Wednesday, October 19, 2005

You can take my Bling…when you pry it out of my cold, black hand.



When I first got wind of David Stern’s new dress code, I logged my prediction on a message board I frequent that within 24 hours, someone would play the race card.
I’m not precisely sure when Stephen Jackson opened his mouth, but the memo went out Monday and the press is reporting it first thing Wednesday morning, so I’m pretty damned close.

Stephen Jackson isn’t pissed about do-rags or sport coats or dress slacks or anything like that. He’s pissed that he can’t sport his bling. And in his head, that’s racist.

The NBA’s dress code, in and of itself, is not a racist policy. In any stretch of the imagination.
A company has a right to insist that its employees dress in a certain manner, provided it’s reasonable. And it’s perfectly reasonable for David Stern to expect his young, successful millionaire employees to dress like young, successful millionaires.

The dress code is not about race, it’s about what’s good for business. Right, wrong or otherwise, there’s a growing segment of NBA supporters that don’t like the hip-hop look. And that segment is usually the one whose corporations are buying the courtside seats and the luxury boxes. And that segment is probably, predominantly white.

So if you want to play the race card, start with the people who are scared, intimidated, disgusted, or whatever by the lifestyle/culture that the hip-hop style of dress represents. The fact that hip-hop scares Whitey IS grounds to play the race card, because it’s a symptom of how far we HAVEN’T come.
Shit, I remember when I was in high school and the USA Today ran a cover story about Public Enemy and I was scared of the way they looked in that picture. Flavor Flav had his silly clock thing going on, but the guys behind him were in full military garb with dark sunglasses and a stone-faced look that was screaming at my young, ignorant, white ass “We hate you, Cracker, and we’re going to get you.” Since then, I’ve grown up and realized how irrational and silly that may have been, but I guarantee I wasn’t the only one who thought that way. And although I’m not the only one who’s grown up to know better, sadly, there are too many who haven’t.

It’s almost like Americans have transferred their racist tendencies and feelings off of the color of someone’s skin and on to hip-hop culture itself because it provides and easy, semi-plausible though flawed excuse.
“I don’t hate black people, I just hate THAT kind of black people.” Which in my opinion, is the same damned thing.

I don’t follow hip-hop, so I’m not someone who can explain what the culture actually represents, but if I were to turn on the TV and go strictly by what I see in the popular media, it’s about misogyny, excessive displays of materialism, and a “don’t fuck with me” attitude.

But if I turned the clock back to 1987, I could write the exact same sentence and replace “hip-hop” with “rock music” or “heavy metal” since those were the predominant pop music of the time.

Yet no one was scared shitless that Axl Rose and Bret Michaels were going to rape their daughters and shoot their children.

And that double standard of fear is a perfect example of the underlying racism that has led to David Stern’s dress code. Pop music is about selling an image and lifestyle to kids. And that’s what so many NBA players are now—they’re just kids. In the NBA’s heyday, the younger kids were in the minority. The older guys dressed professionally and the younger guys followed suit. Now, the “older guys” are only in their late 20’s and they still dress like younger guys so that expectation of how one should dress as a professional NBA player (as Stern’s dress code tries to establish) is no longer something that’s created and enforced by influential veterans, so the Commish has stepped in and made a policy change.

So if Stephen Jackson or anyone else wants to play the Race Card, they need to dig a little deeper and get to the heart of the issues creating and sustaining racism. Not the fact that you can’t wear your $40,000 necklace on the team bus anymore.

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Predator vs. Total Recall


VS

Long before Arnold Schwarzenegger became the Indian, Mexican and household pet-hating Governor of California, he actually made some pretty fucking sweet movies. Not the ones where he’s playing with kids or being pregnant or something stupid like that. It’s debatable where Arnie hit his cinematic apogee, but I’m willing to narrow it down between “Predator” and “Total Recall.” Both movies manage to make you forget about “Junior” for 90 minutes and they pretty much kick ass.

Which is better? Let’s break it down, all scientific-like. With apologies/thanks to Nick Bakay.

Plot:
In “Predator,” Arnie and his merc gang fly to some jungle country to investigate some missing people and end up getting hunted by a dreadlocked starfishfacedfanged thinger from another world. There is much blowing up and killing, including the wanton destruction of an innocent jungle canopy where one of the characters empties 17 billion rounds into the brush. And doesn’t hit anything.

“Total Recall” is about a guy who wants an exotic vacation on the cheap so he has some spy adventure implanted in his brain and we never really know if what transpires is real or his delusion. There is much blowing up and killing, including a dude who gets his arms ripped off in an unfortunate elevator accident.

Edge: Slightly to “Total Recall” for the fact that in a flashback scene in which he’s suffocating on the surface of Mars, Arnold makes the Large Marge Face. And that’s exactly how it reads in the screenplay too.

Supporting Cast:
“Total Recall” had future Hollywood megastar Sharon Stone before she catapulted to stardom on the strength of her conviction to expose her vagina on celluloid. Negative points because she’s a nagging, harpy shrew who won’t let Arnie get his ass to Mahs without bitching about it. Whore.
“Total Recall” also has the guy who would later be immortalized as Capt. Carmine Lorenzo, the airport cop who tows John McClain’s mother-in-law’s car at the beginning of Die Hard 2. He has a great line here, spoken with the textbook NY Italian accent, “Don’t fuck wit’ yer brain, pal.”
Because you should always take psychiatric advice from the guy in the sleeveless flannel shirt operating the jackhammer across the quarry from you.

“Predator” had Apollo Creed and Jesse the fucking Body Ventura. While Carl Weathers was merely using “Predator” as a springboard to the following year’s megahit, “Action Jackson,” Jesse the Body parlayed this shit into the Minnesota gubernatorial election. Do you think on election day, Minnesotians were lined up at the polls remembering his snappy campaign ads or him wrestling around in his skivvies with Bruno Sammartino?
Hell no. Suburbanite St. Paul mom’s wanted to live the dream of pulling little Johnny off the sidewalk after he fell off his bike because he’s a fat little fuck who sits inside and plays X-Box all day that he doesn’t have time to bleed. And most of all, they all wanted to carry around a gun that needs to be mounted on a helicopter because it’s so fucking big. I’m no ballistics expert, but I imagine a normal man would have been blown to Argentina by the recoil of that thing. But not Jesse.

Edge: So fucking “Predator.”

One Liners:
It wouldn’t be a Schwarzenegger flick without some one-line cheese. He was a one-trick pony in that regard and he rode that thing into the ground. Hell, he’s still riding it in his political speeches. “Dee Indeeins ah ripping yoo off!!”

“Predator” had a few good ones. Like when Arnie throws a knife at a guy that goes completely through his chest and stakes him to a tree and tells him to “Steek around.” Was it obvious? Yes. Was it unsophisticated? Yes. But do I still laugh every single time? Yes. But what do I know---I still roll when Butterfingers starts laughing and his drink comes out his nose in “Hudson Hawk.” Everybody likes “Yoo ah one ugly mutha fucka.” too. But I think that one is more because it was still kind of edgy to say “mother fucker” in a movie back in ’87. Nowadays every fucking two-bit hack will fucking throw around the f-word for no fucking reason and think he’s fucking funny because of it. Assholes.

When Quaid offs Sharon Stone in “Total Recall” the script says either “Consider that a divorce” or “Consider it a divorce” or something like that. What comes out of Arnold’s mouth is a combination of every possible permutation of that sentence and it ends up being something along the lines of “Conseedaditdadadivorce.” Some actors come up with genius ad-libs that end up being memorable parts of movies (Harrison Ford shooting the swordsman in “Raiders” for example). Arnie can do it with his pure butchering of the English language. And dude, how long have you been in America now, like 30 years? Speak English!

Edge: “Total Recall”


Stuff That Was Cool Because You Were Too Young to Know Better:
There’s all kinda stuff from back then that you thought was cool because you weren’t old enough to know any better. Like Michael Jackson.

Back in ’87 you could throw on the MLB Game of the Week and see Lenny Dykstra with a big wad of tobacco in his cheek and black gunk all down the front of his uni. Christ, could you imagine playing CF against Lenny’s team? It’d be like a damned minefield out there. I wouldn’t be diving in that shit.
And you could still go down to the Circle K on the corner and buy a pouch of Big League Chew.
And Jesse the fucking Body Ventura permanently had a chaw of chewing tobacco as big as Salma Hayek’s left tit in his cheek the whole movie long.. Why? Because that stuff will make you a goddamned sexual Tyrannosaurus, just like Jesse.
Man, I don’t think I even knew what a sexual Tyrannosaurus was, but I thought it was about the baddest thing on the planet and I wanted to be one.
Now TV shows me clips of guys stricken by Chewing Tobacco Cancer and I realize that nobody wants to bang a sexual Tyrannosaurus that’s missing half his throat and his left cheek.

When I first saw “Total Recall,” getting my ass to Mahs was almost beyond my imagination. NASA fucked that all up ‘cause now they send robots and cameras there every other week. Getting your ass to Mahs is so passé now.

Edge: “Predator,” with the Jesse factor again.

Bad Guys:
The Bad Guys in “Total Recall” were like the interstellar Wal-Mart or something. Big, corrupt, rich corporation who kept people hostage by concealing the alien technology that would create a livable atmosphere on the surface of Mars. ‘Cause there’s a lot more money in keeping a bunch of deformed degenerates in a big Thunderdome than putting up a Super Cohagen-Mart on every street corner of Mars. Assholes.

The Bad Guy in “Predator” was a supreme badass. He could see heat. He had a shoulder mounted laser thing that could blow a man’s chest cavity out. And he had a nuclear bomb on his wristband. That’s a one man wrecking crew if I ever saw one.
I only take points off because I think I liked watching F. Murray Abraham hunt Ice T in “Surviving the Game” a little better than watching the Predator hunt down a bunch of Mark McGwire-looking mercenaries. I guess it’s because F. Murray Abraham didn’t have a nuclear bomb on his wristband. Makes the battle seem a little more fair.

Edge: “Predator” again. The Predator didn’t need to cram a Lo-Jack up someone’s nose to keep an eye on them. He could see their fucking souls.

Stereotypes:
Every good action movie doesn’t waste time fleshing out characters. They just pick a 2 dimensional stereotype that we’re used to seeing so they can save time for more explosions.
“Total Recall” had Richter, the one-track minded corporate henchman who’s always one step too late. There was Benny the Black guy who, of course, drives a cab, acts all subservient to Quaid, then betrays him because he’s got 17 kids to feed. If that’s not a racist indictment, I don’t know what is. And when is a 3-titted chick ever gonna get a break from Hollywood? They’re always portrayed as whores. This is no exception.

“Predator” has Billy the Super Indian who can smell invisible interstellar creatures in his sleep and navigate a dense jungle with no compass. Then he commits noble savage suicide by machete-ing his own chest heroically calling out the Predator so he can just buy the farm on his own terms. What a hero.

Edge: “Total Recall” gets the nod here because Billy the Super Indian should have been drunk the whole movie.

The Woman, Because There Had to Be a Woman in There:
If there was ever a movie that had absolutely no use for a female character, it was “Predator.” Yet there she was—some no-name, no future, marginally attractive female supporting character that added nothing to the movie. What they should have done is use her as bait and catch that Predator in a crossfire and spill all that glow-in-the-dark blood.
I think her name was Lupe or Juanita or Maria.

“Total Recall” was just about the let down of all let downs. Quaid goes under and gets to create his ultimate fantasy and this Melina broad is what he ends up with? Recall better offer some sort of money back guarantee because that’s the best looking dame they could come up with? I mean jeezus, “The Running Man” came out that same year, couldn’t Arnie have at least inked Maria Conchita Alonso for a 2nd picture?
Flat-chested Sharon Stone and a woman who’s supposed to be a whore for a living but looks like a community college statistics teacher. For shame, Ahnold, for shame.

Edge: Feminists—for worming their way into an alien jungle movie and for keeping the T&A confined to mutants and midgets in the Mars brothel. We know you are women. Please quit roaring during non-Miramax movies.

Unintentional Comedy:
In any Schwarzenegger movie, there will always be unintentional comedy. And there’s a 99% chance it will be due to Arnold trying to do some serious drama chops. The equation is pretty much: Arnold + effort to be dramatic = Really memorable moment for the wrong reason.

1 part from each movie make me laugh just thinking about them:

“Gooooo! Gedoodahchoppah!!!”

And

“Dey ah peepil dyeeng. Get deez peepil sum ayah!”

Edge: Push. There’s no way I can make that decision. Feel free to express your own opinion on it because I’m completely torn.


So unless someone can give me a compelling case for an Unintentional Comedy victory, this battle has ended in the double count out of movie battles. Don’t blame me, blame the feminists.