Matthew Dicks

Anti-Barney rhetoric proves to be effective

My wife and I think Barney and Friends is a dumb television show.

Granted we have never actually watched the program, but we can just tell. 

In an effort to keep the show from ever polluting our television, my wife has poisoned my daughter’s mind by making derisive comments about the program whenever possible.

It worked.

When Sesame Street ended this morning and a preview for Barney and Friends came on, Clara pointed at the television and said, “That purple T-rex is yucky!” and then pretended to spit on the ground. “A-puh! A-puh! A-puh!”

I find myself feeling both exceedingly proud of my daughter’s taste in television and a little dirty at the same time.

Adolescent boys are easily entertained

I mentioned on Twitter today that my favorite Japanese monster was Gamera, the giant flying turtle with the inexplicable rocket engines for flying.

Unable to remember the story of Gamera, I went online to refresh my memory.

I wish I hadn’t.

I cannot remember reading a more idiotic plotline in all my life.

It’s a sad reminder of how easily an adolescent boy can be entertained by an ill-conceived monster, a few well timed explosions and the destruction of a city. 

The film opens with Gamera's awakening from the accidental detonation of an atomic bomb as a result of an aerial assault by American fighters on Soviet bombers caught crossing into North American airspace. Gamera wastes no time in causing a rampage of destruction, first destroying a Japanese research ship, then making its way to Japan to wreak havoc.

In an attempt to stop the giant turtle, Gamera is sedated with a freezing agent on a precipice, and powerful explosives are placed at the base. The explosion knocks the monster on its back, and while it seems as though mankind has scored a victory, this is not the case: Gamera reveals its ability to fly. The monster arrives in Haneda airport and destroys most of Tokyo.

The military attempts to lure it to an island with fire, which it eats, and kill it, but the creature is distracted when a volcano erupts. Gamera goes to eat the lava instead. A new strategy, Plan Z, is devised to stop the monster, this time by baiting it into a space rocket bound for Mars. The plan is successful and the Earth is safe from Gamera.

Gratitude journal: Portlandia

Tonight I am grateful for Portlandia. Elysha and I watched the season finale of the show tonight.

It’s freakin’ hilarious.

Happily, IFC has greenlighted a third season of the show, so there is more gratitude to come.  

Shopping and cooking take too much damn time.

The greatest failing of the modern world is our inability to invent a Jetsons-like push-button food machine.

Three steps to happiness (as defined by spite)

A friend of mine sent this to me:

David Letterman to Ricky Gervais:  Why did you host Golden Globes a third time?

Gervais: Well, the first time I did it because it was a huge global audience for a comedian.  The second time I did it because I could improve on the first time.  The third time I did it because they said I'd never be invited back and I wanted to annoy them.

She suggested that Mr. Gervais and I would likely be fast friends.  I agreed.

Actually, if you examine his response, Gervais’ participation in the Golden Globes follows a path that I fully endorse.

1. Do something hard because it will improve your current standing in life. 
2. Continue to do it until you hone your skills and become an expert.
3. Then continue to do it in order to spite your enemies and detractors.

It’s that last part that I like the best.

Why my daughter is free to watch Scooby Doo whenever she damn well pleases

Sometimes you run into sheer brilliance in the most unexpected places.  On the Comics Alliance blog, Chris Sims writes about Scooby Doo and secular humanism in a piece that I consider a masterpiece.

I know. It sounds crazy. Like baked beans and iron filings. It’s difficult to imagine the two working together.

But Sims pulls it off pulls it off in a big way. 

I love it as a parent. I love it as a teacher. I love it as a writer. 

It’s ingenious. 

There are so many outstanding paragraphs that I could have quoted here, but the one that I think serves as the heart of the piece is the following.  Read it, and if you are as impressed as I am, go to the blog and read the full piece. 

Because that's the thing about Scooby-Doo: The bad guys in every episode aren't monsters, they're liars.

I can't imagine how scandalized those critics who were relieved to have something that was mild enough to not excite their kids would've been if they'd stopped for a second and realized what was actually going on. The very first rule of Scooby-Doo, the single premise that sits at the heart of their adventures, is that the world is full of grown-ups who lie to kids, and that it's up to those kids to figure out what those lies are and call them on it, even if there are other adults who believe those lies with every fiber of their being. And the way that you win isn't through supernatural powers, or even through fighting. The way that you win is by doing the most dangerous thing that any person being lied to by someone in power can do: You think.

Just look away

I told a friend that I ended 2011 still unable to pick a Kardashian out of a lineup. 

She didn’t believe me. 

In my younger days, I might have tried to convince her that it was true.  But I’m older, wiser and more of a jerk these days.  Instead I said, “Thankfully, I don’t care if you believe me or not. It does not change the truth.”

But it’s true.  Unless you put a Kardashian in the lineup with a bunch of construction workers, I would be hard pressed to accurately point one out. 

Here’s why:

I don’t watch very much television. 

95% of my television viewing is time-shifted, so I see almost no commercials. 

I do not read magazines like People or US.

Actually, I don’t read magazines at all.  I read articles originally published in magazines on the Internet, but I can’t remember the last time I read from a physical magazine.    

I also rarely see magazines like People or US.  Most of my purchases are made at BJ’s (no magazine racks) or in self-checkout lines at Stop & Shop (also no magazine racks).

When I find myself facing one of these magazine racks, I am typically occupied by something else.  A Twitter stream on my phone, an audiobook in my ear, or both. 

I actually know very little about the Kardashians.  From what I have gleaned through osmosis, their father was the attorney in the OJ Simpson trial and their step-father may or may not be former Olympian Bruce Jenner, who once graced the box of Wheaties that I ate as a child. 

I also know that one of the Kardashians married and then divorced a second-tier NBA player on the New Jersey Nets.

I know this thanks to the brilliant Andy Borowitz, who made fun of the Kardashian repeatedly on Twitter.   

I am happy that I cannot pick out one of these girls (are there two of them?) from a lineup.  It is a source of pride for me.  I hear so many people complain about their inexplicable popularity while simultaneously knowing so much about them.

If you don’t want to have the Kardashians in your life, simply look away.  Stop reading magazines that earn a profit from celebrity baby photos, paparazzi pictures and Kardashian wedding rumors.

Stop tuning into programs like the Today Show, which seem to report almost exclusively on celebrity marriages, the British royalty, the latest YouTube phenomenon and the disappearance of upper-middle class, blond female twenty-somethings.

Just look in another direction.  There are people in this world who are genuinely worthy of our attention, and these people are constantly overshadowed by people like the Kardashians.    

Pay attention to people like Arielle and Austin Metzger instead.

Or Melissa Stockwell.

At least stop complaining about the popularity of the Kardashians while simultaneously watching their television shows, reading about them in People magazine and watching them on the red carpet (if that is something they do).  

But even better, let’s just give our attention to people more deserving.  If we all just look away from people like the Kardashians, they will eventually go away. 

They already have for me. 

Non-starter

Elysha and I were watching Mad Men last night and saw Trudy wearing this unique piece of maternity lingerie. 

I immediately offered to purchase it for Elysha.  I’d scour the Earth until I found it, I assured her.  Flea markets, second-hand stores, costume departments… I’d leave no stone unturned in my relentless pursuit to find this artifact of the 1960s.      

She declined.  Vehemently.  

Bronies: Another sign of the impending apocalypse

I like to evaluate absurdity using this standard:

If I included the item in question in a manuscript, would my agent or editor scoff at its absurdity and declare it too improbable even for fiction?

I believe that bronies meet this absurdity standard, and yet they are real.

Bronies is the name assigned to the growing audience of young men who have developed a cult-like following for the remake of the 1980s animated TV show My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.

Seriously.  Dudes are watching My Little Pony and liking it.

And not in some ironic, hipster way.  They genuinely like the show.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Some bronies say they got hooked on the high-quality animation. Others felt they identified with the four-legged stars that flaunt luxurious, pony-tail like manes. "The characters aren't one-dimensional," said 15-year-old Christian Leisner, a brony in the Berkeley group. "They have flaws, they have backgrounds they're ashamed of."

Bronies—a mash-up of "bro" and "ponies"—established a quarterly New York convention, called BroNYCon, this year. They've spawned at least two Pony-themed websites and enjoy a thriving subculture of artists whose creations include Pony-inspired music and their own writings about Twilight Sparkle and the gang.

I realize that some people might say, “Give these guys a break, Matt. Who are you to judge what brings them happiness?  These guys have found something they love and enjoy, and they’re not hurting anyone. Let them be.”

Yeah, that sounds nice, but they’re watching My Little Pony.  I have to draw the line somewhere on polite, detached acceptance, and the brony subculture is it.

I don’t care how happy it makes them. It’s insane.

People are actually buying this. I checked.

For just $499.99 you can own the complete series of Law & Order on DVD.

Twenty seasons of the show.

Why would anyone ever want to own this?

Isn’t that show on all the time anyway?