johnnyhongkong says…

I don’t know who made this Pokemon rendition of the general election but its genius is pure and unadulterated.  Obama recharges with ”fundraising.” 

On a related Pokemon note, Joey Jerusalem dropped this verbal judo the other day in conversation about how excited we are to see Never Back Down, “Besides, it’s got DigiMon ‘Digital Monsters’ Hounsou in it.”

I’ve never seen an episode of MTV’s The Hills and since I’m not 17, have no idea why it is popular but this little ditty comparing The Hills to the ouevre of Michelangelo Antonioni is too delightful to pass up. 

4. Modern architecture as shorthand for moral emptyness/alienation. The Season 3 premiere was unlike most episodes of The Hills, in that it took place entirely outside of Los Angeles, but imagery of that city is so integral to what The Hills does that helicopter shots of the West Side as glittering grid make up the bulk of the opening credits and set the background for most promotional materials. An average episode makes ample use of establishing shots of LA buildings, which sometimes rival Audrina for screen time. Often we’ll see long montages of exteriors around where characters are meeting, and almost every episode ends with an image of LA represented by a shot of silverly skyscrapers blurring into the hazy blue sky. In representing congested Los Angeles as the “unnatural” environment that supports and breeds “shady” characters like Spencer and Heidi (as opposed to idyllic oceanside community Laguna Beach, glimpsed in the very beginning of the credit sequence to remind us from where Lauren was spawned), The Hills is maybe more dedicated to drawing an urban landscape as petri dish for ennui than anything since…

Antonioni film that this is JUST LIKE: …L’Eclisse, which comes to its own non-resolution (see Item 3) with a famed city montage.

On the day of Barry O’s big race speech, ladies and gentlemen, I present you with DMX’s thoughts on this historic election: 

Are you following the presidential race?
Not at all.

You’re not? You know there’s a Black guy running, Barack Obama and then there’s Hillary Clinton.
His name is Barack?!

Barack Obama, yeah.
Barack?!

Barack.
What the fuck is a Barack?! Barack Obama. Where he from, Africa?

It gets better as DMX perseverates on Barack’s name.   

You ever wonder what the definition of genius is?Well, wonder no more.  It’s simply interviewing the legendary Jean-Claude Van Damme about his oeuvre, which the Onion’s AV Club did and killed.  Or rather, JCVD killed.  Whatever the case, the definition of genius has been killed.  Defined.  Over.For example, JCVD on scene stealing in Breakin’:

I didn’t know the difference between medium, high, and low budget. So I was trying to win the scene: I was behind the lead actor in the group, and I was jumping as high as I could, and doing a flip in the air. But of course they cut that, because I was eating the screen with that fantastic jump. 

Playing “Gay Karate Man” in Monaco Forever:

They asked me to play a guy driving, I believe it was an MG or a Ferrari, on the road of Mulholland Drive. I took a guy that was doing hitchhiking on the road, and I took a guy in my car, and I play a homosexual, and I was trying to take advantage of him in that car. And then he came off and wanted to fight me. I did some kicks above his head, and blah, blah, blah. It was funny. Very small, low-budget, independent type of movie.  

On the theory of improvisation, or what they call playing “Inspector Gangster” in Belgium:

No, I didn’t take any acting lessons, but I was playing with guys of my age over in Belgium. We played Inspector Gangster. We met in a room. We were like, “Okay, you’re going to come into the living room, okay? You’re going to play a guy coming in for a deal. Right? You’re going to sit down there and we aren’t going to agree about that deal, then we shoot at each other.” You know, like game stuff. I was like 13, 14 years old. So, the guy comes in the room, and I’m: “Oh hey. How are you? What’s your name?” all that stuff. It was kind of like rehearsing without knowing.  

On “acting” especially like the kind that Daniel Day-Lewis does (you better watch your ass DDL):

Later in my career, I understood something from a good director named Ringo Lam, who directed me in Maximum Risk, In Hell, all those movies. He said “acting doesn’t exist.” If we start to act, you’ll see the guy “acting.” I believe we really have to go into a character. I only understood that now, my last couple of movies. You have to go into something and invest your mind into that specific person. You have to prepare; you came from which family? How did you behave before the events of the film happened? You have to build something into your mind to lose the Jean-Claude Van Damme, and to become, for example, Jack Robideaux [fromThe Shepherd: Border Patrol]. The problem is, when you don’t have very deep scripts, when you play the very simple characters, you know, the revenge and this and that, it’s very difficult for a guy like me to believe into my role. So I just play the physical guy, with my kicks and my punches, and I follow the story. 

On playing identical twins in the great Double Impact, where he famously doubled the Van Dammage: 

[It] was not too difficult, since I am bipolar in nature…The only thing different between Alex and Chad was the silk underwear. Mr. California, Mr. Silk Underwear. It was kinda funny.

Proppers must go to Joey Jerusalem who sent this in. 

Whenever Mary Milan and I are in New York, we stay in the tony area of the upper east side.  Or that’s usually the case when we are not around.  As you’ll remember, the last time Mary Milan was here, her pregnant sis got hit by a school bus that was stolen by a crackhead.  On this visit, Eliot Spitzer, who lives about four blocks away from where we are staying, gets outed as a john in an international prostitution ring.  The newschoppers have been circling his apartment like vultures since yesterday.  In Hellay, we call them ghettobirds and it gives me great joy that the ghettobirds have invaded the Upper East side of Manhattan. 

Mary Milan and I are in New York.  Appalled by the food selection at the upper east side D’Agostino’s, we went to the Whole Foods at Union Square to get our fill of organic leaves,  twigs, and rotten fruit hand harvested by the local, indigenous peoples The Bronx and Far Rockaway.  We were totally fucking unprepared for the circus that is Whole Foods in New York City.It wasn’t the prices or the selection or the lack of live lobsters that shocked us.  It was the immense, fucking crowd.  I wish there was a word I could use to fully express how crowded it was.  CROWDED doesn’t do it justice, uber-crowded sounds like a German crustacean, wicked crawdad is a Boston crustacean.  It was like shopping in a subway station at the height of rush hour.Walking through Times Square at the height of tourist season.It was hell.It’s fucking Whole Foods.  They give lottery tickets there? I’ve been known to lay down in the middle of supermarkets because I get depressed or vexed by choice anxiety but today, I wanted to lay down in the middle of Whole Foods to to trip those hip, hippie, organic, gogi-berry eating, noni drinking Manhattan fuckers.  I left with a headache and with a new appreciation of our Whole Foods, fine purveyor of feculent fruits, back in Hellay.Yet, what was crazy to me was that nobody else in there seemed to have the jackhammer headache that I had.  They browsed and invaded my personal space with calm, easy smiles. Later, I jokingly said to Joey Jerusalem that there must be something in the water here that tranquilizes these fuckers.Apparently, there is.  Sixteen pharmaceuticals, actually, including estrogen, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers, and tranquilizers, from all the unprocessed prescription drugs that these fuckers pee out.  Mmm, refreshing! 

What’s my favorite 527 organization?  Obviously, the SwiftKids for Truth.  Check out their work.

Some of my favorites are “The Pantsuit” and “Hillary’s Cookies.”  The “Barack Obama” as had me in stitches, too.  Who are these kids and where can I get one?

I’d post the videos here but 23/6 doesn’t give the embed codes.  Other than that little bit of anti-web-2.0 annoyance, 23/6 is one of our new favs.