and his Republican Party.
I wish I had the interest to write these days. Lazy, lazy, lazy.
Sunday, August 21, 2005
A jab at Ron Beauregard...
Saturday, August 13, 2005
Musical Perfection, Thy Name is Spandau Ballet
NP: True -- Spandau Ballet
Sitting at Starbucks, writing on my SSHA Paper for November (I know...I get 'er done early), and listening to Spandau Ballet on the Club 977 80s Channel.
I have to say....that Spandau Ballet came as close to musical perfection with that song as is humanly possible. It is just perfectly put together. The little "huh-huh-huh-huuuuuhhhh-huhhhhhh" part is aurally (sp?) stunning. I mean...no wonder PM Dawn sampled it for "Set Adrift on Memory Bliss." The way that the keyboard player and the key-tar player jump in at just the right times to add some harmony to the very well-written vocals really sets this group apart from other crappy 80s bands like Madness and Crowded House. The sun never sat on the 80s Brit-pop empire did it?
True is also universally useful in today's society. Take the new Disney movie Sky High...the one about the high school for super heroes. Everytime love interest number 1 comes into the picture and our leading man makes eye contact with her, up starts Spandau Ballet. It perfectly conveys that this girl is hot, unattainable, and True. This process happened about five times within the first 30 minutes and prompted me to ask my semi-ex-girlfriend if her super power was, indeed, causing Spandau Ballet to play at will. I mean, think about it really, if this girl was locked into brutal combat with a given super villian and Spandau Ballet started up, the bad guy would be frozen in his/her tracks at the sheer joy of hearing such a perfect song. It would be the Trump Card of all super powers. Much better than The Question's ability to not have a face, or Rocket Red's ability to speak with a Russian accent and fly around in an Iron-Man-Wannabe costume.
Next week, an essay on why Funkytown is the perfect song by which to stock the produce section at Publix.
Thursday, August 11, 2005
Creativity and Writing
NP: Black Eyed Peas -- Don't Lie
Writing a dissertation is a tough thing. Like a very wise kid once said, "If getting a Ph.D was easy, everybody would be walking around with one."
So I'm sitting here struggling with the edits on Chapter 1. I set a deadline of Aug. 22 to have it finished and turned into the advisor, but I caught a bolt of lightning last week and I may actually be able to get it in a week early. That is, if I can get it in a shape where it is actually coherent.
When you write, especially a large project, it is hard to keep track of your thoughts. After tweaking the paragraph order from page 14 through page 28, I find that I completely left out a critical part of the story. In my head, I included it where it needed to be. On paper, a very important set of facts that contextualizes the whole middle third of the chapter is gone. I guess that's why we edit these things huh?
(Sidebar: Why is 50 Cent still making music? His "Just a Lil Bit" just came on the streaming audio station I was (operative word: was) listening too. Every so often I think popular music is getting better and then something like that comes along. Can a song be any more repetitive than that one?)
So I have found that, when writing a dissertation, all of the creativity is beaten out of you. Sure, I have a new model for looking at a political party's effectiveness that may change the way people look at "out of power" parties, but then again I may not. Does that count as creativity? Or is creativity the exclusive domain of the M.F.A. people who get a Master's in creative writing?
Sunday, August 07, 2005
[Wrestling] The lost art of the tag team
Like practically everything else that's gone wrong in professional wrestling, you can blame the demise of tag team wrestling on the WWF.
I would probably say that quality tag team wrestling started its downward spiral in roughly the 1998-1999 period. Bischoff started the trend by crapping on the WCW tag titles, breaking up all the tag teams into singles competition, and moving those competitors into singles competition. While it did promote some breakout stars (Booker T, Scott Steiner), it did lead to some serious missteps (Rick Steiner, Stevie Ray).
Then the WWF took it one step further and started using their tag team titles to further the angles for singles matches at the pay-per-views. In fact, a quick review of the WWF Tag Title lineage in the most recent PWI Wrestling Almanac reveals a few teams holding the title that were made up of rivals during that period (ex. Rock & Chris Jericho, Steve Austin & Undertaker). It seemed like almost every other month, two individuals that were facing each other in the main event of the next pay-per-view were thrown together in a tag team to face the tag champs, and through some nutty shenanigans they would end up winning the titles. Oh, those wacky mismatched tag team partners! They're champs, but they hate each other ... o, the calamity!
The WWF did seem to care about tag teams back when Edge/Christian, the Hardys, and the Dudleys were fighting each other almost every show for the titles ... but three teams do not a credible division make. The last great go-around that tag team wrestling seemed to have in the WWF was when the Guerreros, Haas/Benjamin, Rey/Edge, Angle/Benoit, Booker T/Golddust, Christian/Chris Jericho, and RVD/Kane were around.
Now, the tag team scene is a shambles, and you have to go to the indies (particularly ROH) for quality in tag wrestling. The best WWF has to offer is the Heartthrobs, Hurricane/Rosie, MNM, Animal/Heidenreich ... um ... Benoit & Booker T, maybe? I know I'm leaving out an important team, but really, does anyone in the WWF creative team care about tag teams, when they have the Diva Search to worry about?
At least TNA is making some attempt to garner some interest in their tag team division. They have probably the strongest roster in the pro ranks to date. The Naturals, AMW, 3 Live Kru, Team Canada, Simon Diamond/David Young, Phi Delta Slam, Disciples of Destruction, Batts/Clark, the upcoming NAO reunion, and Apolo/Siaki (although I'd think Apolo/Shocker would be more interesting) ... this is a tag division I generally like to watch. In fact, there are enough teams that have been formed on a regular basis amongst the singles competitors (Styles/Hardy, Bentley/Shelley, Raven/Sabu, Abyss/Trytan) that they could return full-circle to the days of old-school and hold a tag team tournament, like the old Crockett cup ... hey, the Chris Candido Memorial Cup, BOOK IT!
I love a good, solid tag team. The chemistry, the tandem moves, the tandem finishers, the drama of face-in-peril (tm, Ricky Morton), the blind tags, the commentary on the strategies involved (cutting of the ring, goading the opponent's partner into distracting the ref) ... it all makes for probably the most dramatic moments in wrestling. But let's face it, the days of the Rock-n-Rolls versus the Midnights, and the Bulldogs versus the Hart Foundation, making five star matches in a Sportatorium built to hold 500 people, are over. All we seem to be left with is whatever two heatless superstars the WWF has that they can throw together, to compete in a division that's treated like nothing.
And the most telling part of this whole thing? I've watched Raw almost every week for the past three or four months and I can't tell you who the tag champs there even are.
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
The further adventure of Professor Nate
The Lander University adjunct professor position is toodling along just swell. I got my copy of "Death, Society, and the Human Experience" (8th ed.) today, for free. I went up to the Psych dept. and looked all over the place for the mailboxes. A history professor showed me where everything was, and when he learned I was an adjunct & he saw my name on a mailbox, he tells me, "They must think you're pretty special then," and he points to a pile of books on a side table where the other adjuncts mail comes to. That made me feel pretty good.
I put in for a full-time psych instructor job at local 2 year college Piedmont Tech last Tuesday. I hadn't heard anything by now, so I contacted someone with Human Resources to check that everything had arrived. This guy called up today and said that they were waiting for my transcripts from Radford before "they could move any further with me." So I faxed them an unofficial copy out of my employee file from Beckman so they could have a copy. I'm going to double back and make sure he got that copy, then maybe get an idea of when I might be interviewed.
I'm excited. I'll keep the joint posted. I have some stuff to post up, too, but I want some of this home/work stress to die out a bit first.
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