Gatorade's Cool Blue (it's in a silver bottle, it is NOT the Frost blue but is colored the same) has an electric aftertaste.
I am not even joking.
Input by Mike at 12:03 AM
Wednesday, November 05, 2003
The Spirit of Jackass Alive and Kickin?
I preface by saying, I've been away from MTV for a long, long time...
Although Johnny Knoxville has left the hijinx of Jackass, MTV is gratefully reluctant to let go of the weird assortment of talent they had surrounded the turn-of-the-century underground legend with. Yes, Jackass spin-offs have hit the tube and it's a funny thing considering the original show was the exact opposite. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Breaking up the circus has allowed for some things that worked well on the original series to be fleshed out. The adventures of Steve-O and Chris "Party Boy" Pontius with Manny, a kind of wildlife guide from the So Florida episodes, are turned into a half-assed, tongue-in-cheek nature show. I'm sure this will be said of it ten million times, but it's the Crocodile Hunter if the Aussie gator guru were an actual idiot. There's a bad catch-22 working against the show though, the "Wild Boyz" can't hurt the animals but the animals are totally willing to hurt and/or kill them. So, there's not the same kind of idiotic danger as in Jackass... but, sometimes, it still manages to be funny. When Steve-O had eggs from a dead salmon squirted in his mouth and then salmon semen squirted all over his face, I laughed. Pretty loudly too.
The other show is Viva La Bam. Which I have not witnessed yet, but which presumably follows the Margera family's psychological torture at the hands of Bam Margera. Sundays, I believe, if anyone needs another show to clog up their Sunday evening viewing.
Input by Mike at
5:20 PM
Monday, November 03, 2003
All the Prophets in the House
Carnivale has opened a mighty big metaphysical can of worms on its viewers as the battle to inevitably be waged between good and evil begins to unveil itself. This is a show with an almost painful patience at revealing its characters, as if it's saying "You are about to witness one of the most collossal conflicts in the history of the universe. Let's make sure you fully understand what brought every piece into place for it to happen." The allure of, say, the Sopranos is in waiting to see what will become of Tony Soprano... Sure, hints have been dropped that the show will end in Big T's demise, but we have no idea where that will come from. Also. Tony has been working towards remedying his feeling of the end being nigh both practically and psychologically. So, there are no guarantees. Instead we watch to see where the characters will bring themselves. Carnivale is different in that we have the feeling that we are seeing a history of the story; we don't have a full character sketch for any of the major players at this point, but revelations to who they are gradually given. Even within an episode we see this structure; we don't understand the relevance of things until the conclusion (even then, we oftentimes are only assured that items will have relevance to the grand conclusion).
Anyway. We've hit a point where we know enough that we can actually talk about what's going on in the show and not just stare at each blankly and say, "What the hell just happened?"
Input by Mike at
7:16 PM
Critical Mass
Friday night I participated in the October edition of Critical Mass. For those not in the know--basically everyone--Critical Mass is a bike trek through Chicago's busy streets during Friday rush hour with many hundreds of bicycles. It is one of the strangest (or most frustrating) things you will ever see and honestly one of the most fun to participate in. The line of bikes, once the mass gets moving, stretches at least five city blocks, and although the front line stops appropriately at traffic lights the rest will keep moving through red intersections in order to keep the line together (done partly for safety, partly for order, partly for the fun of it).
Arguably the best part of the ride is the reaction to it. The majority of witnesses fall into the puzzled and/or awestruck category... Bar patrons plaster the windows or spill out into the sidewalk, pedestrians step to the curve to get a closer look or to question riders breaking to the side, car passengers think they've lost their minds. After all, the streets, which we associate with the dangerous, accelerating iron-grid of automobiles has been pacified by an endless stream of pedal-powered skeletons. Part of the wonder of even participating in the event is this dramatic reversal of authority. Even if the corking of traffic frustrates you to no end, there is little to say or do aside from just watching it all go by.
Howerver, some people are, I suppose, in denial. They will honk (which is greeted by the "woo"-ing of passing cyclists), try to inch their way through the mass (which is greeted by one excited cyclists pulling to a stop directly in front of them, thus ceasing the car's forward movement), or in extreme cases, get out of their car and try to pick a fight with their halting rider (which is greeted by swarming bicycles demanding for the individual to get back into their car).
Normally, routes are planned ahead of time and pretty much stuck to, but a few "tricks" in this month's map ended up bringing the ride into a benevolent chaos as the ride was given its own life on a wandering exodus from Daley Plaza. The group I was with for most of the ride ended up experiencing a radically different conclusion to the ride than I did after we were separated --DUE TO THE INTENSE SPEED AT WHICH I RIDE!!! -- but both concluded with a practical party social in the middle of triangle intersections. They got bagels though. (There were probably 3-4 different packs by the end of the ride.)
For more on the Mass, check out the website : Chicago Critical Mass or drop me an e-mail.
Input by Mike at
11:31 AM
