Author: Sam

April 11, 2012

All Overrated List

What better way to follow up Easter weekend than by making some judgments about other people? I’ve been wanting to do a universal overrated/underrated list for a while now, and this seems like as good a time as any to get it started.

Basically, we’re just here to discuss any public figure – music, sports, TV, etc. – that is generally thought of as more or less valuable than they actually are. It’ll be broken up into two parts, and I’ll of course start with the overrated list, because I am a dick.

Before we get started, keep in mind that calling someone overrated doesn’t mean I think they have no value, just that I think the public perception of them is unwarrantedly rosy. And I will not include any pop R&B singers – such as Bruno Mars or something called Trey Songz – for you can just assume I think they all suck. Anyway, in no particular order…

Tyler Perry

You may know him from Tyler Perry’s House of Pain, Meet the Browns, the film Diary of a Mad Black Woman, and countless other painfully unfunny TBS programs that you probably haven’t seen either. He is a writer/director/producer who allegedly makes comedies, though I don’t believe there is documented proof of a sane person laughing at any point during any of his productions. It’s almost difficult to call him overrated because everyone I know seems to agree with me on how terrible anything Tyler Perry creates is, but his movies and TV shows continue being made. And oh yeah, Wikipedia (which is as far as I’m willing to go for research on this topic) claims that Forbes claims that he was the highest-paid man in entertainment in 2011, earning $130 million. So clearly someone is watching these shows, and apparently enjoying them. What the hell, people? Do you appreciate lowest-common-denominator humor that isn’t even funny to the lowest denominator? Do you like your sitcoms written by someone that reads at a third grade level? I once had a black friend suggest that the reason I don’t appreciate Mr. Perry’s work is because it’s a racial thing; I’m white, and thus cannot understand his apparent genius. I just don’t understand black humor, she told me. Well, while I must admit I’m not even sure what “black humor” is, I am fairly certain I understand at least the fundamental levels of “humor,” which is nonexistent in Perry works. I think it’s less of a cultural thing and more of a thing about things that are funny, and Tyler Perry is not funny.

Blink 182

There are some pieces of pop culture that reach us at a certain point in our lives, and just seem to be right for us at that particular time and place. These things might not be good per se – often they have very little artistic value – but because they hit us at the right time, be it a stage of development or a specific age or even a physical location, we were able to appreciate them nonetheless. And as the years pass, even when we realize these things have considerably less value than we assigned them at the time, we are able to appreciate them due to the nostalgia they invoke and, often, good-natured humor. Limp Bizkit and Field of Dreams are two examples of this for me, and I bet most everyone has their own set.

Blink 182 is not one of these things. They are not good and never were. They kind of always sucked, actually, and when I look back on their work now, I feel no nostalgia, and neither should you. Blink basically capitalized on the 90’s policy of doing as little as possible while playing music, and while it certainly worked at the time, let’s not celebrate it now. Band like Nirvana subscribed to this “Do Less” theory as well, but they were way less whiny than Blink 182, and thus are okay with me. In whatever sort of pop/punk/emo movement this was, Blink was the biggest of the big and the whiniest of the whiney, and I don’t condone any of that. (And please, before you genre nerds jump on me and assert that “they weren’t punk or emo or pop, they were actually mid-postpunk/modern expressionist,” please save it. The labels mean nothing. I don’t care). They were hailed as quirky and edgy back then, but in retrospect, “Take off your pants and jacket” isn’t really funny, and their drummer couldn’t even succeed at being a reality TV personality, which is saying something.

Michelle Wie

Why do we still care? She has two career LPGA tour victories. She’s never won a major, and she has ONE top-ten finish in a major tournament in the last five years. The whole uncommonly young wunderkind/phenom thing has officially passed her by, and she’s not even that good looking – zero Kournikova factor. And she plays women’s golf. So why exactly are we supposed to be paying attention? Are we supposed to remember the 14-year-old that was going to change the sport of golf? All I remember was a spoiled brat who was preoccupied with playing PGA events (through sponsor exemptions) before she had ever won an LPGA event. She never even made the cut in one of those PGA tournaments, by the way, but she continued playing them. More cameras there, I guess. She also famously once said “I watch the PGA, not the LPGA. I like the players on the PGA better.” What a bitch. In case you missed it the first time, this woman has two career LPGA wins. No majors.

Eric Clapton’s Solo Career

This is tough for me, because I adore so much about Cream, Blind Faith, and Derek and the Dominos. But I have a social responsibility to call them like I see them, and as I see it, Clapton hasn’t written or recorded much of value since the 1970s.

Let me be perfectly clear: Eric Clapton is, at the very least, one of the 10 greatest rock and roll guitarists of all time. The Yardbirds were groundbreaking. Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs is a phenomenal album. And Cream is still one of the best power trios ever. Clapton even gives the handful of us blues fans that still exist after the year 2000 a reason to live by organizing events like the Crossroads Guitar Festival. In fact, he was the first person ever inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame three separate times – with the Yardbirds, Cream, and then as a solo act. And it’s that last one that’s really the issue.

See, it’s not that Clapton’s solo stuff is bad; it’s just not very good. Somewhere along the line, whether it was due to evolution as a musician or quitting hard drugs or just simple aging, the magic kind of left ol’ Slowhand, at least regarding any studio recordings he’s made. Oh he can still get up on stage and rock that Stratocaster, and the importance of this cannot be understated, at least in today’s musical climate. It’s why we keep him around. But the driving rock and lightning licks of the 60’s are a thing of the past, and in their place are mostly slow ballads and easy listens. Nothing wrong with those things, they just aren’t nearly as good as the early work. Somewhat ironically, he’s spent the vast majority of his career as a solo artist – Cream only lasted about two years and the Yardbirds less than that, yet he’s been schlepping it on his own for four damn decades. Sure, he’s living off reputation at least a little bit at this point, but it’s almost as if the R&R HOF people just finally relented. “Fine – he’s a good musician, and though we don’t really like any of the solo stuff that much, he’s been doing it for so long. It MUST be worth something.”

Plus he covered a Bob Marley song. Eric, I thought you were better than that.

It almost makes me wonder what would’ve happened if Jimi Hendrix wouldn’t have died when he did. We tend to lionize guys like Hendrix, whose career was cut so short and yet managed to pack so much outstanding and influential material in a tight window of time. Death at a young age adds so much unknown to someone’s legacy – there’s a tendency to assume that untimely death means the individual in question had many more contributions to make, and only didn’t because he or she ran out of time. But we never really think about the other option – what if Hendrix’s musical career (or Duane Allman’s or Stevie Ray Vaughan’s or Janis Joplin’s) just kind of slowly waned and fizzled out, like so many do?  We give Jimi so much credit for advancing the way the electric guitar was played, and he deserves every damn bit of it. But what if he’d lived? We’ll never know, but I do think if Clapton died of a heroin overdose in 1975, and Hendrix was still alive today, we might be thinking of both a lot differently.

Chris Brown

Ahhh I promised I wouldn’t do it! But dammit, I just can’t help myself. This is one R&B singer that needs to be singled out. And shot. If it wasn’t enough that he assaulted my girl Rihanna (and believe me, it was), he’s been assaulting music listeners for years now. Even though I despise this musical genre in general, there’s something that especially irks me about this pile of crap. Okay, it’s probably the Rihanna thing. But wait! Then there’s his obnoxious singing voice, his lack of any real creativity, his stupid tattoos, the fact that he hit Rihanna, and his tendency to engage in petulant Twitter fights. Chris Brown is really just one of those spoiled, overgrown children that tend to drift through celebrity and then disappear in a year or two. But he’s still here! Why? Aren’t there enough nasally pop singers with limited talent that essentially duplicate what he does, just without beating up my favorite human peacock?

I don’t get it. Not only do we keep Chris Brown around, we give him Grammys – he took home one of the spares that were left this year after Adele claimed her 92% share of the awards. This is not okay – we shouldn’t be awarding being Chris Brown. Can’t we just bring back Kris Kross and give them the Grammy instead? At least they had a positive attitude.

Dear Parking Services

Dear Parking Services,

Hello. My name is Sam. In fact, we’ve met before; I was the one on the phone with you just a minute ago. Since I wasn’t articulating my feelings that well, I thought I’d write you, just to clear the air.

You see, I don’t hate you. I just want to know why you are the way you are: the exterminator of good times, the crusader against happiness, the perpetuator of technicality. I don’t question your duty, either – keeping parking lots free of unlawful parkers and other miscreants is of utmost priority – and I’m well aware that I was parked illegally. But why must you go to the extreme with your occupation? You’ve clearly found that writing parking tickets is your calling in life, and for that I applaud you, but the fervent nature in which you execute said calling is slightly baffling to me. For instance, was it really necessary to give me three consecutive tickets for the same parking violation? Wouldn’t one, or even two have sufficed? I gladly would’ve paid two, since I am a good American who understands commerce and likes to make a deal. But sadly, your policies were without leeway. Very well, three it is.

But why the excess of pictures taken? I understand you need photo evidence, so as to safeguard against disgruntled offenders who think they can talk their way out of these things – which, believe me, I would’ve tried, so props to you – but were 10 photos really called for? I admit, despite my car’s age, I do keep it looking good, so I can see how you might want to admire it later from the comfort of your own home, but I assure you three or four pictures would’ve done the trick.

And finally, let’s discuss the late fee. This one really befuddles a common man like myself, so bear with me: since the vehicle in question was parked behind a locked chain-linked fence (which would seem like a place out-of-the-way and obsolete enough not to cause trouble, and that was really my intent, but I digress), you were not able to reach the car and serve the tickets on its windshield, in traditional parking cadet fashion. Instead, you mailed them, and let me first just say I appreciate your support of the United States Postal Service. They’re really hurting right now, so your patriotism is admirable. But then, dear parking people, the citations did not reach me until after the arbitrary and much-sooner-than-reasonable deadline for payment, and thus you asked for a late fee. This seems odd, for a small-minded Midwesterner like me cannot know to pay a citation before I am notified that the citation exists, but my arguments to that point didn’t seem to resonate with you. Those are the rules, I was told, and the rules are rigid.

I would fight you on this, but the excess of photo proof and diligent note-taking done by your office would make that an exercise in futility, and plus I’m not much of a fighter anyway. Instead, I just want to say I’m sorry. I’m sorry, parking people, that life has been so unkind to you. Clearly you’ve been beaten down and pushed in the proverbial mud since childhood, for that is the only logical scenario that would breed a creature so bitter and intent on others’ unhappiness that they would actually willfully work for a branch of government that’s sole purpose is to ruin people’s days. It must be very tough for you.

In high school you were the fat kid with acne, and you spent most of your days trying to stop your peers from bombarding you with corn nuts and other small projectiles in the hallways. This, for some reason, you were unable to get past as you matured, and now your mission each morning is to get back at those bastards for what they’ve done. I would tell you that, at 30 years of age or so, it’s time to forgive and move on, but I don’t think it would do much good. Or perhaps you were a goth, with the black clothes and dog collars and face paint and Manson shirts, and while the wardrobe is gone, the attitude on life inexplicably remains. If that is the case, go ahead and keep writing parking tickets, but please stop performing sacrifices on your neighbors’ cats, okay? Or maybe you’re just a person with a natural inclination towards bitterness and power trips, but you failed out of the police academy. In that scenario, I’d suggest you just go and die somewhere.

Okay, I’m not serious about the dying part. That seems a little extreme, and extremity is the very thing I’m speaking out against, isn’t it? But something must be done, and since the overwhelming amount of evidence you’ve compiled prohibits me from contesting the parking tickets, I’ll just have to fuck up your world instead. Yes, miserable loner, I have a plan. I’m not going to hurt you, but I’d like you to feel a similar level of irritation as I did when dealing with you. So I’m going to break into your place of residence one night. You’ll be sleeping, probably on the couch with an empty bag of Doritos on your chest, with the TV left on. This is fine – I work quietly, so I won’t wake you. My first order of business is finding your collection of Star Wars figurines and cutting limbs off each of them. I know how much they mean to you, and I feel this is a good place to start the sabotage. After that, I will locate your Xbox live headset and piss on it. This way, the next time you’re pwning noobs on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 in an online skirmish, you will smell my urine. I might even eat some asparagus first just to amplify things. Finally, I will enter your room and draw mustaches on all of your Jonathan Taylor Thomas posters. It’s kind of weird that you like him so much, especially at your age (and, you know…you’re a guy. And Home Improvement was like 20 years ago), but any defamation of J.T.T. will surely bring you to your knees. This, I’m afraid to say, will bring a smile to my face.

After I exit, I plan on finding your car in the driveway and attaching the boot I bought off Craigslist to one of the tires. Then, and only then, you will finally understand: that kinda sucks, doesn’t it?

February 29, 2012

Foie Gras Reduction

Course One

House made Scrapple with Fennel Kimchi & Creamy Shallot Confit Barley

Course Two

Barley & Quinoa “Risotto” with Winter Vegetables, Crispy Poached Egg, and Basil & Preserved Orange Pistou

Above are dining options from a restaurant I’ll be visiting later this week. It’s been my experience over the course of my life that restaurants generally serve food, but after reading this I’m not so sure. I mean, I assume it’s food – I do notice certain familiar words like “egg” and “vegetables” in there – but with so many colorfully misleading and probably made-up words in the description, I certainly don’t want to bank on that. For instance, I thought barley is what they fed the horses on my uncle’s farm. Perhaps this restaurant is for livestock. Others such as “scrapple” and “quinoa” confuse me to no end; the former sounds like a genre of steel guitar music from the 1950s. And I find it particularly worrisome how there are quotes around the word “risotto.” That is one word I was beginning to feel comfortable with, but now my guard is back up. Why the quotes? It’s as if they’re saying it with a wink and nod, and we’re expected to be in on the joke. Well I am certainly not in on the joke, for I have no idea what the hell they mean, and I’d appreciate a more straightforward, quote-free description in the future.

Slightly dramatic embellishments aside, this is clearly not a menu from Outback Steakhouse. It’s restaurant week in Denver; that time of year when even the outlandishly expensive restaurants are reasonably priced and diners are encouraged to get out and eat. Actually spanning two weeks, restaurant “week” is a great time to be human, as the low prices and abundant options make a great opportunity to try something new. And to that end, the Denver/Boulder area is a blessed place for food-lovers to be in general, with a wide variety of top notch eateries mostly focused on quality and freshness of ingredients and healthy experimentation. And who among us doesn’t love food?

But there comes a time and place when the love for food is taken too far and the experimentation gets unhealthy. The white plates get bigger, and the food in the middle gets smaller. The menu at the top is an example of this – it’s obvious at first glance it’s among the snootier places one could find (hell, menu items also include bone marrow and lamb neck), so is certainly not the norm. But it seems this is becoming more and more mainstream. Now, I promise you, I’m not completely uncultured swine – I do enjoy a good gourmet meal. I can appreciate new foods and culinary creativity, and I don’t need every main course to be a steak. I’ve had my share of large plate/small food meals, and have enjoyed most every one of them. However, sometimes it seems that we get a little caught up in using colorful and “foodie” academic words – “confit,” “foie gras,” and “reduction” come to mind – in some attempt at an air of class and exclusivity. I think the food snobs are becoming more numerous, and they care more about being able to name outlandish ingredients than having a truly pleasing meal. And maybe, just maybe, some chefs are more concerned with impressing other chefs, and with how a dish looks (and sounds on the menu), than how a dish tastes. It’s as if the more times you can work “crusted” and “gnocchi” and “butternut” and “crème fraiche” on a menu, the more status you have among foodies.

Personally, I just want to have a tasty meal, and I don’t want to have to learn another fucking language to order it. Seriously, if I have to try to decipher what “aioli” is one more time, I may just stab the pompous ass waiting on me with a fork. It’s not his fault, of course, but his thick-framed glasses and neck beard just fit him right into this food snob stereotype.

Seriously, what if we treated other areas of life the same way we treat food? For example:

 

Al Michaels calling a football game

The call: “Peterson takes the handoff, runs right and picks up six yards.”

The foodie version: “The distinguished man of Texan descent is delivered the dried cow membrane, harnesses its energy and grasps its succulence. The run is the antithesis of to the left, with plastic cleat spears juxtaposed against Floridian sod and topsoil, moving the main course from its origin to six yards beyond. Yardage reduction.”

Christmas Store Ad

The ad: “Christmas time is coming! You’d better get your shopping done.”

The foodie version: “The sparkling anniversary of the first Noel, when Jesus “Yahweh” Christ descended upon the Israeli region, has again been assumed to happen this 25th of Diciembre as previously scheduled. Imperative, it is, that the customers finishes his or her retail extravaganza in a timely fashion, before the inevitable human flooding of cement and granite structures makes such an endeavor burdensome, and the sterling prospect of yuletide cheer transforms into a substandard procession.”

Clothing tag

The tag: “100% cotton”

The foodie version: “Pure, unadulterated, locally farm-raised algadon. Never synthetic, never poly, a classic “hand-weave” with light ulterior stitching and authentic Mandarin craftsmanship.”

 

See? It’s ridiculous. If we were all as pretentious as the food snobs, our lives would be a constant exercise in trying to decipher even the simplest of labels. I’m sure I’ll enjoy my parsnip meringue – or whatever they decide to serve this week – but that doesn’t mean I won’t make an effort to fart each time I walk near the kitchen, just to bring the uppity vibe in there a notch closer to reality. I wonder how they’d describe that?

February 12, 2012

This Year’s Super Bowl Drinking Game

Well, it’s finally here. If you’ve been able to avoid ESPN’s relentless coverage of the Manning family and Rob Gronkowski’s ankle – and thus maintain your sanity – I applaud you. For the rest of us, we’re already sick of the Super Bowl, so the only thing to do on Super Bowl Sunday – other than not watch the game at all, which for some reason isn’t really an option – is drink. So without further yapping, here is the official Top Drawer drinking game of Super Bowl XLVI:

You must take a drink if there is…

– A mention or shot of Archie/Peyton Manning
– An Ochocinco sighting
– An announcer proclaiming “he can make all the throws”
– Unnecessary use of the word “football,” such as “that’s a great FOOTBALL play” or “he’s quite the FOOTBALL player” or “The New York FOOTBALL Giants” (not too likely because Gruden and Jaworski will not be involved)
– A GoDaddy.com commercial
– A promo for The Voice
– An artistic pylon shot
– A personal foul on Tom Brady (i.e. someone touches him)
– Gisele
– A Tim Tebow mention (he’ll find his way in there somehow, I’m sure)
– The Budweiser Clydesdales
– A ginger, any ginger. They’re fun.
– A Nate Solder (upstanding Colorado Buffalo and Patriots rookie lineman) mention
– Tom Coughlin’s face getting red
– Eli Manning’s mouth hanging open when a normal person’s would be closed
– A celebratory dance that makes the dancer look foolish (see: all celebratory dances)
– The announcers gushing over “The Patriot Way”

As you can see, these are mostly fun and unique happenings. There’s no “take a shot for every first down or penalty!” rule. We want to see you make it through the game.

Bottoms up!

Good Fat/Bad Fat

We are a world of good and bad. Black and white. Democrat and Republican. Our team and their team. There’s really no way around it; we deal in absolutes. While this is generally wrong and an unrefined way of thinking, it’s what we do. Indeed, the answer lies somewhere in between has been replaced by the answer lies with my personal set of beliefs. There’s no use in fighting it, the crusaders have won.

So I’m down. Let’s talk about good and evil. And let’s talk about fat. It’s a nutritional buzz at the moment – this “good fat” and “bad fat.” Bad fats, of course, being easier to identify than an orangutan on a cruise ship – anything of the saturated and trans variety, or the collective menu of the fast food industry (OMG. Did you SEEEEE Supersize Me?!?!?!? EEEEKKKK! Life CHANGED!!!!!). And the good fats are coming out of the woodwork – omega 3s, monosaturateds, and avocado.

But I’m not talking about food. I’m talking about people.

As a skinny, I’m generally not supposed to comment on the “other side.” It’s seen as bad taste – kind of a white/black thing going on. But screw it; this honky is voyaging into the unknown. And the unknown is fat people.

Simply put, fat people are just like the rest of us. They have feelings, dreams, ambitions…just slightly more mass. And, like the general population (and given the trend in American lifestyle, they are soon to be the general population), they come in two forms: good and bad.

Yes, when it comes to fat people, there is good fat and bad fat. Or, as I like to refer to it, “happy fat” and “bitter fat.”

Happy fat, of course, refers to the fat people we all love: Chris Farley (God rest his soul), John Goodman, most any black bassist, and the heavy girl from Bridesmaids. While obviously this is not an exhaustive list, it exemplifies the things we love in good fats – lightning wit, unbridled jolliness, and a generally sunny outlook on the world as a whole. Societally, we love happy/funny people, but we love happy/funny fat people even more. There’s just something about an overweight person that amplifies the positive qualities, and I’m not quite sure what it is. Maybe the fact that their smiles look bigger or they always seem comfortable in any easy chair or restaurant booth. Either way, we love the jolly fats for what they are: the roly-poly pandas of the human race. Fat people have a much higher comedic ceiling than equally funny skinny people – think Farley and Horatio Sans vs. Adam Sandler and Jimmy Fallon. See my point? It’s no contest. And consequently, when funny fats lose the weight – and join the mundane ranks of the everyday comedian – it is a heartbreak on par with the day Princess Di died. Jonah Hill was once a solidly funny supporting fat actor – now he is just an awkward, rectangular being with no real value to society. Same with Joe Winch of Chisago Lakes High School – used to be an adorable, round, rosy-cheeked boy, then lost the weight, got a girlfriend, and began looking at the world with cynical eyes. It’s just not the same. I’m glad your blood pressure had dropped and you’re living a healthier lifestyle, but you no longer make me laugh. Can I interest you in some chicken wings?

Bitter fat, on the other hand, is the bane of my existence; it’s almost as if Hitler had gone into the child pornography business. While I personally adore fat people – it is a state I am unable to achieve and am therefore jealous of – the human race as a whole tends to…um…look down upon obesity. So it’s an uphill climb (if they can make it) from day one. And these bitter fats compound the negativity by being all pissed off about everything. I’m not going to name names here, but you know who I’m talking about – that kid in class that refuses to share his gum, that lady who hates Christmas out of spite, and the guy on the bus who intentionally takes up two seats. These people are incapable of humor or irony; they simply want to display their displeasure for the world in hopes that it infects others around them. They’re just the worst. This is the exact opposite of what they should be doing – the best course of action is clearly friendly diplomacy with the rest of the world. I mean…you’re fat. At least be nice. As the great philosopher Chris Rock once laid out, “for every pound you are overweight, you gotta read another book, because you’re gonna need to be way smarter than all those other motherfuckers.” Or something like that – quoting Chris Rock is a slippery endeavor.

Anyway, I’m not going to go as far as Chris and suggest habitual reading. But at least be cool. Be fun. Be with us. Say something moderately humorous, and add a sheepish smile afterwards; I guarantee it will make me – and most every other intelligent skinny person – love you. We want to love you; we want you to join the ranks of the jolly fat. Just give us a reason. Make me want to put my loving arm around you and proudly declare, “This is my fat friend.”

Bitter fat, there is a better way. Consider the works of Farley, Belushi, et al, and be inspired. The grass really is greener on the other side. And don’t worry, it tastes like Twinkies.