I, Marcus Bachmann, PhD, husband of presidential candidate and Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, am a homosexual. After a lifetime in the shadows, whether sneaking away from my government-supported practice of literally fucking the gay out of gay men to visit buff male prostitutes, or dashing about like a mincing reindeer to the nearest rest stop lavatory, I am coming clean before my God, my wife, and my country, largely to ensure that my dear wife’s campaign proceed with the purifying disinfectant of sunshine. And a rainbow or two. I owe it her, and myself, after so many years of joyless, procreative intercourse, whose acts were little more than obvious bouts of overcompensation, that I can no longer stifle the imagery of the male form as I perform dutifully on that pillow-topped mattress of lies. Even as I frequented dark alleys, sleazy motels, backseats, and the occasional airport restroom, I tried desperately to picture my beloved Michele in full professorial mode, naked to the waist, poised and stern as she set forth on her nightly ritual of combining Scripture with cunnilingus. And as much as I suppressed my rage, disgust, and self-loathing as I massacred the deceptively simple task of bringing dear Michele to orgasm, my subsequent attacks of copious vomiting, unending showers, and mouthwash dependency proved, time and again, that my flirtation with the straight and narrow was nearing its end. The queer, long suppressed, had to spread its cheeks and fly.

Yes, friends and supporters alike, I have nursed at the government teat for more than simple hypocrisy. I have profited from the very entity I claim to loathe, but more than that, I have seduced, tricked, and raped countless young men, all in the name of counseling and “rescue.” Every troubled youth who entered my facility had little choice but to enter my rectum in turn, and I theirs, and during no session was fluid not exchanged. I took advantage of young and old alike, embarrassingly conveying my alleged heterosexuality, even while my hands choked their helpless necks to the point of asphyxiation. In turn, these babes in the wood were punched, kicked, fellated, and shoved; humiliated beyond description, simply to convince their putty-like minds that getting the gay out took even more fucking than usual. As I dried their tears and bruised their soft flesh with Biblical beatings, I held all authority in my lily-white, delicate, work-avoiding hands. And no matter how often they left my office with cocks better resembling chewing gum, they always came back for more because, as I always reminded them, the road to manhood is forever and always through Our Savior, with a painful, but necessary, detour at butt sex.

So is this my swan song? My farewell to the troops? Hardly. Now, out and proud, I can better serve the cause of justice and freedom that my wife represents. More than ever, I am devoted to her body and soul, even if the body part remains strictly metaphorical. So no, I will not apologize for my continued and repeated seduction of pre-teen boys, the married and confused, and most prized of all, aging bears with a fondness for scrotal tickling, but that bursting forth of activity will in no way interfere with my aid and comfort on the campaign trail. Wherever there is a speech to be given, I will be there. A hand to shake, a back to pat, or an erection to sustain, I will be of service. She has protected me, nursed my battered body back to life, and never, ever interrogated me, even after having disappeared for four days, only to be found at last, naked and unconscious in our backyard garden. She has wiped my brow, darned my socks, shaved my chest, and given every last bit of strength with needle and thread to return my tattered clothes back to their original form. She has taken the phone calls, made the late night drives to hospitals from coast to coast, and not once cast a burdensome glance in my direction, even after losing complete control of my bowels. She’s forgiven the endless road trips to Fire Island, the Wizard of Oz marathons, and the Boy Scout outings, even when she knew deep down there had never been a three-month Jamboree without cell phone service. She’s my rock, my beard, my one and only. And she can be your President, God willing.

When I witness women engaging in competitive sport, a smile will usually sweep across my face, as if I just saw a baby wearing a sombrero or something. And when I see women fighting, a pulse of adrenaline shoots through me, like when I win ten bucks from a scratch off. Naturally, when I heard about this thing where women race on skates and fight each other, I was heartily amused. When I found out they were coming to my town, I was determined. Determined to make sure my eyes saw this fabled spectacle and those images would be burned into my brain forever, giving me endless joy whenever recollected.

I was a little apprehensive about how my community would receive this venue. I mean, we don’t welcome anything foreign or accept anything new. When Wal-Mart installed the self checkout machines, it almost shut down commerce completely. Many of us elected to steal, as to avoid interacting with these new machines from Futureland. And the few brave souls who decided to use them were often made fools of. I’ve seen some people tapping on them the way you would smack around a TV on the fritz. Some shouted at them. Some dickishly pushed all the buttons, like you would while drunk in an elevator. A few of us would even talk to the machine in a robot voice, “Computer. I. Want. To. Check. Out.” we’d would say.

When I found out the price to see the Cajun Roller Girls battle the Hattiesburg Hooligans was fifteen bucks, I was shocked. Then, I realized that they were trying to keep all the riff raff out, catering to my town’s affluent populous (a group that could fit inside an entire Chili’s, and usually did). When I showed up, a crowd of a few hundred was already seated, waiting patiently with beers in hand. I was shocked that this sport has such interest, but I quickly realized most seats were occupied by perverts hoping a titty would pop out. I then realized I was one of those perverts.

I’ll try to break this down the best I can:

The Game: Basically, I had no idea what I was looking at the whole time. A bunch of women skating around in a circle. Sometimes they would push each other down. Sometimes one would skate really fast, faster than the others even. Sometimes they would stop and rest. Sometimes they would swap out players. But a titty never ever popped out. I realized I didn’t know what was going on and never would, but that was ok. Watching these girls skate and try at something was its own reward. If women, inferior to men in almost every physical aspect, could skate that fast, hit that hard, or could dust themselves off after taking a nasty tumble, what was I capable of? Imagine my own potential! The whole thing was pretty inspiring. I loved how their little faces would get all serious when skating super fast or how they’d frown up after being pushed down. You could tell this meant something to them. And that made it mean something to me, even though I had no idea what was going on. I just cheered on in blind excitement. In south Louisiana, you have a better chance at meeting a real life Jew than a woman with a bona fide hobby. Overall, It was refreshing seeing women do this, act this way.

Halftime: While the skaters took a break, we were treated to a belly dancing routine. With all this exotic entertainment, I started feeling like a cultured noble, residing in some ancient, Neapolitan city. But every sip of my canned beer in the same auditorium I bought my first handgun in slowly brought me back down to reality, a reality where all the belly dancers have day jobs at Home Depot and Rome might as well be on Jupiter. Anyway, I always thought belly dancers were supposed to be skinny and hot, like in the movies. This wasn’t a movie, and most of the dancers were about two, maybe two-twenty on the hoof. Personally, I liked it. I think the bigger the belly you have the better belly dancer you are. Watching a big squishy tummy gyrate around like some electocuted jellyfish was kind of sexy, mostly because it takes extreme confidence for a woman of that size not only to display her midsection, but flaunt it, bounce it around in your face even. I’m not sure how human stomach fat factors in to sexuality, but it does somehow. I’m convinced if I’d watched them shake for five more minutes, I would be downloading a fat people porno right now instead of writing this review.

The Skaters themselves: With names like, Alpha Bitch, Derby Gibson, and F.N. Trouble, you have to admire the creativity. They really do keep it interesting and can be as animated and theatrical as their names suggest. There was even one named Trigger, a crowd favorite, who wore raccoon makeup and went around shooting cap guns into the air. Later that night, she would wrestle some hefty woman on the dirty floor of a pool hall, creating cheers and half boners everywhere. The after party was held at a local sports bar often frequented by biker gangs and neck tattoo dropouts, and both teams attended. I have to say there is a dark underbelly to roller derby (and I‘m not talking about the halftime dancers). I’d say most of these girls really know how to party: They drink like fish, curse like sailors, dance like skanks, smoke like chimneys, fight like men, and shoot pool like hustlers.

The Elephant in the Room: I know what most of you are thinking, “Are they all a bunch of lesbians!?” Well, I’m not sure. I’m not good at interpreting sexuality. I don’t even know what gender my pets are because I refuse to look at their dick/pussy parts. I usually make somebody else do that and then describe it to me in detail. I’m not some kind of sick weirdo. But if I had to guess about the Roller Girls, I’d say they all had vaginas, and I’d say all were at least a little lesbian in the same way all MMA fighters are somewhat gay. You don’t pursue a hobby/career slamming into members of the same sex without having some kind of homosexual tendencies. However, I doubt the locker room after a game/match/contest/whatever they call it turns into a giant dungeon dike dildo orgy with an endless coochie buffet. From all I can gather, they’re just normal people doing abnormal things.

Would I ever go back: If I do, I’m sneaking in my flask. Fifteen bucks is kind of pricey, especially since they charge three freaking bucks for a canned beer. I’m not made out of money. I’m made out of atoms…which money is coincidentally made out of; however, different atoms. Money atoms. I’m made out of people atoms, and I won’t even spend fifteen bucks on a good steak or doctor visit. If they want me to part with an Abe lincoln and whoever is on the ten dollar bill (Christopher Columbus?) then I’m going to need to be assured I’ll see a full out brawl or a titty pop out. However, I’m very glad I went, and I’m very glad Roller Derby exists. The world is a better place because of it.

The divisive bill in Wisconsin has now become law.  Officially called Wisconsin Act 10, its unofficial titles depend on who you ask. Conservatives adhere to ‘budget repair’, while those affected by its fallout refer to it as ‘union busting’, or a generalized attack on the middle class. Regardless of your political views, few dispute that this has anything to do with budgets. In addition to banning collective bargaining, it significantly decreases the power of unions to collect dues and will help break their political clout, eliminates union contracts enabling more direct manipulation of public workers’ pay, benefits and work situation by administration and government, cuts public school budgets while increasing money available for charter schools, and other measures that have nothing to do with budgets. At the same time, it allows for considerable tax breaks for large companies and reduces the Capital Gains Tax by over $36 million; at the same time there will be a $56 million tax increase for over 150,000 families by eliminating the Earned Income Tax Credit. The wealthy will be rewarded, the lower classes punished. Public worker unions will be broken, with the exception of public safety (police, firefighters) unions are left untouched. Walker’s bill rewards the supporters of the Republican party, and breaks the supporters of the Democratic party. Wisconsin’s budget is incidental. Communism, then terrorism, and now budgets are the emergencies used to justify extraordinary measures that are just the same prongs of an ideological agenda.

The protests over this bill have been a tremendous show of numbers and energy that will be applied to the recalls and 2012 elections that will surely result in turnover of state houses and reversal of some of these policies. The problem is, winning elections matters little in the long run. A liberal agenda is to provide for the weak, elderly, the racial minorities, and regulate powerful forces that would otherwise make life miserable; this is done by a Byzantine series of laws that provides legal protection, and a system of graduated taxation that allows for public education and health care for the most vulnerable in society. To erode this system is easy, and the work has been steady since the 1980s. By cutting the budget for public schools, slashing unemployment benefits, and disabling regulatory bodies like the FDA, one can decrease the effective work they do. In the PR blitz to follow, one simply points out that those programs are incompetent, and should be further broken. Liberals have never understood fully just how easily dismantled some key elements of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society would be. Cut the budget, and the programs disappear. Meanwhile, by decreasing tax revenues from the wealthy and other groups that tend to support conservatives, you increase the money available for elections. By clearing the way for mass cash infusions into elections (as Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission did in January of 2010), the playing field is further tilted to the right. Democrats will do well in the next election, but dismantling the laws that have been passed will take decades. Meanwhile, the coffers for the conservative faithful will continue to fill, and the consistently amnestic public opinion will turn against liberals again, and the cycle continues. The powerful lesson has already been learned – public outrage need not influence politicians since the goal is not to win elections, but to disrupt the proper mechanics of the government, and keep hammering away until it falls. Liberals are on their heels and still stumbling backwards looking for a recourse. Winning elections may provide enough time to appoint judges at all levels that will not necessarily support corporate interests, but even Democrats are quick to choose fiscal conservatives to appeal to their wealthy donors. Even this most formidable weapon is disregarded.

This will result in the inevitable slide over the next few decades towards the libertarian utopia that has been dreamed about by Ayn Rand fanatics. Right or wrong, this is where we are headed. Our little democratic experiment is already weak. In an age signified by a glut of information the electorate remains fairly ignorant about the issues that directly affect them. Effective attack ads serve as the single most influential factor in elections, and voter turnout is a joke. That and the legacy of Lee Atwater’s ingenious work in persuading Americans to vote against their own interests guarantees the inevitable slide. Time is on the side of the libertarians as money and voter apathy are more reliable forces than the system of tax and bureaucracy that defends liberal interests. The waves that crash upon Medicare or unions have intensified after globalization of the economy. Unions were truly broken when our labor markets were exposed to China and India, and people willing to work for a fraction of Americans. Exportation of jobs led to lower costs for goods and concealment of corporate assets overseas leading to erosion of middle class earning power and a decrease in tax revenues; less political money for liberals and less of a budget for the things they care about. Some of the slack has been taken up by tech jobs, but those are even easier to export than manufacturing. All the while, free market demagogues gain ground in Washington while managed economies like China take advantage; they have no such qualms about manipulating currency values, and seem to have a vested interest in remaining a economic power beyond the next financial quarter.

None of this is any reason to fret – voters have wanted to rid themselves of regulation for a long time now. That regulation allows for cheap and effective public education, health care coverage, stable job markets, and the ability to raise a family and live with some degree of comfort is beyond the point. Americans are acting as though they have grown soft and less adaptable, and are more than willing to fall upon the sword for the sins of the Great Society. Since their children will have a greater struggle ahead as a result, one must admire their willingness to sacrifice their comfortable future in favor of a clean and pure system of libertarian economic warfare that will benefit only the elite. Truly a brave new world.

Since the only true libertarian economy in the world today is Somalia’s, it is difficult to imagine what a broader global economy run by Libertarian principles would look like.  For one thing, there would be no annoying elections; administrators where necessary would be appointed by the largest landowners; otherwise governments, nations, and borders would have no reason to exist as they would invariably hamper commerce. Individuals would have very broad training in private trade schools so they could be highly adaptable since there would be no steady jobs. Projects would come and go, and everyone would be essentially freelance. Contracts would not exist since regulatory bodies would be necessary to enforce them, and since money talks, any dispute between worker and owner would be in favor of the owner. Property ownership would be a thorny issue since there would be no legal system as such; banks would protect the interests of their customers, but if it is in the interest of a company to seize a person’s land for development, the individual would hardly have the power to stop the larger company. One item in Walker’s bill actually makes this process easier. Since large corporations would control the means of commerce, and prices could be easily fixed with agreements between companies, it would behoove the lower classes to develop a black market to get any sort of fair deal for their dollar. Without organized police, firefighters, or emergency health services, only private companies would provide protection. If you have not paid your dues, 911 will be of no help to you, and the private army hired to kill you off would not be repelled by the relatively cheap security service to which you have paid your regular tithe. The world will be exciting, to be sure, but not for the faint of heart. At least the life expectancy will come down to a more reasonable fifty or so, since there is no economic reason to keep people alive when they no longer provide a cheap source of labor.

Of course, this absurdly apocalyptic scenario would never come to pass since libertarians are as full of shit as socialists. When it matters, even free market adherents love government and the role it can play in ensuring no bid contracts to friends and favors in exchange for funds. Walker may be working to cripple union strength, but uses his government position to give tax breaks to campaign finance sources, legalizing concealed carry gun laws (though strangely not into his office), and provide funding to charter schools despite the strain it places on the budget he holds most almighty.  Conservatives will always try to please their narrow-minded constituencies, and eliminating taxes only pleases the wealthiest. The rest will be sated by government-sponsored edicts of some sort, whether they are funding for religious teaching or bailouts for businesses with shitty business plans. Public funding also benefits private corporations in many ways at present. Funding for research via the National Institutes of Health or the National Cancer Institute yields molecular targets for treatment for which pharmaceuticals can be designed; these are handed over to pharmaceutical giants who benefit greatly when selling expensive new patented drugs developed using taxpayer money. Without the hated government, Big Pharma would need to do all the heavy lifting of discovering the targets from scratch, and that sort of risk is more easily placed on the public. The stability to businesses provided by financial regulation may annoy the elite, but the long term benefits of not going out of business escapes the short-term greedy. Of course, by the time free market conservative apologetics realize they have been duped, the system will be entrenched and the despised Great Society erased from public consciousness and history books alike. Unfortunately, the populace will get exactly what they want.

Do these stills look like they come from a documentary, or a bad commercial?

Here’s a red flag for you. I became aware of Waiting For Superman because I saw episodes of Oprah and Larry King  about the film when those programs floated up at work. I saw Oprah first and, without audio, it was just this machine processing deep-fried Faberge eggs into tears in a way that seemed to eventually benefit a disadvantaged little girl who had been flown in for the occasion, so I thought that it must be OK. I didn’t completely realize how fortunate I was that the sound was off until I caught the lies and stupidity at full volume, tugging the standards of Larry King Live even further beneath the earth’s crust, which, by the way, is where they found that Piers Morgan guy. It was one of the most disturbing discussions I’ve seen on cable news, and I’ve never seen one that wasn’t at least troubling.

The main panel consisted of Ben Stein, Michelle Rhee, one of the films “stars,” and a reform-minded D.C. Superintendent, singer John Legend and Steve Perry, not the singer, but a “straight talker” who contributes to CNN on the subject of education. Really, they put this on TV. The latter three were there to argue that the plight of the struggling underclass in the United States is due to the greatest device for human cruelty ever conceived: a free public education. Largely to blame were the teachers. I swear to God, Ben Stein found himself in the position of having to defend public education and teachers. Ben Stein. I swear to God. Ben Stein. Ben Stein. I had to dredge up the transcript because I knew you would be skeptical, no matter how many times I said it.

One thing I noticed from this discussion endlessly is we blame the teachers, blame the teachers, blame the teachers, and I’m sure many of them deserve blame, but we don’t ever say, why don’t the kids wake up and smell the coffee and say, look, it’s up to us to do some work?

- Ben Stein

Meanwhile, Perry the lesser, Rhee and Legend presented a reductio ad absurdum of thoughtless pseudo- leftism. As we already know, the poor, especially if they are not white, never have culpability for anything. How did so many of the parents at poorly performing schools get kids they can’t support, for example? Whenever you notice something like that, a wizard did it. If some urban schools are graduating less than 50% of their kids, it is entirely the fault of schools and teachers because, obviously, it is a total coincidence that those families happen to be living in a ghetto and that the parents could easily be mistaken for the students’ older siblings. Certainly, cultural or personal shortcomings played no role in creating the situation. If certain classes of poor people are always completely blameless, the only option is the left’s version of blaming the victim, which is blaming the helper. The mechanisms that might help one out of poverty are the reason for poverty. A free education from college trained professionals is the reason for poor education.

Perry made one argument on King that evidenced a special kind of stupidity, even for a mass media chatter-clown. It’s hinted at in the film when a vacuous, wealthy, white mom is unable able to help her daughter with chemistry homework, even after investing almost ten seconds of effort and almost being late for a spa treatment.

Parents have an important role. But the parents are often blamed for that which the school is responsible for.

I have a son. I have two sons and they play the piano. And I don’t know how to play the piano. If my piano teacher ever came to our home and said, you know what, if you were a better pianist, your sons would be better piano — players, I’d fire him so quick he’d forget he ever taught my sons to play.

I paid that man to do this. We are asking parents who in some cases haven’t taken chemistry either in 12, 15, 20 years or if ever, to help a child with chemistry homework.

–Steve Perry The Lesser

So it is unfair of schools to demand that education begin at home, because parents often lack knowledge of the subjects at hand. If you hired a private piano teacher, you wouldn’t expect that they ask you to teach the piano to your kids, right? Well, in reality, they probably would ask you to oversee practice sessions, but never mind reality. Reality has nothing to do with this film and the views it advocates. It’s so much easier to point out that most of us don’t know high school chemistry. So how could parents possibly have a role in educating their children? It is the ever appealing political philosophy of Homer Simpson: Can’t someone else do it?

Anybody who has spent time around public schools should smell the bullshit from miles out. I was a sub in The Los Angeles Unified School District for a couple years, which is long enough to ascertain that the chief obstacle to learning in the home for most students is not the fact that their parents lack a working knowledge of chemistry.

One of the most difficult schools I worked at had 45% of students in foster care. That isn’t the kids’ fault, of course, but it isn’t the fault of the teachers either. In schools like this, it is not uncommon to send a student to the dean or vice principal and have them sent back minutes later because the disciplinary load is so overwhelming that there is physically no room for them. This doesn’t happen because the guardians or parents don’t know chemistry. It’s because they don’t care if their kids get into fights, never mind learn to read properly, never mind do any homework at all, never mind learn chemistry. I know a full time teacher at a LAUSD school that is relatively lower-middle class. Students there often complain of being hungry in class. The school had to implement a “second chance,” free breakfast. Yes, there is a free breakfast in the morning. But it turns out that many of the parents in the area, on top of supposedly being unable to afford generic cereal, bread, beans and rice or eggs, also can’t be bothered to get their kids to school on time to eat for free. This was, of course, determined to be the school’s fault, so it was up to the school to adjust by adding a disruptive “second chance,” free breakfast to the schedule. But realistically, what do you expect a teacher to do with a kid whose parents cannot be bothered to feed their children, even when someone else is paying? Of course, many of these kids have overextended young single mothers, and one might question whether having kids you couldn’t afford to feed was such a great choice, or, since the historically disadvantaged cannot be held responsible for anything, maybe even blame the lack of access to family planning and birth control in certain neighborhoods instead of blaming the teachers, but that would only serve as a distraction from the indisputable fact that a wizard did it.

Here’s the most extreme case I encountered. None of this is exaggerated. I turned a student over to security because he punched another student. He wasn’t horsing around, it was a real, malicious punch in the face. I told the security guy what happened and that I didn’t want to see the kid for the rest of the day. He was back at the door less than five minutes later. Of course, I wasn’t allowed to touch him, so I just played offensive lineman and physically blocked him from walking through the door as he shoved me and threatened to kill me (he was only fourteen, and I am tall and a big fatso, so this was merely annoying) until I was able to flag down another staff member. She got the same security guy and I tried not to yell as I explained again what I meant when I said the student had punched another kid in the face and that there was no circumstance in which he and I would be in the same classroom for the rest of the day. I later learned that the boy’s single father ignored all reports of problems at school. It’s about as hard to expel a kid as it is to fire a tenured teacher. Therefore, the disciplinary apparatus of the school was pretty much helpless until he seriously hurt someone. Thanks to Waiting For Superman, I now realize this was all my fault. The reason this kid thought it was OK to go around punching people is that I expected his parents to teach him advanced chemistry. Maybe a little piano.

The point of the anecdotes is that, while the film blames educators and schools, we’re never given an even vaguely realistic picture of what they face. It’s like watching the CNN coverage of the first Gulf War and wondering why veterans have problems. Didn’t they just push buttons and make those cool smart bomb videos? It was just a big video game, right? In Superman, we meet about half a dozen great kids with active parents. That is 100% of the depiction of the students and parents in poorly performing schools. So teaching in poor, urban areas means dealing with bright, eager students and parents who can’t do enough to help, right?

What about the student who punches kids in the face, but can’t be expelled and doesn’t care if he’s suspended? What are teachers to do when they threaten to call home and a student can truthfully say, “they don’t care.” And yes, I’ve actually heard that exchange more than once. What about kids who are not only sent to school hungry, but arrive too late for the free food? Do you think that they received adequate stimulation in early childhood? Do you think that they received proper nutrition in the womb and early childhood? Do you think their mothers abstained from smoking, drinking and drugs during pregnancy? Do you think kids subjected to that kind of development resemble the kids highlighted in this film? Where were the gang bangers? Where were the parents who are gang bangers? The parents who despise learning? The neglectful foster parents, or overwhelmed grandparents? When dealing with parents who do not value education, don’t make their kids do homework and who don’t respect authority themselves, the teachers are supposed to wave a magic wand and fix it all, but the film never presents any of the actual problems teachers face and it certainly never explains how magic wands work. It just asserts that a free education is not an opportunity of which you take advantage. Rather, it’s an entitlement that should be bestowed upon you, with no effort on your part, even if you actively resist it.

The truth is that teachers aren’t really supposed to deal with many of these issues, but they do anyway. At least in LAUSD, teachers are not theoretically in charge of serious discipline. But in reality, if the student hasn’t committed a felony, the dean is too busy and the everyday teachers, as opposed to subs like me, are expected to call home and talk to parents (or whoever) about behavioral problems. This is not part of their job description, but they do it anyway. It’s quite common that the parent’s reaction will be one of anger towards the teacher. So, put yourself in that position. You teach a class of 30 that is disrupted by a few students. You send them to the dean and they are sent back. You go beyond the call of duty and call the parents (or whoever) to discuss the problem and they say, “why the fuck you calling me about this bullshit?” And here comes some mongoloid with a camera to tell you that it’s all your fault.

The film? I’m not sure what there is to review. The technique is average, if unoriginal. I think the trick of using outdated educational films as a humorous way to make your point is outdated. Though the film is not nearly as thoughtful as Football In The Groin, it leans heavily on “Simpsons” clips. It has original animation and I guess if there was any substance, it would go down smoother than an episode of “Bill Nye The Science Guy.” Instead, the lies and distortions come so fast and thick, I’m not sure how to categorize the film, since, it strains the definition of the word, “documentary.” I can’t believe that intelligent people of any political persuasion found it possible to overlook the direct contradictions, even in the film’s narration. Within the space of a few minutes, the narrator explains that public school funding per student has doubled in recent decades. Then he says the No Child Left Behind Act seemingly signaled the end of “years of empty lip service.” Obviously, he never really thought that No Child Left Behind was the solution. He is just pretending that he thought so, in order to create a narrative in which he is continually disappointed by our efforts at improving education. He never explains how doubling funding to education is “empty lip service.” I think it is possible that he does not know the meaning of that phrase. Mendacity or stupidity: who cares which?

I’m not a parent, and yet I’ve felt like one ever since I started making Waiting for “Superman.” Until now, I don’t think I’ve read sixteen books on any single subject ever…

– Lesley Chilcott, producer of Waiting For Superman blogging for CNN

In the same span, the narrator decries our level test scores in reading and math. On its face, it’s another piece of political thinking from a Simpsons character. Presumably, he believes test scores should always be on the rise because… I don’t know. Are people getting smarter every year? As always when discussing test scores, the fact that white and Asian American students test well compared to students in all other countries, and that our averages are dragged down almost entirely by the scores of black and Hispanic students (as I learned from the noted arch-conservative site Salon.com), is tiptoed around as testing data are chopped and sliced to disguise that truth without mentioning it. For example,the film points out that our top 5% of test results is worse than the top 5% of students in most other rich countries. It’s a way for the film to deflect us from the actual test results of various ethnic groups without dirtying itself by ever mentioning the facts. We are left to assume that our top 5% excludes poor, urban students. So then it must be a direct comparison of our top white and Asian students against the top students in countries that are almost all white or Asian. This leads to the argument that even schools in affluent areas are failing. This is when we meet the affluent housewife who “can’t” help her daughter with chemistry.

Well, why not just skip all of that and present the top scores of white and Asian students? Let’s think it through. Countries like Finland and Japan have more homogeneous populations. We have large black and Hispanic populations and it is among these large groups that we see a dramatic fall off  of test scores. So, while our top 5% will be predominantly white and Asian, it is still the result for the top 5% of the overall pool of students, so the scores are still diluted. The top 5% of just our white and Asian students would certainly test much closer to the top 5% of whites or Asians in predominantly white/Asian countries. I base this, again, on the fact that American whites and Asians, overall, test well compared to their counterparts abroad. If you still have trouble seeing this, imagine that you measured the test scores of the top 5% of Japanese students. Then, you injected a few million economic refugees from Mexico, and their children, into the Japanese system. Then you did a second study that measured the top 5% of the new pool, including the new students. Clearly the second set of test results would be lower, but the actual students included in the first top 5% would be just as smart and educated as they were before. If you consider that, you might wonder if level math and reading scores here in the US with the influx of millions of illegal immigrants and children of illegal immigrants into the system might actually be a pretty respectable result.

Regardless of what you do with the disparate results among American students, if you pretend the gap between racial groups isn’t there, you are not discussing reality. Or in the case of the film, you are trying to hide reality. Are the disparate test results due to white racism? Are they because whites (and Asians) are the master race? Is it the will of Xenu? I don’t propose to solve the problem here, but that is the problem. Education isn’t failing. The education of specific minorities, particularly poor members of those minorities is failing horribly. It is a very real problem. Too bad nobody is interested in discussing it.

Since much of the film is an attempt to misrepresent the problem it is ostensibly discussing, it doesn’t have any value. It’s like a movie about homelessness that treats the occasional instance of mental illness among the homeless as a coincidence. “Why are so many of these homeless people mentally ill?” you might wonder. The film would never address it, but it would include some mentally healthy homeless as subjects and play statistical shell games to conceal the rate of mental illness among the homeless. Well, what would be the point of that? How would it be in anyway helpful in addressing the problem? There would be no legitimate point and the film would be detrimental to the discussion of homelessness.

The hook of Superman is the lottery system by which some students get into exceptional, innovative, and demanding public schools. Mysteriously absent from the film are the parents who sell drugs out of their homes. None yell profanities at teachers who use their free time to call home about discipline. In the world of this film, Hispanic immigrants value higher education above all else, especially for their daughters. These handpicked parents are devoted to their kids’ educations and the absurd reverence this inspires in the filmmakers is condescending and embarrassing. The film kind of shoots itself in the foot here because the unintentional indication is that the norm is something less. Otherwise, why get so misty-eyed about the fact that these parents and students want a good education? One mom says that she will work multiple jobs to see that her daughter has the chance to go to college. Great. That’s called being a reasonably decent parent. But good for her. I can’t say I’d be so committed myself, which is one reason I don’t have kids (also, the wizard never gave me any, thank goodness!). Another mom in the film begs a lazy teacher for a conference. My friend teaches in a mostly minority community, though a more solidly working class one than those in the film. Most of those parents don’t turn up for parent teacher night, never mind PTA meetings. The turnout shrinks every year. I believe the scene in the film happened. I believe that there was one interested parent who could not arrange a conference with one lazy teacher. I also know that parent/teacher night turnouts can be well under 20%. So,which scenario do you think happens more often? By a factor of what? Go ahead and take a guess, because you won’t learn the answer from the film.

Another mom talks about how if the filmmakers were to visit her daughter’s school, they’d be unable to get past the security desk. We’re meant to stroke our chins and go, “wow man. Wow.” But, wait a sec. Particularly if your kid went to school in Harlem, would you want adults to roam in and out of the school at will? Even if your kid went to school in Beverly Hills, would you want the school to allow people to come in off the street and film them? When I was a sub I heard about a recent fight on campus. Two girls had gotten into it and when their moms showed up to take them home, they got into it. The mom fight started with extensions being pulled out and tossed to the ground and culminated with attempted murder by SUV in that parking lot. I know what I was thinking when I heard that story. “This school should really cut back on security.” Also, “well, the obvious problem here is the teachers.”

The pain continues. Who would have guessed that a nation of 300 million people would have complicated school funding and bureaucracy? The film drops facts like, “there are more than 14,000 autonomous school boards.” Yeah… that sounds about right. It uses such “grass is green” observations as “evidence” that the system is broken and that failure becomes unaccountable. Do problems exist? Everyone knows they do to some degree. How is that related to the fact that there are 14,000 school districts? I don’t know. I guess bigger things are harder to manage, but I was already pretty sure that the United States was a large country before the film explained it. Would more charter schools and weaker unions change that? I’m really not sure why this information is in the film. I guess it just makes schools look bad.

Look how terrible this gets. Here is a direct quote from the film.

TAKEN TOGETHER, the TWO biggest teachers unions, the NEA and the AFT are the largest campaign contributors in the country. Over the last 20 years, they’ve given over $55 million to federal candidates and their parties. More than the teamsters, the NRA or any other INDIVIDUAL organization.

Even if you are deluded enough to believe that trade unions bend Washington to the nefarious whims of the working man while corporate interests look on in envy, all you really need to look at here are the phrases “taken together, the two..” and “any other individual organization.” I don’t know how to characterize such a brazen manipulation. Is it even propaganda? If I were to sincerely  argue to you that Los Angeles is superior to New York because, taken together, two Angelinos have twice the IQ of the average New Yorker, taken individually, I sincerely hope that you would murder me on the spot.

Moreover, if you pay attention to these things even a little bit, $55 million in campaign contributions over 20 years probably doesn’t seem like all that much to you. There’s a good explanation for that: it isn’t all that much. Since 1999, the financial sector, for example, has contributed $1.8 billion to federal campaigns and spent about twice that on lobbying. But we are to believe that the real muscle lies with $55 million contributed over twice that amount of time by teachers unions. The extent of misinformation and manipulation here renders the film useless, regardless of your views. It might as well be set in the world of Starship Troopers. It’s the bugs who are undermining education!

Similarly, the film’s discussion of charter schools just has nothing to do with earth, where there is a reasonable debate to be had on the subject. The film presents the top charter schools as models for success. It completely ignores the top traditional schools. It completely ignores the vast majority of charter schools, which don’t perform better than traditional schools. Amazingly enough, it provides no overview of charter school vs. traditional school performance. Not only that, it conceals the extent to which the top public charters depend on heavy private subsidies. We do learn that one school asks parents to contribute $500 a month and the fact that people like Bill Gates contribute to these schools is established, largely for the purpose of squeezing Gates into the film. But to watch the film, you’d never guess that the justly celebrated Harlem Children’s Zone receives two-thirds of its funding from private sources. So they have triple the money to work with. That’s got to come in handy. Do you think there’s a small sampling bias when the top charters have students and parents who are deeply motivated to do well as evidenced by them bothering to enter these lotteries in the first place? Do the charter schools have a big advantage in being able to simply kick out any problem students, whereas their traditional counterparts just have to deal with them? Go ahead and guess again, because the film won’t address these questions either.

I was prepared to grapple with the film’s anti-union stance, but there is almost no substance to take on. There’s nothing here but a horrible movie that will leave you less informed than before you watched it. Cheap shots, emotional condescension, manipulated statistics, fallacies and other bad reasoning, almost non-stop. A lot of narrative techniques are clumsily lifted from Michael Moore, but we’re not meant to take it as a polemic or a satire. Waiting for Superman is meant to be taken seriously, but it can’t be, any more than a Michael Savage book or a teenage anarchist’s fanzine. At its best, it is completely obvious. Wouldn’t we prefer to spend prison money on education? Yes! That’s one of the oldest sales tricks in the book, by the way. Get them agreeing with you off the bat, then slip in your dubious wares. Don’t you hate child molesters? Yes! Do you like cake? Yes! Do you want to buy a dishwasher? Yes, yes, yes! Er… wait a sec.

Do I hope the profiled kids do well in life? Yes. Are there very badly run schools? I know it all too well. Are there terrible, stupid and lazy teachers. Yes (even in wealthy white suburbs). Wouldn’t it be great if every school was like the most outstanding schools and every teacher was a cross between John Wooden and Richard Feynman? Yes! Aren’t bad students entirely the fault of educators? Yes! Er… wait a sec.

Amidst the “don’t you like cake?” questions, here are some questions that the film completely disregards during its two hours, some of which I’m reiterating. Given that their degrees and work experience don’t translate well to other fields, if teachers lose their high job security, what will happen to the pool of applicants? If top charter schools are so rare and difficult to get into, what does that mean in terms of the quality of students and parents they deal with, in contrast to a traditional public school that must take everyone? What disciplinary options, expulsion in particular, are more readily available in charter schools? What general measures are charters allowed to take with their students that parents in a regular school would never allow? What are educators to do with problem students who have indifferent guardians or parents? How much of the difficulty faced by the bright and eager students, or even merely average students, is due to the fact that they have to share a classroom with so many students who are not there to learn? What effect does it have on the motivations of an average kid when the standards for passing are lowered to accommodate students who will barely learn to read, no matter what anybody does with them? How much of their superior resources do these top charter schools expend on autistic, retarded, physically handicapped, psychologically disturbed and/or non-English speaking children?

The film does find several minutes to draw a tremendously strained comparison between the achievement of succeeding with disadvantaged kids and Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier. They are similar, you see, because in both cases some experts said it couldn’t be done. That just goes to show you what so-called experts know, amiright?! One time a mean bully told me I would never be able to have a threesome with Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman, but Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier so I’m gonna go pick up some condoms and lube right now. When the graph of test scores was overlaid with a jet, Waiting For Superman crossed a barrier as well. It clearly became one of the five worst films I’ve ever seen. It might be saved from the very bottom slot by the fact that the drama of the drawings to get into the top schools is powerful, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the filmmakers paid someone off to make sure that that the cutest kid was rejected. Even Oprah should be embarrassed.

To hear it reported in the hopelessly liberal, “drive-by” media, controversy and scandal have never been within earshot of the White House until Barrack Hussein Obama, Kenyan national, slipped the bonds of the madrasah to inflict Marxism on a gullible, hope-driven populace. Sure, Bill Clinton stained the people’s house with his un-Constitutional infidelity and subsequent cover-up, but at least the endless investigations – all $120 million of them – failed to uncover even the vaguest hint that Bubba was shipped in from the Axis of Evil to destroy Christian virtue. He was an American. And now that we are, for the first time, currently being governed by an illegal alien, the missteps of the past recede ever-further into irrelevance and trivia, though this is not to say that the Oval Office hasn’t seen its fair share of head-slapping silliness.

While nothing has prepared us for this moment in time, there have been conspiracies and difficulties before, during, and after past administrations, most of which have been righteously exposed. From Grover Cleveland’s surreptitious surgery for cancer in July of 1893 to Woodrow Wilson’s debilitating stroke in the Fall of 1919, sunlight has indeed proven to be the best disinfectant, and we can come to terms with the official lies that have often governed our shaky experiment with democracy. We all know about the Eisenhower and FDR love nests, as well as the Kennedy couplings, and few are beyond a slight shrug when faced with Harding’s illegitimate children or Jefferson’s forbidden love. Washington owned slaves, Lincoln suffered from crippling depression, and Jackson refused the cough up the bullet that lodged in his chest, leading to a persistent odor that challenged even the most hardened 19^th century noses.

But what of the buried sin, still unpublished and unknown? Perhaps nothing will ever equal the pain reluctantly brought to the table by the patriotic birther movement, but Obama, scoundrel-in-chief, is not the first to orchestrate an alternate fantasy to the horrible, jaw-dropping truth. Behold, American history on the down low; laid bare for perhaps the first time.

Ronald Reagan – RAPIST

If you’ve read a fawning biography or seen any number of drooling Sean Hannity specials, we know that Ronald Wilson Reagan, second only to Christ in the hearts of his countrymen, worked  as a lifeguard, logging so many rescues that one wonders if the whole damn town of Dixon nearly drowned. And while dragging poor saps to shore in stifling Illinois summers was indeed noble, such selflessness retreats from view when faced with Reagan’s fondness for rape. Few victims have come forward and even fewer provide much detail, but during the late 1920’s and early 1930’s, “Dutch” (so nicknamed for reasons unprintable on a respectable website) is rumored to have sexually assaulted dozens of young women, the most revolting example a 13-year-old Girl Scout named Catherine O’Malley.

O’Malley and Reagan did, according to locals, date for a brief stretch, but the relationship turned sour in the fall of 1929, prompting the normally mild-mannered Ronnie to savagely beat and violate young Catherine. Though she survived the ordeal, the damage to her vagina was so severe that she could never have children. But Reagan didn’t stop there. While recuperating at the O’Malley summer home in Springfield, Catherine was attacked again by a furiously drunken Reagan, who had sneaked aboard the O’Malley vehicle by hiding out in the trunk. Though unable to speak, walk, or even see out of one eye, Catherine was repeatedly sodomized; for an hour by Reagan himself, then for fifteen minutes more with an available dust pan.

More girls fell prey to Reagan’s unquenchable sexual appetite, and though respectful enough of the female persuasion to never demand oral sex, Reagan found new life as an anal rapist, violating at least seven sphincters in the course of nine months. He raped again and again, pausing only to call the occasional baseball game for local radio, or beat his mother into a coma for challenging his father for drinking away his paycheck. It was an untamed, Picaresque youth, replete with alcoholism, venereal disease, and at least one abortion. Reagan appears to have stopped cold turkey by the end of the 1930’s, though there were rumors of assaults during the Hollywood years. Family lore also states that Michael, his adopted son with Jane Wyman, was purchased through the black market because Mrs. Reagan was uncertain Ronnie could be a father given the ravaged state of his genitalia. Future births ended this speculation, but from all appearances, Reagan never again raped an underage innocent until the day he died.

Calvin Coolidge – ABORTIONIST

Silent Cal, as he was known to fans and detractors alike, presided over a prosperous, regulation-free America, but while Governor of Massachusetts, between strike-breaking and tax-cutting, he performed back alley abortions in the basement of the executive mansion. Labeled the “Butcher of Beantown” by the police, his actions were usually dismissed as the fabrications of hostile public servants (Coolidge once famously said, “There is no right to strike against the public safety by anyone, anywhere, anytime”), but files deep in the archives reveal a stone cold entrepreneur, often charging as much as $300 to carve away the assorted unwanted of the Commonwealth. Surprisingly, Coolidge was an unusually progressive entrepreneur for the time, sending word that while he’d abort “anyone, anywhere, anytime” (his wit was often underrated), he preferred aborting black and brown babies, given that he was simultaneously gutting any semblance of a safety net for the state’s citizenry. The chief business of America, apparently, wasn’t business, but inducing septic shock among Boston’s poor.

Coolidge, unburdened by Nosy Nancys or the eye of regulatory officials, boldly refused to sterilize any equipment, often using the same bloody tools for months at a time. Lacking access to water or decent lighting, Coolidge botched a good 40% of the abortions he performed, but as “the streets” were close to 60%, he never failed to crow about his competitive advantage. “Let them cry about my mortality rate,” he hissed, “I’m all those sons-a-bitches have from here to the Cape.” Coolidge once beamed that he slept more than any other president in history, but there was little time for counting sheep as governor. Often logging marathon-like days, he once aborted fetuses for 33-hours straight, breaking even the lax labor laws he so vociferously failed to enforce. As if to soothe his conscience somewhat, Cal was known to give his underage assistants weekends off, becoming one of the first state leaders to observe the Sabbath. While Coolidge usually insisted on killing the babies himself, local legend tells of an exhausted Cal wiping his brow, throwing his forceps against the cold cement wall, and letting “his kids” take a whack at the female atop the slab while he calmly sipped lemonade.

Was the White House itself ever an abortion mill? It’s difficult to say, though a newspaper column at the time once hinted that Coolidge, as Vice President, cheerfully offered to abort the love child of Warren Harding, waiving his usual fee. The President declined, though he apparently never forgot the kindness. Coolidge was known to have mellowed for most of his White House years, though after his son died after stubbing a toe on the White House tennis court, Oval Office records show large blocks of time unaccounted for, often in the wee hours. A Secret Service agent once confessed that he heard an intoxicated Grace Coolidge spitting at her husband, “Off to murder more of God’s children, are we Calvin?”, but sworn depositions held little sway during the Depression. And by then, Coolidge was dead and buried himself, a threat no more to the little angels.

Richard Nixon – HOMOSEXUAL

Despite actually fathering children, it was always assumed that Richard M. Nixon had no real interest in sexual intercourse, largely because nothing could ever hope to compete with the orgasmic release of political gamesmanship. In fact, Nixon loved to fuck, but rather than Pat, he preferred the company of his fellow gentlemen. Nixon’s inner circle, beyond being one of history’s most corrupt, was one of the most sexually active, hosting landmark parties that are still discussed today. “The Kissinger Klub” wasn’t simply a place to hash out China’s trade policy, it was where Nixon himself went to inhale everything Henry could throw at him. Nixon was anti-Semitic on a personal level, but in the bedroom, he was faithfully kosher, often elbowing his top advisor with the quip, “Hey Henry, get some of those Jew bastards at the Times to suck me off.” Sadly, Nixon extended his hatred of blacks to this arena as well, turning away dozens of suitors in favor of lily white Congressional pages, State Department security guards, and the occasional clerk from the Supreme Court. He once placed a 3am call to Abe Fortas, but Nixon fell asleep before the disgraced Justice could be roused out of bed.

Nixon, ironically enough, abhorred anal sex, but because of his unshakable compulsion, he compromised by always playing the bottom. Little evidence exists to suggest he ever deviated from this role. While he sampled oral sex from time to time (he always marveled how much better it was with circumcised penises, hence his fanaticism for Kissinger), he was most enamored with kissing – “necking” as he called it, well into his Presidency. Some attribute this preference to his Navy days, when onboard poker games often descended into fanatical orgies, when the night’s best hand was rewarded with golden showers, Cleveland Steamers, and the occasional Yorba Linda Cupcake. Nixon never revealed the exact ingredients of the latter, but a cryptic cable was found among his personal papers that referenced said Cupcake with a winking, “One day, they’ll invent a soap that gets rid of this s–t.”

Few know if Pat ever discovered her husband’s secret identity, but her own memoir hinted at a hard-fought battle she once had to pry Dick away from what she called, “that damned life.” Historians have always assumed she was referring to the political arena that eventually destroyed Nixon, but what of the bon mot tucked away in the Haldeman diaries where Bob mercilessly jabs at his boss for the flop sweat that signaled, “P is daydreaming about Aggie again.” Really? His own VP? If so, it would be the first case in American history where a President fucked his own running mate (Taylor/Fillmore rumors to the contrary), and might account for ”Aggie’s” hasty departure in 1973. His replacement, Gerald Ford, was arguably the most heterosexual politician of his time, so it’s clear Dick was trying to reform, if belatedly. And those tears at his wife’s funeral? Who’s to say whether or not they were genuine, but as with everything in Nixon’s universe, they may have been for himself. An anguished release for the crimes of Watergate, unleashed because no one told him it wasn’t a sound use of G. Gordon Liddy’s time to hunt down naked photos of George McGovern.

We’ve all been had. Spotted as marks and taken advantage of. The salesman saw you a mile away. A woman led you on to make her boyfriend jealous. Your employer promised a raise if you did A, B and C and the moment you completed C, there was a “change in company policy.” It stings because someone harmed you, but it will gnaw at you endlessly because you facilitated it. Hell, you were an active participant and often an enthusiastic one, grinning idiotically as you were picked clean. More often than not, rather than face the humiliation we just live in denial. “Yeah, the bigger engine costs more and uses more gas and I don’t really have any use for it, but I think it was a good value.” We’ve all been there more often than we care to admit, even to ourselves. Especially if we are Dodger fans.

For decades now, the Dodgers have intentionally offered a mediocre product and charged a premium price. That is simply how they do business and with a foolish enough customer base, it’s effective. The Dodger’s fan cost index is $100 more than the Angels, but The Angels have a higher payroll. When they got Vlad we got Furcal. When they had a team that were unlucky to win only one World Series, we were fortunate to win a couple of first round series. The Dodgers see their fans as suckers who will turn up, grinning idiotically because there is a beautiful stadium, a proud tradition, many transplant fans of the opposition and many other fans who just see “A Dodger Game” as a generic outing. The McCourts, as we’ve learned in court documents, bought the team specifically because they saw the opportunity in this. If the Dodger fans will pay for anything, why not cut back team salary even more than usual, up the cost of everything else and really rip off the fans? Lord knows they’ll happily bite the pillow and take it.

It’s as if there was a make of car that was favored by a few million consumers who would buy it no matter what. Let’s call it the Dodgermobile. It breaks down and never gets you where you want to be? You buy another one. It’s slow and powerless, but only takes premium and gets 10 MPG? You buy another one. It’s boring to look at and drive? It’s uncomfortable? You buy another one. And the Dodgermobile is an $80,000 car. Who wouldn’t want to own a dealership?

BBQ at Camden Yards

Look at something as simple as the food. I remember Camden Yards in Baltimore opening nearly 20 years ago. One of the things people loved about it was that it served delicious Barbecue instead of the cheapest crap imaginable. Teams across the country quickly followed suit, offering patrons quality food to enhance fan experience. Yes, the food was overpriced, but at least it was good and often unique to the stadium. Even many minor league teams have jumped on this trend and found it profitable and rewarding for the fans.

Various Stuff At Citi Field

The Dodger’s did come up with an innovation in the spirit of the Dodgermobile. They would let Pizza Hut and Carl’s Junior into the stadium, where they would sell their product for about triple price. What a unique, Dodger fan experience! Of course, the food is not exactly the same stuff you could buy anywhere in LA. An actual Carl’s or Pizza Hut makes food specific to your order, while at the stadium you chose from one of two or three pre-made options and they pull one out of the pile. Also, if the product at a fast food joint outside of the stadium sat drying out under a heat lamp for as long as the food at the stadium, they would throw it out and make something fresher. Even at the normal prices, if a Carl’s or Pizza Hut outside the stadium sold this product, it would go out of business in a month. If it charged the stadium prices, it would be gone in a week. Possibly burned down. The operation can only be pulled off if your customers are sweet, gullible Dodgers fans.

Crap you can buy for a few cents each at Vons

What about Dodger Dogs? I used to believe there was something special about them. Again, I’ve been as big a sucker as anyone. But they’re just grocery store dogs, marked up through the roof. We learned that when Farmer John started, well, selling them in grocery stores. I worked in a small movie theater as a kid and we did the exact same thing. We were adjacent to a Vons where we would send someone over to buy the cheapest hot dogs and buns that they carried. Then we’d pop them in the microwave and sell them for several times what we paid. People loved them. Some even asked where we gott them, so they might enjoy them at home.

Minute Maid Park's Fish Tacos

I can live with the traditional crappy popcorn, “malts” and peanuts. The grumpy old man in me kind of digs it. “We ate rock hard ice cream with a tongue depressor. And we liked it just fine. We loved it!” But it’s hilarious that the Dodgers successfully market the “all you can eat” pavilion as some kind of great value. The actual product costs them almost nothing. Joey Chestnut would have to smuggle Kobayashi into the stadium on a single ticket for them to eat $40 worth of that slop. The point is to extract a maximum amount of money from the fan, and it doesn’t matter that much if they sell you three grocery store hot dogs for the $20 or if they sell you four of them for the same price. Imagine you came across a sucker who really liked pennies and had a $100 dollar penny budget. Would you really care if he gave you the $100 for 20 pennies, or if he got to pay $100 to stick his hand in a jar and pull out as many pennies as he could hold? That’s the idea behind the all you can eat pavilion.

Stuffed Sandwiches at PNC Park

Yes, yes the Garlic Fries are OK. But they still aren’t fresh and it’s still just a marked up chain offering. They just seem great by comparison to the other stuff.

What really matters is the product on the field, right? Unfortunately, yes. I remember being in my car eight years ago and hearing some guy on the radio say the words, “Vladimir Gurerro is coming to Los Angeles!” I was shocked and elated. After years of frustration and boredom, the Dodgers had finally brought an MVP caliber player onto the team. I actually pumped my fist and made some retarded noise, sitting alone in the garage, which is pretty out of character for me. Seconds later, of course, it was clarified that “Los Angeles” meant “Anaheim.” It was just deflating. Like a dunce, I soldiered on through eight more years of second and third tier signings. Having to listen to people on that station claim that guys like Furcal and Ted Lilly are major additions for the Dodgers, while the MVP seasons and championships were enjoyed in New York, Boston, Philadelphia… man, it sure would have been fun to watch Vlad for that stretch. Instead I willfully chose to consume an inferior product and pay more money to do so.

Next time there is a major free agent, listen to the discussions of pundits. You’ll hear that the only major market team consistently omitted is the Dodgers. Carl Crawford was looking at the Yankees, Red Sox and Angels. If Pujols was to leave Saint Louis, pundits figured the Yankees and Red Sox would be uninterested, since they are set at first base. That left the Cubs and The Angels. But the Dodgers, who are weak at first base and who are the second biggest team in the sport? Not even worth mentioning. Not that I think big contracts for superstars are always good moves, but sometimes they are. And wouldn’t it be fun to see a future hall of famer play for your team? Is it too much to expect that it would happen once? There was Piazza, practically born a Dodger, but he’ll go in as a Met. Rest assured, if Kemp or any of the other young Dodgers pan out as hall of fame caliber, much of their primes will be spent somewhere else. Make a list of the most exciting young players in baseball. McCutchen, Votto, Santana, Heyward. That will also be a list of players who will never be Dodgers. Unless, perhaps, their career crashes or they limp into LA in their twighlights, like faded soccer stars playing in the MLS. In other words, if the value of their names can be marketed to dupes, even though the product is inferior, then they will be perfect Dodgers. But if they live up to their potential, contribute to championships and make a run at The Hall, they will come at full market price and play for organizations that give a shit if they win.

Manny? The Dodgers got him for free and were practically forced to bring him back when fans were shocked to discover that baseball can be entertaining. I’m sure they are delighted that it didn’t work out. They got a discount on his salary and can point to the bad contract for another ten years, like they did with Kevin Brown and Darryl Strawberry in the past. “Well, we tried signing a big free agent once, though it was with a guy past his prime. And it didn’t work out that one time, so that proves we shouldn’t ever do it.” But remember how fun Mannywood was, however briefly? Even though the rest of the talent wasn’t on par with what they have in New York, Boston or Philly,  and even though it was obviously the last hurrah of his career, it was exhilarating to have an elite hitter and a superstar smashing the ball all over the park. If you remain a Dodger fan, don’t expect to enjoy another experience like that in the foreseeable future. Again, if Kemp goes off like that, kiss him goodbye. If you think that maybe this time The Dodgers will do the right thing, I’d like to invite you over to my house. I have a jar of pennies and I’ll let you grab as many as you can for only $100.

The most recent shame is the beating of Bryan Stow by a couple of the Dodger’s many gang banging fans. The team has, of course, done nothing to resist its incorporation into gang culture. And forget the “what are they going to do, ban everyone with baggy pants?” straw man. Off the top of my head, they could 1)have knowledgeable, plain clothes security in the stands waiting for fans to “represent” gang affiliations. Do it once, banned for life. 2) Ban any fan who is turned over to the police 3)Aggressively and publicly support anti-gang projects in Los Angeles. If you don’t live here, you might be surprised to learn that fewer than half of Angelinos have gang tattoos on their necks, so yeah. If you present yourself as a gangster, be prepared to show ID to check against the banned list. And no racial profiling. If you show up in a fedora, carrying a violin case, you get checked too.

You might think that, after two similar attacks in recent years, both at games against The Giants, ownership would have taken steps to prevent this entirely predictable tragedy. People have been complaining about gangs in the stadium long before this culmination. It was already a common topic on talk radio. But addressing the problem would have cost money and Frank and Jamie have really been hankering for those ivory back scratchers. That’s why, in the face of an escalating gang problem in the stadium, rather than improving their already shabby security, the Dodgers started the season with no chief of security for the first time ever. Yep, they made a conscious decision to save money at the expense of fan safety by getting rid of their chief of security and not replacing him. A penny saved is a penny earned, and Brian Stow will die, or be a shadow of himself. Either way, his family will be crippled forever. If that’s something you want to actively support with your dollar, I’m glad you’re getting such a shitty product in return.

The World's Biggest Baseball Fan!

Probably, no level of security could have prevented the blindside attack if the perpetrators were determined. Though if a couple of security guards had been within view, maybe the attackers would have withdrawn. Nobody knows. There’s really no excuse for them getting away though. It’s a fucking parking lot. An open, concrete area with only a few exits. It’s difficult to imagine a more easily monitored and policed area. The structure is about the same as that of a prison yard.

There will be more security at the games now, courtesy of the LAPD. They’ll be working over time. Tax dollars will pay for it, if not immediately, after the story dies down. The McCourts can’t be bothered or trusted to offer suffecient security for the patrons they gouge, as LAPD Chief Batch strongly implied, saying “We try to let venues take care of their own security. If they can’t, I step in. I’m going to do what it takes.”

Obviously, ownership’s negligence is not equivalent to the malice of the criminals.  But most media are letting them off the hook far too easily. They chose gamble on fan safety to save a relatively small amount of money. ‘Gamble’ isn’t quite the right word, because they “lost” and the reward money they put up is still far less than they saved pinching pennies. And as a result, they now get to dip into your paycheck to cover their business expenses. So neglecting security while knowing that the stadium was becoming more dangerous was more of a win/win proposition than a gamble, but it was a calculated decision and it’s already paying off. But I’m sure the next owners turn down free security, paid for with tax money.

The Dodgers response to the beating has been an embarrassment to everyone remotely associated with the team. Some guy who hates baseball and accidentally turned into the stadium parking lot during the off season in 1987 is ashamed to be so closely associated with the Dodgers. They finally squeezed out a few grand for the reward money on the case after several other parties had contributed, including LAs taxpayers, again, through the city council. They’ve done nothing to reach out to the family. Remember when they dedicated .00001%of hot dog sales to set up a college fund for Stow’s kids? That’s because it didn’t happen and it won’t happen. Even if Frank and Jamie were actual psychopaths, you’d think that they would understand the necessity of such a gesture from a PR perspective. At the moment, the PR staff must be grappling with the decision. So much time has passed, do we look worse helping out now and keeping the story in the news, or should we just sit tight and hope people forget about it sooner?

I mean, imagine you were a bar owner and someone was beaten into a coma in your parking lot. It might not be your fault, but how would you feel? What would you do to help? Now, imagine the attack happened after you cut back on security. How would you feel then? Now imagine you were worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Now, what would you do to help? When you answer those questions, it’s difficult to escape feeling disgust for Dodgers ownership. After years of frustration and annoyance, finally pure disgust. Are you in the habbit of voluntarily giving money to people you find repugnant? That is what it means to be a Dodger fan.

Other than crying in my e-beer at dodgerblues.com, the only consistently great part of being a Dodgers fan has been Vin Scully.  He could soothingly describe a nuclear Holocaust and make the listener feel warm and comfortable. “And there they go… it looks like missiles have been launched all the way from Russia. They should arrive in only a few minutes, if you can believe that. Of course, our ICBMs should be the first missiles to hit their targets, exterminating all human life for miles around. Funny story about the ICBM…” It wouldn’t be his fault though. In fact, if nuclear war comes, that would be the ideal way to experience it. Vin is the link between fans and the teams of our childhoods, and the intermediary between the current team and its fans. Once he steps down, which should happen after this year, the last vestiges of any nostalgia we feel for the Dodgers can finally be put aside. What remains–a cynical business scheme based on the belief that Dodger fans are an enless well of credulity and a veneer that’s become an embarrassing symbol for gang affiliation–should be discarded by fans of baseball. If you are a baseball fan, there’s nothing there for you. If you want to gang bang and still think the Dodgermobile and the penny jar sound pretty appealing, have a blast.

Otherwise, pick another team. I don’t care which one. A scrappy, small market team that tries to compete with the big boys on a tight budget. Like Oakland. Then you can still hate the Giants. Maybe you’re sick of discussing guys like Orlando Hudson and Andruw Jones as “big signings,” rather than role players. Get on board with The Mets, maybe. At least they try to put together good teams and you still get to watch guys like Wright and Reyes in down years. Plus, you can still hate the Yankees. Save yourself years of being taken for a fool, watching boring baseball and dropping twenties to eat pig shit . Stop acting like one of the biggest sports teams in the world winning the occasional first round playoff series is something to be proud of.

Watch some games in other stadiums this year. Even if you are gullible enough to remain a Dodgers fan, make a special point to take a day trip to see them down in San Diego, where the fan experience is vastly superior, and to see at least one less game at Dodger Stadium. You’ll have a better day and you can think of it as a hit of a few hundred bucks to the Dodgers for cutting back on security and putting your life at risk. It’s not like they’d have used the money to sign Prince Fielder or something. Not to mention the fact that the Padres are one of the cheapest teams in the fan cost index, while the Dodgers are one of the expensive. You’ll save enough to cover your gas and pay for a very nice dinner or a substantial bar tab in San Diego, instead of giving the money to Frank and Jamie or whichever sleazy opportunist follow them in marketing the Dodgermibile.

If you do it once, you’ll probably do it again. If you can make it to SF, catch the Dodgers play there, where the fan experience is also superior and, though expensive, still cheaper than The Dodgers. You can have a conversation about the Stow beating and how ashamed it made you. It’ll be a great opportunity to come up with another piece of perverted logic for not abandoning the Dodgers, who abandoned you so long ago.

I’m not sure who I’ll support after this year. Possibly The Tigers, as my family has roots in Detroit. They have their own problems, but at least they have Cabrerra and Verlander. It’s another team with a higher payroll than the Dodgers, in spite of being located in the third world.  More importantly, I’ll get to wear the same hat as Magnum. In any case, I do hope the Dodgers win it all this year. It will a great way to end my fandom. Plus, if they luck out with a mediocre team like they did in ‘88, I know that they’ll trade on that single, chance victory to justify screwing over the remaining fans for another 25 years and I’ll be somewhere else, laughing at the suckers.

(Originally posted Dec. 2009)

If hope is the thing with feathers, its failure to materialize wears a decidedly Democratic skin, where the promise of flight is always grounded by the weakest of wills. We’ve known about the party’s inability to govern for decades now, its full-tilt retreat in the face of mere token resistance; where majorities are confused for cheap surrender, and power comes dipped in the veneer of cowardice and compromise. Yes, we buried the last of the Democratic fortitude with LBJ, as well as the unflinching, unwavering dedication to liberal principles best expressed by FDR. The high water mark of the 20^th century Left, the almost unimaginable days of the Great Society before Vietnam made Johnson’s presidency more about a re-establishment of American masculinity than the alleviation of suffering, is so far removed from the modern party’s identity that it’s more the stuff of musty, sepia-toned memories than any real inspiration. The two post-Johnson Democrats, Carter and Clinton, were supreme failures in turn, and did more to take the party to the center-right than had it been headed by Saint Reagan himself. And now, with Barack Obama, the man-child among the reeds, the circle is complete. Elected to change course, spearhead a new day, and rise to the challenge of healing a rudderless nation, he has instead disappointed to an unprecedented degree. Not even a year in, he’d lost control of his presidency, with only a mid-term rout (done) and failed re-election bid on the bitter horizon (all-but-done).

Still, we had to know this would happen. As always, we were charmed by the possibilities, distracted by the glamour. Choosing symbolism over heft, experience, and the sack to actually govern, we assumed that having a different hue than his predecessors was enough to signal a changing tide. He spoke with poetry, dammit, and we ignored the assorted canaries who told us the coal mine was suffused with a shallow, though highly toxic poison. As such, Obama is the consummate campaigner; masterful on the stump, with crowds, and eye-to-eye. And yet, the hard work of the presidency – the long hours, the push and pull and soul-killing banter inherent in the position – seems, then and now, beyond him, as if he can’t be bothered to actually give a damn. Obama is, without question, a supreme intellect and rugged, complex thinker, but he hasn’t the stomach for the fight; he retreats at the very moment he should be showing his fangs to a defeated foe. He needs blood on his hands, and the willingness to hide the bodies of the vanquished. Trying so desperately to cast aside the blanket of rigidity he inherited from Mr. Bush, he has abandoned every shard of principle, all possible recourse to actually get something done. Believing in nothing, he has been made the fool, though only by his own design*.

Few could be blamed for seeing a troubling continuity from the past eight years to the present day, as we differ little in either substance or tone from the Bush/Cheney era. We are still at war on two fronts, with more troops on the way, and the associated appropriations are, at this moment, continuing their dreary rise into the stratosphere of debt. Afghanistan, heretofore the most inexplicable of war footings, given its tenuous connection to 9/11 (the hijackers were, almost to a man, from Saudi Arabia, and most of the planning took place in European hotels and American strip clubs), long ago eclipsed a quagmire, and has become, in the blink of an eye, simply another hopeless stretch of rock and sand where the mis- and easily- led die for the all-but-privatized war machine. Obama’s policy here is not only not an improvement on Bush’s, it is monumentally worse, as it re-commits to failure, while betraying the promise that he would be markedly different. He is not. Obama, for all his charm, is a flaccid, simpering con artist without the skill or phallus to challenge the ultimate American orthodoxy: we eat, sleep, and shit war, and it’s just about the only thing we do anymore with conviction. And it’s not even about winning. Just stretch it out, line some pockets, inspire promotions, and lull us to sleep with faux patriotism and blather about honor. Modern war indeed protects American interests, though such “interests” aren’t found with earshot of the Constitution these vampires claim to defend.

And then there’s health care. Both houses of Congress, and here we are, one step from passing a bill so toothless it all but cedes even more control to the insurance lobby. From visions of universal coverage to a doorstop that mandates something or other without doing a whit for price control or flexibility, the bill currently under consideration is exactly what you’d expect to get when its chief defender, President Obama, surrendered his nads before the thing hit the floor. Instead of, say, staking his entire presidency on the most pressing issue of our time, he has been content to hide under the couch until the gutless slobs in the Senate spew mediocrity from their Big Pharma-carved colons. Obama has failed to communicate a single idea related to health reform, and has assumed that mere change, or the repetition of the buzzword, would be enough to win the ball game. He lost control of the story quickly, almost without challenge, and hasn’t done a thing to bring it back to his side. Instead of grabbing lapels and poking his finger in assorted chests until the bastards relent, Obama has made it priority one to stall, hem, and hopelessly haw. As the nation’s primary messenger, he’s abdicated the throne without a shot being fired, and will spend the remainder of his single term in utter confusion. Even a Carter-like cabinet purge won’t erase the stink. His base is clearing the room, his reluctant supporters long ago defected, and his haters are more determined than ever. And as vile as the Republican agenda is, at least it’s a stance. One they’ll most assuredly fight for.

I happily, lustfully voted for Obama in 2008, if only to protect the Supreme Court. His first appointment, Sonia Sotomayor, appears to be a suitable choice (as does his second, the Lesbian Jewess, Elena Kagan), though time will tell if they’re up to the classically liberal, fuck-you-Bush-Senior greatness of David Souter. The real impact won’t come, however, until the Court sheds a Scalia or a Thomas. With a one-and-done, it’s unlikely Obama will ever get that chance. So no, I don’t abide executive weakness. Lacking left-wing chops, Obama has made the long road to retaking the White House even longer, and I won’t buy into the bullshit ever again. Perversely, I’d like to see Sarah Palin take the helm in 2012, if only to watch Democrats light the fire, as they seem to be at their best when there isn’t a chance in hell their ideas will actually see the light of day. And Palin would make America fun again, if only because she’d at last fulfill our subconscious national desire to reward Miss America not only with a tiara, but the keys to the kingdom as well. Hell, we’re on the decline, spinning ‘round the toilet of our nightmares, so why not finish us off at last with a well-stacked scarecrow who substitutes winking for actual thought? We’d get a wasteland, but at least we’d expect it. With Obama, we believed. We threw up our hands and left it up to him. As a lazy, fat, ambition-deprived American male, I’m used to failure with my daily bread, but this is one betrayal for which I will not stand. Say good night, Barack.

* – see also: tax policy, DADT, offshore drilling, non-use of the Antiquities Act, etc.

On the two-hour ride to the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, I told my brother that corndogs were invented there and they’d once made a movie about the event.  I didn’t even know if any of that shit was true but I had told work, Facebook, my probation officer, and Ruthless Reviews that I was going to the Fair this summer, and so, instead of Adventureland, the vaunted theme park a mere three miles from the fairgrounds, I talked my brother and his kids into the state’s annual agricultural showcase. I needed to keep them interested.

My PO told me when he slid the travel chit across his desk that, along with abstaining from the use of drugs and alcohol, I may end up spending a lot of money, and he knew what he was talking about.  What was once an all-inclusive bargain has given way to more gaudy commercialism and an opportunity to nickel and dime city slickers at every turn.  I doubt Judy Garland and Clark Gable had to pay $2.50 a head just to get inside the “Snake House” or drop a dollar per person to watch a cow take a bath back when they were in Iowa making that movie.  Even the carnies have come up with a new scam.  Have you ever heard this one?  You’re walking through the midway, a big stupid grin on your face, shrewdly making eye contact with every carnival barker you see, when one drops a dart or a baseball on the ground in your path.  He purports that it was an accident and, just because he dropped a dart, somehow the carny code mandates he must give you a free throw.   So you pop a balloon and the idea is that you’ll be so fired up by your accomplishment you’ll spend $5 for three more darts.  Fortunately, my brother was there to talk me out of emptying my wallet trying to win a Jay-Z mirror.

Beside my commitment to half-known Facebook friends, my other (true) motive for paying all that money to drive, park, and get into the Iowa State Fair was of course food.  At our ages, rusted-out carnival rides no longer grab our attention.  Even when the cars have that sparkly paint that’s always been so cool ever since I was a kid.  Matter fact, I toyed with the idea of just listing an inventory of things I ate at the state fair and turning it in to Erich but I figured I’d just report a partial list of what ultimately cost me over $80 (no shit) and get on with it.  Within a 6 hour period I ate, amongst other things:  Teriyaki chicken on a stick, a turkey leg, fried Oreos, two sour licorice whips with a soft gooey center flavored to compliment the main licorice flavor, pretzel rods dipped in caramel, Nitro ice cream, part of my nephew’s Octo-dog, part of my niece’s cheese fries, and a Twinkie Log.  Which is a frozen Twinkie dipped in white chocolate and rolled in cashews.  Also, I took home some tiger fudge.  Everything was probably so expensive because it was ethanol-based.

Aside from the food and leering pedocarnies there were really three other things going on at the fair (since we missed the previous days’ Vanilla Ice concert!) and those would be tractors, overpriced and under-maintained rides, and farm animals.  Oh, and a Boys Like Girls concert on Friday night. Inexplicably, the fair organizers booked a band that, just by showing up, would be placed in grave danger of being called “fags.”

The tractor show had the usual disappointing Purple Tractor! and a “Transformer Tractor” that didn’t transform.  We tried to steer my nephew away from the rides as long as we could, so we spent an alarming amount of our day looking at farm animals. Reading the hourly schedule of farm animal events for any given afternoon at the Fair, the uninitiated is reminded that this whole thing is one big celebration of agrarian accomplishments and values straight out of a Wendell Berry poem, where barefoot, wheatgrass-chewing kids pile into the family truckster once a year and try to sell their prized steer that, to me, looks just like any of the four fucking million other head of cattle lethargically mooing at one another down row upon shitty row.  Where you’re at there are probably tall buildings and things to do but here in Iowa people will drop $10 every day to see a different kind of cow-milking strategy.

And those dudes off the farm did not seem to take kindly to us city folk.  Us hip Vanilla Ice fans.  As I walked through the pens, obviously looking only for deformed animals, every John Boy and Bubba laid out on a bale of hay gave me the stinkeye like I was finna grab one of their sheep and run.  If I was presumptuous enough to actually stand and look at a cud-smacking bovine for too long my Boston Celtics jersey quickly gave me away as an elitist whose only motive was to take pictures of big piles of manure with my Blackberry.  They knew I had no interest in buying one of their increasingly sexy lambs, or stapling a blue ribbon to some nappy pony with distinct virtues apparently not clear to the untrained eye.

I started to worry that only animals hoping for a prize would be displayed, but for all the showcase swine and beasts there were also some fucked up animals meshed amongst the studs.  A bunch of goats with chopped off horns and concave legs.  A duck with a Donald Trump haircut who turned shamefully away when we walked by.  Tomacco addicted sheep.  And finally, a 1,400 pound hog with a goddam set of balls that looked like Billy Corgan spooning Jean Luc Picard somewhere deep under the monster’s great belly.

About the only other possible free shit was these random rural games played at intervals throughout the fairgrounds – cow pie bingo, rooster calls, and fucking..I don’t know..wife-beating contests?  I couldn’t help but be waylaid that producing the 14th best Pickling Cucumber in Iowa is something to hang your hat on.  I sort of felt like I could just pick one up from the store and get a prize if the winner’s list runs so deep.  I asked myself several times during the day’s festivities, “How is this a Blue State?”

Finally, after seeing enough chickens to last a lifetime, we took my nephew over to the rides.  He got to choose three, because we needed money to get home, and I was going on one of them with him.  In a surprising display of judiciousness on the part of the sex offenders maintaining the equipment, the boy was prevented from getting on any of the bigger, faster ones because of his size.
We had to stick with the little stuff.

Preston first went for the lame looking haunted house where he and another kid, who wished he was at Adventureland, too, rode a little train through some darkened particle board.  They came off it like Bart and Lisa in The Simpsons except our carny didn’t apologize.

Then we did The Gravitron together which is by far the best carnival ride in America, just updated with an Eminem jam instead of Def Leppard.  I don’t know if it’s my advancing age though or the 2,000 grams of sugar I ingested earlier that afternoon but there was one scary moment during the ride where I feared my Twinkie Log wouldn’t get the chance to become a proper Dookie Log.
And I can’t even remember the last ride he went on but I’m pretty sure it was terrible and not worth the five bucks his dad paid.

As our day started to wrap up and we were herded out the Fair like broke ass cattle, I considered that everybody around me, all these new friends we’d made that day – the carnies,  hot tub salesmen, cowpokes, midway barkers, pork queens, turd-farmers, and all the other unsuspecting rubes of Bartertown – these people’s votes are going to count more than yours in deciding our next President.

Also…don’t take a 5-year-old kid to the State Fair unless he has a lot of money on him.

If you’re an American, you probably don’t like kickball that much. You probably think that a bunch of guys in short shorts barely scoring is too much like your 7th grade gym class, so you’ll quickly turn the channel. I’m here to equip you with the soccer acumen that will win you the respect of even the swarthiest, neck-bearded, Slovakian bedecked in his best tracksuit.

Now, let’s break down the groups:

Group A

Mexico: Some people (Matt Cale) think they are nothing more than a festive brown race who does nothing more than mow lawns and make anchor-babies, but nothing could be farther from the truth. They’ve made vast, rich cultural strides in recent years (the Dos Equis man and George Lopez show). Anyway, they’re a team built on speed (but that goes without saying for a people that must continuously elude the border patrol), but just because they are small and fast, doesn’t mean they are weak– these little pepper-bellies are as feisty as they come and won’t submit to intimidation.

South Africa: Most people don’t know much about this country or team except that sharks frequent the beaches (thanks to Discovery Channel’s Shark Week) and they filmed District 9 there. Fucking drug-addicted aliens with badass weapons, what an awesome movie! Anyway, the South Africans have home field advantage, because ALL the games will be played here. It’s kind of unfair, but so was Apartheid, so… yeah. They have a fantastic squad of kick-stoppers, and good height, so expect them to put up a fight against pretty much anybody (except the English or the Dutch, we all know how they fare against them historically).

France: The French are great at nuclear power, cheese, and body hair; however, in the realm of competitive sport, you get the feeling that most of the players will fall victim to that classic French ennui, and quit mid-match to write a poem about a listless summer’s evening. They have players named “Sebastian” and “Florent.” In America, you know what gets named Sebastian and Florent? Fluffy Persian cats. These war-losers are one and done. Or is this thing double elimination? I have no fucking idea.

Uruguay: This country is pronounced, in American, “You’re a Gay.” Finally, a country the homosexuals can root for! Nothing wrong with being gay. I’m all for gay marriage and gays in the military. I’ve got gay friends. I even let them use the bathroom in my house. It’s no big deal to me. Anyway, let’s get to the breakdown: this team’s rear defenses are often breached, but they are known to possess superior ball control, and often use manipulation and loud colors to persuade officials.

Group B

South Korea: A quality squad with soul, who actually have an advantage in South Africa’s hot sun, as they are already squinting, and won’t have to make the large facial adjustments the roundeye westerners will. Their best player, No Nuk Mi, is famous for running so fast he burns a line down the middle of the field, which he then dares the opposition to cross.

Argentina: They’ve got a guy on the team named Lionel Messi who is like the Michael Jordan of soccer, so I’m giving this team the edge to win it all. If MJ can get a ring with the likes of Bill Winnington, then Messi can take home the cup. I don’t care if he has to play with Stephen Hawking, Air Bud, Sinbad, and Natalee Holloway’s ghost, he’s kicking circles around the fucking world to win this thing. Argentina in six!

Nigeria: I thought they were part of South Africa or something. Didn’t they shoot Blackhawk Down here? Or Hotel Rwanda. Oh right, that was in Rwanda. Is this where they cut off kids’ hands and make them work in diamond mines? How in the world can a kid mine diamonds with no hands? That makes no sense, but I’ll keep telling my girlfriend that anyway to deter me having to buy her a ring. Point is, more Americans should learn more about Africa. I’m going to google that shit right after writing this. Anyway, I give them a good chance to win some games because genocide makes a country strong and strong countries kick the ball real hard.

Greece: The inventors of democracy… and fucking little boys. I bet if Rome played Greece in a kickball game, it would just turn out to be some giant pedo orgy. Their best player, Jesse Katsopolis, is going to miss the tournament because his band, The Rippers, have a gig that weekend at a teen club. My prediction for the first game: Greece fades in the fourth quarter to get their asses handed to them in a classic 1-0 soccer blowout.

Group C

Algeria: I know nothing about this country. Where is it? It could be next to Mongolia, You’re-Gay, or Alaska, I have no idea. The flag looks a little Communistic, so that’s cool. I bet if they lose the match, all the players will have to go back to their jobs in the pants factory, because everybody in the whole fucking country wears the same pair of pants. To each according to his needs, and they all need to dress alike. I think Trotsky wrote that. I just went to their web page and saw one of their players got amnesty from FIFA. What the fuck is FIFA, do they make wind suits, like the American knock-off of FILA? Or did they just sponsor the World Cup, in the same way Tostitos sponsors the Rose Bowl?

England: I sure hope Jason Statham is on the team, and since he’s probably the biggest dude on the whole island, I’m guessing he is. I’m kidding myself, their best guy is most likely named Pip Shillingsworth and he’s slow, wears tube socks, and keeps his monocle tucked tightly in his bum during matches. Oh, I forgot about David Beckham. Nevermind, isn’t he always hurt? That classic frail English bone structure will never hold up over time. That’s why you’ve got about 6 million guys in London named Oliver who walk with a cane before they are 40 years old. However, our English brothers from across the pond are always clever, cheeky, and resourceful, so you can’t ever count them out. I think they’ll make it to the sweet sixteen.

Slovenia: Isn’t this where Vlade Divac is from? Great, a whole team of aging floppers who talk like Boris from Bullwinkle. You know the best thing Slovenia produces? Slutty porn actresses who do the most depraved, indecent things you will ever see (south of Germany). Plus, I’m pretty sure this team hates each other by now, they probably split into 3 separate teams based on ethnic division during the team’s continental breakfast in a Holiday Inn. The super-kickers are fighting with the infielders. The defensive backs are fighting with the wingmen. It’s probably complete chaos. I bet by the time they have their second match, ethnic cleansing has already taken place in their hotel suite, and five Serbians show up for the next game too tired to even jump for the tip-off.

United States: I, like most Americans, can tell you who is 5th on the depth chart in the Buffalo Bills receiving corps, but I can’t tell you the best soccer player on our team. All I know is we will probably win the whole fucking shit! I’m an American, that means I have confidence without reason. I think I can beat all of you up. I think my dick is the biggest here. I think I’m smarter than every person to walk the earth before me. Oh hell, I think I could probably fly a plane if left alone in one for about ten minutes. Even if we lose, we’ll probably just take another bite out of our cheeseburgers and not give a shit. That alone makes us winners. You know what happens when Ghana loses? A few buildings get burned down and the players all get beheaded. I can’t even comprehend getting that sad about soccer. It’s just kicking a ball! It’s like the oldest game ever! How is that even popular? You don’t see Atari having Pong tournaments popping up all over the world! There are way better games invented, get with it! In football, we’ve got the play action pass, the corner blitz, the double reverse…these are complex strategic plays implemented with the greatest precision by the greatest athletes in the history of the world. How could we care if a guy named Alexi kicks a ball in a net? You know what the best thing a soccer ball ever did? I’ll tell you– it was keeping Tom Hanks company on that deserted island.

And I know there are some other teams, but as a soccer expert, I feel pretty confident that I’ve covered all the relevant ones.

Miranda July

Born in 1974 in Barre, Vermont, likely to a bearded mid-wife as the winter wind whipped a patriarchal moon, Ms. July, merely responsible for the criminal act otherwise known as Me and You and Everyone We Know (“merely” in a way that Stalin merely purged his republics of entire generations), is perhaps the decade’s most emblematic atrocity; a self-absorbed, self-involved, dull-witted razor across the wrists of a dying culture who so upped the quirk quotient that we’ll likely never again witness a straight face. Her maiden cinematic effort, the type where her sweet-tempered cancer of a character asks only that you call her at 3am, utter the word “macaroni”, and return to your obsessive navel-gazing, left me reeling for the better half of the decade, and at last gave the Mark David Chapman in me my own personal John Lennon. And then, as if to nudge us ever closer to the brink, she released a collection of smirking short stories, No One Belongs Here More than You, coupled with the short film, Are You the Favorite Person of Anyone?, which posits that if someone, somewhere isn’t thinking about you every minute of every day, it’s best to fill the gap yourself, preferably with doodle-ridden post-it notes. Among her other accomplishments, she wears funny hats, goofy glasses, and wide belts, and isn’t above going out in public sans bra. She also believes that if it can’t be done with a dollop of gay, a cup of whimsy, and a bucket of menstrual blood blessed by an Apache medicine man, it isn’t worth doing at all. Thankfully, she’s left us the world’s worst website (www.mirandajuly.com), which obnoxiously shifts everything to the right side of the screen, while proving that any revolution worth its salt must first figure out the ideal daily affirmation to leave on one’s pillow. I’d wish a brutal rape upon her vile soul, but she’d only turn it into an award-winning performance piece.

Erin Brockovich

Every decade needs its feminist icon, and who better than a self-righteous, screeching slab of entitlement fury portrayed by Julia Roberts? Oh, that Erin, having all those kids by all those different fathers, flying into a rage when her free babysitter has the audacity to move away, or believing that big tits and a gaping vagina are reasonable substitutes for a law degree. She’s the All-American gal: pushy, vain, and compensating for her mental midgetry with sassy put-downs and the kind of reverse-snobbery only a white trash mother could love. And why not? While others slave away with the actual heavy lifting, she’s sitting on assorted couches listening to sob stories and bullying boob-struck men into letting her photocopy sensitive documents. By all means pay her millions of dollars! Yes, she’s the kind of woman who fucks degenerate bikers, quits jobs where she’s not allowed to dress like a prostitute, drops out of school in the 3^rd grade, and nastily rebukes anyone who isn’t charmed by her abusive demeanor, all while bemoaning the unfairness of a cruel world. And yet, she’s consistently rewarded for her efforts, as if to argue that because women aren’t cut out for life with accountability, they should chug any cock that will sign their paycheck. It’s not a bad argument, if only the film meant it. No, Erin is the bulldog heroine in the best populist tradition; the relentless bur in the backside of corporate greed and masculine indifference. In reality, she’s the decade’s flowering of femininity: the world will forgive your hateful, bitter, brain-blasting ways so long as you look good in a mini-skirt. Act like this with the mug of Betty Friedan, and guess who’ll be collecting unemployment.

Garden State

We all know a guy like Zach Braff –  hip, smug, indifferent to the world’s turn – but how many secure the necessary funds to write and direct a motion picture? Fortunately, the world is unkind, though this film and its rush of imitators are enough to degrade our collective taste all on their own. Yep, there’s adorable Zach in the corner of the classroom, gripping his dog-eared notebook while he chews pensively on his writing instrument. He stares at the ceiling for a moment, flashes that unmistakable grin yet again, and quickly jots down another idea.  He’ll recall bits of a conversation he had the week before, adding a dash of color to push it along just so into the realm of the unbelievable. Here a scene, there a scene, all lacking continuity, of course, but making for brilliant set pieces in search of an idea. Year after year, Zach collects these tidbits and morsels of twee for the movie to come; the one he feels compelled to make, and will most assuredly bring him the fame promised by guidance counselors and smothering Jewish mothers alike. The hero, a drug-addled young man coping with loss, who believes recovery can only be found in the mad eyes of an eccentric epileptic who conducts hamster funerals when she isn’t collecting your tears in a Dixie cup. And be sure to add the kid who wears a full suit of armor at the breakfast table, or the Gulf War trading cards, or screaming with cathartic release next to a boat that’s been turned into a house, or maybe even a rich kid who invented something he calls silent Velcro. Or match the hero’s shirt with the wallpaper while a sad pop song plays on the soundtrack. Or even the odd duck of a black guy who becomes a detective to find out who exactly urinated on his video game console. My god, how we loved them all. Representative of no one, reminding us of even less, we were transfixed in no uncertain terms; imagination unhinged in the face of cruel conformity. He spoke at last for a generation that can’t stop talking about itself.

Zooey Deschanel

She first came to my attention in the fevered nightmare of All the Real Girls. She told me she had a dream where she invented peanut butter. Then she stood – like that – in the bowling alley. You know, the way one does when they want the whole fucking enterprise to shut down and look in their direction. She demanded love, and got it, because every man on earth should want the girl most likely to leave you 634 voicemails on the Friday you don’t call her back. She’s the girl who speaks in riddles, sing-song blather, and allusions to college radio. And then in Yes Man, where she fronts a group called Munchausen By Proxy, a bar band with three fans, just in case you wondered how she could afford to live in Los Angeles. And in case she didn’t have you convinced of her authenticity, she put a seahorse on her head to, you know, separate herself from someone who gives a damn. But again, you’ll love her, because she’s so cute and cuddly and warm and fuzzy and, well, psychotic, but in a way that might lead to anal. And then, in (500) Days of Summer, she’s the new Annie Hall, a la-de-da sweetheart for a new generation unaccustomed to sanity in their women. She has you at hello because she’s unpredictable, zany, and prone to chronic unemployment. She’s the girl who doesn’t have to try, falling back on soft tones, warm eyes, and a paycheck that involves leading joggers at 6am as they learn how to take pictures as they sprint. A fuckable Miranda July who loves video games, comic books, and your kind of music which is so fucking cool, if only you don’t mind the crying fits, bizarre disappearances, and requests to dance naked in the rain. She’s hot, but not too hot; approachable enough for desperate nerds everywhere who don’t mind a pink, spangle-dusted boot heel on the groin whenever you fall and fall hard. She’s irony incarnate, and gone by breakfast. She was also in my favorite movie of the past 25 years, which might be her most devious crime yet.

Juno

When the history of this most appalling decade is written, few need consult a source outside the comfy confines of Diablo Cody’s ode to the improbably articulate teenager; the one film of its time so pre-occupied with being clever and smarmy and whip-smart that it failed to realize its own rich status as the most conservative slice of American culture since the slasher film equated sex with violent death. But that’s our Diablo: so desperate to jam in allusions to cartoons and TV icons that pre-date our heroine’s birth by mere decades that she becomes the only pro-life advocate with pink hair and a guild card. Sure, young people do in fact speak in sly slogans and tele-speak, but the ones who get pregnant don’t exactly have two working parents around to gently poke their ribs. Hell, they don’t even stay in school. But rather than delve into the reality of teenage motherhood, with its poverty, neglect, and decided humorlessness, our sweet Juno makes it so damn appealing that we’d gladly submit our own for insemination if it meant they’d be as well-read and up to speed on classic rock. It’s the Hollywood gloss that grates, and the insistence that language should get us nowhere but the next witticism. There’s also a creepy condescension afoot, where Diablo’s sense of superiority is voiced by the stepmom-cum-nail tech, a stand-in for the armchair populist’s sense that expertise or accomplishment are diminished in the face of knowing the names of He-Man’s comrades. Where being flippant can get the job done just as well as training, education, and dedication to craft. And where even the most sarcastic, mean-spirited demon can’t Shop-Vac her spawn because being smart is always a cover for being scared shitless. Oh yeah, and Michael Cera. And the Daniel Johnston-inspired soundtrack. And the track team motif. And a mailbox overrun with Tic-Tacs. Because we all know the corner store that stocks them by the thousands.

Dishonorable Mentions:

Slumdog Millionaire – Because the most beautiful woman in India shall be sold into prostitution and remain a virgin.

Wes Anderson – Because you forever ruined “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard.”

Adrienne Shelly – Because she’s dead and gone and I want to kill her myself for Waitress.

Lady in the Water – Because having a character named Cleveland Heep was not the worst thing about it.

Jennifer Hudson – Because she now has exactly one more Oscar than Stanley Kubrick for bleeding out eardrums worldwide in a ghetto fright wig.

The Pursuit of Happyness – Because homeless black men so rarely become millionaires. Or demand sole custody.

Rent – Because transvestites with AIDS should pay for their own damn cups of coffee.

A History of Violence – Because William Hurt is not Irish. Or a gangster. Or an actor.

The Passion of the Christ – Because I don’t like to mix my anti-Semitism with my homoeroticism, at least not in public.

The Brown Bunny – Because the biggest assholes always have the biggest cocks. Always, I says.

What the Bleep Do We Know? – Because New Age is the new Christianity. And stupid is the same stupid.