Pop Culture Queries

I've noticed many of the Sesame Street characters have more clothes on at the beach than when they are not at the beach. They're naked 99% of the time, except they put a swimsuit on to go the beach. WHY?

Look at this trash, everyone puts on clothes....even Big Bird puts on a tie. (Wait...what?) Everyone but Cookie. He probably ate his swimsuit on the way to the beach. 

Who made this decision? Like,"this looks great, just get some clothes on these naked puppets!" Why go to the trouble? There's no need to differentiate from their regular appearance because, all we have to do is look in the background and we know, we're at the beach. WHY??

The 3 rules of taking care of mogwais from the movie, Gremlins were pretty stupid. Let's review:

1. Never expose them to bright light.

Fair enough, lots of animals avoid light.

2. Never get them wet.

Stupid, but sure, you don't want to transform them into that crazy, evil monster gremlin form. So, we can deduct from this rule that their natural state is the evil, crazy gremlin form, and not the cute mogwai, as animals cannot avoid getting wet. How did humans capture a baby gremlin? What are the advantages from an evolutionary vantage point? What did they evolve from? How did they not wipe out the human race in ancient China and spread outwards like the evil spawn that they are.....

3. Never, ever feed them after midnight.

This one takes the cake and has always confused me. Isn't every minute in the day, except for 12:00:00-12:00:59 - AFTER MIDNIGHT??? I mean, if you want to get technical, even one second after the clock strikes midnight, is after midnight. Do they have to feed in under one second or under one minute? If it mogwai's internal body clock resets to "not after midnight" then when is it NOT after midnight? Sunrise? Noon? When?!!?  Also, is the mogwai internal body set to GMT? How does it even know?  Why couldn't the writers just say, "never feed them at night"? That would make for clear boundaries and ya know, make sense. Why do they have to torture us this way?

What a strange movie to market to kids. That movie scared the poop out of me. Other inappropriate movies I watched as child under the age of 10: Jaws, Psycho (really!), Red Dawn and I think Sixteen Candles. Holy Smokes that's nuts. I'm like a Puritan compared to my parents in regard to movies I would let my 8-year old watch.

 

I was driving on Sunday and saw one of those family stickers, showing a husband, wife and male child. If you've noticed, they've gotten cute the last few years, they have Star Wars characters, Zombies, you name it. This particular car had a He-Man, She-Ra and a child He-Man (the head had obviously been cut and transplanted onto the child's body). It didn't hit me right away but it sunk in later that afternoon (confirmed with my daughter, then Wikipedia)....He-Man and She-Ra were brother and sister!! Does the geek couple know this? Are they hoping the general public is largely unaware of the incestuous undertones of their "cute" family stickers? Wait....maybe they actually are brother and sister raising a child on their own? WHAT A TWIST.  Really though, what are they teaching the child and how should I contact CPS?

Which leads me to another query? Why does She-Ra dress like a stripper? That skirt can NOT get any shorter. Her alter-ego, Adora, literally WEARS NO PANTS. Why do we objectify women like this? 

 

Spring is in the Air Fragments

Spring Break was nice. It felt like a long break. That's rare.

Last week I went to the grocery store around 10 PM. As I headed back to my car with the cart, as with most times, I got a running start and began riding the cart back to my car. The day I stop doing that, I will know I will be officially, an old man.

We went out of town to visit my aunt and went to a local restaurant and I saw some of the best bathroom graffiti I have ever seen. Scrawled below a "KKK" (which was already marked out) was "Took My Baby Away". That made me smile. If you don't know what that's referencing, look it up.

Also, this whole documentary about the Ramones is up on Youtube. Great movie, check it out if you have the inclination.

I am tired of FB again. I am tired of the fear of chemicals in food. I mean, we should be careful, yada yada, yada but the fear mongering is out of control with some of my friends.

The Best and Worst Sesame Street Characters

The Best

1) Ernie 2) Big Bird 3) Oscar  4) Slimey the Worm (totally underutilized now) 5) TIE: Bert & Grover

The Worst

1) Elmo 2) Abbey Cadabe 3) Murray 4) The Teddy Bear One  - all of them are annoying. It's sad that most of  the new characters they create are terrible and all have grating voices that make me want to smash things. They are one-dimensional and boring.  Jim Henson, you are missed!!

Great Pic - what's crazy is the guy died at 53. When I was a kid, I knew he died unexpectedly and that it was sad but I was like, "he's an old man". But Crap, that's just around the bend for me.  Also, is that a Jim Henson muppet to the left of Henson himself? Does Henson do Henson's voice? If so, does he just talk normal or did he create a "special Muppet" voice for the Muppet of himself?

Books Read Thus Far in 2014

Come As You Are (Nirvana book) by Azerrad  (re-read) - a necessity for Nirvana fans and so well done. I hadn't read it all the way through since college. Cobain seems more child-like and immature to me now, but that's because he was basically a kid and now I'm an old man. It got me on a Nirvana listening kick again and it always makes me sad thinking what Kurt could have done with this life and (most importantly) how sad  that his daughter only knows him through his music, photos, articles and his family's memories of him.

Ready Player One -  Ernest Cline
Wow. Great novel. I hadn't read one of those for fun that wasn't fantasy based in so long. Highly recommend for Gen-X'ers and people who love video games. You will finish this in less than a week if you have a pulse. 

Narina Books - The Boy and His Horse and now on Prince Caspian (re-reads) - good stories but CS Lewis is a racist and a xenophobe. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt but damn, I won't read the Boy and his Horse to my kids.


Currently reading: Pascal's Pensees (about 3/4 finished) and Flannery O Connor's complete short stories (just a few stories read).

Selections from various comic books, sections from The Case for God (Armstrong) (got it free but very disappointed in it thus far) and Barclay's commentary on Mark (always solid).

I had jury duty the other day and it was quite wonderful. Sat there and graded for an hour or two, listened to music, sketched some ideas for a project, hung out, got a two hour lunch and walked downtown most of the time on a beautiful day. Simply wonderful. Got back, sat down for another hour and a half and went home. I wish I had one day like this every week.

That's all for now, hang loose, be cool and most of all, never let 'em see ya sweat.

Fragmentory Point

Haven't posted in awhile. First week before school and of school was Krazy busy. Then I was teaching on Sunday mornings as well. Then I went to the Weezer concert last Tuesday....and now I am working on a massive review of the Weezer concert in Austin that no one will care about (hey, bro, I am writing this so I can remember it!!!)

T-minus about a month and I will no longer be chair of my department! Hurray!

About two weeks ago, the unthinkable occurred - I got sick of breakfast tacos. Somehow, I had managed to get a scam some free tacos a few days, then I sought them out and then...and then...one morning at work I thought of tacos and it made me kinda ill. It was a strange feeling but it has thankfully, already passed.

Something I don't want to forget about E - when she gives you something she no longer needs she tells you, "Share you go" - it's so cute it hurts a little bit.

I don't know who reads this blog. How do you get here and why do some of you come back?

Here is one of my favorite Sesame Street clips. I adore this, and so does C.