People Who Need People or Heavy Sedation.

For those who need to keep their scorecards up-to-date:

Oprah - Not gay.
Lance Bass - Gay.
David Hasslehoff - Drunk.
Dude from Milli Vanilli - In need of a kryptonite Bro.

You're welcome.

Fox

Larry and Curly Were Racists, Too

While back home in Kansas City a couple of weeks ago to see family and friends, a mild uproar of jackassicity erupted over the following billboard:

Can you guess what’s wrong with it (no fair cheating, KC natives)? It should be obvious to all enlightened, progressive peoples. This billboard, this posting, this publicly displayed outdoor advertisement promulgates and propagates that most vile of humanity’s offenses: Racism.

I invite you read all about it in this op-ed column from “The Kansas City Star.”

Are you sufficiently educated now? Excellent. I know that I didn’t truly grasp the horrific nature of this ad until Mr. Diuguid enlightened me. I just thought it was a mildly amusing adult-beverage billboard with a fairly worn-out premise. Not a tool of oppression. A tool wielded by The Man himself.

Frickin’ idiot.

Okay, I’ll grant the rhyme’s history isn’t exactly stellar. But how many people remember it? Sure, I’ve heard the rhyme used that way. I believe it was in fifth grade. Because that’s how those things work. Some wisenheimer (that’s right, I said wisenheimer) comes up to you at recess or lunch and whispers some twisted rhyme in your ear. (Years later, he’d do the same thing but ask if you wanted some weed.) So, I associate the racist nature of “eenie, meenie” with a punk from grade school. And I’ll wager that most people of my approximate age feel about the same. In fact, I never would have associated anything negative about the phrase or the billboard if the beacon of truth, justice and all that stuff known as “The Kansas City Star” hadn’t brought it to my attention.

I’ve written before that words have meanings. Likewise, phrases have meanings. And like words, the meanings of those phrases can change over time. And sometimes those changes are actually for the better. So go. Celebrate catching a tiger by the toe with a cold one. (Just make it an O’Malley’s Irish Cream Ale brewed by my buddy Mike – available at Tanner’s, The Peanut, Charlie Hooper’s, etc.)

Granted, now that I really think about it, that same wisenheimer once told me an off-color version of “Jingle Bells.” Guess I’ll have to bypass Holiday Time this year.

Later,

Fox

Wreak vs. Reek

You wreak havoc. You reek of beef and cheese.

Yes, I realize that the correct line from "Elf" is "You smell like beef and cheese." So don't accuse me of sitting on a throne of lies.

Later,

Fox

Head-Butting Mimes or Why We’re Still R.O.C.K.’ing in the U.S.A.

I have, after much donut-fueled deliberation, determined that there are two, sports-related reasons my America continues to be the Best Place to Live on Earth Despite What Alec Baldwin Says.

Reason #1: We don’t care about soccer.

Reason #2: We don’t care about Formula 1 racing.

When France head-butted its way to defeat against Italy some time last week to claim the 2006 FIFA World Cup, approximately 12 million people in the United States were tuned in. This was, according to ABC who broadcast the game, an amazing number. Sure, it paled in comparison to the 91 million who watched the Super Bowl. Or to the 25 million who watch American Idol every week. And it’s about the same number of people who actually enjoy watching Charlie “What Kiddie Porn?” Sheen and Jon Cryer on “Two and a Half Men.” That’s right, the once-every-four-years finale to the Most Popular Sport on the Planet pulled down similar numbers as the Famous Teddy “Duckie” Z does on a Thursday night. Sweetness.

Formula 1 racing fares even worse. Running on a tape delay and getting numbers that would make UPN blush. The rest of the world finds this as puzzling as our refusal to declare the Constitution the property of Kofi Annan.

But why does our collective yawning at these mega-sports validate my jingoistic assertion of American superiority? Simple: These sports are boring, pointless affairs that I would compare to watching paint dry if doing so weren’t an insult to the memory of Bob Ross.

Soccer, which goes by the hardcore moniker of “footie” in the rest of the world, involves a great deal of running about, chasing a ball and, apparently, attempting to tie the other team. As we all know, ties lead to hooliganism.

“But wait,” I hear the Europhiles opining, “America’s favorite pastime is baseball and it’s a yawnfest, too!” Okay, I’ll give you that baseball is much more exciting to play than it is to watch. But still, baseball revolves around a guy throwing a small, hard object at another man’s head at upwards of ninety miles an hour. And to defend himself, we give the other man a stick. Bean balls are hurled. Tobacky is spit. Spikes are spiked. Fisticuffs ensue.

Footie involves an elaborate game of keep-away where touching is generally frowned upon. The toughest thing footie has is tackling. Not real tackling, mind you. Eurotackling. In footie, a “tackle” is when one player trips another and the tripee rolls around in faux pain hoping to draw a penalty. Apparently, when you play footie, everyone is French.

In F1, multimillion-dollar cars form an expensive parade behind the dominant driver and, if we’re lucky, exchange the lead in the pits. It’s a less entertaining display of skill than Sylvester Stallone’s epic drama “Driven.” NASCAR may just be a bunch of guys turning left, but at least they pass each other on a routine basis.

Still with me? Wow, you have more stamina than I.

To summarize: footie and F1 are boring. America is generally smart enough to eschew boring things (as proof I offer non-president Al Ja-gorezza). Europe is not (another “Pride and Prejudice” mini-series anyone?).

Ergo, we rock.

Later,

Fox

Comrades in Peckishness

Let's face it: Hunger strikes rock. Few things in the history of mankind have evoked more political change than hunger strikes. Just take Gandhi's famous fasts promoting Indian independence from colonial power Great Britain. And then there's, uhhh, you know. Others.

Despite the poor logic of the I'll-starve-myself-so-you-will-change modus operandi, our friends in Hollywood have once again pulled it out of the social protest closet to, naturally, protest the Iraq war. And to prove that their commitment to this cause knows no bounds, over 2,700 activists have pledged to forgo eating for upwards of, wait for it, 24 hours. Here's a blurb from an AFP article:

“Other supporters, including Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon, novelist Alice Walker and actor Danny Glover will join a 'rolling' fast, a relay in which 2,700 activists pledge to refuse food for at least 24 hours, and then hand over to a comrade.”

Wow. Twenty-four hours. And we're not talking about a full season of “24” on Fox that takes 22 weeks to unfold. We're talking about a day. Three meals. Maybe a Fig Newton or two before bed. And then you can head back to the Ivy and get your sprouts on.

If you support the war, well, pretty much anything this crowd does reeks of stupidity and hypocrisy. And if you oppose the war, you really have to be wishing that these people would stick to being meat puppets and let others more intellectually astute argue the cause.

As it is, I don't think 24 hours without a protein shake is going to slow Spicoli down enough to matter. Pity.

Later,

Fox

Truth, Justice and Whatever

Words mean things.

This may seem only slightly less obvious than “the sky is blue” or “monkeys are awesome,” but in a world of euphemisms where every American is hyphenated (I’m an Anglo-Teutonic-Pancreatically-Challenged-Differently-Haired-Gentile-For-Jesus-Pasty-American), it bears repeating. Words mean things.

And sometimes, a lack of words means things. My wife and I saw “Superman Returns” yesterday. On the whole, we both really enjoyed it. It may not be the best movie ever burned to celluloid, but it was very well done by all involved and worth seeing on the big screen. But there was one statement in the film that stood out to me. After Superman returns to earth after a five-year sojourn in search of his home planet, “Daily Planet” editor-in-chief Perry White is instructing his staff reporters to find out everything they can about the Man of Steel’s return. Specifically, he wants to know if Superman “still stands for Truth, Justice – all that stuff.”

“All that stuff.”

Hmmmmm. Last time I checked, “all that stuff” was the American Way. You know: Mom, apple pie, sticking it to the Nazis, saving France again for the sole purpose of eating their cheese, Route 66, funnel cakes, purple mountain majesties. Pretty good stuff, really. So, why the change?

Theories abound:

1. “Superman Returns” has to play well in foreign markets if it hopes to make a profit on its reported $260 budget. Trotting out such a jingoistic phrase like “the American Way” would drive people away in droves, clamoring for U.N. aid to relieve their post traumatic stress disorders. Riiiiight.

2. Kofi made them do it. In “Superman Returns,” our hero no longer belongs to the United States alone. He’s the worldwide go-to-guy for pulling kitties out of trees and mimes out of their imaginary boxes. He’s U.N.-friendly. He’s SuperKofi. And he’s allowed to act unilaterally, so he obviously isn’t a stand-in for America.

There is some truth to this theory. Much is made of S being (or not) the savior of the world. We see him -- in sweet, A-Team montage fashion – saving people, buildings, etc. the world over. Even if he’s from Kansas, he’s still the BMOE.

3. The filmmakers were just getting back to the original source material. “The American Way” was not originally in the Superman canon. It was added during the Cold War to distinguish him as a truly American hero. Lest he be mistaken for a Laplander, as he often was. Considering the ages of the director and screenwriters, I find this hard to believe.

4. The writers thought it would be cool to jack with a well-known bit of Americana. The screenplay for “Superman Returns” is credited to Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris who are 31 and 26, respectively. They’re young. And, more importantly, they’re writers. All writers have a proclivity for change. We want to tweak sensibilities, twist conventions and, basically, make something our own – especially when we’re reworking an existing source. And it’s not that this desire wanes as writers age – we just learn that some things are best left untouched. Things are iconic for a reason. And it’s best to put your stamp on something by making it the best example of it yet, instead of stripping away the things people love.

So, which theory is correct? Well, I’m going with a whole lot of #4 with a bit of #2 thrown in.

Jim Croce once sang: You don't tug on Superman's cape / You don't spit into the wind / You don't pull the mask of the old Lone Ranger / And you don't mess around with Jim.

And you shouldn’t mess around with the American Way.

Happy Fourth of July,

Fox