awesome/sucks: seeing stars

With a mildly successful NBA All-Star Weekend in the books recently, I figured why not point out the pros and cons of these obviously forced, increasingly grating events? The phrase "All-Star" means different things to different people, as each of the three following participants can attest.

awesome: all-stars (chuck taylors)










I have only owned one pair of Chucks in my life, and it was a good experience. The reason I really enjoy this footwear is that they hearken back to a simpler time... a time when five white guys in incredibly short shorts would go out, run three-man weaves, practice bounce passes, and play solid "hands out" defense. Granted, the basketball was inferior and the short shorts a visual atrocity that you really must prepare yourself for, but damn those kicks were sweet. You can tell just how much basketball has evolved in that Chuck Taylors offered a pathetically limited amount of lateral support, which would inevitably lead to scores of ankles being broken during crossovers. I do also appreciate Dwyane Wade's alignment with Converse and basically resuscitating a moribund franchise.

If there were any drawback to these shoes, 'twould be that they are almost universally worn by hipsters in San Francisco and worn in harmony with the blazers I had referenced in earlier posts, but that is a small price to pay for awesomeness on the level of these shoes.

sucks: all-star (by smashmouth)











Good Lord. What a terrible band. While Nickelback seems firmly entrenched in the "awesome sucks" category, Smashmouth definitely can only claim one of those adjectives. Hint: it's not the former. I remember when the song "All Star" came out and saying to myself "this is a song that actually hurts my soul to listen to." A decade later has not altered these emotions. If anything, those flames of resentment have only been stoked as this song still managed to get rotation in commercials and radio airplay. Unbelievable. Perhaps the most fitting alignment of "quality of movie" and "lead soundtrack song" were this disaster and "Mystery Men." Somehow, Ben Stiller was able to shake the vestiges of failure from that debacle and go on to create approximately 753 movies in the 90s and 00s, of which perhaps 4 were funny (Editor's Note: Hundreds of millions of dollars in paychecks will make you care a lot less about scripts). Smashmouth, however, was never heard from again, until the lead singer appeared on Surreal Life. So basically, they were never heard from again.

awesome/sucks: all-star games (all sports)














Do you know how long it took me to find this picture? Baby Jordan baby! Harold Miner! All star games have got to be the most masturbatory, self-aggrandizing events in all of sport (which is saying something) that do not prominently feature Bryant Gumbel. The awesome aspects of these events are obvious. You get the greatest collection of talent under one roof (or on one field, in baseball's case), you see guys play together that normally wouldn't, dunk contests, home-run derbies, and in the NBA's case, you'll see approximately 110 alley-oop attempts in the course of a 48-minute game. I myself was treated to the 2000 NBA All-Star Game in Oakland courtesy of Silvestre Aguilar's father and got to watch Vince Carter brutally slaughter the fundamentals of basketball and AI perform the rarely-seen "five-step no-travel call." It was breathtaking to watch. The best part of that game was hearing that David Stern said Oakland was "unfit" to house the NBA's players so all the players, trainers, coaches, journalists, and anyone with even a remote connection to the game ended up staying in San Francisco, thus generating zero dollars for the Oakland economy. Whoops!

As far as the parts of all-star games that suck, they are numerous. The jerseys are typically such a fashion disaster that Helen Keller wouldn't wear one (too soon?). The level of intensity and effort ranks somewhere between "indifferent" and "actively trying to lose." The Pro Bowl isn't just a case of players mailing it in - being played a week after the Super Bowl renders it completely irrevelent, even in a society when the NFL combine gets round-the-clock coverage. My favorite moment of a shitty All-Star game goes back to the baseball one in Milwaukee where they ended up tied, ran out of pitchers and just called the game. I always loved how up in arms people got about that, especially given the fact that one team winning over another would still have had no effect on anything.

awesome/sucks vid of the day:

Thanks to Erio for this. Those aren't tongues... they're titles you idiot!

Awesome/Sucks Video of the Day

This video incites a rage in me to trade my car in for a Firebird, Drink a Rocket Fuel, and do donuts in the Santa Monica City Hall Parking Lot with half my body out of the car window flipping the bird.

Rocket Fuel: Take a 40 oz beverage, drink the top 1/3 down to the top of the label. Take a Sparks, pour into the 40 oz bottle slowly, enjoy.

Did someone say shmishmorshion?

In my eyes, the quintessential awesome/sucks post should really leave the reader feeling divided. It should present the reader with such a contradictory set of emotions and thoughts such that the wisdom of King Solomon himself would crumble before it. In a sense, it should leave the reader with an unsettling sense of balance regarding the issue, despite the significant amount of awesomeness/suckitude. Increasing the intensity of this feeling aids in accomplishing this goal since it further highlights the contrast between its conflicting qualities. As such, for my first post I decided on a rather controversial subject that's both intense and sure to leave readers divided...


Abortion: The End of a Beginning (?)

Now, before I get into this, I want to make it absolutely clear that I am not saying it is either correct nor incorrect. This is not the forum for the ethics and morality behind this practice. I believe this post should be solely and entirely in line with the mission statement of this web log and simply serve to highlight the awesome, sucky and awesomely sucky aspects of said practice. So, without further ado:



-Awesome:

Stop me if you've heard this one...
Now, I don't know about you, but I find the inclusion of dead baby jokes into my repertoire of daily conversations harder and harder as I grow older. Well, let me fill you in on a dead-baby-joke-telling trade secret: Abortions are absolutely the perfect tangent into dead baby jokes. Nothing rescues a conversation drowning in abortion-related awkwardness like a few dead baby jokes. Try it the next time it comes up at the water cooler!

Stem Cell Research
As an active member of the research community, I feel I can validly speak for many researchers out there in saying that embryonic stem cell research holds a incredible amount of promise in devising regenerative cures for injury or degenerative illness. Despite this, many nations have instituted a moritorium on embryonic stem cell research due to the nature of the extraction process. If everyone would just stop having their period over it, we could probably cure a great deal of people from getting "old". Not to mention it would let Superman walk again.

Roe v. Wade
No singular case in the history of US litigation has been so cited, referenced and discussed as Roe v. Wade [no reference]. This seminal case essentially set a standard by which to judge all abortions on, so we can tell the good ones from the bad ones. So when your time comes to get one (and trust me, your time will come), you'll know whether your going to heaven or hell.

-Sucks:

You're getting a WHAT?!
Few medical procedures incur the wrath of peers and loved ones like abortion. That instant and almost visceral reaction people have to the mere mention of the word tends to be a bit of a buzzkill. In order to avoid some of the suckiness that accompanies the delivery of any abortion news you might have to someday bear, I offer a quick list of alternative names for this procedure that might lighten the blow and make the experience fun again...

• the half bake
• early bird special
  
• see a man about a coat...
  
• a frontal enema

The Wedge Issue
Much like gay marriage, the issue of abortion has turned into a partisan tool for politicians to build/tear-down idealogical proponents/opponents. It has become one of those hot-button topics that gets more debate than action, effectively making it one of those tried and true political litmus tests. Abortion should not cost/benefit politicians, unless of course they're biologically involved.

Technically, it's murder...
Ok, to get down to the honest and morbid core of it all, it is ending a life... all in the name of 'inconvenience'. But is it really? Um, yes... yes it is.

-Awesome/Sucks:

Dude, rally at the quad at 6 o'clock...
Having attended a university that so proudly brandishes its history of civil rights demonstrations like a prison hobo and his lovingly handcrafted shiv, I love protesting as much as the next radical liberal. Few issues have inspired as many demonstrations, acts of vandalism and even terrorism as has abortion [no reference]. These, undoubtedly, have their place in the annals of history but do they have a place in your neighborhood? No, listening to people argue about their value systems, upbringing, and religious/secular interests in regards to abortion is about as annoying as watching The View, except everyone's high on speed and really angry. These things are like the special Olympics, they sound good on paper, but once it all gets going...

It's always nice to have options
I mean, just picture receiving that dreaded phone call, "Hey Mike... remember that time you came over to watch Fight Club? Yeah well..."

(fast forward 74 hours)

Dr. Liberal McBabykiller: "Well, I never endorse this decision but she seems healthy enough, you guys can also have an abortion as they are still technically legal under the [inaudible mumbling and coughing] act of nineteen ninety[cough] ."

Whorey McSluterson: "You know, dear, I'm not to keen on it, but I haven't really ruled out an abortion."

The overwhelming wave of awesome/sucks that washes over you at this point has got to leave a disappointingly yet exciting, bittersweet taste in your murderous mouth... you sick fuck....

awesome/sucks: saved by the bell

That's right. It's Saved by the Bell time. Why not blog endlessly regarding a subject where everyone will have at least some context. In many ways, SBTB was a landmark show, a thread indisputably woven into the fabric of our childhoods. While this may seem like a ridiculous overstatement for a show that foisted Zack Attack upon a nation of unsuspecting youths and allowed Screech to pathetically grasp to fleeting stardom well past his agreed-upon shelf life, screw it. It's my blog. If you don't like it, mea culpa.

awesome: Saved by the Bell (regular)















Ahh..... the memories. By "regular", I should point out that I am referring to the high school years in Malibu, California, I have a theory that if you haven't seen each episode of the show 7 or 8 times you either A) are a Communist; B) traveled extensively in Eastern Europe throughout the 1990s, or; C) watch far less TV than me, which as any of my friends will attest, is fairly likely. So many great episodes to choose from. The "super serious" one where Jessie gets all hopped up on caffeine pills and busts out the "I'm so excited, I'm so scared!" soliloquy. The time the whole gang camps overnight in a mall to win U2 tickets. I-Owe-A Zack ten bucks. There's no hope with dope. The oil spill that occurred in Malibu on the Bayside High grounds. In Malibu. An oil spill... in Malibu. [shaking head]

I could go on.... but despite the show's ability to bring up the hot issue of the day in a fashion as subtle as a sledgehammer squashing a fly, this is a show most of us can still recite verbatim. And it remains truly awesome.

sucks: Saved by the Bell (the new class)















Holy shit! Trainwreck alert! Look at these losers... NBC should have just saved themselves the money and ran this billboard on the side of a milk carton so you could also plot the actors' future career paths. It's a safe assumption that any girl in this particular ad has most likely dabbled in the witches' brew that is Skinemax After Dark and I'm pretty sure that dude on the right washed my car the last time I was down in the Valley. And the nouveau-Screech... wow. I mean, if you can't hack it as the next Screech, it's time to pack it in. Something tells me his resume probably features prodigious usage of the word "fluffer."

Not even Belding could salvage this disaster, which should aptly be renamed Saved by the Bell: Hindenberg. I can't believe this is from a DVD cover - who would buy this? (Editor's Note: I looked for it on Amazon, shamefully) To make it worse, they kept making additional "The New Classes," assuming that they just hadn't found the right mix of actors. This delay in cancellation is widely assumed to be responsible for the recession of the early Nineties, the ongoing violence in Somalia throughout the decade, and the Amy Fisher-Joey Buttafuoco scandal.

awesome/sucks: Saved by the Bell (The College Years), Saved by the Bell (Middle School)

















The College Years have always been something I vacillated on. Granted, you get heaping doses of Zack, Slater, Screech, and later on, Kelly. And there is the omnipresent ham-fisted acting of Bob Golic, who the viewer is forced to believe has had such a fall from grace from a budding NFL career that he is now effectively managing a dorm. Again, I can accept that. But the new characters are garbage. The blonde chick who is less interesting than Gretchen Mol in Rounders? Check. A redheaded gal who manages to channel her inner Kathy Griffin and Fran Drescher? Check. Zack Morris, trotting out freeflowing blond mane that immediately created Keanu Reeves comparisons? Again, check. This show had its moments, but I constantly found myself trying to figure out how all those friends could have somehow managed to get into the same school. Well - I guess if you're like Zack and you get a 1502 on your SATs, you call the shots.











The middle school years fall back into that same trainwreck category, with some exceptions. Mikey may have been the worst second banana actor in history, which is saying something given the paucity of believable programming on Saturday mornings at the time. I would say something about the show lacking hot chicks, but they were all supposed to be in junior high at the time and I don't feel like making another deposition. Zack and Screech were decent, and Milo was cool. Good to see Belding getting his feet wet as well. Miss Bliss was irritating, but British, so expected. And the whole thing was set in Indianapolis. Yikes. The only saving grace giving this shitshow a respite from the "sucks" category was the episode where Zack tries to join the Rigmas and the one where that Debbie Gibson wannabe Stevie sings at their school. In the latter, Stevie sings with a microphone that doubles as a nightstick. Worth mentioning.

Oh, and let us never speak of the infamous second senior year of high school. Torrie never happened, you hear me! Never!

awesome/sucks vid of the day:

This one's for you, JDB. This one, too. Good thing you told me you like dudes in tight pants and ridiculous close-up camera angles. It's the best of both worlds!

Awesome/Sucks video of the day

This gem from Firehouse says it all, and can be played in lieu of actual conversation with a significant other.

awesome/sucks: sparks

Riddle me this.

Can you remember your New Year's resolution? You should. After all, chances are you made it right around 39 days ago, which is less than the length of Lent (I could kill a man for a cookie right now), though we're also empathetic to the fact that you very likely made it whilst in the middle of a [Scene Missing] blackout (so much for that resolution not to black out anymore!) and washed it away with other memories of New Year's Eve, like running the numbers on the $130 all-you-can drink party you're attending and realizing that unless your last name is Bonham or Churchill, you probably got bilked out of some serious coin.

I too had forgotten my own New Year's ressy -- yep, I've been to Manhattan before -- until I woke up the morning after a Super Diamond show and couldn't escape an odd feeling:

Hm, this is strange. My heart appears to be beating at a relatively normal rate. I just ate a cookie (pre-Lent, curses!) and it doesn't feel like its chewed remains escaped through a gaping hole in my stomach. Oh, and my teeth aren't, well, orange.

Yep, in my own version of Manning-to-Tyree, I had managed not to take a single sip of the devil's elixir throughout the entire evening, thereby reducing fifteen-billiondy-fold the chances of (i) a face plant on the icy sidewalk, (ii) annoying urges to belt out Whitney Houston lyrics or (iii) internal bleeding.

Yeah, I wanna Sparks with somebody...

Given the propensities of the posters to this blog, I am shocked (shocked!) to see that nobody has penned a tome about the battery acid canned by Beelzebub Industries, Inc. Sparks, I hardly knew ye (would give me hot flashes).

awesome: a cold, full can of sparks

Looks like Frosty's already found his way into a cold can or fourteen. You know those people who think Red Bull is gross and scary and makes their heart beat way to fast and do crazy things and it's just a disgustink drink and wahhhhhhhhhhhh? These are often the people who can unexpectedly throw down two or three cans of the orange without batting an eyelash (or, with batting an eyelash about 76 times a minute). The irony of Sparks being less disgusting than, well, any other beverage or, frankly, thing on Earth, is not lost on Sr. Aguilar, but it's still important to point out that the phrase "pick your poison" is certainly applicable here in, like, a scary way.l

When most people are either (i) so hungover that they don't have the energy to make it out another night or (ii) completely exhausted from drinking Miami Vices all afternoon on a beached ship turned watering hole (see below), you know what they usually do? They go home. And sleep.



Time to catch some shut-eye back in Lincoln Park, brah.

But your average Sparks enthusiast (read: fiend)? Eff it, man, chuck me some battery acid and we'll Go. From. There. Brah!

Ah, sweet, cold can of Sparks. Why do you have to be so far away from me?

sucks: a warm, emty can of sparks





The only two scenarios where you have a warm, empty can of Sparks are (i) after finishing a can of Sparks or (ii) after waking up in the morning to discover you drank a bunch of Sparks the night before.

FIN

awesome/sucks: sparks plus

Ah, yes. For the Sparks enthusiast (read: fiend) who thinks that 6% alcohol and a wheelbarrow full of caffeine and guarana is for pussies, man, it's Sparks Plus, with 7% alcohol and a bigger wheelbarrow! It's like a regular smoker of Marlboro Reds storming into 7-11 demanding some cigs with more tar, thank you very much. Oddly enough, Sparks Plus seems to taste like it has less sugar than the traditional orange label, which makes it borderline disgusting, if not for the fact that once you have reached the point where a can of orange label isn't much different than a Diet Coke, you just need that extra kick, man. You might say that the gateway of alc/energy destruction goes a bit like this:

Coke Classic --> Pixy Stix --> Jolt Cola --> Red Bull --> Red Bull Vodka --> Sparks Orange --> Sparks Plus --> Never Sleeping Again

awesome/sucks: vid of the day

Maybe it's just me, but if you're going to name your band after an entire continent, you better be able to bring it. This video is effectively a ringing indictment on the entire 80s and may or may not be the first time a music video director thought "let's put a bunch of TVs next to one another!" Total production value could not have been over $50.

awesome/sucks: back in tha day

Some days you just feel nostalgic. Totally normal. Whether you saw that episode of "Saved by the Bell" where Zack's in middle school and tries to join the Rigmas before you went to work today, or a particularly gnarred-out Poison riff got stuck in your head on the bus, we're constantly surrounded by memories. Today, I felt I'd sift through the drawers and focus on some of the most ridiculous.

awesome: Book-It!











Dude. I loved this when I was a kid. Loved it. You remember it. The program's aims were to get kids to read, whereupon some exalted genius decided to reward particularly impressive levels of literacy with Pizza Hut personal pans. If I could meet the man (or woman) who came up with this particularly brilliant method of crossover marketing, by God, I'd shake his or her hand. Nothing beat the feeling of making my mom load up the Subaru just because I had a coupon. Nobody could take away that greasy, ill-prepared pepperoni goodness away from my grubby little fingers... I read The Mouse and the Motorcycle, motherfucker! It's just crazy that programs like this, originally designed to make children better themselves, probably had a much larger effect on the tidal wave of obesity that is currently lapping at the shores of America. Whoops! Anyways, I credit this program for my childhood love of reading, which culminated in me setting the Thousand Oaks Library record for books read during the summer reading program for my age group in the late 80's or early 90's (Editor's Note: was also not hooking up with girls at this time, either).

sucks: slap-bracelets












Let me first state unequivocally that I never owned one of these. They were for chicks. I just thought I would point out one of the toys I fondly remember for being a rampant killing machine. Even though I'm sure the number of documented wrist cuts with these items were infinitesimally small, much like with Jack-in-the-Box's E-Coli outbreak in the early 90's, I'll always have that association. These toys managed to not only suck, but were like a magnet for useful veins and arteries. I suppose, at the very least, they created such a caustic situation that someone felt compelled to make this drawing. In fact, you could probably say that the hand these bracelets had in cutting probably paved the way for the modern Emo movement. Thanks a lot, you bastards.

awesome/sucks: pogs












Hell yeah, I love pogs. Well kinda. Fact of the matter is I wasn't very good at them. The cool thing about pogs was you could collect them, there were a bunch of cool designs on them, and if your parents were rich, you had an unending pool of slammers from which to choose. I remember playing these out on the schoolyard and the competitive adrenaline rush that would come from vanquishing an opponent and hauling in your spoils. In many ways, you could probably see with a high degree of accuracy that those experiences would help pave the way for an unhealthy gambling problem which would lead to degenerate activities like betting on this weekend's NFL Pro Bowl. Don't judge me!

I will say that pogs also sucked from a couple angles. First of all, this was a game that taught kids at an early age that life's unfair and sometimes you just lose all your shit. Like training wheels for Lotto scratchers. Nothing was worse than getting your ass handed to you in a crazy-ass game of pogs and then having to sulk into your local baseball card shop to re-up. Pathetic. Also, when you think of it... pogs were fuckin' cheap! So cheap! Where did those bastards get off charging so much for those G.D. things! Seriously, the profit margins on those things had to have been like 23423%. If anything, I'm just mad my 8-year old brain wasn't able to put together a viable product and/or marketing scheme.

awesome vid of the day:

Thanks to Erio for passing this along. Note to all that, although not graphic, the content here is DEFINITELY not safe for work. Unless you work at a gay bathhouse. If so, carry on!

awesome vid of the day (2):

Happy Birthday, Rick.

Nick Cage's Opus

We move to the next gem of Nick Cage's post oscar career, the Bruckheimer classic:

Con Air - 1997
Awesome/Sucks Rating: 10/10
7 word summary: Cage stops Cyrus the Virus, saves day.
Best Cage Line: "Put the bunny back in the box."
Bonus line: "What do you think I'm gonna do? I'm gonna save the fuckin' day! " - Cameron Poe
Most ridiculous moment: Marty McSorley playing the pilot of the plane.
Key Awesome/Sucks Moment: Cage storms the cockpit, getting shot in the process, taking out all sort of cons.
Better Use of Key Location: Las Vegas Strip - National Lampoon's Vegas Vacation - The third incarnation of Russ and Audrey Griswold cruising the strip.
Best Plot Hole/Mistake: Cyrus the Virus could create a bomb in prison? Not bloody likely.
Nitpick: Poe gets 7 years for involuntary manslaughter based on the advice of the worst attorney ever, foregoing all self-defense claims etc. Seems fishy that the judge in Alabama would give a decorated Army ranger such a stiff sentence. However, they never establish why Poe does his time in a federal penitentiary. We know he was doing federal time because he was on a flight to populate the new Supermax prison in Alabama, and the flight was run by the US Marshals Service, a federal agency. (Please set aside there is only one Supermax prison in the federal system, the one in Florence, Colorado). The only way that it was federal time was if the crime occurred on federal property, and it is unlikely that the bar, where his wife works, is federal property. Plus, he served his entire sentence, even though he was a model prisoner.

awesome/sucks: Nickelback's "Rock Star"

Sucks: Nickelback
Sucks: The fact that I am unable to change the station when a Nickelback song comes on.
Awesome: Ladyfire's tribute to Nickelback's "Rock Star"
Awesome: Quesadillas on the house.
Awesome (honorable mention): ZZTop and The Great One appearing in the more official music video for the same song
Awesome/sucks: You just listened to Rock Star, twice.