Guest Blog: Whats The Deal With Music These Days?

A key trademark of dipshits is their need to proclaim how totally intelligent and independent minded they are.  Paradoxically, almost by definition, they have nothing interesting to say.

Because of this, they decide the best way to show everyone how free thinking they are is to proclaim how terrible Justin Bieber, "Twilight," or any other mediocre popular thing is, as if it is some deep, dark secret that only they could figure out.  It'd be like pointing out why a blind person couldn't be a good sniper to make it seem like you have a knowledge of guns or warfare.  If these people listened to song glorifying violence against women, three days and forty five listens later they'd post a status update on Facebook proclaiming how they just figured out "Smack That Bitch With a Shovel" is totally sexist and that everyone else should open their eyes!

Once they establish that some things in popular culture aren't a profound exploration of the human condition, they use this as an excuse to complain about how our generation is totally ignorant and how we should be ashamed that generic entertainment is popular.  They'll then cherry pick a couple classics from a single era, compare them to some of the more popular (but forgettable) stuff of today, and point to that as a reason as to why we are getting dumber as a species... except for them, of course!  If you made one of these people a professional MMA fighter, they'd just carry around a picture that features Bas Rutten, Jake Shields, and a caption that says "What happened?" to try and make up for the fact they'd start crying every time they got hit.

This leads me to today's guest post by famed internet playboy David Zafra, who has his own blog about movies and philosophy here.  Today he tackles the below poster, which perfectly epitomizes the aforementioned dipshittery I described:

I cannot believe how many people jump on the approval of this poster without realizing how illogical it is to be disappointed with music because of this kind of comparison. Comparing the two is like saying "Shakespeare said 'all the world is all a stage,' but Stephanie Meyer said 'I like the night. Without the dark, we'd never see the stars'". The people with this kind of insight are the ones that like to scorn society before going back to watching a re-run of the Jersey Shore. Of course, much more dedicated hipsters will probably post it on facebook and then talk about the evils of the Internet. There are so many things wrong with this poster that I feel like I just watched Sucker Punch. And like Sucker Punch, I have to take it one terrible scene at a time.

What we have is a picture of Frank Sinatra quoting the words to a song that was written for a musical in the 1930's and performed by Sinatra in 1961. The fact that Frank Sinatra didn't sing the song first is meaningless, but I think it's a funny note. But we're comparing artists of then and now, so to be fair we should pick a song that was super popular then and one that is super popular now. So Sinatra's version of "The Way you Look Tonight was probably as successful as "Baby" right? Actually, that song never made it to number one in 1961. The song that WAS number 1 the longest was a song called "Tossin and Turnin" by Bobby Lewis. There is not much to know about the guy, because his next song only made it to number 9 before he disappeared.

These are the lyrics:

Baby,
Baby,
You did something to me.
I couldn't sleep at all last night,
Just a-thinking of you.
Baby things weren't right.
Well I was tossing and turnin',
Turnin' and tossing,
Tossing and turnin' all night.

The lyrics don't get much deeper than that. Also on the list of Billboard hot 100 for that year is Ray Charles, who I love. But you can't argue that "Hit the Road Jack" is that much deeper in lyrics than "Baby".

However, if you really insist on proving that music is not as good as it used to be, you have to at least be fair in the comparisons. The above is a song that was sung by Frank Sinatra in his adult life, while Justin Beiber is just a fucking kid. Also, the guy who wrote "The Way You Look Tonight" was 45 years old, and was working to express a very specific point. Remember that the song was written for a musical, and musicals use songs to advance the plot by allowing the characters to say what they are feeling, without ACTUALLY saying it. Baby was written by Beiber with the help of a few 30 year olds for the purpose of entertainment.

Why is this teen pop sensation not carrying on Public Enemy's questioning of authority and government in his music?!

The problem with that stupid poster is that the person is picking very specific examples for a very biased point. Why not use something from a multiple Grammy award winner like The Black Keys?

Let me be your everlasting light
The sun when there is none
I'm a shepherd for you
And I'll guide you through
Let me be your everlasting light

That is a great sentiment from a band that is not only amazing, but also well recognized by the music community. Even better look at Adele, who is huge both critically and commercially. She's been on the Billboard Hot 100, won Grammy's... and she did it all without a mask.

There's a fire starting in my heart
Reaching a fever pitch, it's bringing me out the dark
Finally I can see you crystal clear
Go 'head and sell me out and I'll lay your ship [shit] bare
See how I leave with every piece of you
Don't underestimate the things that I will do

I won't bother with looking at the people who made it to the top 100 of the same year, because it's probably terrible. But you know what? The things that are popular now, will not necessarily withstand the test of time. Music has a filter. Just because you love these great artist of the 60's and 70's now, doesn't mean everybody loved them during their time. You also have to understand that every single generation looks down on their own, as if everything was somehow better at another point. Just look at the great literary writers of history. A lot of people would look at Twain and Blake and Shakespeare as low forms of art. They may have once been looked down on, but they are now considered classics.

Go backwards in time and you'll see that people have been saying the same stuff. If music really has died, then it's been going on for a long time.  Did you forget that during the 90's we had to put up with dozens of shitty pop artists?  Back in the 70's great artists were competing for popularity against disco music. This kind of thing has always existed.  Common wrote a song talking about his disappointment with the direction of hip-hop back in the 90's. He obviously didn't give up on it.

[Punchline's Note:  The song Zafra is talking about is called "I Used To Love H.E.R.," one of Common's most well known and respected songs]

Common using his discontent creatively and artistically, rather than as a sad attempt to sound better than everyone else.

So now to look nostalgically on this time that existed before us, is ridiculous. Just watch Midnight in Paris for a good example. Or read the review for it on my blog.

Equal Opportunity Offenders

Hello there, suave readers, you may notice its been almost a month since my last post.  I apologize.  When you receive financial aid for attending a university, you spend so much time reading long winded textbooks to get good grades that you stop writing in your spare time for no other reason than out of spite for written language itself.  Textbook authors and university professors generally understand the word “concise” about as well as Monsanto executives understand the word “compassion."

As a result, I’ve spent most of my time not doing work for classes being so unproductive that my fertility doctor recommended I avoid smoking and hot tubs.  Because those were the only things I was doing with my time (as well as hanging out with friends like David Zafra, who has his own blog here about film and philosophy, and Nick Mellot, who has his own blog here where he angrily rants about movies and politics), here I am once again.

Now, as some of you know, February is Black History Month.  Because I wanted to honor the significant history of Black folk in our country and prove I was “down,“ I figured it was time to find my own way of celebrating Black History Month.  You may be wondering, did I write about a significant Black figure or group from history?  Did I write something to raise awareness about issues relevant to the Black community today, like underrepresentation in media or overrepresentation in being pulled over for no reason?

there really are a lot of good topics I could address

Of course not, I did even better!  Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present: my sassy black sidekick!  With him, I will talk about what I normally would, but with a zany black perspective to celebrate diversity.  Sassy black sidekick, go ahead and introduce yourself!

“I have a name, its Michael.  I am a person, not a commodity.”

Hey-oh!

“This post seems to feed into the old idea that a black person can either only be passive and nonthreatening or abrasive and ‘sassy,’ which is a dehumanizing and false dichotomy.  As someone who is mixed race yourself, you should really know better.”

Haha, sassy black sidekick, you so crazy!  But lets get back on topic, yo.  Today’s post is about self-described “equal opportunity offenders.”  These people are easy to recognize, because they will take every chance they get to talk about how they don’t play by society’s politically correct rules, but only when they are surrounded by a group of people who they know will agree with them, or at least not call them out.  They’re always ready to tell you how hilarious and edgy they are for repeating the same jokes about stereotypes you’ve heard countless times before and call you out on being too “politically correct” if you don’t find their tired brand of humor hilarious.

their spokesperson

The thing about people who identify themselves as equal opportunity offenders is that they aren’t even funny.  They’ll say the different between a bench and [whatever minority they don’t like] is that the latter can’t support a family, then look at you as if they just achieved some sort of comedic innovation that handles wit with the same level of intricate delicacy that Anderson Silva’s extra alien senses allow him to hurt human beings with.  When they get the same look of disdain and disappointment that their parents always gave them growing up, instead of the howling laughter they expected, its because you’re “too sensitive,” as if when someone starts crying and making excuses when you don’t laugh at their jokes the other person is the one who is “too sensitive.”

Even beyond the casual racism/sexism/etc, these "jokes" are about as original and interesting as a romantic comedy where everything works out in the end because love conquers all.  Repeating the same stereotypes that everyone has already heard and expecting laughter is like writing down the ingredients to cake and expecting a patent, fortune, and cake groupies for inventing cake.  Its just another generic drop in the bucket of stupid.

Make no mistake, you can be controversial and witty.  Look at people like Dave Chappelle, Daniel Tosh, Chris Rock, Seanbaby, or Rick Santorum; these people are hilarious and edgy.  Key word "and", because these are two different things that only occasionally overlap.  When these people talk about stereotypes, they will really deconstruct them and approach them from an original angle instead of just rehashing them.  As a matter of fact, I- hold up…  I’m getting word that Rick Santorum isn’t a Stephen Colbert type comedian who says outrageous things purely for shock value, but rather a Republican presidential candidate who allegedly means everything he says.  This... may affect the shrine to Rick Santorum I have in my room which has some of his most “hilarious” quotes, but if definitely doesn’t affect my point.

take note, this is how you can be both

The biggest problem is that these dipshits think that by being offensive they are also automatically being witty.  Its like thinking by being a failure you’re automatically M Night Shyamalan or by being sexist you’re automatically Richard Dawkins.  Correlation doesn’t equal causation, though I guess considering the closet discrimination these equal opportunity offenders perpetuate, they still don’t even understand imaginary correlation (stereotypes) doesn’t equal causation.

If correlation always equaled causation, then global warming could be blamed on the decline of impressive mustaches of world leaders and all clowns would be serial killers.  As we can see- okay, now that I think about it, those two are probably true so they are bad examples, but please believe me anyway.  We need to understand that being funny and being offensive are two distinctly different things that can intersect, but in no way does one guarantee the other.  Heres a hilarious video where Jim Gaffigan talks about being lazy, a video more unfamiliar with controversy than Muhammad Ali is with failure.

His jokes about remote controls sure are daring!

For the sake of everything decent everywhere, we can’t let these dipshits get away with thinking the reason people don’t like them is how daring they are.  In a way, its really the opposite.  So next time they start crying about how you are too sensitive to appreciate their humor, tell them they’re the ones who are too sensitive, and that such insecurity only turns you on.

Any last words, Sassy Black Sidekick?

“Again, my name is Michael, I'm a human being.  Anyway, you bring up some good points, though calling these people dipshits so often isn’t really going to lead to anything constructive.  Also, I think you really need to further address how perpetuating stereotypes isn’t helping anyone overcome them the way so many of these equal opportunity offenders seem to think, and in a lot of ways can be harmful.  Whether jokingly or seriously, whenever we bring up these stereotypes we keep them in the cultural conscious.  In fact-“

Haha, woo, you’re so wacky!  Any catchphrase you wanna throw at us before we sign off?

"I was trying to finish my-"

I don't understand ebonics, but sure thing Sassy Black Sidekick!

“So you're pretending to give a black person a voice, then talking over him before he can finish.  You’re an idiot and I quit.”

Oh you, you’re such a kidder!  Until next week, adventurers!

Guest Blog: Whats The Deal With Marriage, Am I Right Everyone?

 One thing that defines a person is the company they keep.  Its part of the reason economic status often perpetuates itself, part of the reason the Wu Tang Clan is so badass, and the entire reason all clowns are serial killers.  Today I have my good friend David Zafra (who has a pretty dope blog of his own where he discusses film through the lens of philosophy) talk about marriage; specifically, what is wrong with it.  Considering I was the officiant for his wedding, I take partial blame for whatever goes wrong here.

DISCLAIMER:  The totally baller views contained within this article do not necessarily reflect my own.

I read a couple of marriage articles by John Cheese very recently that got me thinking about a couple of things. Thinking about stuff is my strong suit and that's why David picked me from the mass of writing warriors to uphold the glory of his blog. Even though most of this is references to cracked articles. Anyways, here's some of the things I've noticed recently about marriage, but mostly weddings. I'm also a guy, so I may be a little biased... but seriously...

Women ruin marriage

Damn TV sitcoms and movies for creating the image of how wedding planning is "supposed" to be! Everything  from the tiny details (color of napkins) to the actual celebration. You cause your self so much unnecessary heartache, you think you just started taking Tae Kwon Do classes. 

One day this will work on a criminal!

Everyone tells you that your wedding day is a day you're never going to forget, and girls use that motivation to drive the event like a Brock Lesnar fight. Everyone says its going to be awesome, so it must be worth spending all this money promoting him and putting him on the Undisputed cover... because he's the best. But everyone loses track of what marriage was supposed to be all about. Love, right? Well, that's what so many naive young men think, right till the point that their significant others are metaphorically putting a gun to their heads, so we agree to dropping thousands on a location.

I was lucky to have a pretty cheap wedding in comparison to so many people. However, at one point a girl is so in love with her guy that she is willing to marry him in a potato sack dress in a corn field. Men hear this and jump all over it.... but then the truth comes out. Entire shows are dedicated to this idea and guys see it and get scared. I can't blame women completely for that, because it's the way things are spread in our society. I already mentioned this idea about the "perfect day that nobody will ever forget", but perfection is the bane of plans. When you are reflecting on life you won't be thinking about weddings. Like 127 Hours, you'll be thinking about the simple things... and probably the greatest time you got laid.

Parents Ruin Marriage

Your significant other's parents used to be people that you would only have deal with at dinner on the holidays. But when the relationship gets serious you suddenly have to live up to the standards they created. Maybe you don't have enough money, or seem responsible enough, or you're ethnic and your parent-in-law are white.

"I should really hide the silverware"

None of that usually matters until things get serious. Then the wedding planning starts, and you hear everyone say "this is THEIR day", even though you will trying to please everyone all the time. And this can be worse, depending on how close your spouse is to their families. With close families you have even more evasiveness's, so you'll be lucky if your fiance sides with you on the issues.

In the case of my wedding our families didn't like each other, and that stated a whole new set of problems.

But even if your families get along great, the parents love you, and you love them, you still cant avoid the peers.

Peers Ruin Marriage

The same bullshit I'm complaining about you probably heard a million times from friends, or co-workers, or people who watch a lot of sitcoms.  Its hard to avoid it, especially as a guy, you get the constant  cliche's about never having sex again, life is over, shes gonna be your boss, etc. I used to get scared because they said I'd never win an argument again. To me, that was as scary as a Christian watching Y Tu Mama Tambien.

I'm so miserable!

For guys that actually WANT to be married, several things probably happened in the process to make living less miserable. For some guys (me), it's not like you were having some crazy awesome life beforehand that you were throwing away. For other guys (romantics), this is something that you really want. I know a couple of guys who can't wait to start having kids and settling down. There's a lot of good things about being married, but it goes beyond that.

Just look at this quote quote from Newsweek

  "75... The Percent of 18- to 34-year-old men who believe that marriage is a necessary institution they'll engage in, versus 63 percent of women".

And...

"71= Percentage of 18- to 34-year-old men who believe in soul mates, versus 68 percent of women".

It's a weird trend in our society when the most outspoken group is also the one that perpetuates the trend. It's like Republicans who get caught doing gay things in bathroom stalls. However, we're talking about a much deeper problem here because women, parents and peers are all basing these ideas on what marriage is "supposed to be". So the biggest ruiner of marriage is....

Our ideals of marriage

I get a lot of heat for not being the typical "married guy". I don't wear a ring, I don't believe in a lot of the rules of the ritual, and I don't speak about my marriage with certainty.  That is, if someone says something along the lines of "how do you feel about knowing that you will be stuck with the same woman forever", I tell them that shit could happen to prevent that.  I don't think anything bad will happen at the moment, but this is America after all. I'll get into that some more later, but let me finish this concept of uncertainty.  To an existentialist, the lack of certainty doesn't mean anything.

Marriage is really like an extensive lease on an apartment. Sure you can get out of it at any time, but it's going to be much more expensive, and your landlord sort of knows that, so you both try to play nice to avoid a messy breakup. In this metaphor the lease is the marriage certificate, but all contracts can be broken. You are really signing an agreement to deal with this persons bullshit, but they're like family now so you have to deal with it regardless (South Park talked about this a little bit in an episode where Stan's parents were getting divorced).  

This may not be the romantic idea that you are signing up for, but the standard idea of love is doing a poor job when you stand it next to arranged marriage. These people live much happier than the free will married people of America. Anybody who is madly in love right now will say that they will stick around through thick and thin. Many of those people won't make it though. There's an article on BBC that talks about how middle class Indians that have started to give up on arranged marriages and increased the divorce rates 100%. I'm not saying that we need to switch to arranged marriage, only that the ideals that we created aren't the best, and a lot of that comes from the ideas given to us by TV and movies.

Boy do I hate sitcom wives like Elliot Reed and Monica Bing for teaching everyone how marriages are "supposed to be". I know guys can suck,  but women aren't prefect either. Far from it, they are pretty horrible. So why sitcoms choose to portray this image of a "crazy wife that guys have to accept despite the craziness" is far from my understanding. It basically means you don't have to change at all; Even if you're crazy, immoral and probably have a severe case of OCD.

Don't let the looks fool you, she's a total bitch.

But this idea of crazy woman that you are supposed to love anyways isn't really the most healthy way of going about a relationship. Nor is the idea of your wife being in charge, instead of being a partner. Sexless marriage is not usually a sign of a good relationship either. Yet these are the idea that we perpetuate in our society. It's almost as if these shows and movies were unrealistic.  

A Short Intro To The EZLN/Zapatistas

Everyone knows that education is most important, especially when its for the children.  In the past I wrote an article explaining Nietzsche in an effort to edutain the masses.  Today I figured I’d go write an article about a much more revolutionary and dangerous topic.  No, not Toyotathon or the secret to destroying Newt Gingrich (though heres a hint: reading a holy text like the Bible or Quran at him never works, as they only burst into flames when he gets near).  Today I will be talking about the Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional (EZLN), also known as the Zapatistas.

The Zapatistas base their name on Emiliano Zapata, a significant figure in the Mexican Revolution.  The Mexican Revolution started in 1910, with a Constitution being signed in 1917 and the worst of the fighting ending in 1920 (though there was plenty of death and murder to go around during the 1920s as well).  Emiliano Zapata was a revolutionary general who advocated peasant and indigenous rights, specifically land reform.  At the time, large land estates (haciendas) were operating in much the same way Jon Jones does now in the UFC: ruthlessly taking shit over and destroying those who stood in the way.

 Are you seeing a pattern here?  With great mustaches come great historical legacy.

During the war Zapata rose to prominence and turned out to be a damn good general.  He made alliances with opposition figures like Francisco Madero and Venustiano Carranza, until these same people came into power and decided they would sell out.  Zapata wasn’t the type to sit around crying about how these leaders used to be cool until they were mainstream, though.  He instead continued fighting, since the power structure’s idea of diplomacy was as full of violence and spite as a carnival worker’s imagination.  The power structure just couldn’t finish him, though, so they decided on a plan so vile that even Monsanto would-  haha, never mind actually, they’d be too busy drinking orphan blood to feign the moral high ground.

In 1919, General Pablo Gonzalez had his Lieutenant Jesus Guajardo feign defecting to Zapata’s forces and, in order to make it appear sincere, they staged an attack that resulted in 57 people of their own people dead.  He then invited Zapata to a meeting with him to talk about joining forces.  On April 10, 1919, Zapata showed up and was gunned down by Guajardo’s men in what historians classify as “one of the biggest dick moves of all time.”  It was the kind of villainy you would see in a movie and roll your eyes at.

After his death, however, Zapata became a symbol for indigenous, peasant, and even women's rights (he actually had women on the front lines in his forces, including as officers, rather than keeping them in exclusively support and domestic rolls).  He is well known for the phrase “its better to die on your feet than to live on your knees,” a saying so badass that you gain a +1 to strength each time you read it.  He has inspired many people over the years, with many movements for social justice deciding to credit him as a huge influence.  Perhaps the most notable among these is the EZLN.

the EZLN flag

The day was January 1^st, 1994.  Birds were chirping, the streets humming, and everything was perfect in the sleepy little area of Chiapas…  or was it?  Chiapas was in almost every metric the worst off state in Mexico.  Living conditions were abysmal.  About 90% of the population had no running water, 44% were illiterate (compared to a national average of 10%), 75% didn’t finish grade school, 73% were deficient in height and weight, 60% malnourished, and Mim’s “This Is Why I’m Hot” played on repeat on a daily basis.  Their main source of livelihood, the ejidos (collective farmlands which comprised about half of the land in Chiapas), were threatened by NAFTA.  Specifically, they were threatened by the modification of Article 27, which was changed so that ejidos could now be much more easily dismantled by the state and peasants much more easily told to go fuck themselves.

So on the first day of 1994, around 3,000 indigenous fighters stormed into the Municipal Center in Chiapas.  It took everyone by surprise and initially seemed to have the lack of foresight you usually only see in Youtube videos.  Yet, over the next eleven days, the EZLN fought with Mexican soldiers and were able to hold their own, as well as blow up two Death Stars in the process [citation needed].  This came as a huge surprise to everyone, including the president at the time, Carlos Salinas, whose rage could only be satiated by choking multiple unnamed henchmen nearby.

 How could the rebel alliance from Chiapas destroy two Death Stars?!

After fighting stopped on January 12, tensions continued over the next few years, with the Mexican government breaching the ceasefire agreement a few times in 1995.  Then, in 1996, the EZLN and Mexico signed the San Andreas Accords, which would grant more rights to indigenous communities such as self government, custom law, and control over their homeland and resources.  The government didn’t entirely hold out their end of the bargain here, though, which is about as “surprising” a disappointment as a posthumous music album.  After the signing Congress was supposed to pass it, but during the rest of Salina’s and, his successor, Ernesto Zedillo’s presidencies’, nothing happened.  Eventually Vicente Fox, who became president in 2000, withdrew troops from Chiapas and urged ratification of The San Andreas Accords.  When it finally got through, however, it was as watered down as your friend’s self-proclaimed “proudly politically incorrect” views are whenever he or she is around actual brown people.

The EZLN, like Zapata, place an emphasis on indigenous, peasant, poor, and female rights.  Their system is similar with left wing anarchist ideologies like libertarian socialism, but with strong indigenous customs and ideas that keep it from being completely categorized into conventional political categories.  They believe true democracy comes from the bottom up rather than top down and that participatory democracy is much more effective than representative democracy.  They also advocate ideas like mutual aid, antiauthoritarianism, nonviolence (they haven’t fought since the 1994 ceasefire) and opposing globalization, something they believe leads to economic imperialism.

Something very interesting about the EZLN is how they have used technology to further their cause.  They have utilized the internet to tremendous effect, using it to get their ideas out and gain support from various people, organizations, and movements from all over the world, rather than post adorable videos of cats, hilarious videos of cats, or videos of people boning while dressed like cats.  Subcomandante Marcos, the unofficial spokesperson for the movement, has been called a “postmodern Che Guevara.”  His writings are published on the internet for all to see and he has become something of an international celebrity when it comes for revolutionary movements, something he himself isn't completely happy with because he believes the collective is more important than any individual.

 Subcomandante Marcos, keeping it G'ed up from the feet up

Though the EZLN have been largely confined to Chiapas, they have still been active around Mexico in recent years.  For example, in 2006 they started the “Other Campaign” where they traveled around Mexico and said that citizens would gain a lot more from demanding changes to the Constitution rather than voting in the elections.  They have also organized forums for indigenous people throughout the Western Hemisphere, in order to unite and collaborate to further each of their respective causes.

So that’s a quick summary of the EZLN, a group of badass revolutionaries who don’t play by the rules.  To this day they still stand, a principled and nonviolent collective (as opposed to Sendero Luminoso in Peru, the FARC in Colombia, the government in Colombia, the United States when it comes to foreign policy, most other countries when it comes to foreign policy, and The Black Eyed Peas when it comes to Fergie).  They’ve persevered for almost two decades despite avoiding dirty politics or armed violence, which is a lot like persevering through America’s Got Talent despite avoiding dirty politics or armed violence.  Specifically, they’ve been around for eighteen years- which means party time!

Stop Viewing Yourself As Static

Hey there everyone, Happy 2012!  Almost a full week into the new year, this is the time where many of us are starting to realize we may have been overambitious in the new year resolutions some of us have set for ourselves (in retrospect, “sex demigod” and “Punchmaster” were a little lofty).  During this time I’ve seen people describe themselves in fixed terms; dumb or smart, strong or weak, clever or Hollywood producer.  This is stupid and a great reason to make excuses for yourself, whether you describe yourself in good or bad terms, instead of actually working toward your goals.

Trust me when I say that I’ve tried my hand at a lot of things considering my age.  I consistently practice martial arts, public speaking, debate, activism, and writing while maintaining schoolwork, my job, and something resembling a social life.  I am qualified to do completely random things (for instance, I am a marriage officiant) and also have experience in things ranging from standup comedy to male modeling.  This isn't to brag, in fact my point is there is nothing special or unique about me.  In pretty much all of these things, I have almost always started out with the lack of talent you normally see from Republican Senators and their ability to hide secret gay love affairs.

Now before I get too deep into this, I’m not saying that people don’t have certain limitations.  A blind person couldn’t be a sniper, someone with a moral compass couldn’t work for the CIA, and someone with talent couldn’t become an M Night Shyamalan.  But really, at what point does limiting yourself become a self-fulfilling prophecy?  You have so much potential and ability that setting limitations for yourself will just leave you an empty husk of human flesh and a monument to wasted potential, much like a TSA agent.  No one wants that.

More like "Touching Sensitive Areas," am I right?

It takes a lot of time to get good at something, and it takes even longer to initially stop sucking at it.  When I first started martial arts I would cover up after being hit only a couple times, when I started debate my arguments would crumble as quickly as my fighting defense in martial arts, and lets just say we all remember our first time having sex.  However over the years I’ve put in practice to change things around because consistent effort is the only way to get better at something.  Its so obvious, yet so often do we look past this.

Sure, sometimes we’re naturally good at things, but that can almost always be traced back to previous related experience.  For instance, when I started a speech event called impromptu, I was very good at it.  In fact, I earned third place in the novice division at my first tournament despite having only practiced one impromptu speech my entire life beforehand, and that practice speech was done so terribly and incorrectly that calling it an impromptu speech would be like calling 9/11 an airline safety drill.  In impromptu you are given seven minutes to both compose and deliver a speech based around a quotation, using various examples drawn from different subjects to illustrate your point.  How could I be good at this when I had such minimal practice in beforehand?

Its because the event was ideal for me.  I was an ace at this event not because I’m brilliant or because I sacrificed a goat to Cthulhu the night before the tournament (I didn’t start doing that until much later), but because of my previous experiences.  I have extensive experience bullshitting on the go, over-analyzing things, a lot of information I know is exactly the kind of obscure trivia-type facts that just happen to be perfect for an impromptu round, my experience as an activist already gave me a solid speaking voice, and my background in martial arts gave me the ability to physically threaten every other competitor before the final round started.  At that point, I had pretty much clinched the victory!  The Thai clinch, to be specific.

 disclaimer: Anderson Silva is a being from another dimension, immune to rules we humans hold ourselves to

The problem with this sort of previous experience is that it is often confused with natural ability.  For instance, studies (as well as common sense) show a strong correlation between performance in school and coming from backgrounds conducive to a good learning environment, such as being read to often and engaging in a bunch of brain stimulating activities.  However, instead of trying to get everyone on the same page in school, we put kids who do well in school into “gifted” programs where they will have much more educational advantages.  Their initial advantage, stemming from their background, will put them into a much more academic environment while those who grew up in less advantageous conditions will be stuck in normal classes.  This will lead to the former group being much more likely to be put into honors classes, taking AP and IB tests, getting into better colleges with better science orgies (way better science orgies), and eventually becoming intellectuals simply because of a small initial advantage in experience that made others think they were always destined to be intellectuals.

To further illustrate this point, lets take a look at UFC welterweight champion and #2 pound for pound fighter (according to most MMA fans), Georges St Pierre.  Want to know why he first started martial arts?  I’ll give you a hint: it’s a plot line to a lot of movies involving martial arts.  No, not to avenge his fallen instructor or win a tournament to donate the prize money to a local orphanage; its because he was bullied as a kid.  Instead of resigning to the idea he was weaker than US infrastructure, he began training in martial arts and is now one of best fighters in the entire world.  That’s the kind of back story that’s so cool it comes with its own pair of sunglasses and leather jacket.

In a hilarious twist of fate for bullies and douchebags everywhere, GSP also has more swag than them!

One of the hardest things about working toward a goal is that things aren’t like a video game.  You don’t level up after a certain amount of work; you simply get better gradually.  The increments in improvement from one day to the next are usually more insignificant than the self esteem of reality TV stars.  Not only that, but as you progress, those around you progress as well.  Its hard to realize how much better you’ve gotten when others have been growing around you too.  Trying to really conceptualize the fact you are improving can be as challenging and discouraging as trying to find something funny in a Carlos Mencia stand up.  A good method is to challenge yourself periodically in competition, or at the very least some sort of practice event against people whom you don’t normally work with.

As any other person, I’ve been both a champion and victim of consistent effort.  I’ve been able to work to be able to compete with (and sometimes even beat) people who would have previously left a me-sized puddle under their shoes.  There is no feeling like being able to rival someone on a level that used to seem unattainable to you.  Conversely, I have lost to people whom I used to be one roughly the same level with because of their hard work.

For instance, blogging sensation and internet bad boy David Zafra (who has a pretty baller blog about philosophy and film) and I occasionally grapple on the ground.  When we first started out, neither of us trained consistently on the ground and thus we were more or less equal.  He was able to use his better technique (he had tried a couple free Brazilian Jiu-jitsu lessons and crappled with his wife and his brother), while I relied on the sacred art of being bigger and stronger than him.  Each match could have been anyone’s game.  However, while I have always focused more on training striking, he has trained in grappling.  Now when we grapple, tapping me out on the ground is about as difficult a challenge for him as tying a particularly disagreeable shoelace.

 Unfortunately for me, in this analogy I am not Noam Chomsky.

When we lose to people, its rarely because they’re innately better than us.  Usually its because they have more consistent experience (though of course other factors like luck can come in as well, but that’s for another day).  If Zafra were to stop training in BJJ right now and I were to start, I would eventually be able to beat him, and then I’d eventually be able to outclass him.  Meanwhile, if I were to stop my training (which is currently Muay Thai, Jeet Kune Do, and cardio kickboxing) and he were to start, he would eventually be able to beat me in sparring, and then eventually outclass me.  Beyond this example, we’ve all been in a situation where we came back to something we used to do and just aren’t as good, unless of course we’ve had more indirect practice (like I described with the indirect practice that made me good at impromptu).

So in the end, I just want to impart the idea that you don’t do something because you’re good at it, but rather you are good at something because you do it.  Consistent effort pays off and what seem like natural talent can be misleading, like I described with “gifted” programs in schools and my experience doing impromptu.  So when you have a goal, stick to it and believe in yourself.  If you start now you can become better at anything you want.  My goal is to someday be able to write encouraging articles without coming off as corny.

Martial Arts 2: Electric Boogaloo: The Street-quel

Previously, I posted a blog entry about martial arts and the scientific method.  In it I talked about how important aliveness is to a productive learning environment, that way you can actually pull off what you learn.  After I posted it, martial arts schools around the world began incorporating more aliveness into their curriculums, while those who didn’t were forced to shut down in shame.  Thanks to that entry, I am now stacking paper to the ceiling and riding on 24 inch chrome.

Okay, that story is as full of myth and magic as the stories you heard in your Karate class growing up.  In reality, a lot of people who responded wanted to know about self-defense specifically, which makes a lot of sense.  What good is an activity that improves your health, self-confidence, concentration ability, body awareness, speed, strength, and coordination if you can’t use it to hurt someone?  Some people went even further and pointed out that alive arts can’t prepare you for the streetz because of all the deadliness.

Honestly, these people have a point, but not in the way they think they do.  Its like when you agree with someone that you’re both disappointed with Obama’s presidency, but as you begin to express your disappointment that he hasn’t closed Guantanamo Bay, they start going off on a tangent filled with so much closet racism that coat hangers become the new international symbol for hatred.  The fact of the matter, though, is that alive martial arts can’t completely prepare you for the streetz.

I’ve never gotten into a fight in the streetz, but I’ve gotten very close many times and have seen quite a few happen right in front of me.  You want to know what stopped me each time from getting into one?  If you think emotional maturity and feeling like I have nothing to prove is the answer, then you’ve never met a male between the ages of fourteen and dead.  The reason is because every fight I’ve ever seen outside of a school yard (and plenty of them on one, as well) has involved either weapons, far superior numbers, or far superior weapon numbers.  Knives, bats, brass knuckles, gun blades- I’ve seen them all.

I’ve..  sniff…  lost many a friend to the gun blade.

To think knowing how to properly pull off a jab-cross or uchi mata will help you get through ten opponents or someone with a knife is as misguided as thinking a snap kick will do anything other than let nearby predators know that you will be their easiest kill of the day.  You simply can’t prepare for such an unpredictable, dangerous event in any sort of controlled environment that requires respect for your opponent’s safety and genitalia.  However, and this is important, an alive martial art is immensely better than a shitty interpretive dance.

If you wanted to use eye jabs on people, which would you rather take: boxing, which teaches you how to properly throw and avoid punches, or a shitty LARP fest where you throw eye jabs in slow motion at someone who isn’t even trying to block, stopping right before you hit them?  If you were a boxer and tried to pull off a finger job, all you’d have to do differently is point out your fingers when throwing punches.

If you did a “deadlier” martial art, though, the list of things you’d have to change on the spot would be much longer.  You’d have to learn how to react when your opponent is actively trying to block instead of compliantly letting you attack them, deal with them actually attacking back instead of just absorbing what you are throwing, raise your qi to a level deadlier than your opponents, roll for a +5 to agility, and fight in a way that doesn’t reveal you’ve been training in something better suited for opening a plastic water bottle case than poking out a person’s eyes.  I’ll take boxing, thanks.

Some “clever” people are going to want to point out that you train the way you fight.  I’ll respond with this: you’re about as clever and free thinking as someone who points out that Justin Bieber or Twilight are terrible, an observation so safe and bland trying to disguise itself as edgy that it probably writes jokes for Jeff Dunham.  Also, while alive martial arts don’t train with deadly techniques, martial sharts (my new name for shitty martial arts that lack aliveness) train slow, without a resisting opponent, and people usually stop their attacks before the “kill” (read: mildly uncomfortable) position.  In actuality, this argument could be reversed and used against these people much more effectively.  In debate we call that a "turn" and in freestyle ciphers we call that an "oh shit, son!"

 

Here is a video where Bas Rutten explains in two minutes why LARPers' deadly patty cake game wouldn't work in an actual fight, as well as the fact that you should never fuck with Bas Rutten (perhaps the most important lesson of all).

I know a lot of people aren’t going to like this, and explain their combat ideas as if abstract theorizing will ever help you outside of an 8 year old ass kick fantasy.  To quote Mike Tyson, “everyone has a plan until they get hit.” If you heard that quote and want to give me a lecture on how you could use a special striking technique you've mastered that would let you push someone’s nose cartilage into their brain, I already know I can beat you in a fight.  If you attacked me at a bar I’d say the exact same thing your former significant other used to say: “the only reason I haven’t called the police is because of how unthreatening you are when you put your hands on me.”

This man has bitten another human being’s ear off, and he is still more pragmatic than most RBSD practitioners.

Then again, maybe these martial sharts actually do train with Death Kumites when people aren’t looking.  In boxing, it is well known that constantly being hit on the head takes a toll on the brain, especially when you compete at high levels.  Considering how stupid, corny, and pseudo-philosophical martial sharters are when they speak or type, theres a very real chance that they test their deadly moves out on each other under the light a full moon.  Many don’t survive, and those that do, well…  the night, it…  it changes them.

Even if that awesome theory isn’t true, though, I think I may have another.  In fact, I think I may have blown the lid off the entire Ninjitsu disciple.  In most parts of the world, self-defense laws only let you react with a certain amount of force or else you cross the line from victim to assailant (unless you’re Israel, that is). With such an ineffective style, anything that isn’t an emotionally riveting ballet recital or Firaga spell will probably qualify as “excessive force.”  After suing you, your assailant can then sneak back into the shadows with all your riches- it is the way of the shinobi.

Punchline's Top 5 2011 Movie Countdown... of Death!

Recently, blogging sensation and internet bad boy David Zafra created a list of his five favorite movies of the year.  It’s a great list with great movies.  My list is almost the same, so it would be pretty pointless to make my own entry.  What kind of lazy, uncreative person would do such a thing?  Looks like we’re about to find out together, internet.

Movies are a divisive and subjective topic.  Some people prefer drama, other people prefer action, and still others prefer “parody” movies that brilliantly point out that things in pop culture do, indeed, exist (take that, Descartes!).  Creating a list is a difficult and intricate process, where you have to create some sort of criteria for quality that is vague enough to encompass different genres and tastes while still trying to concretely ascertain exactly what “quality” is in any given movie.

I decided that level of preparation is for sucker MCs, though, and instead drank enough alcohol to kill so many of my brain cells you would think they were part of a pro-democracy movement in Latin America during the Cold War.  That would make my hands that were holding the bottles of booze US supported dictators, which makes a lot of sense considering the horrible things they got away with last night.  One of those horrible things was this list, where I use a rating system comprised of MMA fighters.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go take Anastacio Somoza and Augusto Pinochet and think about what we’ve done.

Kids, heres a fun activity you can try at home!  Each time I make a point that Zafra already made better in his blog, tell each of your parents a secret about one another that they were never supposed to know!  It’ll be an edu-taining and uproariously good time!  You’ll never confuse the words “adultery” and adult” ever again!

5.  X-Men First Class

I have to be honest, leading into this film I wasn’t too excited.  I had never gotten into X-men to the same extent as other heroes when I was younger, and the advertising didn’t pull me in too much either.  The scars were also still fresh from X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which terribly perverted my ability to ever fully trust again.  The only joy I ever felt involving the movie was when it was banned by the United Nations for grossly violating human rights.  I was relieved, knowing that if there was one body that the international community always obeys, it is definitely the UN.

With all this in mind, I was blown away by how good the movie is.  What particularly struck me was the characterization of the main cast, both as individuals and their interactions with other main characters.  Young Magneto and Professor X in particular had the type of chemistry that most people will spend their entire lives trying to find in a romantic relationship.

The commentary on the human condition (fear of the unknown, tribalism, stratification, how we have historically treated blue skinned demigods, etc) and the dichotomy between Magneto’s Malcolm X approach and Professor X’s Martin Luther King Jr approach were also very well done, which add a refreshing layer of depth to what most might expect to be just another Hollywood action blockbuster.  Clearly this movie knows that its good looks won’t last forever, and decided it was time to go back to school to make something of itself.  That’d show its parents were wrong!

Unfortunately, a lot of the areas you could compliment this movie about are also areas that you could criticize.  While a lot of the main characters got awesome characterization (the bromantic couple, Mystique, Beast, Shaw, January Jones’s chest), the rest of the cast were lacking in development.  As for the civil rights undertones, when they got it right they got it right, but when they didn’t, they didn’t (if I had a dollar for every time Mystique said “mutant and proud,” I wouldn’t be behind you right now demanding that you give me all the money in your wallet).

Had the movie characterized a bit more of its cast and treated subtlety in its themes differently than your date’s genitals during high school prom, it could have been higher on the list.  Regardless, it is a really good movie.  I’d give this movie a Chael Sonnen, because if it had a better idea of when to shut the fuck up, the lack of groan-inducing moments would cause it to pass the line into greatness.

4.  Midnight in Paris

Quick, when someone complains about “people these days,” what do you do?!

(a) explain to them that all throughout history, people have never been perfect and those who romanticize the past are remembering only the good parts

(b) agree with them, talking about how things used to be better when people understood what respect and decency meant, back when bread was a nickel and minorities knew their place

(c) tell them that their misery stems from being a failure of a person and blaming their inadequacies on their time period is one of the saddest excuses for not being able to get laid you’ve ever heard

(d) reveal to them their dissatisfaction are the symptoms of the poison you slipped in their food, and that they only have fifty eight more hours left to find the antidote

(e) declare that your robot processors aren’t build to understand human emotions, and that if they don’t stop complaining you will send them to the tin mines with the rest of the humans

If you answered a or c, then you would probably enjoy what this movie has to offer.  If you answered b or d, there is something wrong with you.  If you answered e, then I can only warn the readers out there that the weakness of our new robot overlords is the switch located on their arm!  Quickly, before its too late!

The premise of the movie is that Owen Wilson’s character is a screenwriter in love with the past, specifically the 1920s.  He travels with his fiancée to Paris, and at one point finds himself out wandering the streets at midnight.  He encounters a car from the 1920s and hilariously decides to jump in without questioning what kind of people would be cruising the streets at midnight in such a car.

It turns out for the better, though, and hes transported back to the time he so admires.  He meets and kicks it with badasses of the period such as Picasso and the Biggie and Tupac of American literature themselves, Hemmingway and Fitzgerald, respectively.  I won’t spoil any more, but suffice to say realizations are made and lessons are learned.  One of the best parts is that the movie never even tries to scientifically explain how Wilson is able to go back in time, which would distract from the point of the movie.  We don’t want to know the force is made up of midi-chlorians any more than we want to know how many lobotomies our screenwriters have had.

The only thing I would say the movie could have done better was to improve or drop the subplot with Wilson’s romantic interest.  There is nothing unique or interesting about it, and stands out a lot when compared to how great the main plot and its themes are.  This movie gets a Shinya Aoki, because if its other aspects were as good as its main aspect, it would be nearly unstoppable.

3.  Warrior

 

This is a movie about mixed martial arts, perhaps the first of its kind that isn’t terrible.  The story focuses on two brothers who each have their own reason for competing in the prestigious Sparta MMA tournament.  The two brothers have an estranged relationship with each other as well as their father, who was an abusive alcohol when they were children.  Can the two brothers overcome their estranged relationship with their father and each other?  Can both find what they were looking for out of the tournament?  Can this movie really be that good if these are the kinds of questions we are asking?

Luckily, the answer to that last question is a resounding “fuck yeah!”  The movie is good at manipulating your emotions against you, to the point where I thought it had a black belt in Jiu Jitsu- of the heart.  The movie gives you a reason to root for both characters, which I think is great.  In most sports movies the protagonist is the only person with something meaningful at stake, while the competition is portrayed as obstacles.  The truth of the matter, though, is that everyone has their own unique background and motivation for doing something; you aren’t the only one with something to lose.  This movie does a great job of showing that.

Another thing they did a great job with was the relationship with the father.  During the course of the movie you see that he honestly wanted to try to make things right, yet at the same time he had done so many horrible things in the past the kids had no more second chances left to give him.  The scenes involving him were actually among the hardest scenes I’ve ever had to watch in any movie, and I’ve seen movies ranging from Oldboy to The Last Airbender.

Overall, this movie does nothing innovative, but it does everything right.  It is a great movie that will do for MMA what movies like Rocky and The Fighter have done for MMA.  And for that, I give this movie a Royce Gracie for bringing MMA into the spotlight in a new medium and prompting millions of “clever” people to point out how “totally gay” grappling looks.

2.  Drive

Drive is basically an action movie, but done with a strong art house type of influence.  On paper it sounds just like any other movie; a stoic getaway driver is busy badassing around town until he falls for a special lady and things get messy.  It seems like the kind of thing Michael Bay would think about when he masturbates.

Like we’ve seen with prohibition, not everything turns out the way it does on paper.  The movie uses barely any dialogue, instead focusing on subtlety and expressions, makes use of unique cinematography and music, and really focuses on the themes that drive the plot.  The movie also uses a lot of symbolism to emphasize these themes, which basically boil down to how difficult it can be to escape a life of corruption.

One of the most impressive things about this movie is how well each actor plays their role.  The only other times I’ve seen entire casts do what they are supposed to do so efficiently with such sparse dialogue is in porn.  Everyone does exactly what they need to, and in impressive fashion.  It really added an extra dimension of quality to an already great film.

Overall, this movie is not only one of the best of this year, but also one of the best movies of the past few years.  The only different between this movie and the number one movie is personal preference.  I give this movie an Anderson Silva, because it turns something normally associated with brainless violence into an art, and does so in a way that makes most competition look comically inadequate.

 1.  50/50

Yes, my favorite movie of the year is part comedy.  I don’t know if its because movie critics are incapable of laughter in their human forms, but for some tragic reason comedies are given less acknowledgement during movie nominations than small farmers and basic human compassion in Monsanto’s corporate policies.  This movie is a fantastic “dramedy,” nailing both the drama and comedy parts perfectly.

Joseph Gordon Levitt gets a rare form of cancer in his spine, relying on his girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard) and best friend (Seth Rogan) to help him through this difficult time.  This movie is loosely based on what happened to screen writer Will Reiser when he got cancer.  In this movie Seth Rogan plays Seth Rogan, both in the sense that he is his normal hilarious self and, when Will Reiser got cancer in real life, it was Seth Rogan who was his best friend who helped.  The plot does a great job of showing what people who have cancer have to deal with.

One of the cool things about the movie is that the conflict doesn’t come out of nowhere.  Levitt’s relationship with his girlfriend isn’t perfect even before the cancer hits and Seth Rogan isn’t the perfect friend.  As the movie things get increasingly harder for everyone involved, including Levitt’s family, and all of them take it in their own different ways.  It’s a flawless portrayal of how cancer affects everyone, not just the person who gets it.

The only weakness about this movie isn’t really a weakness you can criticize.  It does end in a happy, almost cliché way, but considering this is based on the life of the guy who actually wrote and had a significant role in putting together the film, the fact that he lives isn’t exactly a spoiler.  This movie is definitely more about the journey than the destination, though you will feel more relieved than you think you will despite the fact you will go into the movie knowing how it ends.

Throughout the movie, it achieves a perfect balance that so many movies have attempted in vein.  You will laugh when the comedy hits and be moved with the drama hits.  50/50 is based off of the premise that Levitt only has a 50/50 chance of living, but I think it could also apply to the perfect comedy/drama balance.  This movie gets a Jon Jones, because it balances everything effortlessly and is great at manipulating human weaknesses.  Our only hope at beating this is the Chosen One.