The Ballad of Tom and Rita

EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE COOL!

Look, I can’t deny the fact that everybody, no matter race, color, or creed, wants to be cool. After all, being cool is your speedpass to the front of the line in elementary school, your authorization to wear sunglasses whenever you want, and your ticket to have savvy opinions about the indie-rock scene or some influential piece of literature you’ve read and no one else has. It affects you fashion, your lingo, and quite possibly, your favorite song on the West Side Story soundtrack.

EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE HAPPY!

And why the hell not? In a straw poll recently taken among typical human beings, being Happy absolutely smoked being Sad in a rout score of 99-1. (That 1 counter-opinion? You can’t blame him. His indie-rock preferences on account of being cool forced him to vote that way.) Heck, as Americans, we have been tasked by Thomas Jefferson to pursue happiness, or lest we be relegated to the oppressive colonial rule of the Royal Crown. Do you want that on your performance review? “Demotion of system of government on account of ‘not wanting to be happy’?” Yeah, me neither. Be happy. Everybody’s doing it.

EVERYBODY WANTS TO PUT A SMILE ON THAT FACE!

I assume that such a declarative statement is probably just an addendum to the previous CAPS LOCK statement I made above. After all, smiling is an extension of happiness, simple. The problem I have with what I just typed is that I wrote “that” face. It’s like I have a specific face in mind that is in need of a smile. Who does this face belong to? Do they live near me? Could I pick it out of a line-up? It’s not Mel Gibson’s, is it?

REAL FRUIT! FRESH TASTE!

Wait a minute. I think I know what’s going on here. Today’s post isn’t a dissertation on optimism and the importance of happiness and glee. It has nothing to do with the perception of cool and obscure references to musicals. What’s going on here is the same thing that has been going on in my head for 6 days and counting. And damn it all if it’s going to trick me again.

THE ICE IS RITA’S!

That’s right, the radio jingle for Rita’s Water Ice has been with me, day and night, in full internal monologue volume, since last Wednesday. Why? I have no idea. There aren’t Rita’s commercials on the radio stations around here, and I believe the closest franchises are in Manassas, Haymarket, and Rhode Island Ave in NW. And yet, the catchy water ice promo with the calypso rhythms have haunted me for days.

BE COOL EAT A RITA’S! BE COOL EAT A RITA’S!

Getting a song stuck in one’s head is not an uncommon occurrence. Oftentimes, a song will be so catchy that it will force relevant information and data (where are my car keys) out of the brain so that it may set up its killer sound system and hit the repeat button. Now I have a default song that I use to clear an unwanted cranial DJ out – my way of resetting the system. It’s Tom’s Diner, by Suzanne Vega. Yes, I hate this song with a fiery passion as well, but at least it can trump whatever’s worn out its welcome and then go on its way.

BE COOL EAT A RITA’S! BE COOL EAT A RITA’S!

It appears that Rita kicked Tom in the groin and he ran home.

Alas, it continues.

Yep. Going to Hell For This One.

The Prodigal Roommate stumbled across a website that for any fan of film, is really pure gold. The site, Christian Analysis of American Culture, managed by an extremely sensitive sect of Christianity, aims to make things more complicated by bringing numbers and mathematics into something whose annual awards is based entirely on subjectivity: the movies. As we’ve stated before, if math needs to be part of the cinema, there better be pantsless ducks involved.

The goal of the website is indeed noble – to review movies for moral content (or lack thereof), and to ensure that our greatest art medium can exist under the watchful eye of God. Of course God likes movies. If God didn’t like movies, he would have pressed the “Smite” button on His iPhone and aimed it at Hollywood decades ago. (Considering that would have spared us from the Rob Schneider Complete Works, maybe that wouldn’t have been too bad.) Yeah, He probably gets annoyed when sub-par actors are tapped to play Him (Alanis Morrisette) over better choices (Morgan Freeman), but wouldn’t you? I’d go off the handle to find out someone like John Corbett was playing me.

But the good people at the CAAC may have gone a little too far. Simply put, any movie can be rated on a God scale from 0 to 100. A reviewer sits down an watches the movie, and makes a little x in his notebook anytime something that would make St.Peter frown at you happens. And then some. Yeah, we know that violence, profanity, and sexual situations warrant checkmarks – even the MPAA agrees here – but they’ve made sure that ANYTHING from such categories are covered. This includes:

Violence: Buzz Lightyear’s reckless use of firearms in “Toy Story”
Profanity: The name-calling directed at Charlie Brown in “A Charlie Brown Christmas” (Blockhead?)
Sexuality: The two infernal instances when Mr. Incredible gets smacked on the butt by his wife in “The Incredibles.”

(Note: Speaking of The Incredibles, an outraged reader wrote to make sure that the Pixar flick got its proper rating of below a 68 because of the baby whose special power of shape-shifting is not harmless, but rather a demonic portrayal of Satan. Umm, right.)

You see? No movie is safe from the influence of Satan!!! Not Doug’s 1st Movie (the peace sign is a Satanic symbol.) Not March of the Penguins (freezing in Antarctica? Blaspehmy!) Not even Basic – okay this Travolta film scored a 2 out of 100. It probably did a lot of things wrong – including, and I quote “had bars.” Even Baby Geniuses, most hated of all movies, gets a 59 for “a toddler throwing an iron at an adult” and “husband and wife together in bed in sleepclothes.”

Eh, nobody’s perfect.

Actually, it appears that someone IS in fact perfect. Her name? Why, it’s Mary Poppins!

Mary Poppins, the 1964 Disney classic is the only mainstream flick to receive 100 out of 100. The review was even conducted by CAAC President, Thomas Carder. According to the God Squad, there is nothing in this movie that would constitute WISDOM – or Wanton Violence, Impudence, Sex, Drugs/Alcohol, Offense to God, and Murder. (Yes, these are actual categories.) Now, I like to think that there’s something wrong here. How does Mary Poppins evade the scorn that earned Muppets from Space only a 95??

(In case you were wondering, -5 for Miss Piggy’s revealing mini skirt. Um, what scantily-clad, er, felt you have?)

Using the CAAC method of critical lunacy, lets knock Ms. Poppins down the ladder a bit, shall we? (Hello, WISDOM METHOD!)

W – W is for Wanton Violence, apparently. Why wanton? Because VISDOM sounds stupid. You know very early on in the film when a strong gust of wind blows all the job applicants for nanny down the street, clearing the path for the one with impeccable credentials? If the wind wasn’t violent enough, consider the fact that down the street was the Old Westington Fork and Harpoon Shoppe. Ouch. -1

I – Ah, Impudence/Hate. Why do the children need a nanny anyway? Oh, THAT’s right – because Mrs. Banks wants to save the world through the suffrage of women! Mr. Banks hates this, and demands we stop the suffraging of women. It’s cruel, you know. -1

S – the S is for Sex/Homosexuality. One WOULD think that we’d be safe from all accounts of non-married love in such a sweet story, but THINK AGAIN! As Wikipedia and IMDB have pointed out to me, “At one point in the song, Mary opens the window and performs a brief duet with a robin. It is two male robins building the nest outside the window, which is unlikely.” Gay robins? Not on the watch of CAAC! -3

D – the D is for Drugs/Alcohol. A Spoonful of Sugar? Yeah, maybe the first time, and even the second. But remember, sugar can be just as addictive as either drugs or alcohol. Sure, one moment you’re taking a little of the white stuff off the top in order to do your chores quicker, the next you’re freebasing Frosted Flakes behind the toy chest while the chimney sweep keeps an eye out for the fuzz. -8

O – O is for Offense to God. There is little debate that the most famous word from the film is “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious." Did you know that if you say it backwards, it sounds like “Minions of Lucifer, bow before Zod?” Yeah, that’s just what I heard. -6

M – Um, murder and suicide? Ok, well there’s, um, wasn’t there a depressed penguin or something? No? Ok, no points off.

You see, Mary Poppins is just like the rest of us, immoral as they come. She gets an 81, which makes her no better than Cheaper by the Dozen, Dudley Do-Right, Runaway Bride, and Star Trek: Insurrection?

17 Syllables of Hell

It’s not hard to call out a sham when I see one. Take the Kansas City Royals, for instance. That franchise is a sham. They didn’t spend 55 million dollars on mediocre pitcher Gil Meche because they actually want to climb out of the AL Central basement. They spent 55 million dollars on Gil Meche because the public will see them making the effort to improve talent by spending money. That’s a sham.

Defined, a sham is a fraud or a hoax. Britney Spears’ marriage? SHAM! The importance of the Golden Globes? SHAM! YouTube’s Lonelygirl15? SHAM! The decorative outward covering of a pillow? SHAM!

But you see, none of the above shams are news to you. I’m not exactly the first on their respective scenes to debunk any myths surrounding them. But that wasn’t the goal of this post. Rather the re-tread and re-hash, we have a much more covert sham that has gone undetected for years and years, and while many hold it up as beautiful display of art and talent, all it really can be is an imposter. Well, I’ve got a real problem with its perceived reverence, and I think it’s time to pull the curtain back and analyze this sham for what it really is. English or Japanese, singular or plural, it doesn’t matter to me.

That’s right. The biggest sham in literature?

HAIKU.

Yeah, haiku. It’s the form of poetry that your 6th grade teacher taught you that has never, ever had an actual impact on your life. Now we here at YAB respect poetry and we respect poets. We think sonnets are a beautiful way to convey images and feelings through words. We feel that flowery odes to urns, Grecian or otherwise, can be lovely. As parodists, we are even more impressed with poetic forms that are forced to rhyme and don’t use gap rhymes like “a bunch of trees.” Poetry is nothing that J. Evans Pritchard could ever define using a stupid mathematical calculation.

(Wow, there were a lot of obscure references in that ‘graph.)

But a haiku? No. A haiku does not belong in the same class as other poetic devices. It’s a set poetic format in which artistry must be forcefully stuffed into in order to produce its desired effect. (And by desired effect, we mean sub-par imagery.) For those lucky enough to be blanking on what exactly a haiku is, it’s a three-line poem, in which the syllables follow a 3-5-3 or 5-7-5 pattern. Each line must be an independent thought, and after reading one, you must feel like you deserve the last 8 seconds of your life back.

It’s really not hard
To stumble on a haiku
Accidentally.

Oh My God! I’m a poet, because that last sentence followed the format! In America, I could write “Poet” as my occupation on my tax returns! (except for the fact that poets, who lack income, don’t actually have taxes to file. Gah.) When this art form started in Japan, it was more about the choice of the words and the wit that came with it. Take this classic from the inventor of haiku, Matsuo Basho:

Hatsu shigure saru mo komino wo hoshige nari -- which translates to:

the first cold shower;
even the monkey seems to want
a little coat of straw.

You see? That’s, uh, brilliant. It follows Condon’s Cardinal Rule of Art. “If forced to use a sham artform (haiku, mime, reality programming), throw in a monkey for good measure.”

Parker Egypt Can't Lose

Back in college, I had a reputation of being a creative parker. For three of the four years I was in Williamsburg, my mode of transportation was the old Volvo tank that sat about twenty. With or without jukebox money.

When the car was in motion and I (read: not Mattias) was behind the wheel, everything was cool. The only expense being incurred was the cost of the fuel the Volvo burned, and back in the good ole’ days, I think we paid $1.30 a gallon. But when the car was not in motion, that’s when it could get expensive.

You see, it’s not that William and Mary was at a loss for open space where a stationary vehicle could call its home. It was just that most of that open space was either 1) freshly cut, well-manicured fields of grass that were used less for parking and more for say, soccer; and 2) nowhere near anything of real importance of interest. Yes, I could have parked and walked whenever I needed my car at William and Mary Hall (now Kaplan Arena at WM Hall.) But, as you may remember, my memories of the Hall aren’t exactly the sunniest.

Very often, I would press my luck and parking in spots reserved for “Faculty and Staff of the College.” My justification was simple: while I may not have the official Fac/Staff parking decal, I do hold to paid positions at the College and therefore could be considered “Staff.” While it may not have gotten me out of paying that $15 at any time, it at least made me memorable with the good folks at Parking Services. All in all though, my excuse got me nowhere.

Maybe I just needed a better excuse.

One of the fringe benefits of being an ambassador to the United Nations, for any country, is the idea of “diplomatic immunity.” While residing within the borders of the nation in which you serve your state from afar, the rule goes so that you are free from the law unless your home nation waives that right. So what does this mean? Of course.

Diplomats suck at parking.

According to New York City, UN diplomats have racked up a bill of approximately 18 million dollars since the HQ has resided in the Big Apple. Can you imagine the size that glove compartment would have to be to hide the sheer paperwork involved? 18 MILLION DOLLARS. Dude! You’re in New York City! There’s way better ways to spend that kind of cash! That’s over 5,500 front row season tickets at Yankee Stadium! 900,000 trips to the top of the Empire State Building. And thanks to McDonalds’ latest marketing scheme, 108 million Chicken McNuggets!

Oh, that’s right. There not spending the money elsewhere. They’re not spending it at all.

The article lists Egypt and Kuwait as the biggest offenders, but not much past that. However, thanks to some crack research, we found a list chronicling the parking criminals up to 2002. (see page 20) After these two, the next 17 of 18 are from Africa (including some diplomat named Chad who is Number 3 all by himself!) So it appears Africa doesn’t care so much about parking safety. Mr. Eko, why have you forsaken us?

In other news, the bottom of the list – those who are law-abiding as ever? 21 nations that have managed to never park illegally. The group ranges from Canada to England to Azerbaijan to Oman. Now are we really to believe that these diplomats are so ethical that they would not think of parking illegally. No way!

Our guess? Somehow, they convinced NYC to park in Fac/Staff.

Getting Wikilled

I like to think that I have some worldly knowledge. After all, I’ve been through 22 years of formal schooling, plus 2 or 3 years of extensive pre-schooling preceding that. (I was awesome in pre-school, by the way. As long as you don’t ask me to finger paint. That’s the art of Cretans right there.) I don’t try to blow people away with the things that I know, but I’m fairly confident that if you pick me for your Trivial Pursuit team, I’m not going to let you down.

(Assuming the Sports and Leisure questions are more the former and less the latter. Who the hell cares about Leisure anyway? Domino enthusiasts? Lawn dart aficionados?)

Since I rarely have the forum to prove my trivial abilities (triviabilities), I figured we’d use today’s post to prove that, for lack of a better term, “I know stuff.” And how are we going to go about doing this? Easy. With the magical wisdom that is Wikipedia.

You see, if I asked you people to toss out topics for me to identify, there’d be a bit of bias there. For the most part, those who frequent YAB are friends and acquaintances. And there’s a good chance you got to that post by having things in common with me. Interests, hobbies, whatever. Anyways, your brain probably pulls from the same cache of data that mine does, so there’s a good chance that whatever you ask, I know by default. Because of this, I must level the playing field and show you what I know. I’ll just hit the Random Article button on Wikipedia and see what comes up. I bet you I’ll know something about 7 out of 10. That’s a passing grade, and proof that I can be an asset to your Quizzo team.

And – BOOM! The article is “Harold Ramis.” Ha! 1 for 1. Aside from being a star and writer of one of my Top 5 All-Time Comedies (Ghost Busters), Ramis also wrote Animal House anddirected Groundhog Day. The man can write the funny. Ok, not a bad way to start. This is going to be easy. Next!

“Jul med Hep Stars” Umm…says here it’s a “1967 Christmas album from the Swedish pop group Hep Stars. Can’t say this one’s on my iPod. It’s nice to see they cover the classics like White Christmas and Jingle Bells, but I hear that the hidden gem on that album was “Johanssons Boogie-woogie vals.” Like, for shoord! Next!

“Nixa, Missouri.” If there were ever a Trivial Pursuit question involving Nixa, MO, it says here that it would be that Matt Damon’s real Bourne Identity is that his real name in David Webb and he was born here. Hell, even I don’t remember that. 1 for 3. Moving on…next!

“OfficeMax.” Heck yeah, I know OfficeMax. As my company’s preferred office supply vendor, I’ve got a catalog right here on my desk. On the cover is a guy pushing a hand cart overflowing with various paper and desk products. And yet, there’s a trail of paper clips left on the floor in his wake. I know it’s supposed to represent their mammoth selection and quantity, but I wonder. Why would you hire a guy who doesn’t even notice when he drops paper clips on the floor? 2 for 4, baby! Next!

“Zydeco.” Wow. It’s hot in here. The heat from this hot streak is too much! Yes, zydeco is a Creole-based music that calls New Orleans its home. If you need an audio clue, it was the music that Fox insisted on using EVERY time the Eagles game went to commercial Saturday. Yes, we get it, you’re in New Orleans. But couldn’t at least play the Green-Day-U2 joint once? I love that song. Let’s see, we’re 3 for 5. I just have to go 4 for 5 to make that mark. And next!

“Alethea Kontis”? Who?
“Caloosahatchee culture”? What?
“Fort White Public School Historic District”? Where?
“Battle of Seattle (1856)” When? Oh, right, 1856. Ok then. Why? (other than the fact it rhymes)

And finally, we have everybody’s favorite Faculty of Industrial Engineering & Management, The William Davidson Faculty of Industrial Engineering & Management at the Technion. It’s in Israel. Of course.

Ok, so maybe this was a bad idea.

Pick me anyway, I’ll ace the hockey questions.