Lemongrab

"Adventure Time cast". Via Wikipedia
Of all the villains in Cartoon Network’s brilliant Adventure Time, Lemongrab might be my favorite. His origin story is very similar to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, but where we might feel some sympathy toward Frankenstein’s monster, Lemongrab is so wretchedly awful, that we want only the worst for him. 

Princess Bubblegum, who eschews the common-place magic of the land of Ooo, and instead navigates her world through science, creates sentient candy people in her lab. One of her failed experiments is Lemongrab. Lemongrab is somehow incomplete and different; he has a kind of psychopathy characterized by extreme selfishness and violence, and has to be banished from the realm. In his isolation and alienation, he becomes so despondent, and even weirder, that PB creates a second cloned Lemongrab as a companion. This agrees with Lemongrab’s narcissism. Then things get very awful indeed.

The two Lemongrabs start taking the lifetime of candy that PB has left them and using the formulas of her candy science, they create more lemon people. But they’re not very good at it. The Lemon people that they create are twitching and malformed things, actually scary and uncanny in a Jacob’s Ladder sort of way. Lemongrab's kingdom soon runs out of food. Every one is starving except the original Lemongrab has become morbidly obese with a penchant for cannibalism, and has apparently taken a bite out of the head of the cloned Lemongrab, who also fears him. The kingdom has become a totalitarian prison state, full of starving, unhappy lemon people. As a satire, he is more Kim Jong Un than Ubu Roi.

It is at this point one has to be reminded that this is ostensibly a children’s program.

Lizards at the park

I'm something of a shutterbug, and each weekend, I like to wake up early, go to the nearby Nature Preserve, and take pictures.

The sidewalks at the preserve are the stomping grounds of yuppie joggers and their dogs. I'm self-aware enough to know that I don't belong among them. I wear rumpled khaki cargo shorts that I stuff with spare camera lens. Most everyone else wears expensive workout clothes. I just assume I'm a strange sight, a bespectacled middle aged guy who suddenly appears out of the bushes with a camera. I realize there is something unseemly about that.

I do get the occasional 'good morning' from people. Just today, a woman offered to help me get across a creek. I declined, being the tough guy that I am, and slipped my foot off of a rock and into the water.

Today, I was heading back to where I thought the entrance was --I'm always spending more time there than I intend to, as I can never find the entrance, and I have to endure a brief Blair Witch Project lost in the woods panic-- and I saw a leaf that was turning red. I stopped on the concrete path to fiddle with my camera, and then I saw a snake dart about in the leaves.

I have a irrational, primordial fear of snakes, but this one looked kind of "cute", if a snake can look cute. I tried to get a photo, but I didn't want to reach into the leaves. I was squatting down in my khaki shorts trying to get the best angle. A group of yuppie exercisers were walking my way. A whole family of them.

I said in my best 'Golly Gee! Don't that just beat all' voice, "There's a snake in there." Later while recounting this sad tale, my wife asked, "Did you actually say that in that tone of voice?"

No reaction from the walkers, and they did their best to avoid eye contact with me.

The exercisers walked away holding their water bottles, not even talking to each other. I thought to myself, "Yeah, keep on walking. Better not forget that water bottle. It can sometimes get to 88 degrees this time of the morning, and you're walking so briskly, it could get Lawrence of Arabia on your ass in no time. You might just die without a sip of water after thirty minutes of power walking. I kind of hope you do."

I then imagined them getting home, peeling off their special exercise clothes, calling dibs on the shower. You know, we really worked out hard today. Walking around at a pace above normal. Let's all go get Italian Gelato.

Yay! I'm gonna smear it all over my face and then the table. But Daddy, what was that man doing at the park today?

I don't know. He was probably homeless and lived in the forest. What do we do when we see a homeless person?

Call the police!

That-a-boy Timmy!

My name is Susan.

Whatever.

A dream of Stephen Hawking

I dreamt I was at school or college, and I was walking away from the campus. I saw Stephen Hawking, the scientist who is in a wheelchair and speaks through a computer.

I said, “Good day,” which is the greeting I always use at my Renaissance Fair gig.

Stephen Hawking was in the process of de-materializing in a science fiction sort of way. Like a Star Trek transporter, but more magical looking. He comes back and says, “What did you say?”

“Good day. I just mean, ‘Hello.’ Hello.”

He then starts speaking in French in his computer voice and wants me to repeat the words.

“Brioche... Répéter.”

Then abruptly, Stephen Hawking in English said, “Most people are aware of the where, but then get sketchy in the details.”

Then the alarm clock on my nightstand blared it’s annoying beeping, and it was time for Monday.

This morning, I’m mulling that phrase over in my head. I can’t decide if this is really a deep statement, or some kind of useless platitude that sounds like something profound, but really isn’t.

War Machine and Christy Mack

I’ve been eagerly, and somewhat guiltily, following the on-going tragedy of the MMA fighter known as ‘War Machine.” War Machine, née Jon Koppenhaver, has a history of violent assault and recently brutally beat his girlfriend and her friend. This is not the first time he has acted violently outside of the ring. He has served time in prison for violent assaults. At the time of this writing, he is still at large. 

One would think it would be easy to find a d-league celebrity like that, but I think there are so many obviously steroid-y jacked-out Jersey Shore types walking around, he might blend in.

I read a bit of WM’s twitter page. Not surprising, he comes across in his old tweets as both incredibly angry and self-pitying. Before this assault he seemed excited and happy to get his brown belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, but then went on for many angry tweets about the UPS man and how he wanted to get someone other than himself to fight him. He’s afraid of going back to jail.

War Machine was furiously angry because he supplements his income by selling  a t-shirt that says his catchphrase, “I DO ALPHA MALE SHIT.” Coincidentally, I was thinking about creating a shirt that said, “I DO INDEED SHIT, BECAUSE I EAT A DIET RICH IN FIBER.”

With MMA fighters, let’s say someone like former champions Randy Couture or George St. Pierre, we recognize that the sport is rough, but they as people aren’t actually violent. Much like the NFL and NHL, UFC and Bellator fighters are extremely aggressive, physically intimidating people, but I get the feeling that if I accidentally spilled a diet Dr. Pepper on one of them, they wouldn’t send me to the hospital.

Not so with War Machine. His injured girlfriend, Christy Mack, who at the time of this writing is still in the hospital for multiple serious injuries, is a porn star. War Machine has also appeared in adult films, so he knows that world. He was once invited to a birthday party for one of the performers. War Machine was angry with his agent, things escalate and then he punches his then previous girlfriend, the porn star, Alanah Rae. People tried to stop him, and many people were injured.

Quoting from and a probably Not Safe For Work website, Adult FYI by way of Cage Potato, a site dedicated to MMA.

“War Machine’s own agent, Derek Hay, looked to be the primary target with a couple of shots to the head. Mika Tan’s Ex was KO’d as well & sent to hospital. I never saw anything like it. War Machine was in kill mode. His fists were lethal weapons. Anyone who tried to get between him and Derek got taken down – hard…One guy was clocked and had three teeth knocked out. Another guy — an Asian — had his nose broken.
It seemed that every time someone tried to advise War Machine to mellow out or tried to talk sense to him, they got hit for their efforts. Maybe six guys in all got punched…The incident wound up with War Machine and Derek playing hide and seek with one another around a dumpster. Then at some point, both War Machine and Derek took off when someone threatened to call the cops.”

The reality tv star, Dog the Bounty Hunter, is on the case. War Machine is a very dangerous person, and if he were challenged by someone like DBH, I predict he would erupt into violence, maybe even murder. I’ve never seen Dog the Bounty Hunter’s show, but apparently he’s very good at capturing people, so God’s Speed, “Dog.” If that is your real name.

Dog should be careful. The website Bloody Elbow has uncovered an old tweet from 2009 that says, "When I am ready to die I will kill many and I will then kill myself and I will tape it. It will be rad."

We should take him at his word on this one.

When Parents Fight

I get a perverse joy out of parents behaving badly at children’s sporting events. 

I don’t watch the news, but whenever I’m out in public and walk by a blaring television set, and I hear the phrase, “A little league game got ugly...” I perk up and stop like a dog hearing a dog whistle. I’m not sure what that it says about my sense of humor, but I love it when two (or preferably several) middle-aged blowhards start flailing at each other over perceived slights. 

The story is always the same: The kid doesn’t catch a ball, and some opposing parent applauds that. A weird phenomenon of narcissism by proxy kicks in. The child on the field who dropped the ball is an embodiment of the parent’s inner dreams, and that parent is certain that they will become the star athlete that they never were. When parents fight, I don’t think they’re fighting for their kid’s “honor”, but for their own fragile sense of self. The fighting blowhard feels like they’re the one who had dropped the ball, and they can’t deal with that.

I wish these kind of dumb fights would happen at a kid’s chess match.

“Wooo! Good move. Way to take control of the center of the board...”

“He’s castling! He’s desperate. Don’t stop Aidan!”

“How DARE you say that to my kid! I will KILL YOU!”

Then two balding and bespectacled intellectuals start wrestling, their corduroy Carl Sagan blazers scratching each other. They have to be pulled apart by blue-haired librarians.

“I assure you this isn’t over!”

“Indubitably...indubitably...”

Movie 43.

I’ve noticed with some wry amusement that “Movie 43”, – a sort-of gross-out, shock-for-shock’s sake, less-witty Kentucky Fried Movie, – is being called one of worst movies ever made. At the time of this writing, Rotten Tomatoes, an aggregate of total film ratings, gives it a mere 4%. Lest you think I’m some old prudish fuddy-duddy, one of the premises of the sketches is that a young girl gets her period and makes a mess. Hilarious, isn’t it? What? Pointing and laughing at a young girl isn’t funny to you?

Movie 43 is another example of Hollywood being creatively bankrupt. It seems like an industry run by Frat Boys who still think it's cool to wear their baseball caps backwards, whose tastes never grew from Junior High School. (Exhbit A: Transformers, Battleship, etc. etc.)

I should point out that shock humor has a place in comedy. One of my favorite things is South Park, which revels in a cesspool of scatalogical and political incorrectness. The difference is that South Park is speaking in good faith. Its power as cultural Court Jester is that it speaks truth to power and never lies.The shock of South Park is (usually) not from gross-out, although there is plenty of that too, but in the way that South Park exposes the fact that the Emperor Wears No Clothes. Comedy Central has two huge and influential cultural critiques. The Daily Show successfully critiques The Right’s Moral Culture War, and South Park skewers the touchy-feely-inclusive, but unimaginably intolerant, Left Wing Moral Do-Gooders who are decidedly NOT HELPING.

Columbus Day

"You may call me Grand Admiral
of the Oceanic Sea."

Today is Columbus Day, which as far as holidays go, is now a source of some modern embarrassment, as well as irritation that banks and Post Offices are closed. Everyone is quick to point out that Columbus didn't technically discovered America, and Native Americans do have reason to be angry with him, as he was a vanguard of the Conquistadors. He did take natives back as human zoo specimens, an action that one would think would be immoral even through the lens of 1492 European values. The Spanish were okay with this, but the natives started killing themselves in a mass display of suicide after their women and goods were taken.

If Christopher Columbus should be honored as a historical personality, it's because of his personal magnetism, that stood out even in the rampant egotism of courtly noble life. We may not like Columbus today, but the nobles he consorted with, were enchanted by his personality.

Columbus wasn't a noble, but invented an elaborate back-story for himself that he was somehow descended from a certain Count Columbo of the Castle of Cuccaro. He also claimed the Roman general Colonius as direct descendent. He was actually the kid of a successful Italian cheese maker and wine merchant, but his nobility story was plausible enough, that he married up into a prominent Portuguese family. When I was a kid in Elementary School, there was a brief trend with some of my classmates to make the claim to be a direct descendant of the outlaw Jessie James. The impulse to lie about one's ancestry to seem more interesting is still with us.

Through his in-laws, he finagled his way into a meeting with the Portuguese King, Joãl II. Columbus, bold as brass, demanded that the King finance an expedition to Asia, by going West of course, and he wanted the modest and humble title, Grand Admiral of the Oceanic Sea. Columbus also demanded 10% of any loot that he discovered as a binding, ancestral title to his family, which would have made them some of the richest people on the planet.

King Joãl II was impressed with the sheer audacity of Columbus, but ultimately the King said something to the extent of, "Um...let's see. I think rather not."

Columbus would later move to Spain, and repeat this give-me-everything-I-want-because-I-deserve-it schtick to Spanish nobles, who through the force of Columbus' personality were receptive to the idea, but powerless to grant Columbus the titles he craved. This would change with the meeting of Queen Isabella, who did give Columbus everything he wanted, but not the 10% of the booty.

"This is for your own good, and you'll thank us later."

At the same time Columbus' exhibition was being financed, Queen Isabella and her husband, Ferdinand II, started a little something called the Spanish Inquisition. The Inquisition was institutionalized torture and murder on a mass scale, a movement so awful, that we still feel the pain of it after all these years.  In some respects, they were fundamentalist religious revolutionaries like Oliver Cromwell and the Ayathollah Khomeni, but they didn't take over the Spanish government – they were the government.  Isabella had a redeeming human quality; she disagreed with Columbus plans to enslave natives, but to no avail.

Of course, this is guilt by association. Isabella and Ferdinand were awful people, but one gets the feeling that Columbus would have accepted money from anyone. Columbus wasn't exactly a Conquistador, more like a Conquistador Lite.

Columbus was a megalomanic, but in his defense, he could pull off all the things he dreamt up, much like the late Steve Jobs. Isabella started one of the cruelest terror campaigns ever inflicted in Europe, as well as bloody adventures in the New World. I see no reason to celebrate Columbus Day, unless you work at a bank, and are needing a three-day weekend.