Q: What do Glenn Frey, Iron Chef America, Stephen Chow and Eric Clapton have in common?A: Guest Blogger: Passenger 58

(As I ease back into things from my vacation, here's a guest blog by Larry Chin, a.k.a. Passenger 58, the author of the incredibly deep Martial Artist's Guide to Hong Kong Films. - Ron)

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Is there anything more embarrassing than Glenn Frey mewling "Euhhhh, Toyota! T-O-Y! O-T-A!" in the California Toyota dealership commercials? How far Eagles fall.

The only question is, did Glenn Frey lobby for the job to write, play and sing the awful track, or was he just the celebrity plug-in, because someone at the ad agency wanted to impress the client with trip to Hollywood to freak with Mr. Smuggler's Blues for an afternoon, and leave with the guy's autograph?

Scary thought: somewhere in a sound studio, there is a tape that contains dozens of different versions of him mewling "Euhhh, Toyota!" with slightly different emphasis on "Euhhh", "Eeeuhhhhhh", "ToyOHlta!", "TOYota"etc., and the muffled sound of account executives asking him to change it to fit different spot timings or taking issue with something assinine. "Uh, Glenn, that was a good one, but...we want a little more, uh...enthusiasm...as in, surprise or delight...on the 'Oh'."   

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Iron Chef America. Jeez.

Take overrated Food Channel chefs (none of whom are in the same class as international counterparts), bring on biased and cuisine-stupid American judges (and add one pompous, venmous turd who eats with his fork reversed, with his elbows on the table, Jeffrey Steingarten), hire a "host" who serves virtually no function (martial artist, B-film star Mark Dacascos) except to yell "Allez Cuisine!" (which is non-language), and you have a program as rigged as American presidential elections.

Of course, the American Irons win every time. When you have judges who refuse to eat a piece of sashimi because "they prefer their fish cooked", it's over. It's over anyway.

A while back, I said Bobby Flay is an asshole. He is still an asshole, a totally arrogant piece of shit. To hell with his predictable blue corn and salsa, and predictable dipping sauce tricks.

Frankly, all the celebrities on Food Channel are annoying and unworthy of their cult followings. I lobby for a new dictionary definition for "annoying": Rachael Ray. And, does anyone need Sandra Lee to teach us how to open packages?   

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People ask me all the time, "what do you think of Stephen Chow (Sing Chi)?", "why don't you review 'Shaolin Soccer' or 'Kung Fu Hustle'?", etc. Simple answer: I don't like him. Never have, never will. I feel somewhat the same about Jackie Chan, though Jackie belongs in a much higher echelon.

The common thread with both is that they are funny men who have benefitted from a comedy niche, and with all that popularity, they have been blessed with mega-budgets and power. And that in turn has given them near-complete dominance in today's very sad martial arts film universe. What they say, goes, and sells like wildfire, even when it is high-production value garbage.

All I can say is, it ain't about them. Not to people who have the discerning eye.

Special effects, loudness, laughs, severe undercranking, hot wire work, flying, and Yuen Woo Ping choreographed trickery do not disguise the fact that some stars (Chow, Chow Yan Fat, hell, Keanu Reaves) don't belong in the same breath as the real deal. Take away all of that expensive production, put them in an empty room. If you can't wow an audience that way, then get out of the way. Get out of the way for the guys who can---the Bruce Lees, the Donnie Yens, the Sammo Hungs, the Jet Li's.

Legions of great martial artists and  martial performers in film as well as Chinese television---who build the foundation upon which freeloaders and band-wagon drivers are squatting---remain disrespected and unknown (relative to Chow and Jackie). To a person, these are the ones who could wipe the floor with Stephen Chow---and look good doing it.

Old school is the only school.

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Not just one, but two, SBC commercials (one TV, one radio) feature Eric Clapton's "Wonderful Tonight". I don't know which agency or creative team is responsible (nor do I really give a shit), but it is annoying, from the all-time overrated Clapton, the painfully tired dumb guy-scared-of-girlfriend-he-must-impress schticks, and the misuse of "Wonderful Tonight".

Clapton, a legendary pitiful head case and junkie, had an obsessive jones about Pattie Boyd, when Boyd was married to George Harrison. He penned the ferocious "Layla", about loving a married woman (Boyd). Eventually, Boyd left Harrison for Clapton, but the relationship soured. Clapton wrote "Wonderful Tonight" at the end of the affair, in an angry mood. Clapton himself said:

"Wonderful Tonight" has a little bit of irony in it. I didn't write it in a particular good mood. I wrote it because my wife was late getting ready to go out. I was in a foul temper about it." (Rolling Stone, 25 August 1988)

This irony was undoubtedly lost, to both the creative team as well as the SBC clients.

" Wonderful Tonight" is not a "tender ballad". It is not a love song. It is a hate song. Play the song for a woman, as the SBC (radio) commercial suggests, and you are telling her that you want to wring her neck.

As for Clapton, he's a hell of a guitarist, I'll grant him that. I won't even blast him for being a shameless commercial sellout (he and Santana share this trait), because, okay, he's got drug recovery clinics to fund. And I will refrain from cringing at the thought of hearing "Tears in Heaven" (which became sickening after, oh, the first time I heard it) again.

The problem with Clapton is that he is the Great White Hope of blues guitarists, and who has made a career out of aping and following (but never surpassing) the greater black blues guitar legends before him---Freddie King, Albert King, etc. etc. I think he himself will admit this, even if his fans don't (and have no clue about much). He is also not the greatest rock guitarist or greatest Brit guitar god, or the greatest Yardbird. (Jeff Beck is.)

Worst headline ever

Dubya's daddy thinks privatization is dumb. Via The New
Republic:

GEORGE H.W. BUSH DISAVOWS PRIVATIZATION:
... back in 1987.

Crack TNR editorial assistant Ben Adler recently fished this H.W. Bush quote out of the TNR archives (from the November 23, 1987 issue):

"I think it's a nutty idea to fool around with the Social Security system and run the risk of [hurting] the people who've been saving all their lives.... It may be a new idea, but it's a dumb one."

For those keeping score, the comment came in response to a question from fellow presidential candidate Pete du Pont during a presidential debate. Du Pont was an advocate of partially privatizing the program.

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"Some of my best friends are neocons."
-Senator Joe Lieberman, The New Yorker, 3/21/05


Yet another reason to throw Joe to the hounds.

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I'm heading off to Hawaii in the morning, but will have the laptop with me. Hoping to finally finish the first draft of my screenplay. Maybe even start jotting down notes for the second one.

In the interim, I'll probably post a guest blog by Passenger 58.

The World According To, Junior

Introducing The World According To, Junior: a lighter version of our regular blog. This is the Blogger hosted version of this site. Generally, the content will be the same, but without all the bells and whistles... less jpegs, less links, etc.

I did it to stake a claim to my username, but also to create an XML feed of the content for anyone using site feeds.

For the record, the preferred version of the site is here.

Extraordinary Machine

What a great start to the weekend. I just discovered that the long-delayed Fiona Apple album, Extraordinary Machine, has been leaked to the internet.

I wrote about this a few months ago. Sony's been holding this back for over a year, but a station in Seattle somehow got their hands on it and now it's everywhere. Major props to the Free Fiona site for championing the release.

I won't post a link to it; Sony's lawyers are already on the case, but if you Google it, you'll find it.

Just a fucking amazing album. Stupid-ass Sony.

Bush's hand-picked town hall audience lets him down

In one of his orchestrated town halls, President Bush thought he'd load the guest list with Federal employees already enjoying the "benefits" of the Thrift Savings Plan, in other words, private investments. Well, it didn't go quite as well as Bush planned. The best part is the last bit.

Excerpt from Whitehouse.gov:

THE PRESIDENT: Let me ask you something about the Thrift Savings Plan. This is a Thrift Savings Plan that has a mix of stocks and bonds?

MS. WEBSTER: Yes, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: Now, how hard was that to learn how to do that?

MS. WEBSTER: And I chose the safe plan, government bonds. (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: That's all right. Well, not so safe, unless we fix the deficit. But other than that -- (laughter).

GOP eff's the poor to spare the base

Senior GOP senators and reps have apparently realized that cutting the legs out from under their base, i.e. Red States, is probably a bad idea. So instead, they're going to fuck the poor and cut THEIR programs instead.


Move afoot to cut food programs for poor
Offered as alternative to Bush plan to reduce farm subsidies
The Associated Press
Updated: 10:08 p.m. ET March 11, 2005

WASHINGTON - Cuts in food programs for the poor are getting support in Congress as an alternative to President Bush’s idea of slicing billions of dollars from the payments that go to large farm operations.

Senior Republicans in both the House and Senate are open to small reductions in farm subsidies, but they adamantly oppose the deep cuts sought by Bush to hold down future federal deficits.

Continued at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7163199/

The GOP's Trojan Horse

Tomorrow Rick Santorum (Republican, Pennsylvania) is sponsoring a bill to raise the national minimum wage by $1.10. Sounds pretty good right?

Except it's a Trojan Horse.

Under Santorum's new bill, businesses with revenues of less than a million bucks would be exempt. Not just exempt from the wage hike, but exempt from ANY minimum wage. 6.8 million businesses would be affected, creating a nation of sweatshops free from any sort of government protection. Untold millions of workers would lose the guarantee of a minimum wage.

It gets worse.

Businesses grossing under $7 million would be exempt from fines, safety, health, pension and other labor laws.

Oh yeah, Santorum's bill would kill the 40-hour work week, thus eliminating overtime pay. It would also ban states from requiring employers to pay tipped workers with a guaranteed wage. Employers could pay tipped workers nothing and force them to live off tips.

Economic Policy Institute has a full report on Santorum's bullshit plan.

So essentially, Santorum's bill would raise the national minimum wage, but exempt small businesses from even having one. Furthermore, it would actually BAN states from creating their own minimum wage laws.

Nice try Rick. So you not only want to dismantle Social Security, you want to do away with worker's rights altogether.

What an asshole.

Bush's misguided privatization crusade

The most fucked up discussion about privatization I've heard went something like this: Some Senator, can't remember which one, lamented the privatization dilemma by saying, "It's hard to reconcile what the president wants and what the people want."

Huh?

To me, there's no contest. The voters elected you to represent THEM, NOT Bush. It's time for these jerks to get their heads screwed on right. No one is saying SS is fine; they're saying it needs reform... not dismantling.

The right's entire argument for the last 30 years is that SS has done it's job and it needs to be done away with. That's a load of crap. It's one of the best programs to ever come out of the government and a great way to ensure that American citizens have a safety net when they retire.

Notice I called it a safety net and not a retirement fund. That is a misconception. In theory SS is supplemental income to the savings you've socked away throughout your life. It's the safety net you can rely on, say if you presonal investments don't work out. That way, you can still get by.

How ironic then that Bush wants to put everyone's retirement fallback into a highly risky private investment account.