The Million Word Year

One man. One blog. One year. One million words.

Archive for July 22nd, 2010

Cool : Nerds Versus Evil

Jul 22

Posted by MegaWordMan in News, World | No Comments

Nerds win. Fatality. Flawless victory.

I know I already used that today, but I don’t care.

Seems the Westboro Baptist Church decided to picket the San Diego ComicCon, and sent five whole people holding evil message bearing signs to do it.

But the nerds were ready for it, and over 100 of them showed up with signs reading things like “Superman Died For Your Signs” and “God Loves Gay Robin.”

I can’t think of a clearer, more wonderful nonviolent victory of good over evil. Nobody got hurt, nobody got into a fight, it was a simple show of support. The nerds involved simply did exactly what the Phelps fundies are doing, and are therefore protected by exactly the same laws. Your right to free expression does not preclude someone else from standing next to you to express the opposite opinion.

Your right to express your opinion does not include making anybody listen to you.

Way to go, cool nerds! This is really the best way to counteract the evil of Phelps’ organization. Wherever they go, they should be met with a completely peaceful, non-confrontational counter protest. It makes the point, and makes it quite eloquently, that these people are a tiny minority of hateful fucks and in no way represent the mainstream of anything. It strips them of their idea that they are the lone voice speaking up for millions of others who dare not speak.

Sure, it probably confirms to them their status as martyrs for the truth. I truthfully don’t give a fuck. What’s important is that their evil is completely neutralized. Instead of their presence being a depressing and hateful blot on an otherwise positive event, the counterprotest actually completely reverses it and turns the whole thing in to one big positive.

It actually makes people who support gay rights happier than they were before, and thus achieves the exact opposite of its intention. And all without violence of any sort.

As far as I am concerned, that’s a downright Care Bears level of super happy good vibe awesomeness.

And you just know the Care Bears were pro gay rights. Look at all those rainbows!

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Update : Batman Pug sings Batman Theme

Jul 22

Posted by MegaWordMan in Links, Video | 1 Comment

Someone had to do this. I knew it the first time I saw the original.

But fair warning, it’s not all that pleasant to listen to, so feel free to skip to the end once you get the idea. But watch the very end, because the final “BAT MAN!” is kind of amusing.

Once more, I long for the era of Stupid Pet Tricks. Oh well, Jimmy Kimmel steals stuff from the Internet all the time, It’ll probably show up on there.

And you just know that tool Tosh.0 will be all over this shit.

You’re not funny Tosh! Just show the clips and STFU!

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Politics : Basil Marceaux for Governor

Jul 22

Posted by MegaWordMan in Links, Video | 2 Comments

What you are about to see will probably make you cringe a bit, or laugh a bit, or both.

Oh, and sorry for the “taped by pointing my camcorder at the TV” quality.

It’s kinda like seeing Bill Dautreve from King Of The Hill trying to deliver a political speech, isn’t it?

Except he would have rambled a little more, and mentioned his ex wife a bunch of times. And you’d probably hear Hank whispering direction to him from off screen.

It’s a sure sign of the times when a fellow like Mister Marceaux gets to run for governor and embarass Republicans everywhere because heck, he’s just a good old boy with the right ideas and we’re certainly not a bucnh of elitists who are going to keep him from running for Governor just like his Mama always wanted just because of a little old thing like him being an incoherent, mumbling, unelectable inbred moron! Not in the days of Sarah Palin and the No Brains Express!

When a party and a movement is strong and healthy, the smart, competent people are there in enough numbers that people like Basil Marceaux are carefully intercepted and gently but firmly redirected to “contribute to the party in other ways”, like say financially, or answering phones, or things like that. They are kept away from cameras and the press, and the party is allowed to keep the illusion of competence.

But of course, all the smart and competent people have fled to the shadows of right wing America, there to wait for the morons to finish wrecking the joint so they can swoop in, pick up the pieces, and put together the next generation’s right wing for them. It will have some of the same themes as the right wing we know and loathe, but for the most part, they’ll be worried about entirely new things, or the same things from a radically new angle.

In the meantime, we get to watch the fun as the morons, the loonies, and the just plain evils run the party into the ground while insisting they are leading it into the stars.

As much as it feels like the opposite is true, people won’t vote for crazy or stupid. Those both disqualify you for leadership in the majority’s eyes. You can’t convince people that you are the one to lead them to the promised land if they wonder how you find your way to the bathroom and back.

Stupid people only get into power when smart, competent people are around to make them look good, giver them smart sounding things to say, and in general prop them up. Even then, if you get a real goober like George Junior, he’s still gonna come across as stupid. Then, it’s partisan politics that hold you up. You get the nomination because Daddy has all the connections, and after that, well it’s vote for you or let them damn filthy Democrats get into power!

And even then, you have to cheat.

So we get to watch as they tear the GOP down.

I know… let’s go give them matches.

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LOL : something in helvetica

Jul 22

Posted by MegaWordMan in Captions, Links | 2 Comments

centred caption below

Being the post-modern comedy bitch that I am, I love this kind of reductionist humour. Take something overdone, trite, and cliche, reduce it to its formula, present said formula in the form of the trite thing, and voila, you have a tasty bit of concentrated, savoury comedic bouillabaisse. Serve and sip.

Of course, for us jaded comedy whores who’ve seen it all, done it all, and have the result from the clinic to prove it, sometimes a little sip is just not enough. We need a whole meal of rich, satisfying, life-affirming reductionist satire that completely nails its subject with such thoroughness, accuracy, and panache that you can’t help but be amazed and delighted by it.

Exactly like that. My god, that’s brilliant, as I have said before. Nails all the cliches of the news story formula right between the eyes. Headshot. Flawless victory. Bang.

There’s always a certain aggression to satire. It’s the most aggressive form of comedy, based entirely on the idea to reveal the truth in an illuminating and hilarious way. Its laughter is the laughter of recognition of truth, where something you already know, but hadn’t been able to verbalize before, is suddenly expressed crisply and accurately, and a flashbulb goes off in your head and you nod and say “Yes! That’s it exactly. ”

That’s probably why satire tends to be a somewhat intellectual class of humour. You have to have all the ingredients there in your head, waiting to be illuminated, or it just doesn’t work. That’s why I’ve gotten into the habit of paying attention to the real news so I can completely appreciate the humour on the fake news of Daily Show/Colbert.

Comedy that requires research. Now THAT is intellectual. No wonder the people at Fox News can’t defend themselves against the Daily Show. It’s humour based on their hated enemy, the truth.

But the aggression is always there. It’s the aggression of suddenly lifting the rock under which evil hides and shining a bright spotlight on all the nasty little grubs, worms, and larvae who are desperately trying to squirm and wriggle out of the harsh pure light of truth before all their evil little secrets are known to all. It’s the aggression of not just pointing out that the Emperor has no clothes, but that he lied about how big his dick is and about his total lack of tan lines.

In fact, sometimes, it’s the aggression of snatching his clothes off in the first place.

And satire, unlike farce or parody, always has an air of righteousness to it. It inherently takes a moral stand against lies, hypocrisy, bullshit, and other forms of hiding the truth. It says, in essence, “here is what is REALLY true about this thing, in contrast to the bullshit version that is going around”. And it relies on the audience to recognize this truth in order to be amused by it.

That’s why deadly accuracy is so important. A lot of complex ingredients have to combine exactly right in order to create that satirical flashbulb recognition moment. If the ingredients aren’t just right, the explosion completely fails to happen, or worse, comes off as unjustified abuse. Then the audience not only does not laugh, but turns against you as an overly aggressive jerk.

The perfect satirical moment is a sniper’s shot that goes clean through the target and neutralizes it. Its only defense against charges of violence is truth, and hence the more accurate that bullet is, the greater the defense. The perfect satirical bullet is a precisely true statement that hits the target square on and damages nothing but the lie concealing it.

This need for accuracy is another reason why satire is the province of the intellectual, in this case, for the making of it. A lot of complex thinking goes into crafting that satirical sniper shot. A lot of factors have to be weighed and considered, and of course, underlying it all is the deep understanding of the target that takes a certain level of intellect just to achieve.

If it achieves its objective, satire not only illuminates a truth, but it provides pleasure to the audience by doing so in a way that relieves the inherent discomfort of a partially absorbed truth. It’s a release of tension, a dissipation of a cognitive dissonance caused by truths which upset us, and thus cause a mental cramp as we are stuck between what is true and what we want to accept.

By dissipating that tension, the satire makes those truths go down easier. Partly it’s the “spoonful of sugar” effect, but primarily, I think it’s a matter of relieving that cramp. That’s why really good satire not only makes you laugh in the moment, but makes you feel better afterward as well. The truth has not changed, but by un-knotting that cramp, the tension is reduced.

And that’s what you do for us, Daily Show/Colbert! Come back, we need you! It’s not fair to leave us to cope with reality unaided! COME BAAAAAAACK!

Oh, that’s right, they’ll be back Monday.

I can wait, I can wait… just a few more days and I will get back my preciousnessessess, yes…. then everything will be…. just fine… just fine…

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