I heard this song on the radios when it came out, and it was Good.
Yet I only just now saw the music video, in the year 2022–and my God, the thing is fiery balls of amazing.
Check it out, then we’ll talk smack.
Here’s why I could not love this video more: they went all out and crammed every possible internet meme and Random Person Turned Internet Famous into a short music video.
Not one or two or three. Everybody they could possibly find and convince to do this thing.
Their commitment to the gag makes it not only ten pounds of fun packed into a five-pound bag—it makes this video insanely rewatchable, because if you blinked twice, you missed a dozen things, and if you didn’t blink, you are a spy for the Lizard People from Planet 9, and we will find you.
Weezer has been a band since before you were born, so it gives me joy to see that they’re still cranking out these things called “albums” which aren’t really a thing anymore, and I hope they are genuinely ageless and make music forever and not continue to exist by dint of being preserved by All the Drugs like a bazillion rockers collecting Social Security while still on tour.
VERDICT: 11/10, and please give us another video like this every 5 years, because the interwebs are always making new people famous for a hot second.
Yes, you can make a case for THRILLER, which is epic and famous and spawned 6,459 videos of people doing the dance moves.
Yet this scrappy underdog of a song by Warren Zevon is the rightful king of Horror Gondor.
What we have here is pretty simple. There’s no giant production budget, no army of backup dancers who all spent six hours getting zombified in the makeup trailer. No bigshot Hollywood director making a quick buck.
Warren Zevon gives us a quirky little song about werewolves that take us in unexpected places.
He humanizes them without taking away their essential and bloody werewolviness.
My favorite lines are those little lyrical surprises–the werewolf looking for some good Chinese food and wearing bespoke clothes. Best line of all is the aside at the end: “His hair was perfect.”
This song is perfect. It cannot be improved upon.
LYRICS
I saw werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand Walking through the streets of SoHo in the rain He was looking for the place called Lee Ho Fooks For to get a big dish of beef chow mein
Ah-hoo, werewolves of London Ah-hoo Ah-hoo, werewolves of London Ah-hoo
You hear him howling around your kitchen door You better not let him in Little old lady got mutilated late last night Werewolves of London again
Ah-hoo, werewolves of London Ah-hoo Ah-hoo, werewolves of London Ah-hoo, huh
He’s the hairy handed gent who ran amok in Kent Lately he’s been overheard in Mayfair You better stay away from him, he’ll rip your lungs out Jim Huh, I’d like to meet his tailor
Ah-hoo, werewolves of London Ah-hoo Ah-hoo, werewolves of London Ah-hoo
Well, I saw Lon Chaney walking with the Queen Doin’ the werewolves of London I saw Lon Chaney Jr. walking with the Queen, uh Doin’ the werewolves of London I saw a werewolf drinkin’ a piña colada at Trader Vic’s His hair was perfect
Ah-hoo, werewolves of London Hey draw blood Ah-hoo, werewolves of London
Stories matter. Plato feared stories and poems, knowing they were so powerful.
And stories matter a great deal when it comes to war:
Soldiers must be highly motivated to risk their lives. To fight with courage, they have to passionately believe in the cause.
Civilians need reasons to suffer and sacrifice to support the war effort–and to possibly lose their sons and daughters if they sign up as soldiers.
Allies require good narratives to explain to their people why they are sending weapons and financial support to either side of a war.
On all of these fronts, Ukraine utterly crushed Russia’s vaunted disinformation and propaganda machine.
Here is how.
1) We root for the underdog, not the bully
Russia has nuclear weapons and is much larger than Ukraine, and when it invaded, our sympathies naturally went with the smaller country, who did nothing to provoke this war.
From the start, Ukraine celebrated its soldiers and people for defending their country, with videos of average people making Molotov cocktails or camouflage netting for soldiers.
All of Russia’s desperate attempts to portray Ukraine as somehow dangerous, threatening, or Nazi (??), simply did not work.
2) Russia’s narratives conflicted with their military strategy and rampant war crimes
Among other things, Putin claimed that this was about protecting Russian-speaking people, starting with the residents of eastern Ukraine.
His mouthpieces keep talking about how Russia is careful to avoid targeting civilians.
These words mean nothing compared to the flood of photos and videos of Russian attacks on schools, hospitals, and homes. Precision missiles hitting shopping centers and electrical grids turn Putin’s disinformation campaign into a waste of time.
Russia’s military strategy of shelling villages and cities into oblivion, then advancing, also demolished this argument.
And all the evidence of war crimes–including soldiers looting, raping, and killing civilians–completely destroyed any possibility of this narrative working.
4) Russia’s mistreatment of its own soldiers
Putin clearly doesn’t care about those on the front line and treats them like cannon fodder. Intercepted calls and reports from deserters show that soldiers (a) weren’t even told they were going to war, (b) don’t truly understand why they are fighting and dying, (c) don’t trust their officers, and (d) aren’t properly fed, clothed, rested, or treated when wounded.
This wrecks the fighting spirit of Russia’s troops. When you see photos of them compared to Ukraine’s soldiers, it’s clear that Ukraine country cares about its military, feeds them, and keeps them properly equipped, while Russian troops look skinny, dirty, and using a grab-bag of gear, some of it decades old.
5) Ukraine tells us stories of courage and compassion
Every day, we see the people of Ukraine and the jobs they’re doing, whether it’s a combat medic and her crew or a soldier’s mother coming out to hug her son as he liberates her village.
These images stick with you.
Russia doesn’t have anything close to counter those narratives. Instead, they offer up denial, disinformation, and silly threats that they’ve made so often that nobody believes they will invade NATO countries or use nuclear weapons. If they can’t beat Ukraine, what makes Putin think he’d have a chance against a single NATO nation?
6) Trust matters
There’s always deception in war. It’s part of the game.
You want to deceive your enemy and surprise them.
There’s a difference between tricking your enemy and trying to lie to the world.
Ukraine may be understating its losses or wisely choosing not to talk about them too much.
What it’s not doing is trying to sell all kinds of lies to the press, the public, and the world. If Ukraine says X and Russia says Y, journalists and allies know they should put their money on what Ukraine says.
Because throughout this war, Russia has consistently lied. Even massively pro-Russian military bloggers are fed up with the denial of reality, and combat journalists often confirm information coming from Ukraine by getting what’s being reported by military bloggers and accounts of Russian soldiers.
As a former journalist, the last thing I would ever do is take anything Russia says as a fact.
7) People care about the ending of this story
Good narratives have a clear beginning, middle, and end.
They have private stakes–the lives of individual people and soldiers–and public stakes, like the survival of a nation.
In the beginning, we naturally felt sympathetic to Ukraine when it was invaded and bullied by Russia.
Right now in the middle, it’s normal to feel joyous at the remarkable counter-offensive Ukraine waged in September, one that will be written about for decades.
But most of all, people care how a story ends.
Russia has lost the global information war when it comes to this question.
People around the world want Ukraine to be free and democratic. To win this war and restore their sovereignty.
The alternative ending to this story is Ukraine becoming part of Putin’s new empire and the beginning of a new story as he tries to repeat this process in eastern Europe and take over other former members of the Soviet Union.
The contrast between Zelensky and Putin could not be starker.
This is a massive problem for Russia’s disinformation campaign and a huge bonus for Ukraine’s war effort.
Zelensky has served as an amazing wartime leader, uniting the country and rallying the free world to his nation’s defense.
His speeches–to other countries, to the United Nations, and his nightly addresses to the people of Ukraine–have been master classes. I’ll do a whole post talking about these. THEY ARE AMAZING.
Zelensky dresses like a humble soldier, not a CEO, and grew out his beard.
He often visits wounded soldiers in the hospital and regularly travels to the front line. Those photographs and videos are driving Russian military bloggers crazy. As they should.
Zelensky may be one of the most admired leaders in the world right now. Hands down.
Putin may be one of the most hated. He treats his generals with contempt, often removing them from command. He doesn’t visit the front lines and disappears to his villa regularly.
Early in the war, one of Zelensky’s first decisions echoes even today. The United States offered to help evacuate him when it seemed Russia would take Kyiv.
Zelensky refused that offer and reportedly said, “The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.”
And that response, in the very beginning, set the course for the end of this story.
What the people and soldiers of Ukraine have done is incredibly impressive, creative, and heroic.
I’ve watched and read about this war since the day Russia invaded, and want to hail the heroes who are liberating so much of their land in the last two weeks. Books will be written about them. I will forever be impressed by the courage of the Ukrainian people and the leadership of President Zelensky.
On Mondays, I usually post (a) obscure music videos that need to be shared or (b) make fun of popular artists who spent more than the gross national product of Paraguay to create a music video that should not exist.
Today, I want to post my top five favorite music videos coming out of Ukraine during this war.
These videos may not seem important. Yet from the very first Bayraktar video, I believe they helped boost morale inside the country and galvanize international support in a way that policy papers and numbers never could.
First up is a solid, traditional choice: use a rock song as the soundtrack for footage.
Yeah, you’ve probably seen the movie, which is seven separate flavors of awesomesauce.
If you haven’t watched it, this is the trailer.
While half the planet may have already seen this movie (not sure, haven’t done a poll), I bet you all the monies in my wallet and yours that far fewer people have read the novella it’s based on. Faithfully, too. They did not mangle the text like Hollywood tends to do.
RITA HAYWORTH AND THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION is the first part of a collection of novellas released by Stephen King back when some actor was president in 1982 and the Soviet Union existed and parachute pants were a thing.
I’ve seen the movie maybe four or five times and would happily watch it today. Have read the novella twice as many times and re-read it last night. If you have not read it, pick up a paperback copy of DIFFERENT SEASONS and it’s the first story. Pick it up, a used bookstore will have seven of them for like three bucks.
Let’s get into why this novella is a SHINY DIAMOND MADE OF WORDS.
1) Red, the narrator, puts us at the right distance
Instead of seeing this story from Andy’s point of view as he goes to prison and eventually escapes, we see and hear it through Red.
This is a lot like the classic narrative device of having Watson tells us every Sherlock Holmes story. It works for a larger-than-life character like Andy, who becomes myth and legend in the prison.
Telling this story from Andy’s POV wouldn’t work as well, just like Sherlock’s POV would come off as arrogant. You never toot your own horn.
2) Red has to keep guessing, just like we do
He has to piece together a lot of Andy’s story from rumors, gossip, and theories. There are a lot of puzzles he doesn’t put together until the end, like we do.
Having this story told via Red writing it down, as it happens, also helps build suspense. Red isn’t giving us the whole tale after he knows the end. This is more like a diary, and that becomes more important toward the end of the story.
3) The stakes are real and they actually matter
Sure, I love action movies and zombie flicks.
Yet the stakes in this story feel far more real and raw than the novels and movies where bodies pile up. You feel the stifling bars and walls of the prison, the beatings and menace of the Sisters, and the time Red or Andy spend in the Hole.
You feel it, and unlike movies where you know the hero won’t die, the stakes hit harder.
4) It’s actually Red’s story more than Andy’s
Andy’s time in prison doesn’t break his spirit.
This novella, and the movie, are really Red’s story–because he’s the character who changes the most, and it comes via the catalyst of Andy.
This passage just rocks:
Andy was the part of me they could never lock up, the part of me that will rejoice finally open for me and I walk out in my cheap suit with my twenty dollars of mad-money in my pocket. That part of me will rejoice no matter how old and broken and scared the rest of me is. I guess it’s just that Andy had more of that part than me, and used it better.
5) The ending cannot be improved
Come on. You can’t beat this:
Sure I remember the name. Zihuatenejo. A name like that is too pretty to forget.
I find that I am excited, so excited that I can hardly hold the pencil in my trembling hand. I think it is the excitement that only a free man can feel, a free man starting a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain.
I hope Andy is down there.
I hope I can make it across the border.
I hope to see my friend and shake his hand.
I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams.
Unless you live alone in an ice cave, you have seen these things we call “movies” along with shorter, lower budget shebangs we call “shows.”
And doesn’t it feel like half of all movies and shows are about superheroes? The other half are Disney+ series about random Star Wars characters, like the new show THAT STORMTROOPER WHO HIT HIS HEAD ON THE DOORWAY OF THE DEATH STAR.
Yet I remember a day, not long ago, when an actor holding a hammer and saying two words absolutely blew us away.
So let’s talk about the rise and fall of Marvel movies, and why DC is like bread dough without yeast: never rose, so it never had the chance to fall.
Here’s how Marvel climbed Mount Mojo and ruled all that it surveyed
1) The climbing crew absolutely rocked
Part of the story is who they picked to climb this mountain: a great crew of actors and directors. Sure, there are some big names like Robert Downey, Jr., and these days every bigshot actor is getting recruited to join the MCU.
But back when they started this climb, their core group was unknowns, who all happened to be named Chris, maybe because the Marvel casting people had a thing for somebody named Chris, maybe the One Who Got Away–who knows. Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, and Chris Pratt were all risky choices that paid off. Even Robert Downey, Jr. was a risk, a big name with a history of addiction and rehab.
Whatever criticism you might level against Marvel movies of the past or today, they pick good actors.
I mean, everybody says Sebastian Stan is a nice guy, but after watching this, I thought he was the baddest man on the planet.
2) The writers and studio built up suspense, movie by movie
From the first time we saw an Infinity stone (and they kept popping up in every movie) to that last scene of INFINITY WARS: ENDGAME, WE REALLY MEAN IT, THANOS GONNA DIE FOR REAL THIS TIME, you knew that these movies were building up to a climax. There was a peak to Mount Mojo, and a ginormous purple villain sat on a throne on top of that peak, and shit was gonna happen when the heroes and audience finally clawed their way all the way up there.
You wanted to see what happened.
3) Each new movie added real pieces to the puzzle
You can fire up IRON MAN and microwave a vat of popcorn to binge the first round of movies, and every movie brings you new clues and characters. Even if you knew basically what was going to eventually happen–THANOS GONE WILD–all the little things mattered.
Why DC never got its mojo at all
DC came to this bazillion-dollar poker game with the far-stronger hand: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Joker, and Aquaman.
Before these movies, the Marvel characters (except for Spiderman) were pretty obscure. Thor, Ant-Man, a talking tree and his pet raccoon? Come on. DC should have eaten Marvel’s lunch.
And they mangled it.
Instead of introducing each superhero with their own movie, they did it backwards, and gave us a movie with Batman and Wonder Woman before sending us back in time for a solo Wonder Woman movie and Aquaman flick, and never giving us a solo Batman with Batfleck at all.
You can’t build up to something big when you go back in time with prequels like that.
Instead of having one big bad guy, we got Villains of the Week who were vanquished, buh-bye, we will not see you around.
Marvel keeps stopping and starting with new actors, new directors, and new tactics to rival what Marvel did, and it’s like they don’t know what direction they’re driving.
THE BATMAN was a good movie, and a nice start to a new trilogy. If they’re smart, they’ll use that as a starting point to build fresh. That’s just incredibly hard to do when you have an established Wonder Woman and Aquaman who do a great job and don’t need to be recast.
This opening scene is golden.
Don’t get me started with Flash and that actor.
So it’s a hot mess, which is really too bad.
How Marvel lost its way
1) Over-saturation
I’m not a comics nerd, and neither am I a snob who only watched black-and-white French existentialist films. I’m probably a lot like your average movie fan who sees all the big movies, and the Daredevil/Punisher/Jessica Jones stuff. But now I’m starting to skip a lot of these shows, along with some of the movies.
Because you need to clone yourself to have time to watch it all. There is too much content.
They started out strong. WANDAVISION was amazing, and LOKI rocked. Started watching MOON KNIGHT, love Oscar Isaac and Ethan Hawke–did not finish.
Haven’t watched any of MS. MARVEL or SHE HULK, and all the other movies and shows in the works just don’t excite me.
THOR: RAGNORAK is one of my fav movies of the whole bunch, yet I have zero desire to watch THOR 4: THOR AND LADY THOR VS PALE BATMAN. I’ll probably check it out on the televisions later. No guarantee.
There’s so much content coming out so fast. Instead of a couple of giant blockbusters every year that you definitely circled on the calendar, it’s a flood that you can’t track.
We’re basically to the point where this SNL skit has become our reality.
2) The multiverse means no character is ever dead, so the stakes don’t mean anything
Yes, the multiverse is a cool concept, and introducing it with Miles Morales was brilliant. A great movie.
After INFINITY WARS and LOKI, though, we know that no character is really dead. I mean, we watched Loki die, and here he is. And yeah, Iron Man died, though if he gets bored in a few years, I bet you every quarter in my swear jar that Marvel could wave $50 million under his nose to show up on set for three days.
Now when a character dies, we don’t really feel it. Because they can just pop into the multiverse and get another version of Thor or Iron Man or anybody else.
3) There is no clear mountain we’re climbing where the One True Bad Guy is waiting
Yes, the writers at Marvel may have a secret plan involving secret wars with the green shapeshifting aliens or Kang the Conquerer or whatever, and all of this will make sense seven movies and thirty shows from now.
Whatever phase they say we are on, and I will not keep track, it is too confusing,
HOWEVER: it’s not clear to us, as an audience, why we need to watch everything to see what happens. These movies and shows used to be all part of one body, with all the parts working together. Now they are loosely connected, and you have to contort your brain to see why it matters, and why you should care.
If your audience has to wonder why it should care, they won’t.
Listen: I usually find obscure music videos, or make fun of popular pop stars spending the gross national product of Paraguay to create something that should not exist.
HOWEVER: There are rare moments of joy, little pockets of wonder and awe, where I find a song with a music video that generates nothing but admiration and a desire to share.
The commentary I will offer is that this song is today’s answer to Billy Joel’s WE DIDN’T START THE FIRE, except I’d say the lyrics are deeper and more meaningful. Because instead of simply listing as many historical events as possible, Bo is commenting on them.
This line alone hits like a hammer: A gift shop at the gun range, a mass shooting at the mall.
Video is below, then the lyrics.
And I just hope Bo keeps on making more like this. Everything I’ve seen from INSIDE OUT has been different and worthwhile.
I can’t really, uh, play the guitar very well, um, or sing So you know, apologies
Stunning 8K-resolution meditation app In honor of the revolution, it’s half-off at the Gap Deadpool’s self-awareness, loving parents, harmless fun The backlash to the backlash to the thing that’s just begun
There it is again, that funny feeling That funny feeling There it is again, that funny feeling That funny feeling
The surgeon general’s pop-up shop, Robert Iger’s face Discount Etsy agitprop, Bugles’ take on race Female Colonel Sanders, easy answers, civil war The whole world at your fingertips, the ocean at your door The live-action Lion King, the Pepsi Halftime Show Twenty-thousand years of this, seven more to go Carpool Karaoke, Steve Aoki, Logan Paul A gift shop at the gun range, a mass shooting at the mall
There it is again, that funny feeling That funny feeling There it is again, that funny feeling That funny feeling
Reading Pornhub’s terms of service, going for a drive And obeying all the traffic laws in Grand Theft Auto V Full agoraphobic, losing focus, cover blown A book on getting better hand-delivered by a drone Total disassociation, fully out your mind Googling “derealization”, hating what you find That unapparent summer air in early fall The quiet comprehending of the ending of it all
There it is again, that funny feeling That funny feeling There it is again, that funny feeling That funny feeling
Hey, what can you say? We were overdue But it’ll be over soon, you wait Hey, what can you say? We were overdue But it’ll be over soon, just wait Ba-da-da, ba-da-da, ba-da-da-da-dum Hey, what can you say? We were overdue But it’ll be over soon, you wait Ba-da-da, ba-da-da, ba-da-da-da-dum Hey, what can you say? We were overdue But it’ll be over soon, you wait Ba-da-da, ba-da-da, ba-da Hey, what can you say? We were overdue But it’ll be over soon, you wait Ba-da-da, ba-da-da, ba-da-da-da-dum Hey
Turn on the televisions, or fire up the Series of Tubes, and by the time I am done writing this, Donald Trump and his minions will have made seven different media hits on FOX News shows, InfoWars, CNN, and all the podcasts they seem to host where MTG interviews Roger Stone or whatever.
You’ll also see mountains of stories about Trump’s legal woes, and I’ll only talk about the big ones: the federal search warrant that found top secret documents hanging out by the pool at Mar-a-Lago, the Atlanta grand jury, the New York attorney general case that could dissolve Trump’s business empire, and a couple of federal grand juries looking the attempted coup on January 6 along with the fake electors scheme.
These are serious threats that require serious lawyers and disciplined messaging.
Let’s look at what Trump is actually doing first.
Trump’s strategies
1) Flooding the zone
Steve Bannon talked a lot about this strategy, which is where you throw so much out there, from so many directions, that the press and public and your opponents don’t have time to refute it all.
2) Floating a fleet of test balloons
This is related to the first strategy. Trump likes to try out messaging (or lies) on the road, especially at rallies, and the ones that get the best reactions from crowds get workshopped and refined until they’re part of his schtick, like a standup comedian perfecting his schtick.
And it is a schtick.
3) Quick changes in direction based on the televisions
Whenever Trump sees something on the tubes that makes him reach for the Tums, he often responds by changing (a) messengers, (b) narratives, or (c) legal strategy.
4) Reflexively opposing the opposition
Whatever the other side says or does, Trump instinctively is against it, and attacks the specific people doing it.
If Democrats want to build infrastructure, it is no longer Infrastructure Week, and Biden did it wrong.
If the prosecutors want to keep a search warrant sealed, as is normal practice, he wants it released, and the judge/FBI is corrupt.
Trump is trying to win the wrong war
It’s clear what Trump prioritizes: winning the media war, especially on television. That mattered a lot more when he was a real estate mogul and as president.
He doesn’t listen to his attorneys, and has a history of not paying them.
All four of these strategies absolutely hurt him when it comes to the courtrooms he will be in for the next few years.
Think about what Attorney General Merrick Garland, the New York attorney general, and all of the other prosecutors and attorneys involved in cases against Trump are doing: exactly the opposite of Trump’s four big strategies.
They don’t flood the zone.
There is a pack of legal lions, all professionals, working diligently on these cases. Many of them we don’t know much about yet because grand juries operate in secret. The few leaks we hear often come from witnesses who’ve testified, or court filings, which aren’t really leaks.
No trial balloons. No hasty reversals based on whatever Fox & Friends just said.
And they don’t instinctively oppose things or attack the other side personally.
How all of this is seven different flavors of wrong
Here’s the real problem: All the things Trump does to win the political-messaging war actively hurt him once he lands in court.
Testing out different narratives and lies at rallies and when he’s interviewed only creates a video record of his changing his story, sometimes by the day.
Having his close aides and allies spread out to do media hits only gets THEM on record saying a volume of recorded words, much of which contradicts what was said before.
Even the most disciplined liar will have trouble keeping the story straight when they’re interviewed at length, day after day. That’s especially true when the story keeps changing by the hour.
Making all this worse is the fact many of these aides and allies–Roger Stone, Steve Bannon, Rudy Giuliani, and White House hangers-on who followed Trump to Mar-a-Lago–are witnesses if not targets of various investigations.
Trump doesn’t listen to his attorneys, and has a history of not paying them. Although he finally hired a couple of former federal prosecutors, the rest of his legal team got hired because they look good on television. They don’t have serious legal pedigrees or a background in tough criminal cases at the federal level. He hired them because he saw them defending him on television were hanging around one of his golf courses. I am not making that up.
What a smart person in Trump’s shoes would do
First, you give up on trying to win every news cycle. That only hurts you when cases hit the courtroom.
Second, you hire real attorneys, actually pay them so they stick around, and listen to them. They dictate your legal strategy, not you and whatever talking head is on FOX News right now.
Third, you shut up. You do not talk about these cases, the prosecutors, the FBI, or the judges. You shut up. There are plenty of other things you can talk about: inflation, guns, crime, immigration, whatever. All the legal cases you’re facing? Have them talk to your lawyer, the only person you can trust not to say something to the media that will hurt you later.
Fourth, you make sure your allies, and possible witnesses/targets, also shut the hell up and get real attorneys.
Fifth, you stay off your phone, email, and texts. The January 6 committee found all kinds of incriminating text messages and emails. The FBI can get those, too, along with supposedly safe and encrypted email. Witnesses flip, the FBI can crack your iPhone, and they also have these things called wiretaps.
Sixth, you talk with your lawyers and stick to one narrative: the truth.
Because when so many people are involved, and facing their own legal jeopardy, people are going to take deals to avoid prison time. Some already have (there’s a long list).
Back when stegosaurus strolled around sipping lattes and hiding from raptors, the Series of Tubes was shiny and new, and featured completely juvenile wastes of time like Mullets Galore.
This site featured the Mullet of the Week and a whole scientific taxonomy of mullets, which was both insane and interesting.
Mullets Galore may be dead, and unable to get resurrected even with the magic of the WayBack Machine, since the fool who created it used javascript or Shockwave or some other thing modern browsers vomit up as against their religion.
HOWEVER: a new champion of business in the front, party in the back has emerged: USA Mullet Championship, with registration for 2022 now live.
They have divisions (kids, teens, adults) and let the people vote on our national mullet champs.
Here are the kid champs from 2021:
Teenyboppers from 2021:
Men’s open winners:
And women’s open champs:
As a semi-serious student of mullets–and yes, I had a hockey haircut early in college–let me say that I’m happy somebody took up the torch.
I’m particularly stoked that they’re embracing the whole variety of mullets, from the “so bad it’s good” to the “okay, that’s kinda attractive, in a weird kinda way.”
It would be wrong to avoid saying that mullets are not the sole province of Americans, or something we invented.
The internets tell me a French fashion guru (Henri Mollet) made it popular in the ’70s and thus the name, translated into ‘Murican.
HOWEVER: This is all nonsense. Mullets have been around forever, all over the world.
Canadian hockey players are kicked off the team if they don’t have one. Soccer/football players could enter mullet competitions and win every single prize.
The mullet was always around, and will always be around.
I do want to point out that Richard Dawkins went at this scientifically in The Selfish Gene, saying that fashion comes and goes because once short hair is fashionable and the dominant meme, long hair (or mullets) becomes rebellious and cool until IT becomes dominant, and having short hair is rebellious.
Kinda like beards right now. Pretty much every man I know is rocking a pandemic beard and looking like Robert Redford in that mountain man movie.
Yes, that is Redford and not some weird joke I’m making. Look it up, kid you not.
VERDICT
Mullets are forever, and I am here for it.
If you rock a mullet, or know someone who does, please enter the 2022 contest and tell me what happens.
Listen: I’m a sucker for cheesy action movies. Yet there are more choices than ever, with Netflix and Prime and Disney+++ and the Magnolia Channel Presents: Die Hard at Thanksgiving, Turkeys!
So the cheese better not be moldy, stale, and something we could have any old time. The cheese should be GOOD.
Not great. Not “this thing better win an Oscar.” It should be a fun two hours of your life where you forget that the world is on fire and the oceans are rising and Alex Jones has fans who actually listen to his show, then buy his brain pills.
DAY SHIFT is a new action movie on the Netflixes, which you have even if you won’t admit it, and no, the fact that you are too cool to own a television doesn’t mean we don’t know you watch all kinds of shows on your phone and laptop.
Here’s the trailer:
WHAT WORKS
Jamie Foxx is a believable protagonist, an everyman hero with an extraordinary job. The private stakes are clear: unless he comes up with serious cash in a hurry, his ex-wife will move to Florida along with their daughter.
The movie spends real time establishing this instead of featuring another fight with vampires, and good on them.
Jamie’s character is a flawed man, somebody who keeps screwing up again and again, yet he never gives up. It’s admirable.
The climactic fight with the Big Bad Vampire Boss doesn’t cheat. The vampire is much faster and stronger, and realistically beats the snot out of our hero. He only beats her using brains and a gadget/trick shown in the first scene.
Not too shabby.
How the movie depicts this character is also endearing, for an action movie, in that he isn’t invincible at all. This is a human being who struggles and often nearly loses fights, if not his life.
Contrast this with CARTER, another recent movie that’s somewhat similar in having a singular POV hero fighting a horde of the undead, this time zombies.
Do I adore zombie movies? Hell yes. Did I turn off this movie a third of the way in? Also yes.
I hit the KILL MOVIE button after a scene where the hero, wearing only a g-string, fights and kills six bazillion gangsters and zombies in a sauna, slicing and dicing them all. Kinda not kidding about the number of baddies. Six bazillion may be an underestimate.
Here’s the deal: in thrillers and action movies, less is often more.
It is far, far more enjoyable to watch the hero fight ONE amazing villain (Darth Vader, Hannibal Lecter, you get the idea) than mow down 20 or 200 or 2,000 interchangeable storm troopers, vampires, zombies, or robot ninjas.
WHAT DOESN’T WORK, AND HOW TO FIX IT
The villain — The connection between the villain and our hero is a little meh. The old grandma vampire he kills in the first scene turns out to be the Big Bad Vampire Lady’s daughter, which we hear about kinda halfway through the movie.
A five-second addition to the first scene would have made a nice straight line from the villain to the hero by showing her giving grandma/daughter a hug or kiss before she hopped into her SUV and drove off to work.
Hollywood ending times two — Hey, I loved Snoop Dogg in this movie, but his sacrifice to save the hero doesn’t fly if he somehow survives. Felt tacked on, like they’re planning a sequel. Also, it would be enough that our hero wins the day and keeps his daughter (and ex-wife) from moving to Florida, so having them psuedo-reconcile felt like a step too far.
Public stakes — We get what the hero can lose (his daughter) if he doesn’t come up with cash by killing enough vampires. What’s missing is the greater stakes. What does is matter if the Big Bad Vampire Real Estate Queen brings a bunch of blood suckers to her subdevelopment?
There’s some dialogue about her bringing all sorts of different vampire species together, and talk of vampire sunscreen so they can shop at the Gap during regular business hours. What we’re missing, though, is a real sense of menace if the hero fails to kill Big Heels Big Fangs.
VERDICT
Is this worth your time? Absolutely, you’ll have fun.
The Red Pen of Doom 