Addendum: Hyped Just Right

In an effort to seem slightly more satisfied with the state of the world, here's a brief list of everything in the world that is actually worthy of its hype.

Deservingly Hyped
tulips
aluminum foil
Augusten Burroughs
video games
chai (iced, skim)
good music acts heavily promoted on mtvU and on college radio (see: Gnarls, The Go! Team, Lady Sovereign)
falafel
Adult Swim
community service
solid colored tees
grapefruit juice
spelling words the traditional English way (e.g. neighbour, cheque)
working
Amy Sedaris
crunk cups
Hugh Jackman's hotttnezz as Wolverine
panda bears
the campiness of Showgirls
sunglasses (not at night)
drinking games
nachos (while drinking)

This Week in Hype

Self-explanatory. Thanks to James for the contributions, as well as for the delightfully crappy Before and Afters.

Underhyped
American Apparel tees
tonic water
Canada
pears
Lifetime Original Movies
bizarre short stories
thinking of Before and Afters that don't really work (see: "Merkin Mindy")
wizards, geniuses
star wipes
pre-partying with Sparks Plus
Lily Tomlin
the hook of that new AFI song (I know. The song sucks. The band sucks. Sucky suck. But it's been in my head incessantly.)
Catherine O'Hara
the occasional cigarette
penny-farthings

Overhyped
sudoku
William Hurt
yogurt (but not the word yoghurt)
scarves in summer
music described as "power pop"
Michael Kors's snarkiness
punctuation! in band names
masculine things
those Matthew Barney films
martinis
taking up causes for "the children"
Anderson Cooper (Yeah, I said it.)
pseudo-ironic appreciation of Journey
hats

Grover, Brother

For the past week or so I've kind of been testing out a theory I've had for a long time. Well, I guess it's not exactly a theory per se. It's just something I've always assumed without even giving it much thought. And recently when the subject came up I was shocked that others disagreed with me since it has always made so much sense. So here it is:




Grover from Sesame Street is black.

Don't let the azure furriness deceive you, if you were to transplant the Muppets into the real world complete with corresponding ethnicities, Grover would no doubt in my mind be African-American. And I completely admit that I have no idea why this is true. I have been and will always be the whitest person to roam God's good Earth, but I have never thought of Grover as not being black. So imagine my surprise when my (typically) rational coworkers vehemently disagreed with me, calling Grover everything from "white" to "Mexican" to "Armenian". No, no, and no. As one of my few agreeing peers stated (and I paraphrase): "Grover being black is like Bert and Ernie being gay. It's not acknowledged, but you still accept it as true."

I suppose the overarching question here is, am I really crazy? Was there something wrong with my four-year-old brain that would make me transplant human ethnicities onto characters with seemingly nonexistent social identities? Or did Frank Oz have some sort of covert Muppet-racializing agenda? Is there really a monster at the end of the book? We may never know the answers, but I think we're heading in the right direction.

Reason #926 Why I Need To Put Down The Book Of Crossword Puzzles

I recently used the word ersatz in casual conversation. Shut up, me.

For reals, this has replaced serious reading in my life. Bright side: it's still not as shameful as Sudoku.

A Case of Bad Nostalgia

When I was younger, there were certain things in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s cultural milieu that were kind of awesome, like Tang and McRibs. And yet sometimes even the awesomest of things don’t really hold up over time, much like Tang and McRibs.

Recently, thanks to digital cable, I’ve discovered that the old Nickelodeon game show Finders Keepers can be filed under such a category. I seriously remember this game show being the shit. Contestants got to tear apart a huge fake house searching for wacky items while wacky things happened usually involving ping pong balls. After a few recent viewings, it turns out Finders Keepers is actually one of the suckiest game shows ever produced.

Okay, so the first round is pretty much a glorified round of Highlights hidden pictures but with Colorforms, which is about as interesting as your average issue of Highlights. And then when the kids get to search the house it’s just…painful. There is absolutely nothing interesting about watching clueless people search for shit. Most of the entertainment that can be obtained from the show is from to the host’s arrant contempt for children. Well that and the typical displays of kid stupidity. It’s all just kind of disappointing. And you know a show is bad when it makes Nick Arcade, a game show that is completely reliant on the viewer’s desire to watch other people play video games, look like a well-crafted and gripping competition.

Hakuna Matata

I have recently discovered the answer to the age-old question: is it possible to have a compelling reality show with no human characters? Yes, it turns out, and I have been shown the way by Animal Planet's Meerkat Manor.

Narrated by Sean "Peter Jackson be damned, he'll always be Rudy to me" Astin, the show is an ongoing documentary of the Whiskers, a family of wild meerkats watched incessantly by self-activating cameras. All of your typical characters are there: the overbearing mother, the passively protective father, the rebellious teenage daughter, and a gaggle of cute little ones. I went in to MM reasonably skeptical and unwilling, but then you just get sucked in by the cuteness. And there are actually plots and subplots! The courageous son Shakespeare was bitten by an adder and has been hanging in death's balance for a few suspenseful episodes now. Daughter Tosca gets knocked up against her mother's will. A rival family infringes on the Whiskers' territory. Those Lost writers could learn a thing or two from the meerkats about suspense and plot advancement.

The show airs on Animal Planet Fridays at 8, making it the perfect alternative to that What Not To Wear episode you've already seen eighty-three times.

Every Lush Has His Day

OMG.

Two months until the 21st birthday. The blessed day draws nigh. The underage clouds will soon part and give way to the glorious liquid enlightenment. I will imbibe the sweet nectar that has been denied to me by my cruel government oppressors. I will cavort on that day and all others in serenely legal inebriation.

Get excited. And get me a drink while you're up.

The Freshmaker: Armed Forces, Adhesives, and A-List Crotch Fruit

Fresh: Navy
Fresh Last Week: Air Force
Stale: Army

Fresh: Surgical tape

FLW: Gaffers tape

Stale: Scotch tape

Fresh: Shiloh Jolie-Pitt
FLW: Suri Holmes-Cruise
Stale: What's-his-face-doesn't-even-stand-a-chance Weisz-Aronofsky

Everyone's A Little Bit Racist

Oh, Crash.

Just when I thought you were done being everything from a popcult buzzword to a topic of contention in just about all my classes this past semester, here you go resurfacing from your deserved semi-obscurity to adulterate my life once again. Part of the program I work with involves showing The Best Picture Of The Year in order to stimulate dialogue and yada yada. I get it. It's a good film for that sort of thing.

I just feel so...so conflicted about the whole thing. I saw The Best Picture Of The Year last summer with Kaite and liked it and cried appropriately and all that. Then I joined the backlash, and then the exacerbated backlash following its win for Best Picture Of The Year. And now that I have to watch it (though thankfully not the whole thing) repeatedly this summer, I just don't know how to feel.

It's a good movie, and it's plenty entertaining. It raises issues people may not think about all the time. And I even find myself tearing up watching short segments of the movie. But then there's all of the uber-drama and the universalizing of racism and the subsequent downplaying of white racism against people of color and bling blah blee. I mean, I guess I don't hate The Best Picture Of The Year as much as I did a few months ago, and certainly not as much as Annie Proulx, and I feel guilty for not hating so much. Is there a support group for people who can't make up their minds about The Best Picture Of The Year and feel an obligation to have a firm negative stance on the film?

I don't know. I'll just blame Loretta Devine because I will watch anything that she's in. Plus, she was the only actress who more-than-made-up for Michael Rapaport's presence on Boston Public.

Unicorns

Oh. Emgee. When will Threadless stop being awesome?

For cereal, the birthday's only two-ish months away. Maybe I'll impose a Threadless swag-or-alcohol-only rule on gifts.

Happy Playlist

Here is my can't-fail, happy mood, sunny mid-day June playlist. Give it a try before you judge it as too typical. (As I'm sure you've already scrolled down and thought, "Bloc Party? Really, Mike? Really?"). But this stuff gets me happy and dancing in the middle of the day and realizing that life is fun, especially when the sun is out. Yay, happy.

"Golden", Jill Scott
"Happy", Fischerspooner
"Something Good", Utah Saints
"Feel Good Hit of the Fall", !!!
"Bottle Rocket", The Go! Team
"Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom", Vengaboys
"The Greatest Hit", Annie
"Banquet", Bloc Party
"Ladyflash", The Go! Team
"Ticket to the Tropics", Cristina
"Easy", Morningwood
"Three or Four", The New Pornographers
"Cloud", Fischerspooner
"Chess King", Freezepop
"In My Arms", Mylo
"Vending Machine," Hyperbubble
"You Gotta Know", Fannypack