Aaron R. Davis

I’ve been reading a lot of online news lately about the upcoming sequel to JJ Abrams’ Star Trek reboot, and despite the fact that the movie itself isn’t even supposed to appear until 2013, I’m already fatigued by it.

I know, I know. I’m doing that thing I’m always excoriating the Internet for and pre-judging an unfinished product. But what can I tell you? I’m a mass of contradictions, like every actor who thinks they’re fascinating says in every Playboy interview. Or I’m a lazy hypocrite, which is probably more accurate.

It’s not that I didn’t like the first movie (or eleventh movie, if you like), because I did. I’ve caught it on a cable a few times in the past couple of years, and I always enjoy the hell out of it. I know you can make the case that it’s a poorly-written movie, and I can’t really defend it on that level (Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci seem to make their livings writing poorly — I mean, they did write those awful Transformers flicks), but there’s such a fun spirit to the movie that I enjoy it despite its many flaws.

No, my ever-growing disinterest in the sequel is that it’s feeling awfully … re-hashy to me.

It’s this Khan business. Why the hell would you make the decision to do Khan over again?

Here’s what was so great about the reboot: it set the characters up to go in literally any direction the filmmakers could think to send them.

They spent the first movie giving Star Trek this sort of cool, thundering urgency that was, in some ways, an infusion of Star Wars (down to a number of plot elements), but in many other ways made the characters feel more immediate. By trying to combine science fiction elements with space opera grandiosity, they took a trope audiences have long taken for granted — space exploration — and gave it a dark edge, made it dangerous and thrilling again, re-imagined it for a world that was even more laden with faster technology than the world was in the 1960s. Sure, the bridge of the Enterprise may have looked like the inside of an Apple Store, but the filmmakers actually took the time to make the signature Trek technologies — phasers, hand communicators, transporters — seem not only plausible, but new and dangerous.

At the same time, they’d also spent the entire first movie justifying what they were doing to longtime Trek fans that couldn’t get past the first level of being offended that someone was remaking the adventures of Kirk, Spock and company with different actors. So they plugged Leonard Nimoy into the movie and created an explanation as to why things were happening differently: this was an alternate universe created by accident. So the original series, et al, aren’t being overwritten by new data, this is simply happening in, basically, another dimension or something. Since my sensible explanation that everything you ever saw in Star Trek still exists and can be enjoyed on DVD anytime you actually feel like it never seems to actually make sense to people who seem to think that remakes and reboots somehow erase from history all the joy Star Trek has ever given them in the past, it’s as good an explanation as any.

So, after making a cool, fun movie that bends over backwards to justify its existence by swearing up and down that this is an alternate reality and can go in literally any direction, I was really looking forward to a second movie where the filmmakers, no longer bound by creating the set-up, could do anything they wanted to do.

And apparently that’s to remake an episode of the original series.

I don’t know; am I judging them too harshly for this? Am I overreacting? Don’t tell me it’s not going to be Khan in the sequel, because it so obviously is. Back in 2009, when Star Trek was still playing in cinemas, Abrams was already talking about Khan as the villain, with some theoretical bullshit about “people who are always destined to meet.” They’re so hot on trying to cast a Hispanic actor as the villain; the original Khan, Ricardo Montalban, was from Mexico. (It would be nice to see the Indian Khan Noonien Singh played by an Indian actor this time, if they have to do it again. Jimi Mistry would be pretty awesome in the role, just sayin’.)

Hell, even Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman have let it slip, after a fashion. IDW just started publishing its Star Trek series, based on their film, and have said it could serve as a prelude to the sequel.

(Actually, they said prequel, in yet another all-too-common misuse of the word; man, that’s become a pet peeve for me lately. Look, gentlemen, a “prequel” is something that comes after something else, but takes place before it. The only way the comic book series would be a prequel to Star Trek 2 is if it came out after the movie, but detailed events taking place before the events of the film. Seriously, guys, you’re writers!)

All that’s happening in the comic books right now is the rehashing of old episodes. The first two issues were the second pilot, “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” with the new versions of the crew plugged in. The second two issues have been “The Galileo Seven.” Literally all they’re doing is retelling episodes of the original series with a slightly harder edge to fit the new characterizations. It’s really disappointing, because, as I keep saying, you could go in literally any direction you wanted after creating a feature length explanation for why this Star Trek is different from that Star Trek … and instead you just want to rehash old episodes?

So I expect this attitude of “the exact same thing, but kind of different,” so thoroughly endorsed by the screenwriters, is the prevailing one when it comes to current Star Trek projects. And I just find that disappointing. They spent an entire movie partitioning this universe off from the old one just to justify doing whatever they wanted … and what they want to do is rehash “Space Seed,” an episode that was well-done the first time and led to the best Trek film ever made.

There’s that Hollywood originality we always expect.

(Oh, and incidentally, the major reason I think it’s obvious Khan is going to be the villain in the sequel? JJ Abrams says it’s not. That tends to be the extent of his ability to shroud his projects in mystery.)

Aaron R. Davis lives in a cave at the bottom of the ocean with his eyes shut tight and his fingers in his ears. You can contact him at samuraifrog@yahoo.com

Similar Posts:

• Positive Cynicism – It’s time for Star Trek fans to get out of the way of Star Trek
• Positive Cynicism – Boldly wasting my 10 bucks
• Positive Cynicism – The bullpen of stupid
• Murphy’s Law – Sorry Gelfond, size does matter

Aaron R. Davis

Nostalgia is a weird force; it overlooks flaws and romanticizes failings. Growing up is also a weird force; it tends to make people cynical and, in a reflexive way, suspicious of anything new, especially new versions of things that make us nostalgic.

It’s the meeting of these two forces that, at age eight, can make someone gleefully delight when Indiana Jones survives a fall out of a plane, down a mountainside and over a cliff in an inflatable raft, but, at age 32, seethe with anger when Indiana Jones survives a nuclear blast by hiding himself in a lead-lined fridge. Both silly, both implausible, both in the same sense of fun, but, to hear the Internet tell it, one a joy to behold and the other an offense by history’s greatest monster.

November saw the financial success of The Muppets, for all intents and purposes Kermit the Frog’s comeback film. Of course, the Muppets haven’t really gone anywhere, they’ve just been doing Disney Channel specials and TV movies — their last major production, Letters to Santa, is only three years old. But since Jim Henson died in 1990, they have been off the mainstream radar in entertainment.

Now they’re back, with a feature film and a Disney-fueled marketing push behind them, and I couldn’t be happier. I loved the movie, and I appreciate the way it tried to make the audience look at the Muppets nostalgically on purpose, and then wonder why the Muppets seemed to disappear in the first place.

The obvious answer is, of course, that Jim Henson died much too early. The movie’s fictional answer is that entertainment got too cynical and hard-edged and the Muppets didn’t really seem to fit anymore. But I think the answer is somewhere in the middle of that.

Yes, Jim Henson died, and then Muppeteer Richard Hunt died a year later, also far too young. After that, I think there was a bit of a struggle over who was going to be in charge of the Muppets from then on. Who was the heir apparent? Was it Frank Oz, one of Jim’s longest collaborators, the genius behind Fozzie Bear and Bert, one-half of puppetry’s greatest double-act? Or was it Jim Henson’s son, Brian, himself a talented puppeteer who was probably feeling the pressure to carry on the family business, but who often expressed doubts about whether he could do anything with the Muppets, or even wanted to?

It took a decade, but the conflict seems to have simmered and then come to a head during the filming of the 1999 flick Muppets from Space. After that, Frank Oz left the Muppets to focus full-time on his successful directing career, and a few years later, Brian Henson sold the Muppets to Disney to concentrate on other opportunities for the Jim Henson Company. During that decade, the Muppets tried TV again with the unsuccessful (but charming) Muppets Tonight, which was pushed into syndication in its second season and will probably never see the inside of a DVD player, which is a damn shame. It also seems to have been a time when everyone involved with the Muppets had a hard time figuring out who was in charge, and just what to do with the characters.

What I hear now — and what I’ve especially been hearing in response to the new film — is that there should be a new version of The Muppet Show. That tends to be a trigger for me, because I am firmly of the belief that if there were such a show, no one would watch it, and those who did watch it wouldn’t like it. People don’t really want a new Muppet Show; they want to be little kids again and they want Jim Henson to still be alive.

When it comes to something remembered through nostalgia, people are very unwilling to accept that time moves on or that things change. People forget or were always unaware of factors that made the original what it was — factors that can’t be repeated.

Here’s what those factors were for The Muppet Show.

First, American networks rejected the idea of a series featuring the Muppets. Jim Henson had to go to Britain to get the show made for syndication, and in the beginning the concept was so out there that they couldn’t even get guest stars. Most of the original guest stars were actors who had the same agent as Jim Henson. It didn’t really gel until the second season, when people like Rudolf Nureyev legitimized The Muppet Show as a showcase of artistry as well as laughter. A lot of people praise — quite rightly — the anarchic spirit and bizarre non sequitors of the series, but how much of that was born out of the environment of what was essentially an independent British comedy production? The show might have been quite different if it was made in America, and maybe not as long-remembered.

Second, the late 70s were a time when variety shows and specials were much more common on television than they are now. Saturday Night Live was still brand new, and if you watch those early episodes, the sketch comedy is only part of the package. There were variety series full of guest stars, musical numbers, dance showcases, artistic depictions. For The Muppet Show, having Rudolf Nureyev dance ballet or having Mummenschanz perform one of their bizarre, beautiful routines or having Shields & Yarnell do mime and magic wasn’t out of character with other shows of the time.

Today, the variety format only barely exists. Talk shows follow rigid routines that have turned them into pointless commercial platforms for upcoming movies, albums and TV shows. If you have a show with people dancing or singing, it’s most likely a reality competition show with arrogant judges dissecting people who have overestimated their talents. The Muppet Show format doesn’t really exist anymore; back then, they were following an already-established and familiar TV idiom. What would they do today that would both parody and follow the established rhythm of today? Scream at fat people until they cried?

The third thing we can’t overlook: Jim Henson is dead. Richard Hunt, too. Muppets head writer Jerry Juhl passed on a few years ago. Frank Oz no longer works with the Muppets, and neither does Jerry Nelson. From the original group of Muppeteers, only Dave Goelz and Steve Whitmire remain with the team, trying to shepherd the Muppets from project to project, and doing it very well, I think. They don’t get enough credit for keeping the Muppets alive and entertaining after everyone predicted that Kermit the Frog would fall by the wayside of entertainment history over a decade ago. And though the current group of Muppeteers is doing a damn good job with the characters now, I run into people who just can’t overlook the fact that it’s not the same people anymore, even if those people have died or moved on. Sorry, it’s just reality. Things change, and if they’re malleable enough, as I think the Muppets are, the necessary differences are woven in organically. If people resent those differences and can’t get over it, well, they don’t need a new Muppet Show.

And the final consideration is, really, Disney. Disney’s great at cross-promotion and marketing, but not much else. Not to disrespect some of their entertainment products, which I quite enjoy, but they’re much better at short term gain than they are at long term planning or growing their brands. If Disney decided it was time to do The Muppet Show again, the best case scenario is that it would be very safe and charming; and it would air in a shitty family time slot on ABC, before being dumped onto Disney Channel. And it would feature a lot of stars from Disney Channel or ABC as a way of promoting other projects (much the same reason that Disney Channel’s Selena Gomez and Modern Family’s Rico Rodriguez cameo in the new movie).

I don’t really know where The Muppet Show would fit in with today’s demographics. Disney would want to aim it at children and families, but what always worked so well about the Muppets is that they weren’t aimed at children and families. Yeah, they were clean and they weren’t cynical, but The Muppet Show was a comedy show with an old-fashioned sensibility, timeless gags and modern jokes. It was free and zany and silly, but it had heart and wit. They aren’t a toy commercial; they’re comedy.

I don’t know … maybe if you put them on Adult Swim and get real comedy writers to do it and worry about the comedy first and the branding second (or fifth or something), and acknowledge that the people who most want to see it are guys in their thirties, you might have something. But does anyone really think that’s going to happen?

All I know is, whatever the future of the Muppets, I’ll be there watching it. And maybe listening to the Internet complain about it, because that’s what the Internet does. And hoping that The Muppets isn’t the last time I ever see Zach Galifianakis as Hobo Joe, because the world really does need more Hobo Joe.

Aaron R. Davis lives in a cave at the bottom of the ocean with his eyes shut tight and his fingers in his ears. You can contact him at samuraifrog@yahoo.com

Similar Posts:

• Review – The Muppets
• Hobo Radio 207 – Everybody loves Muppets
• Positive Cynicism – A mouse in the House of Ideas (or is an idea in the House of Mouse?)
• Positive Cynicism – Just grow up, already
• Positive Cynicism – The movie is beside the point

Aaron R. Davis

Black Friday really has become the most American holiday, because only in America would people gleefully create a storm of materialistic violence mere hours after giving thanks for what they already have. “But what’s really important is family … now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to put on my spiked climber’s boots in case I need to step on someone on the way to the discounted wafflemaker.”

Yes, Black Friday has come and gone. The day that is supposedly America’s busiest, most discount-friendly shopping day of the year, even though it’s generally neither. The one day of the year that it’s supposedly normal for people to line up for miles outside of department stores in the middle of the night, because apparently if they don’t the shelves at Target will be completely bare by 9 a.m. The day the news media, suffering from the slow holiday season news cycle, plays up what used to be a stereotype — that Black Friday is a day of shopping so competitive that things get violent — and thus creates a charged, violence-friendly atmosphere.

This is the kind of thing that some civilization is going to look back on a couple of hundred years from now and say: “Well, no wonder they wiped themselves out.” They’re going to look back at Thanksgiving and think it was the warm-up meal to some messed up version of the Hunger Games with slightly discounted flatscreen televisions.

Still, it’s easy for me to overlook this kind of ridiculousness. Who am I to do anything but roll my eyes when I see people lining up to be taken advantage of? The stereotype of the Black Friday shopper — typified by those horrendous Target commercials with the crazy woman in the red jogging suit, which says an awful lot about what Target thinks of its holiday shoppers, doesn’t it? — is pretty silly, and if people want to aspire to that, well, that’s between them, their victimized families and their eventual court-ordered psychiatrist.

Where I get bothered is in two places. First is in the way stores are opening earlier and earlier and earlier. Every year, they test the waters more and more to see how much Thanksgiving space they can encroach on. This year there were stores opening on the evening of Thanksgiving itself, which probably marks the beginning of the end of Thanksgiving as a holiday most people traditionally get off of work. (I’m sure there are movie theater and video store employees scoffing and saying “Hey, welcome to the club,” and having worked on Thanksgiving in both capacities, I do not blame them one scintilla.)

Can you imagine working at Walmart and coming in to find that your schedule includes evening shift hours on Thanksgiving? Doesn’t sound like fun to me. Then again, neither does working at Walmart, but in this economy, if you actually have a job, more power to you.

The second place where I get bothered is, of course, the violence.

Stampedes for $2 wafflemakers? Really, America? This is what we’ve come to now?

These people who get so crazy over deals and discounts and cheap gimmicks … yeah, they exist. We’ve all known people like this, somehow. Maybe our mother is friends with them, or maybe they’re related to us somehow, but we’ve all run across them. Those people who buy everything because they’re getting such a good deal. Never mind the fact that not spending money on these things at all will save you 100 percent on the list price; that concept is wholly foreign to these people. My mother is friends with a woman who was so thrilled when her sons moved away for college because she could fill up their rooms with appliances — many of which never even come out of the shopping bags — that she got incredible deals on. It’s like hunting, but for crazy people.

Yes, I said crazy people, because if you’re trampling another human being just to buy a $2 wafflemaker, there is something wrong with you.

Then there’s this insanity of the woman who fired pepper spray into a crowd of people just to get her hands on a cheap Xbox. Okay, I get how frustration can lead someone to think of casually hurting people — we all have those thoughts, admit it — but to actually do it takes some kind of uncanny leap from reality. It’s like the poor judgment equivalent of getting bitten by a radioactive spider, turning bad decisions into really dangerous ones. I know, I know, Fox News tells us that pepper spray is a food product (which happens to be banned for use in war by the Chemical Weapons Convention), but that thing is hotter than the hottest pepper known to man.

On the one hand, temporarily blinding someone and cutting off their ability to breathe just to get an Xbox is the most insane thing I’ve ever heard. On the other hand, it’s kind of the most American thing I’ve ever heard. We should knock down the Statue of Liberty at this point and just put up a statue of that UC Davis campus cop spraying pure capsaicin into the eyes of the less fortunate while standing on a pile of Xboxes.

(Also, as an aside, I think we just got an insight into the kind of home atmosphere that makes those screaming adolescent homophobes that thrive on Xbox Live.)

The final bit of bad news is that sales were up seven percent this Black Friday, so look for things to only get worse next year when people brave the biting cold to shop, spend, deal, save, shove, trample, maim and kill their way into proving how much more they love their families than you do. Me, I’ll be in my Black Friday bunker.

Aaron R. Davis lives in a cave at the bottom of the ocean with his eyes shut tight and his fingers in his ears. You can contact him at samuraifrog@yahoo.com

Similar Posts:

• Hobo Radio 208 – The saddest Thanksgiving
• Murphy’s Law – Black Friday
• Murphy’s Law – Coping with Christmas

Aaron R. Davis

I know I spend a lot of time on this column bitching about things that annoy me. (I also spend a lot of time doing that in real life; I am seriously unpleasant to be around.) So this week, with Thanksgiving looming on the horizon, I thought I’d take the time out from dodging my mother-in-law’s cooking and putting up the Christmas tree (yes, we’re already doing that) and tell you some of the things I’m thankful for this year. Sincerely.

I’m thankful for my family. As much as I tend to be the cave-dwelling hermit of my clan, I am thankful that they’re here for me. On the phone, generally, but I still love them.

I’m thankful for Jason Segel and his love of Muppets, because there’s finally a new Muppets media blitz and a new movie, and god damn it, life without Muppets is life without joy.

I’m especially thankful that I’m not having Thanksgiving in the Sandusky home this year. That’s got to be awkward.

I’m grateful to 2 Broke Girls for being my weekly Kat Dennings delivery system. I need the perfection that is Kat Dennings in my home every week. I frankly don’t care about quality or anything else. Just as long as Kat Dennings is there, it keeps me happy.

I’m thankful there’s only one Twilight movie left, and then I probably never have to see Robert Pattinson’s scruffy oiliness and demented, cross-eyed, stalkery smile again because, come on, Hollywood, you know he’s not a leading man.

I’m pleased with Netflix. They may have screwed up their business plan royally by conditioning us for years to expect cheap, affordable streaming content and then realizing they couldn’t sustain that model and so presented us with a higher cost for what we were already getting for 60 percent less and acted like they were doing us a favor by charging us more money … but at least they have every Star Trek series for instant streaming. And I’ve been enjoying watching them all. Of course, when I’m finished with them, I might just dump Netflix altogether, since their instant movie collection is mostly crap and so many other studios are making exclusive content deals because they actually think people want to maintain multiple streaming accounts with multiple sites just to watch Grown-Ups more conveniently, but hey, for now, Star Trek. So thank you for that, Netflix.

Also, because of Star Trek, I’m seeing a lot of Jeffrey Combs. How terrific is Jeffrey Combs? I love Jeffrey Combs. Have a great Thanksgiving, Jeff!

I’m grateful for bunnies. Just am. Just love them.

I’m thankful for Herman Cain. I can’t remember the last time I laughed this hard during a presidential election cycle. (Except when having “reasonable conversations” with libertarians, which is kind of like discussing the realism of Star Wars with children.)

I’m indebted to bloggers who put up old issues of comic books so you can read them. Seriously, comic books from the 1970s make today’s comics look like garbage. I would much rather read old issues of OMAC, Black Lightning, Kamandi or Conan the Barbarian than 98 percent of what DC has on offer these days. Those old comics do in four pages what today’s comic book “creatives” do in six issues.

By the way, thank you, Dan DiDio, for making today’s DC Comics such a joyless chore to read. Not only do I not feel compelled to spend money on comics anymore, but I have more time to … well, watch Star Trek and be on the Internet.

I’m much obliged to Scarlett Johansson. Thanks to her, we got a charming reminder that our government considers the sanctity of an actress’s cell phone a bigger priority than jobs or infrastructure or finding missing children. Especially if those children aren’t white. I’m not saying all of that is something good, I’m just saying America needs reminders of what’s broken in order to fix it.

I’m thankful for Occupy Wall Street. It proves that no matter how far gone into selfishness and self-pity we decline, people can still get mad enough about the important things to take a stand.

I’m also thankful that we live in an age where a campus cop in riot gear can have his home address and phone number plastered all over the Internet after he casually runs mace across the faces of peaceful protesters, because fuck that guy.

I’m thankful for all of my online friends, who actually make me feel like I’m an interesting person. It’s not often I feel that way, so I’m truly grateful to all of you. I hope all of you Americans have a lovely and safe Thanksgiving, and the rest of you just have lovely and safe days. Lovely and safe lives, all of you.

And everyone reading this. And everyone out there. If I can turn off the cynicism for a few days, then we all can, right?

Happy Thanksgiving, folks!

Aaron R. Davis lives in a cave at the bottom of the ocean with his eyes shut tight and his fingers in his ears. You can contact him at samuraifrog@yahoo.com

Similar Posts:

• Positive Cynicism – What I’m thankful for 2010
• Positive Cynicism – What I’m thankful for
• Hobo Radio 208 – The saddest Thanksgiving
• Overrated – Thanksgiving
• Outside of the In-Crowd – Thanksmas

Aaron R. Davis

I have high blood pressure. It’s one of my many health problems. It’s also one of the things that makes it so hard to follow the news, because some days it really seems like news reports are specifically designed to raise my blood pressure.

So this week, for the sake of my blood pressure, I’d like to ask the following people to just give it a rest, already.

Herman Cain

Hey, run for president all you want. Keep assuming you’ll actually win, it’s kind of adorable. But your sexual harassment denials, hilarious as they are, are also pathetic and annoying. There’s a difference between being accused by one woman and being accused by five. I know it doesn’t hurt your poll numbers, what with Republicans hating women on an institutional level, but it is incredibly tiresome to hear you bleating your innocence like a pig stuck in the mud. One or two women accusing you is bad enough, but I’ll admit there’s room for doubt — when it gets to five, it’s symptomatic of a personal problem. All I know is, innocent people don’t pay out a year’s salary in hush money to people they didn’t harass. Also, you’re really demonstrating presidential class by attacking women who can’t defend themselves because of a judicial gag order.

Kris Jenner

First you go on and on about your daughter’s sham second marriage, insulting the collective intelligence of a nation that cares way too much about what the rest of Kim Kardashian does when her ass isn’t pointed at a camera. Then you publish a book where you try to convince people that you were a major part of the OJ Simpson story. Why would Nicole Brown Simpson’s sister come to you when your husband was defending OJ? Why do you need to drag the Browns through this again, anyway? Don’t you have enough money yet? You just bought your daughter a Range Rover for her sixteenth birthday, for chrissakes. Just stop talking for a goddamn minute, will ya?

Adam Sandler

That’s enough now. That’s more than enough. Just when I think I am at the depths of my hatred for you, you do something like Jack and Jill. Does anyone over the age of 12 actually think this asshole is funny anymore? And if you do, do you eat paste?

Brett Ratner

No one wants to hear about your penis. No one wants to hear about the chicks you say you’ve banged. No one wants to picture you naked. You’re very lucky to even be where you are; you’re a thoroughly unpleasant … let’s say person… and you make incredibly shitty movies. Stop trying to convince us you’re suave or that we should even know who you are. Stop. Talking.

People defending Joe Paterno

Because it comes down to this: guy didn’t do anything about a kid being raped in his locker room showers except tell his boss and then look the other way. Penn State students, get a grip. You attend an institution that covered up child rape. But you were upset that the people who covered it up got fired. Where are your priorities? If you’re defending Joe Paterno, you are not a good person. If you turned over a news van because you were so angry that a guy who didn’t report child rape to the police got fired, you are a terrible person. And if you were one of the people planking during the protest, just go straight to hell and plank in Satan’s asshole.

The Breaking Dawn publicity machine

Haha, Robert Pattinson was thrusting too hard. He’s a thruster. He was thrusting at Kristen Stewart. He really gets into sex. Haha, he’s so manly. Ugh. Whatever. Yeah, seize on that story in yet another misguided attempt to get me to believe Robert Pattinson likes girls. Or that Kristen Stewart likes boys. Still not buying either one of those stories, and the fervor with which they’re pushed every time one of these movies comes out is just insane. I cannot wait until these shitty Twilight movies are a thing of the past so these two can just go their separate ways, end their fake relationship and finally come out the closet and get some fresh air, already. Then Kristen Stewart can do something interesting and Hollywood can stop trying to convince us that Robert Pattinson is a leading man.

Parents who complained about Sasha Grey reading to children

Yes, she used to be in porn. No, she’s not going to infect your kids with porn cooties. Unless she was showing them porn or actually having anal sex in front of your kids, maybe you should shut up and worry about something that actually matters for a change. I know that parents are typically the worst people on the planet — they are, they ruin things for the rest of us because they want everyone else to take a role in raising their children — but bitching about how the girl you once jacked it to while watching her lick a toilet is now reading One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish to your kids doesn’t absolve you from the fact that your kid is probably one of the quarter of American children who are functionally illiterate.

Nancy Grace

You’re just unpleasant. Turn it off, for a change.

Jay-Z

Seriously, making an Occupy Wall Street tee shirt so you can both exploit the people who are protesting against being exploited and turn a serious issue into a fashion statement is … What? Oh, he’s not selling the shirt anymore? Oh. Well, thanks for shutting up, Jay-Z. I appreciate that!

Frank Miller

This one hurts the worst. It hurts when people whose talent you respect fly up their own assholes and say stupid, arrogant things. Okay, Frank, I get that you don’t understand Occupy Wall Street. But your idiotic, establishment-defending, weirdly racist rant about the people in the movement was just unforgivably dumb. I hate people who forget their own blue collar background, assault their own fanbase, tell kids they should join the Army when they themselves never served in wartime and blame all of America’s problems on al-Qaeda. And you did all of that in just a few hateful paragraphs. It’s ironic that your first truly great work, Batman: Year One, was about fighting endemic corruption and crime in politics, as you now seem to be firmly against people who want to do the same. I shudder to think what you’d have Batman doing in comics these days. Cracking on a few protesters, I guess. Or killing Muslims, which seems like a never ending source of self-entertainment in your work nowadays. You’re pathetic. Go fuck yourself.

And as Tiny Tim observed, go fuck yourselves, every one.

Aaron R. Davis lives in a cave at the bottom of the ocean with his eyes shut tight and his fingers in his ears. You can contact him at samuraifrog@yahoo.com

Similar Posts:

• Review – The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1
• Outside of the In-Crowd – A review of Twilight by someone who hasn’t seen Twilight
• Positive Cynicism – Open letters
• Murphy’s Law – Wither Adam Sandler
• Outside of the In-Crowd – Things Assholes Like: The first in a series