Wednesday, September 27, 2006

The (Not) Caring of Terrell
At times I've *hated* Terrell Owens. Or maybe, more accurately, I hated T.O.

I don't know Terrell Owens. I never met him. I never will. I once was in Cheesecake Factory at the same time as he was, but that was it.

T.O. I know well. We all know T.O. well. T.O. is the celebrity version of the great athlete from Tennessee that his friends and family know as Terrell. And from what I know, and what Terrell presents of T.O. we’re pretty much not supposed to like him.

But, do you remember Terrell, that young kid who, as he still infamously does, had trouble being a consistent ball catcher, who caught the biggest ball of his life to get the 49ers past the cheesehead juggernaut called the Green Bay Packers? Remember what happened when he caught that ball in the middle of the defense cementing one of the greatest moments of the already saturated 49ers legacy? Remember afterward when a grown ass (young) man couldn’t do anything but cry out of overwhelming joy?

Sometimes I still remember him. But T.O. asks us to forget Terrell all the damn time.

Until this morning, that is.

Whether or not Terrell Owens actually was trying to kill himself, or at the least, trying to stuff himself with a more than proper dosage of painkillers, for at least one second we were asked to focus more on Terrell than his staged counterpart. At that moment, some of us may have asked ourselves if we cared, while others may have felt like it was a good fuckin’ riddance.

I went to sleep right after glancing over the linked headline on ESPN.com that informed us that T.O. had an allergic reaction to the medication he was taking for his broken finger. I woke up to KRON4 news making some sort of commotion involving T.O. and the rumors that he had a failed attempt at suicide. The follow up comments lent themselves to the mentality that because of T.O.’s tumultuous, and very much self-manifested, recent history of “Look at me and hate me now” campaign we might waver if we at the least cared about him and at the most wanted him alive. This wasn’t a commentary piece or thrown out for argument like on PTI, Around the Horn, or those stupid ultra-right and ultra-left tv and radio shows. No, it was a random comment thrown out as an “objective” statement that was supposed to reflect the beliefs of the audience. Nothing at all personal.

But this is my response. Not to Teo or Darya or Mark. No, I like them and I wake up to them for the same reason I hate T.O. No, this response is to those who heard that comment or may have reacted similarly upon becoming conscious of what happened to T.O. last night. If you at the least waivered on caring about him or at the worst didn’t care if he lived, why did you feel that? For me, not caring if someone lives means major disdain for that *person*. Wanting someone to die or kill themselves? Well that’s major hatred.

I understand that T.O. made himself completely unlikable to a majority of a conscious public. Yes, T.O. is a severely and tragically egotistical, immature, self-serving, self-defeating, paranoid, and off-putting persona. Yes, he’s thrown both of his former teammates, former quarterbacks, and former fans under the bus. But has he killed anybody? Has he been involved in any criminal trial let alone any criminal arrests let alone a publicized traffic stop? Has he been arrested or cited for domestic violence, drug possession, gun possession, or jay walking?

Yeah, let’s not celebrate anyone else who’s done that and hasn’t publicly repented. Fine. Let’s stop celebrating people for NOT committing stupid acts, and instead celebrate and care for people who are courageous enough to do the right thing first. Fine. I totally agree with you. But, let’s face facts. Our sports athlete celebrities aren’t, nor have they ever been, a completely clean bunch. They have also never always been kind-hearted or humble. Yet, you can stand in any Muni bus, and be surrounded by drug fiends, adulterers, liars, bigots, assholes, and bitches and never, ever know and pass them by with a shared smile and go on with your day. Yes, T.O. is one punk ass mufucka, but to not care if Terrell lives or dies from his own volition?

Maybe I’m sensitive to the situation because I’ve unfortunately had to sit across a table, a room, or open air from people who has looked me in the eye and tell me they wanted to die by their own hands. And I may have known them for 2 minutes prior to the admission and they may have only been 5% serious, but any ounce of feeling like they wanted nothing but to die made me care about them immediately. They could cut in front of me in a line to get food or share completely different moral values than me outside of that encounter, but at that moment I care because that is a living soul – a living body.

Have there been too many sharpies, too many dancing on stars, too many “all eyes on me” moments that we hate a man enough to want him to die? Really?

Ulam cooked @ 3:32 PM

 0 of the headscratch variety

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

savoring pop culture references
One thing I learned from "I Love the 70s" on VH1 was that from now until I die, any littering within a pop cultural realm will always be open to being followed by a crying Indian.

Thank goodness for VH1. I would've missed out on a lot. Luckily, I'm a bit whorish on the pop culture world and have either bucked up enough to watch all the relevant stuff or have been keen enough to hear others talk about it. Good thing for me, too, because some of the best smart comedy now basks in the glory of pop cultural allusions.

Look at Family Guy. Yes, the satire is wonderful, but the icing is the random sampling of nearly forgotten nostalgia like featuring He-Man, Battlecat, and Snorks.

Same goes for Veronica Mars. It's written well, for the most part acted superbly, but the cult-status of its fanbase is that key 18-35 demographic who can catch the subtle shout-outs to yesterday's favorite images like Ferris Bueller's Day Off. When she couldn't find her boyfriend at school, Veronica left him this message: "Hey. Are you sick? Or am I going to see you singing 'Twist and Shout' on a parade float?". Or another time, Veronica's stock market teacher bringing up pork bellies.

Even in LOST, despite all the tangled, weird ass webs in that show, Hurley brought up the iconic scene when Lloyd Dobler was outside Diane's bedroom with a radio held over his head blasting "In Your Eyes" by Peter Gabriel.

I laughed when I caught the references. Of course. That was the intent. But I laughed because I KNEW the references. So many of those nuanced headnods to past pop culture must fly over the heads of the young folks that some of those shows, namely Veronica Mars, intends to attract.

The other day, at work, some of the youth I work with were listing movies down for an event for this Halloween. When they brought up Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Amityville Horror, I asked them what versions they were talking about. They responded, "there are other versions?"

Wow. I really am getting old.

For some of these things, the references were golden material. Do the 21s and under recognize a name as distinct as Ponyboy? They'd never appreciate "staying gold". And how am I supposed to feel when I bring up The Karate Kid and the response is, "oh, that girl?". Calm down, my generation friends, it's horrific yes, but there's hope in an unlikely ICE-berg.

Unfortunately, it seems like the best references are the ones forgotten. Don't you think that if you're going to cut school one day and get drunk, you should at least pop in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, at least ONCE? But I digress. Instead, awesomely bad remains. And I'm not talking about Awesomely Bad that it's Good like Steve Perry's mullet and equally appreciative falsetto. I'm talking about BAD that needs to go away. And this is the ICE-berg I'm talking about:

Vanilla Ice.

Recently, two acclaimed television shows have used David Bowie's "Under Pressure". Rescue Me used it for a commerical. This week, the new Studio 60 on Sunset Strip used it also leading out of a more dramatic crux of the first episode into the entrance for the whole series. And it sounds so good. (Only recently have I really appreciated David Bowie's music.)

But what do most of us hear when the distinct lead in start? It's that damn Rob Van Winkle track no matter how much he wants to pretend that his beat was original. But how come we remember that and the youngins remember that but they don't know who the REAL Karate Kid is?

So let's take the good with the bad. Fine, world. I'll trade in Under Pressure and how a bunch of songs by the Beatles (and others) are used as carjingles for a generation that knows what it means to try to pop your car in reverse to erase the miles you put on it and why Dusty turned on GI Joe. And I want them to know it beyond YouTube or wikipedia - but through their own experience. I mean, that's the only way to learn.

So I was thinking, maybe there's been enough time since that Ice, Ice, Baby craze that we can give back that melody to David Bowie, but that's not true. We have that bad act, that bad song, that bad video (that I admittedly LOVED at the time) etched into our memories. Pop cultural trauma runs deep.

Instead of trying to expunge let's enrich so that we can teach our kids that cracking potato chips to see which ones are the freshest at your local convenient store will get you kidnapped. Sho' nuff!

Ulam cooked @ 11:05 PM

 0 of the headscratch variety

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Superman Returns Review (for my company newsletter)
It’s never an easy task being a hero, let alone a superhero.

In the human service world, heroism persists everyday whether you’re a teacher, a mental health specialist, a social worker, a police officer, or a traffic guard. And in any of those cases, there’s always more that we wish we could do. Something more that is extraordinary; that is extremely special. Something super.

Can you count the times you wished you wore the “S” on your chest or on your back with a cape? We wish we were all “Super” men or women at one time or another, for ourselves, for our loved ones, and for the people we serve. It never hurt to dream. That’s why losing ourselves in superhero mythology doesn’t hurt either.

Pretending that the third and fourth movies never existed, Superman has been missing from the theatres for over twenty years until he returned earlier in summer. Superman Returns continues the film-based Clark Kent series from Superman 2. The premise is that some time after the events of Superman 2, Kal-El (Superman) voyages into deep space looking for the remains of his destroyed original home planet Krypton.

With his absence, his former love Lois Lane, as well as the world in general, started asking themselves if they needed Superman; if they needed a superhero to protect, to serve, and to inspire them. This question is asked of the audience as well. With our world vastly changed since the last (good) Superman movie, do we still need a blue and red spandex clad, bright-eyed myth born in a World War II America? Is there room for the lofty and romanticized dreams of a hero with an answer for everything in our much more reality-based condition?

For a self-professed comic book “nerd”, the answer is a resounding yes, but only after viewing the beautifully constructed special effects airplane sequence that truly showed that our advanced technological tools and a flying man with a cape are such a great match that they should be featured on an eHarmony.com commercial or get their own MTV reality show.

Superman Returns is a comic book action film, so reality is truly in the eye of the beholder. Yet, the film is smart and emotional enough for casual fans while symbolism and allusions are ample for over-coffee discussions after the movie is done. If you loved the first two movies, you might jump around in your seat during the initial credits scenes. Brandon Routh, the heir to not only the cape but Christopher Reeves’ charm, does a good job of filling in even if he isn’t asked to make the role his own.

As I told a friend after watching the movie, “I believe in Superman again.” Batman, who is grittier and more jaded, seems much more compatible with our grittier pop cultural make-up and it was proven in the success of his own immensely enjoyable “return” movie in 2005. Yet, believing in a more optimistic character is always needed and that is what I left the movie with – optimism not only for the movie franchise but the idea of (super) heroism.

If you want a two-hour escape, Superman can help you there. He can also initiate interesting conversation if that is what you want. He is, as you know, super like that.

Ulam cooked @ 12:01 PM

 0 of the headscratch variety