Mooks

I found this on Goodshit, one of my favorite blogs (and not just for the nudes, though that is appreciated too). They got it from the Urban Dictionary.

Urban Dictionary: MOOK

A term coined by Douglas Rushkoff in an episode of PBS’s “Frontline” entitled “The Merchants of Cool.”; Mooks are archetypal young males(teens-early 20s) who act like moronic boneheads. They are self centered simpletons who live a drunken frat-boy lifestyle(or are frat-boys). Examples can be found anytime someone watches “Jackass.” Rushkoff claimed that the media glorifies this ideal and stifles natural self expression, however, some people might argue teenage boys have always acted like morons(its actually a long-standing stereotype).

I'm only going to take issue with the Rushkoff claimed that the media glorifies this ideal and stifles natural self expression. I disagree on two counts.

1. I think peer-pressure has far more effect on human behavior, particularly among children and teens, than anything on TV, and I think there's often been an anti-education/intellectual current among kids. It's rebellion against authority and the drudgery of school. The smart kid always gets a comeuppance.

2. Yes, the entertainment media does embrace the idiot. But if you showed kids (particularly teens) as commonly clean cut, attentive, and level-headed, there'd be a hew and cry that it's Bullshit. Yeah, we laugh and groan about Beavis & Butthead, but there'd be just as much argument if the shows were filled with Opie Taylors (from the Andy Griffith Show).

And the fact remains--Beavis & Butthead were consistently funnier than Opie. So were Laurel & Hardy (who weren't the brightest bulbs on the block), the 3 Stooges, Bob Hope in most of his movies, Bertie Wooster and anyone in the Drone's Club--you name it. People laugh at the idiots. The only difference is that we're in a youth culture now and the idiots tend to be teens.

Maybe if you make a great sitcom of Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein or Richard Feynman as a teen, you might have a chance at changing things.

Your Thanksgiving Sucks Checklist

[ _ ] - You have to state to everyone why you're thankful this year, even though you hate your job, your love life is nonexistant and the neighborhood cats are ruining the rims on your car by peeing on it every night and yet it's illegal to poison the little rat bastards.

[ _ ] - The white meat is dry and the dark meat smells like it's been sitting out on the countertop for a week.

[ _ ] - The neighbor's homemade tamales are long gone but there's plenty of Jello with canned pineapple chunks suspended in it.

[ _ ] - The dregs of your relatives are sitting on the sofa, monopolizing the good tv to watch the 1-8 Miami Skidmarks take on the 3-7 Baltimore Stench. In the bedroom, various flotsam and jetsam are huddled around the other TV watching The Oprah Winfrey Network.

[ _ ] - Your father and your uncle Hank are in hour #2 of discussing their respective diabetes management.

[ _ ] - The dog is locked outside, whining at the back door, because your grandmother's best friend, who could have been the body double for Anne Ramsey in Throw Momma From the Train, is allergic to pet hair.

[ _ ] - Someone brought a case of Budweiser that's still untouched, but all the good beer you had hidden away was drunk 3 hours ago.

Don't Be Intimidated By Porn

On an adult forum that I read, every so often someone will start a thread about people (usually the poster's wife or girlfriend) hating porn. It boils down to being intimidated by it. "I can't compete with that."

Speaking on behalf of most guys, "you don't have to." We're not expecting you to. I know you couldn't get into a reverse piledriver postion without dislocating your shoulder. I know your ass wasn't that small and tight even when you were 18. I know you don't like to swallow and your jaw gets tired.

Porn is fantasy. It's an add-on. It's us playing the x-rated section of Walter Mitty that The New Yorker wouldn't print.

You know what else is fantasy? War movies. If you see my eyes glaze over and a little bit of drool appears from the side of my mouth when I'm watching Jim Brown dropping granades down the air vents in THE DIRTY DOZEN, that doesn't mean that I really, truly want to do that in real life. In real life, I know I'll be one of the dozen who got my ass shot off first thing. In real life I wouldn't have been one of the dozen, because I wouldn't have been in that army prison. I'd have been one of Robert Ryan's dickhead lackies.

I love MAD MEN. I want to be Don Draper. Hell, I'd settle for being Roger Sterling. You know who I really am? I'm Harry, the shlub who buys time on tv shows.

The same goes for the books that I read. If I'm reading FAREWELL MY LOVELY, sure I want to be Philip Marlowe. I also know that I wouldn't last 10 seconds in Philip Marlowe's world. A goon would show up at my door and warn me off a case. I'd say something flip and I'd wake up in the hospital. You know what I'd do? I'd drop the case.

Porn is fantasy. Yeah, in my head I'm screwing women who are younger, firmer, bigger breasted and sexually more adventurous than anyone I'm going to ever meet in real life. So what? I have a fantasy that I'm the President of the United States. I have another one that I run Microsoft and I fire everyone responsible for Windows Vista. I've got another one where I'm Brad Pitt.

I don't really want to be Brad Pitt. Not even when he was banging Jennifer Aniston.

Women fantasize. If they don't, they're either lying or they're missing out on the best part of the waking day. Women fantasize about all kinds of weird shit. Does that really mean that they want those fantasies to come true? No. In fantasy you can keep all the good stuff and exclude all the bad stuff. Fantasizing having sex with your best friend's spouse? Nobody gets pregnant in fantasies. Nobody gets caught. Nobody gets the clap. No awkward conversation. No guilt. All the good stuff and none of the bad.

Women: if you really want to get back at a guy, you can turn the tables because guys are easily intimidated too. Get a video called AMAZING INSERTIONS or something like it, and believe me there are many to choose from. If you want to see a guy go pale, watch him watching a girl straddle an orange traffic cone. You know what's going on in his head? There isn't any way I can follow that. She wouldn't feel a thing.

There are plenty of things in the world to fret about. Pornstars shouldn't be one of them.

NP a R t 2

There was a recent announcement that NPR's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED co-host, Michele Norris, will be off the broadcast for awhile because her husband is joining the Obama campaign. The same thing happened back in 2008.

I think the policy is ridiculous.

First: as one the host of the show (they rotate three co-hosts among two chairs on a weekly basis), I don't know exactly why they think it's going to matter whether she's there or not. This isn't the BBC during World War II: do you think she's going to sneak code words into the broadcast to help Democratic activists in the field? "Hey! She said 'snipe hunt.' Send out that mass-mailing to the poor neighborhood telling them that Mit Romney has a list of names and mass deportations will begin the day after he takes the oath!

People may charge that she could help bias the newscast in the Democrats' favor.

1. They're doing that already

2. Even though I'm cynical, I do believe most journalists really do try to be fair (even with #1 above)

3. The Republicans are their own worst enemies

Seriously--a newscast is a massive group effort of multiple layers of reporters, producers, technicians and beaurocrats of all sorts. I don't think one person, even an anchor, is really going to make that much difference. That's like having a rogue at Mission Control during a space flight. There are too many things going on for one person to subtly shift things in a way that others won't notice.

And I'm not kidding about #3. It often seems that they'll have a story and someone from the left side of the aisle makes a statement, and then they say, "we asked Congressman Smith (R) to come on, but his office declined." And this not on the gotcha journalism, but on the mundane stuff. OR they'll end up getting some boob who can't speak his own name if it's not on a position paper written by his staff. The result is you end up with a procession of Democrats who often come off, even if they're touching the brim with bullshit, as articulate and thoughtful, and the Republicans as stuffy, dull-witted, or too timid to trust their own ability to connect two coherent thoughts.

Some people will say that #1 is the reason for that, but I don't think so. I've listened to various NPR shows for 20 years. I do think it's mildly biased in its own ways, but I don't think they're Macciavellian in their handling and presentation.

So taking Michele Norris off the broadcast is just pointless. But like Congress, it gives them the opportunity to appear to be doing something.