point/counterpoint: "flippant about rape"

i was on facebook a little earlier and noticed that my dear friend renai joined group called "We won't see "Observe and Report" because it is flippant about rape." i was a bit caught by surprise because frankly i've been excited for this movie to come out since i first saw the all-audiences trailer for a couple reasons, one of them being that very few movie trailers make me laugh out loud. i decided to peep the group to see what the deal was; this is on the main page:

***PLEASE SHARE THIS GROUP AND FORWARD TO FRIENDS.***

***I HAD TO SHUT OFF THE WALL BECAUSE A CHARMING YOUNG MAN LEFT US A MESSAGE ON IT TELLING US HE PLANNED TO GO OUT AND RAPE SOMEONE RIGHT NOW (HARDY HAR. HAR.) AND I CAN'T SIT HERE ALL DAY AND MONITOR, BUT IF YOU HAVE LINKS OR WHATEVER PLEASE SEND THEM IN.

Dear Jody Hill, Seth Rogen, Anna Faris, and all the assholes involved in greenlighting, producing, and marketing such utterly awful material:

We are not going to see "Observe and Report," and we want to make things clear. We are not refusing to see it because it isn't our type of movie, or because we are people of delicate sensibilities who cannot handle "edgy" humour. We are refusing to see it because after reading numerous reviews and interviews with all of you it is clear that NOT EVEN ONE OF YOU thought very carefully or even, hell, at all about the issues involved in making a scene in which someone not only screws an unconscious person, but such act is "made okay" (per Mr. Rogen) because she drunkenly murmured something in the middle of the act.

Now, it may very well be possible to "joke" about rape in a subversive manner. On this question the members of this group may have individual views. However, we are united in the idea that this is NOT IT.

Envelope and taboo-breaking humour has its place. But please, don't flatter yourself that such a disgusting and flippant attitude towards rape is anything "new" or "original." You are playing to the crappy attitudes of your target audience (i.e., men in their teenage years and twenties), and many of them make this kind of "joke" all the time, every day. You are more or less producing "humor" that shares a cleverness level with Rush Limbaugh's and Don Imus's. Congratulations.

If your aim was to prove that irredeemable assholes exist in the world, allow me to suggest that your point is really trite. Turn on the news. Just this week a couple of men killed their children.

We have sat through South Park, and we sat through Superbad, and we will sit through a hundred things in our lives that are based on what some of us would consider to be offensive humor, and in every single one of those cases thus far some glimmer of hope has been provided that such taboo-breakers were at the very least, SELF-AWARE about what they were doing, and that made a world of difference.

But in your case, all we see in your interviews is (a) a VERY confused attitude about what constitutes informed consent to sexual activity; and (b) an unwillingness to admit that this was all in shitty taste.

We are not advocating that you be censored by the government or anything so please don't hysterically cry First Amendment or "artist's prerogative." These issues are irrelevant. But we wanted you to know why we will not see your movie, and we wanted you to know it was based on your own statements and characterization of your work. There is really nothing to be done at this point to make this better other than your movie flopping dreadfully, and the only way we can cause that to happen is not to go see it. And to encourage our friends and family not to. And to write screeds you probably won't read anyway on Facebook.

But we're gonna do what we can.

Sincerely,
The Members of this Group

The articles/blog posts that inspired this group:

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2009/04/does_seth_rogen_rape_anna_fari.html

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/sexist/2009/04/08/observe-and-reports-date-rape-apologism/

http://tigerbeatdown.blogspot.com/2009/04/um.html

http://www.avclub.com/articles/anna-faris,26245/

http://jezebel.com/5204177/is-date-rape-funny-seth-rogen-explains-it-all-for-you

P.S. If you disagree with this group, don't join it. Buy your ticket to the movie and go. That can be your vote on whether it's acceptable to be so goddamned flippant about rape.

ok, great.

about 99 percent of the time i don't care about groups on facebook championing a cause. if anything i find it slightly irritating--on the one hand, it seems a bit silly to raise awareness about your issue-du-jour the same way that the guy who wants to get 100,000 people to join his group so he can name his firstborn son "batman" does. on the other hand, there is the whole "everyone uses facebook" argument; it's likely that this group/cause(or the woman spearheading it) would have never entered my consciousness had she decided to voice her opinion through her blog or whatever. so good for her. AND DOUBLE GOOD FOR HER BECAUSE I FELT LIKE RESPONDING AND I NEVER FEEL LIKE RESPONDING AND I SENT HER THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE (totally unedited even though some editing would probably make it more readable but eff it cuz i keep it real):

I hope you read this, if only because I generally don't tend to respond to these kinds of things (causes spearheaded by a person or a group of people running a Facebook group). That said, the very existence of this group raised two questions in my mind:

1: It is my understanding that Warner Brothers released this movie with this scene intact--the tone of this scene was not revised and the scene was not cut down (in terms of length) in any way. Indeed, there was not even a conversation questioning the "appropriateness" of this scene (for widespread release) and the scripted version made it into the final release untouched. It's apparent from your diatribe in the description for your group that you're well aware of this. In terms of sending an effective message, do you feel that just not seeing *this movie* is somewhat lacking compared to boycotting Warner Bros movies in general?

2: I understand that some dickhead left an offensive message on the wall for your group which ended up being the catalyst for you disabling all wall messages. I'm wondering if it's constructive to take ANYTHING said by ANYONE seriously enough to cull discussion on the topic completely. I'm not going to pretend that it's worth arguing that one aim of Observer & Report is to promote awareness of rape and spark intelligent discourse on the subject, but I can't help but think that the idea rape is already something that is considered so dirty and shameful that it should never be discussed is a huge problem and that it is being propagated in (at least) some small way by the lack of any open discussion whatsoever on the page for your group.

I'm not the most eloquent person in the world and I'll be the first to admit that, but hopefully I've expressed myself well enough for you to make it this far. If that is the case then I'd like to thank you for taking the time to read this message; I'm sure it's just one out of the deluge of messages you're probably getting in response to your group. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the above questions if you have time, if only so that my own personal, genuine curiosity might be satisfied.

Thanks again,

Mike

i'm hoping she responds because a) i really want to know what she thinks and b) i find the utter lack of conversation in her group irritating--at best, it's antithetical to the entire idea of organizing a group. and while i haven't seen the movie yet (and i intend to) i'm also entirely sure she hasn't either, and judging by her skewed descriptions of the scene itself compared to the actual events in the redband trailer, is almost certainly taking the scene out of context.



i'm strongly considering going to see this tonight instead of this weekend in order to comment further on this sooner rather than later.

web tweet-point-oh

sometimes the truth hurts. and sometimes the truth is reeaally funny.

http://current.com/items/89891774/twouble_with_twitters.htm

i lol'ed.

a bulleted list

• going to yakima today to do some work for abiel's dad
• i'll probably be back wednesday
• i'll probably be eating at burger ranch at least once while i'm there
• went to portland this weekend; much fun and many hotdogs were had
• the first walmart opened on july 2, which is my birthday
• i also share a birthday with brett "hitman" hart
• today is ivar haglund's birthday and you can get an entree at his restaurant for 104 cents
  
• today marks my first contribution to the mixtapergy blog
• buying a new toothbrush this weekend, will post sexy details later
  
• stay tuned.
  

GUEST BLOGGER

SUP GUYS??

take a second to relax to bobross.fm

oh hey look at this

johnny yanok

i'm gonna go to a cabin this weekend and make lots of eggs! eggs benedict and eggs florentine! and hash browns!


and it will be GLORIOUS!

"yeah i'm a hit at parties"

some people (read: pretty much every human being that works on my floor) were having issues with the new cardreader on the door outside my office. see, it's actually a problem with the door--the cardreader is supposed to release the strike flange on the door jamb upon a successful swipe, but depending on how hard the door was shut previously, sometimes the latch gets hung up on the flange and you can't pull the door open. i got really sick of hearing everyone struggling and yanking on the door all goddamn day so i constructed this handy flowchart and stuck it on the door.

(click to embiggen)

so far it appears to be working. i was quick enough to get this bad boy cranked out in time for the breakfast club, which was fortunate, as the smell of pancakes and bacon causes a massive influx of people to my floor. hardly any of them appear to be having issues with the door, so consider this bitch solved (this is why they pay me the big bucks).

case closed; mant out.

oh jesus god

found my waterbottle after about 2 months of sitting 99 percent empty, 1 percent full of protein shake.

barf.

i'm pretty sure i've successfully washed it all out of there, but i can't tell if i can still actually smell the smell or if it's just permanently seared into my brain.

hella

ok, i want to tell you about 2 things that are rad.

our first submission comes from youtube courtesy of pruane2forever. you may have seen this kid calling out 50 Cent for being a media whore in one of his vlogs, prefaced with the disclaimer "no haters, please!"

apparently he is working on a film project called "crossed paths" that is broken up into several parts. i actually wanted to blog about this last night, so great was my exitement, but for reasons i won't get into here i had to wait until now. without further ado, i am glad to present to you part one of what I hope is many parts to come:

i'm really excited for part 2: revenge of the fallen. pruane, if you're reading this, please: make haste.

also, the high point of my morning so far is the discovery of dinosaurs fucking robots. yeah, it's been a pretty slow morning. i expect big things from you as well, dinosaursfuckingrobots.com. don't let me down.

showdown

the gauntlet has been thrown.



billy mays has called out my man vince offer because he feels vince is ripping off billy's style and products. mays is SERIOUS about this. in this vid he tells vince that he will out-pitch him any day.

i REALLY want to see these two titans go head to head. personally i got my money on vince for pure charisma but billy mays has got his name to trade on.

keep talkin shit, billy, you're makin him famous...

best of CL 2009: #0002

a real conversation

first day with a new phone.

me: this is like the 3rd person who's come by asking me what apps i have for my phone
David: where are you? work?
me: yeah
fucking annoying
i'm going to get a nokia
David: tell them you have the "annoying coworker app"
me: HAHA

intensity

i'll just leave this here.



courtesy of the uncharted zone.

FLOG: island soul

wednesday we were gonna hit up la medusa for their prix fixe menu--$25 for an appetizer, a main couscous dish, and dessert--but they were closed. booty.

instead we ultimately ended up going down the street to island soul, a caribbean place that apparently gets mad props from the seattle PI, seattle weekly, the stranger, seattle magazine, et al. we walked in and were impressed by the relaxed atmosphere, good music, and the extremely appealing smell of cooking food--unlike the place we had walked into and promptly out of 5 minutes prior, which had terrible music, wierd decor, and smelled like no one had eaten there all day. as over half of our standard FLOG crew was absent (i'm looking at you, teebah, lynsey, kevin) we didn't order a lot of dishes, but we were pretty satisfied with what we did order.

we started off with the yam fries, which were excellent--i've had sweet potato fries before at various restaurants, and they were definitely enjoyable, but i'd have to say the yam fries at island soul trumped most of the offerings i've had elsewhere. i usually prefer the outside of my fries to be crispy, and while these were not prepared that way, it did not negatively affect my opinion of the fries at all; indeed, the insides were perfectly cooked. the yams were served with a jerk mayonnaise which set off the flavor of the fries quite nicely. the mayo itself had a pleasant, medium heat, with a strong flavor reminiscent of pickled ginger. i asked carla, our server, if there was in fact any ginger in the mayo, but was unable to get a straight answer out of her; her concern over the possibility of me having a ginger allergy led me to believe my analysis was probably correct.

the second appetizer we ordered were the "little islands," which were like little dumplings made from corn dough filled with black beans, topped with feta cheese and guacamole. they were very good; the beans were well seasoned and the feta was applied sparingly enough to impart flavor without being overpowering. the dumplings themselves had a good texture and were reminiscent of tamale dough. om nom nom nom.

the rest of the food came. drew ordered the soul in a bowl, which is essentially a sampler trio of some of the meat dishes they have on offer at island soul: oxtail, curried goat, and jerk chicken; the dish also comes with 'rice and peas' which is really just basmati rice with some red beans thrown in. i'd recommend this for a first foray into either caribbean food as a whole or at this particular establishment; the dish happened to have a taste of almost everything else that we ordered with the exception of the oxtail.

emily ordered the jerk chicken, which (as the name implies) is rubbed in jerk seasoning and then slow cooked in a smoker. I tried a few bites; it was deliciously cooked--well seasoned, very smoky, and tender. the smoke flavor did not overpower the jerk seasoning. i'd probably order this if i were to go back. the dish was also served with rice and peas and collard greens.

i ordered the curried goat, as i'd had goat before and really enjoyed it. i'm also a big curry fan, so i figured this would be doubly good. this ultimately was not to be, although the flavor of the curry was decent, if a bit anise-y. the goat dish itself largely consisted of bones and if i had to guess i would say that most of those bones probably originated in the backbone, as i can't really think of any other type of bone that has interlocking pieces. the meat tasted fine but having to break apart and pick meat off of small bones really didn't do a whole lot to enhance my enjoyment of the meal. on the other hand, the collard greens were some of the best i've ever had, and the rice and peas (which seems to be a consistent presence in any dish served at island soul) made a tasty pairing with whatever curry did not consist of goat spine.

some other highlights of the meal were the cornbread muffins and a habanero aioli. the muffins had grated coconut in them and were almost cakelike in consistency; the coconut added some sweetness and crunch (we took it upon ourselves to give a little character to the muffins with a yam fry and a couple of red beans). andrew noted that the cornbread was complimented very well by the sauce that came with the oxtail, which i unfortunately did not actually try myself. the aioli, we were warned, was "very hot" and it was recommended to us that we only dip a single tine of our fork in it to make sure we could handle the heat. it more or less lived up to the hype, as the recommended dose provided eyebrow-raising heat, and a more liberal application caused my eyes to sweat a little.

i'd recommend island soul, as the food is pretty good. i'll probably go back again sometime in the near future myself. the average price per plate is maybe a little bit more than i would have expected to pay, but the service is good, the atmosphere is quite enjoyable, and the food is good overall. i had a less than stellar experience with the goat but i'd say that was more of a luck-of-the-draw thing than anything else; i highly doubt the restaurant uses ONLY goat spine in that dish, and the veggies were all excellent. check it out on your birthday, as carla gives a rousing rendition of happy birthday that will shake you to your very core.

island soul is located in columbia city at 4869 ranier ave s; seattle WA, 98118.

HOLY SHIT

ALRIGHT SO CHECK THIS OUT

i've got an idea for my first screenplay.

we were talking about actor duos unlikely to appear onscreen together and someone said that daniel craig and jason statham will never be in a movie because they're too similar but think about this movie idea.

it stars daniel craig...and jason statham
in
TANGO AND CASH

think about it. you wouldn't really have to change the plot much; just set it in the UK and you're golden. 2 top chief inspectors on the city of london police force can't stand each other, but they've both been set up and have to work together 

to clear their name as well as exact justice on the crime syndicate that's framed them for murder. 

daniel craig (AKA james bond #5, duh) would be perfect as the slick, refined-yet-badass ray tango. and naturally the reckless, rough-and-tumble gabriel cash would be played by jason statham (AKA mr. fuck-a-woman-in-the-middle-of-a-huge-crowd-in-chinatown-because-i-need-adrenaline-to-stay-alive). dudes wouldn't even really need to get into character; they could just reprise their roles from casino royale/quantum of solace and crank/transporter 1/2/3, respectively.

cast keeley hazell as katherine "kiki" tango--teri hatcher's former role--and you've got yourself a real winner.

check out my re-imagning of this scene:

COP 1:
we've checked the whole lorry, arsehole--there's nothin in it! and you're out of your neighborhood, big city chap! i want your badge, i want your weapon, i want your ARSE! who the fuck do you think you are???

COP 2: 
[scoffs] 'e thinks 'e's james bond.

TANGO:
james bond...is a pussy. 
[tango shoots tanker truck, cocaine pours out the side]

TANGO:
whattya know. it's snowing.
[tastes cocaine]

TANGO:
anyone wanna get high?

END FUCKING SCENE.

man i swear. if they can make a reboot of the fast and the furious then they can sure as HELL reboot tango and cash. 

anyway. you heard it here first.

taxing

IRS tax code WTF: "Other Income"

some tips for the less-than-scrupulous, courtesy of the internal revenue service:

Bribes. If you receive a bribe, include it in your income.

Illegal activities. Income from illegal activities, such as money from dealing illegal drugs, must be included in your income on Form 1040, line 21, or on Schedule C or Schedule C-EZ (Form 1040) if from your self-employment activity.

Stolen property. If you steal property, you must report its fair market value in your income in the year you steal it unless in the same year, you return it to its rightful owner.

good to know.

best of CL 2009: #0001

this is the best CLMC of 2009.



[EDIT: at the time i originally posted this i somehow neglected to realize that craigslist is too much of a gold mine to call this "the best post of 2009;" i understand now that this is but the first of much excellence to come. i have changed this post's title to reflect this new understanding and apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.]