness unto all nations; there will be fun, then shall the end come."

Everyone on this planet has been witness to the meteoric rise of the galaxy's newest pop star: Rebecca Black and her wonderfully introspective and sometimes informative YouTube music video called "Friday." Reviews have been all-together negative--until now. After watching her video for the nineteenth time, I'm beginning to see its subtle yet brilliant nuances, and I now find myself profoundly moved. My heart swells as if I'm listening to the Beatles, Zeppelin, or Sir Mix-A-Lot. Look at this lyric: "Yesterday was Thursday / Today is Friday / We so excited." Not only does Black correctly list the days of the week, but, in that final verse, demonstrates an almost Wittgensteinian grasp of the language game. But you'd be a fool to assume that Black's ability to correctly list the days of the week is limited to just Thursday and Friday. Check this out: "Tomorrow is Saturday / And Sunday comes afterwards / I don't want this weekend to end." With that last lyric--as well as with her perfectly auto-tuned voice--Black firmly grabs hold of your emotions and, with calendar-like accuracy, elevates this musical journey to a place describable only by Rod Serling.

But, unfortunately, Black isn't pop music's version of James Joyce after all. It turns out that her only role was that of performer and not creator. The actual creative force behind this modern-day aural Ulysses is Clarence Jay and Patrice Wilson of L.A.'s Ark Studios. This revelation redirects some of the Internet's vitriol away from Black's supposed lack of song writing expertise and performance style, and onto more meaningful and constructive forms of criticism like, how she looks, how she dances, and why is she still alive. But the most important and relevant thing to note about "Friday" is that the word "fun" is used 666 times...

"And the creatures of the sea, and the creatures of the air shall perish for no reason that thou careth to heareth about; for the mind hath grown darketh and sloth-like and reason shall be no moreth."

We've all heard the news reports: hundreds of blackbirds found dead in Arkansas; thousands of dead fish wash ashore in Canada; millions of crab die in England; billions of sardines found dead in California; trillions of dead... Well, you get the idea. Science has definitive answers for all of these events (bacterial infections, severe weather, toxic algae, etc.) but science isn't any fun (unless you're a scientist) so let's throw the principle of parsimony out the window and come up with an answer that does work: these mass die-offs are all signs of the apocalypse.

CNN's Anderson Cooper is just as troubled by the aflockalypse as are all of those jobless 40 year-old conspiracy theorists that still live in their parents' basements. Instead of turning to the Internet for answers, Cooper used the considerable powers at his disposal (none of which include critical thinking) and consulted once-teen television sensation and current religious expert Kirk Cameron. Obviously Cooper believes that Cameron has expert-level knowledge of the apocalypse because he recently starred in the Christian-themed Left Behind film series. When asked by Cooper what might have caused the simultaneous deaths of hundreds of birds, Cameron suggested that, because the majority of birds were very tiny, perhaps they all suffered from a severe bout of growing pains.

"The youth of the world shall go bat-shit crazy."

We all know that kids are crazy, but this level of crazy is certainly ushering in the apocalypse. The current epicenter of crazy is located in a lovely little town called Vernal in the pretty great state of Utah. According to the Deseret News, on December 4, 2010, "three teens engaged in individual lewd acts at the back of a bus returning from a wrestling tournament ... [the teens] then wiped bodily fluids on their teammates." For reasons that I can only imagine, such as the reporter didn't want the apocalypse to come any quicker than it already is and/or doesn't want his temple recommend revoked (this is the Deseret News, after all), neither "lewd acts" nor "bodily fluids" are described in the article. We may never know what exactly happened on that fateful night, but we do know that the bus' surveillance cameras probably prevented mere forcible sexual abuse allegations from becoming a full-blown Deliverance situation--banjo included.

Another incident that is surely helping to speed up the apocalypse also happened in Utah, but this time in Sky View High School of Smithfield. Six members of the football team pulled a teammate out of the shower and taped him to a towel rack with equipment tape. They also placed tape on his genitals (I presume because they couldn't find his clothes) and then pushed his homecoming date in to humiliate him (I presume because they thought the dance was starting). But even more socially developed societies, like those of West Newbury, Massachusets, have issues with youth running amok. At Pentucket Regional High School's summer football camp, several upperclassmen held down an attending sophomore and tried to sodomize him with a peeled banana, then proceeded to take turns "tea bagging" him, which, as I understand it, means to "forcibly propagate a Tea Party style of rhetoric."

Given the information that we've just examined, the apocalypse may be only a few days away--or one week, tops. And, to make matters worse, there are other events happening around the world that definitely confirm the impending apocalypse, such as the release of Sammy Hagar's autobiography and rumors of a second David Lee Roth book. I suggest getting your bucket list together, and fast. But please make sure your list doesn't include anything that will cause the apocalypse to arrive any sooner--I still have one item remaining on my bucket list. I hear there's a vacancy in the Utah legislature...



From left: Milk; Sandwich; Danny; Tony.



Celebrity

The top news story right now is the developing disasters in Japan: the Tyson-like one-two punch of the fifth most-powerful earthquake ever recorded and a tsunami. If getting face-raped by Iron Mike isn't enough, there are serious fears of nuclear meltdowns at four separate reactors which will certainly result in more than the machine-gunning death of Jack Lemmon. The only thing Japan has left to face would be a timely monster battle between Battra, Ghidorah, Rodan, Moguera, Baragon, and Godzilla in downtown Tokyo. Every media agency is reporting these terrible events as they unfold in real-time on whatever television I happen to be watching. But even amidst all this horror and tragedy, occasionally a story breaks that requires these media agencies to move away from this coverage for something more important, like Mel Gibson's legal troubles, a sick American Idol, or the new and different ways that Charlie Sheen can use 'winner' and 'troll' in a sentence.

It seems as though America, generally speaking, is a bit obsessed with everything celebrity. For whatever reason, we like to know what these people are doing and that they can be, at times, just like you and I: Natalie Portman is drinking coffee; Robert De Niro is talking on a cell phone; Julianne Moore is riding in an elevator; Snooki is wearing her underwear on top of her dress. The mundane stuff they do fascinates us just as much as the crazy stuff, and the mass media reports it all, whether some of us want the information or not.

While it's quite obvious that we're curious about celebrities (just like we're curious about zoo animals) it's not so obvious how each celebrity attains a different level of status or fame than another--or how some obtain any status at all. Journalist James Ulmer famously developed the objective methodology of celebrity taxonomy by giving a number rating to each celebrity based on a specific criteria such as bankability (are they pretty?), willingness to travel and promote (are they a pain in the ass?), career management (do they have a good agent?), professionalism (will they jump on Oprah's couch?), and acting talent and acting range (should they even be in the business?). Depending on the aggregate number, a celebrity can then be placed in the A-list, B-list, or the C-list. The D-List is only for Kathy Griffin.

Unfortunately, Unger's model only seems to work for traditional film and television actors, and thereby ignores the niche of has-beens, the talentless, and the one-hit wonders that relentlessly occupy every story on E! News Now. It also neglects the actors--no, thespians--of reality TV that are short on talent and intelligence, long on youth and beauty, and even longer on having a rich or famous relative. Besides being pretty or having a wealthy family member, it turns out that there are other ways to become a celebrity. I have extensively researched these ways and have decided that becoming a celebrity is the next logical step in my life. Here's my plan:

1) Make a sex tape.

Since I lack the characteristics mentioned above, I must do something else to get noticed. I've asked my wife if she would be a willing participant in my first bold celebrity career move but, unfortunately, she has used a bat and her fists to painfully, repeatedly, and mercilessly decline my offer. Not to be defeated, with a bit of careful editing, low-quality night vision, and proper costumes, I feel confident that I can play myself, as well as a Dominican prostitute whom I will call "Dinorah." Lights!

2) Get on a reality television show.

Starring on a reality show is the next step in this process. Television producers see your accidentally-leaked sex-tape on TMZ and develop a reality show around your special abilities. Unfortunately, I don't seem to have any special abilities. I'm not pretty like Lauren Conrad or have asymmetrical boobs like Audrina Patridge. My abs aren't as developed as the Sitch's and I can't turn my skin Valencia orange no matter how much self-tanner I apply. I'm not a cop, bounty hunter, or Steven Seagal. I can't sing, dance, or direct independent films. I don't own a pawn shop, bike shop, sex shop, or a tattoo parlor. I can't design clothes and I can't stand it when a German super-model says "auf wiedersehen." I can't "sassy walk," do "Miss America circles," "flirt with the judges," or do "cupcake hands."  I'm not a pregnant teenager or getting a jet for my sixteenth birthday. I'm not a little person in a big world but I did have a tenth-grade biology teacher named Mr. Tiny. Hmmm... This could take some work...

3) Make my name sound cool.

Once I get all of the reality show details worked out, the next step is to make my name sound cool. The best way to make your name sound cool is to shorten it. All the top celebrities are doing it. For example, Scar-Jo, Li-Lo, and J-Lo are really Scarlett Johansson, Lindsay Lohan, and Jennifer Lopez. Some lesser-known celeb shortenings: C-Man, J-Dahms, and D-Rat are really Charles Manson, Jeffry Dahmer, and Dan Rather. Unfortunately, my shortened name doesn't quite have the celeb ring to it: Ro-Lo. Although I am sweet like caramel and milk-chocolate, I don't want anyone to yell that at me while I'm on the bus.

4) Do something with a fragrance.

By 'do something with a fragrance' I don't mean that I'll play around with things that smell, but that I'll hire a chemist and actually produce, market, and retail an actual fragrance, or join forces with a well-known fragrance developer. All the celebrities are creating or endorsing a fragrance to help keep them in the loop. Right now, I'm enjoying the richly intoxicating scent of super-celebrity Britney Spears' latest fragrance called Believe. It's a cross between "exotic florals," "seductive amber," and "barefoot at the Chevron." She also has another fragrance called Fantasy Circus (in conjunction with her Sci-Fi Circus line) which has hints of "creamy musk," "raspberry zest," and "Starbucks." I'm also a fan of Kim Kardashian's new fragrance called Kim Kardashian. This rich scent for women contains "crisp notes of mandarin," "vanilla orchids," and something called "Ray J." Rumor has it that Kim's sister Khloe is working on a perfume called Patterson-Gimlin which has blurred images of "pine," "urea," and "scat."

It seems as though I'll have a difficult time making it as a celebrity since I lack any requisite skills. Even some of the lesser-talented celebrities I mentioned above have some degree of talent, or at the very least, they're easy on the eyes (I don't look that great either--especially in HD). Or some are such an unbelievable disaster that you can't look away, like when you see a diner boisterously abusing a server, a server placing biological detritus in a diner's beverage, or Snooki getting punched in the face by a dude. If only I could think of something to do that involves little or no talent, anonymity, and using a computer at three in the morning...


Foraging for a new fragrance.



Television Takeover

The era of liberal television programming has come to an abrupt end. Left-Wing Political Message Delivery Systems (LWPMDS--pronounced LWPMDS) such as Bill Maher (brash, funny) and Jon Stewart (thoughtful, funny) have been black-bagged and shot in the street like a terrorist, feral cat, or any viewpoint that opposes the Utah Eagle Forum. Even seemingly harmless liberal fare, such as Tina Fey's 30 Rock (too many unmarried women), Brothers and Sisters (too much Sally Field), and the entire HGTV channel (too many designers) has been replaced with more conservative family values programming like All in the Family reruns (racist), new episodes of Dog the Bounty Hunter (guns), and the 700 Club (money).

You're probably wondering two things right now: first, who made all of these wonderful changes and, second, how was someone able to wield a sword so mighty? Well, let me take each of these important questions in turn. First, I made all of these wonderful changes, and, second, the Nielsen television ratings people put me in charge when they asked me questions--in a survey--of what I currently watch on television and, if I could make changes, what would they be? I was even paid two dollars to act as a part-time consultant for the work. Here's a small sample of some of the upcoming changes to your airwaves:

Chris Buttars: Tears of a Clown (bio-pic)
Follow the pride and joy of the Utah legislature as he awkwardly deals with the NAACP, Reed Cowan, and what it means to be sentient. Watch as he models the precise language of his proposals around the idea that, given enough time, a monkey will accidentally type the complete works of Shakespeare. Fascinating!

Charlie's Angels (Drama)
The original 1976 series featured three female private investigators using their unique talents to solve cases for the Charles Townsend Agency. These 'unique talents' include wearing tight pants, not wearing a bra, and ensuring that every male from the ages of 10 up to 90 would be in front of a television whenever the show aired. The old show was a hit and this re-boot will be, too. I've replaced Kate Jackson, Jaclyn Smith, and Farrah Fawcett-Majors (for a number of reasons) with the best of what the conservative right has to offer: Ann Coulter, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, and Sarah Palin. The new angels are up to their old tricks like solving crimes and convincing the majority of Americans that Obama is either a fundamentalist Muslim, a fundamentalist Mormon, or a fundamentalist Muggle. Logic and reason take a backseat to ignorance and appeals to fear as our angels battle a new villain named 'Sudoku.' One more casting change to make note of: the late John Forsythe played the mysterious and never-seen title character who always gave his angels investigative instruction via speaker-phone. Given Charlie's love of secrecy, the obvious choice to take over Forsythe's role goes to Representative John Dougall (R-American Fork).

Two and a Half Men (Situation Comedy)
The lovable but stern Rush Limbaugh takes over for Charlie Sheen on CBS' highest rated show. Limbaugh maintains coherence with his predecessor through his addiction to OxyContin and Hydrocodone, but still brings a conservative grounding in family values because those drugs are legal. But that's where the coherence ends: given that Limbaugh is significantly heavier than Sheen, the show is now called Three Men.

The Running Man (Reality)
This 1987 Paul Michael Glaser film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Richard Dawson, and Jesse Ventura, takes place in a dystopian 2017 in which America has become a police state with a dead economy. Schwarzenegger's Ben Richards, guilty of a crime he didn't commit, inadvertently gets put into a game show in which the contestants must evade killers with outlandish nicknames to earn a pardon. Richard Dawson's Damon Killian is the tyrannical game show host that will stop at nothing to have Richards killed on live television for the ratings. Obvious dualism raises its ugly head as good battles evil, but the new version offers an update for 2011: instead of Schwarzenegger evading murderers in the 'gamezone,' it will be Utah Governor Gary Herbert running from angry voters in Temple Square. Spoiler alert! Schwarzenegger triumphs by stuffing Killian into a rocket sled and firing him into a billboard. Life imitates art as the same thing happens to Herbert's re-election bid.

And finally:

Dallas (Drama)
Bill O'Reilly takes up the role of J.R. Ewing that Larry Hagman made famous in this look at a Texas oil family. All of the themes from the original series are back including: insanity; domestic violence; angels; incest; unethical business practices; alcoholism; attempted murder; time bombs; demons; double homicide; illegitimate children; attempted murder (again); miscarriages; arson; vehicular homicide; visions; overdosing; the existence of an afterlife; and finally, rodeo injuries. This program will exemplify all that's right and good about America's dependence on oil, conservative family values, and unregulated capitalism. Unfortunately, this is one dream sequence we can't wake up from.

Ann Coulter is taking aim at your senses in the Charlie's Angels re-boot.





S** and Censorship

In an earlier post I detailed the pernicious dealings of the evil-doers in the alcohol industry. These people are trying their hardest to influence our children and shatter America’s second greatest resource (after the children, of course): the American family. While the Utah legislature keeps us safe behind the Zion Curtain from trivial things like Chili's, bartenders, and critical thinking, another means of protecting our delicate sensibilities remains strong as well: censorship.

Controlling ideas by controlling the flow of information isn't a new concept. It happens quite regularly in books, television, films, plays, the Internet, and, I suppose, greeting cards (only the really communist ones). Censorship is usually committed by an individual or group in some position of authority. This authority (pseudo or otherwise) can range from AMC's editing team changing Bruce Willis' famous line from Die Hard to "Yippie kai yay, Mr. Falcon!" to Utah's own CleanFlicks editing Kate Winslet's boobs out of Titanic. Normally, the censor suppresses content that directly conflicts with a personal, religious, or political belief. Let's look at some examples.

In January of 2006, Larry Miller, owner of the Utah Jazz and the Megaplex theater franchise pulled Brokeback Mountain from showing on a single screen at his theater. Miller obviously wasn’t on board with the film’s left-wing gay agenda even though ten years of the interracial "Stockton to Malone" relationship should have taught him some tolerance. When asked by the Salt Lake Tribune if he would like to comment on the film's banning, Miller, clearly tired of swallowing the left's agenda deep down his throat--deep throating, if you will--responded, "I said everything I had to say when I pulled the movie. Okay? Anything else you want to know?" Not really. I can only assume that pulling Brokeback Mountain meant more screens for films that uphold the quintessential Latter Day value system like Johnny Knoxville's The Ringer, the Adam Sandler produced Grandma's Boy, and the Eli Roth torture fest Hostel.

Movies aren't the only forms of media that face censorship. Between 400-500 books face some sort of challenge or ban each year. Some of these books are supposed classics like Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, and Heller's Catch-22. The reasons for these bans vary from too much sex, obscenities, sex, too communist, sex, and of course, sex. Other titles face challenges as well like the Twilight and Harry Potter series but for different reasons, namely: the promotion of vampirism, witchcraft (or is it wizarding?) and, in the case of Twilight, being incredibly boring. The source of the challenge or ban usually originates with parents filing a complaint at their local library or school library where children may come in contact with this troubling material.

One thing to note: the majority of challenged books end as just that. Actual banning is rare, especially in America. Most challenges are dismissed at the local level (library associations, school boards) with no concessions such as moving the offensive material to another location or labeling it as adult-only fare. The interesting thing here is what the majority of challenges center on. Sex. Here's a personal example.
 

Upon publication in 1991, the Bret Easton Ellis novel American Psycho created quite a controversy. I knew exactly what to expect from a left-wing, bleeding-heart mind like Ellis’: sex, drugs, murder, entire chapters devoted to ‘80s music, misogyny, misanthropy, and perhaps even a bit of lycanthropy. My most poignant memory from that reading experience didn’t come from the story itself, but from a brief comment written at the top of a page during one of the book’s more lurid moments. At one point, the title character, Patrick Bateman, engages in a three-way with two prostitutes (if you’re reading this in Sacrament Meeting, you’ve just sinned). Ellis describes this depraved encounter over the course of several pages leaving nothing to the imagination. At the end of this encounter, in what looked to be a female’s handwriting, gouged into the page with all the righteous fervor of Glenn Beck writing on his chalkboard, was the claim, “This is pornography!”

Was her claim correct? Who knows? I do know that this moral watchdog didn’t leave any other comments throughout the entire book, missing such adult themes as: homosexuality; extreme drug use; excessive affluent lifestyles; adultery; torture; mutilation; murder; cannibalism; and necrophilia. In other words: The Bible. It’s clear from her omissions that sex shouldn’t be written about in the real world anymore than Voldemort’s name be spoken in Harry Potter’s. It also seems that sex and its related themes are at the top of a long list of things we want kept either private or censored, and we'll even use our positions of authority and power to cover up our inappropriate acts. Especially if it's something worse than sex. What could be worse than sex, you ask? Larry Miller already gave us this answer: gay sex.

Take former Senator Larry Craig, R-Idaho, as another example. Craig, one of the creators of the anti-gay “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was arrested back in 2007 for soliciting sex from an undercover police officer in a Minneapolis-St. Paul airport men’s room. The always-classy Senator Craig tried his hardest to make this obvious frame job go away by identifying himself as a member of the U.S. Senate to the arresting officer, as well as presenting his Senate I.D. card to anyone who'd look at it. After the incident went public, Craig tried unsuccessfully to withdraw his guilty plea. He then used campaign funds for his legal defense and to help rehabilitate his public image. All legal nonsense aside, once we get past Craig’s confusion regarding his sexual identity, and his proclivity for homophobic government policies, we see that the moral of this story is hypocrisy. I mean shame: shame on you Larry Craig for using a men’s room that was under police surveillance. Didn't he learn anything from George Michael?

While we're on the subject of sex, it's important to note that even our own Utah legislature knows a thing or two about sex (they certainly should since they legislate morality for the entire state). Senate Bill 12 deals with the control of retailing alcoholic beverages but our legislators require almost philosophical conceptual analysis regarding anything that deals with alcohol retail, including what one might see at a strip club. SB12 begins by defining terms, and in this case, the terms need defining for 27 pages, including definitions regarding nudity at the strip club. Here's an example of what a "state of nudity" can mean: everything from the "appearance of the nipple or areola of a female human breast" to "a human genital" as well as "a human pubic area" and even a "human anus." Censor thyself, Legislator!

It looks as if sex (broadly construed) in America will remain the focus of censorship until we realize that we don't need protection from seeing Dennis Franz's naked ass in the shower. According to patriots like Senator Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, chairman of the Commerce Committee, "Eighty-five percent of the people watching televisions today are watching through cable, but they think they're watching local TV. They have to have some protection." he says. I can only assume that the difference between local TV and cable is that local TV is easier to turn off when something you find offensive is on.






I don't think you're ready for this jelly.