For most humans, surfing a 50-foot wave in the most ideal conditions provides enough danger to satisfy the adrenaline brush with death rush.
My idea of danger is drinking a Mai-Tai, tipping over sideways, and awaking to the grinning mug of a pink Poodle.
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I like to fly. I have been doing so regularly since age 5, when I wore a suit, sat quietly in my seat and stared awestruck out the window at the hypnotic beauty of the passing cloudscape, watching the contours of America 35,000 feet beneath me unspool like an otherworldly dream. To add to my reverie, with every in-flight meal came a 3-Pack of Lucky Strikes, which I proceeded to fake-smoke, much to the delight of the flight attendants. Air travel was truly a journey of sublime wonder.
That was then, this is now: The joy of flight is still available, but the price of admission has changed dramatically. Welcome to Any Airport USA, where a collection of minimum wage-earning malcontents control both your destiny and your genitals. Known as the TSA – Transportation Security Administration, they are reveling in their new-found power over you and your formerly private parts. These fine folks, whose salaries you pay, are part of an exciting new draconian hoop for you to jump through on your way to that 12-inch wide, legroom-free coach seat you paid $780 dollars for this holiday season. So before you get to enjoy the privilege of being sandwiched on a brick-soft perch between a pair of porcine humans, you now have two options.
A: Sexual Assault: Committed by a surly, charmless, TSA goon.
B: Radiation Bombardment: Courtesy of a Backscatter X-Ray machine.
If you choose B, then as an added bonus your nude image is available for immediate ogling and ridicule. Hello Facebook!
But, you ask, why the sudden increase in the TSA Pre-Flight Humiliation when the previous metal detector, shoe removal, and probe-wanding combo platter seemed to be doing just fine?
Follow The Money. As any first-year law student will tell you, almost all crimes are solved by finding the answer to the Latin phrase, “Cui Bono” – Who Benefits? And locating the guilty thugs in this latest heist of your dignity is simple; it’s Michael Chertoff, the inept former head of Homeland Security, and his friends at the ever-expanding Security Industrial Complex. And the losers? You and I, the Taxpaying rubes who are actually funding the demise of our own civil liberties with 38% of our annual income. So strap in as we head down the financial rabbit hole, and right into The Chertoff Group’s ever-growing bank account.
The Beneficiary: Michael Chertoff, the Vulcan-esque Washington Insider, was put in charge of Homeland Security by Little Bush during the last 4 years of his administration, AKA: Operation Hellshow.
Chertoff was the duplicitous prick who brought us the Patriot Act, the Katrina Non-Response Debacle, oversaw the “Heckuva a job, Brownie” failure, and on and on and on. You get the idea; he’s just like all of the other Bush hires – a sycophant who plays the game, knowing that there is a shimmering pot of lobbyist gold waiting for him at the end of his abysmal government career.
The Patsy: The Underwear Bomber – Best Bad-Guy Name Ever!
If ever there was a perfect dupe at the center of a crime, it’s the feckless Farouk Abdulmutallab. Farouk, a suspected terrorist who was on the FBI’s Terrorist Database list, managed to board a Detroit-bound plane in Amsterdam on Christmas Day with the assistance of a well-dressed “handler”. This extra-curricular reach around from a connected operative was needed because he did not have a passport. To add to this Machiavellian mystery, Farouk’s father, a rich Nigerian banker (Apparently they do exist) reported to the US Embassy in Nigeria that his son was at a terrorist training camp in Yemen, over a month prior to the attempted bombing of Flight 253. However, instead of being arrested as he boarded the flight, he was assisted in boarding the flight.
Prior to arriving in Detroit, Farouk spent 20 minutes in the airplane bathroom prepping the bomb. Apparently rigging your man-parts to explode is delicate work. He then returned to his seat, pulled a blanket over his head, and claimed to have a stomachache. After spending several minutes under his blanky, he attempted to ignite the small amount (80 grams of PETN) of explosives in his underwear, succeeding only in scorching his gonads and setting his pant leg on fire. An alert passenger smelled the distinct aroma of BBQ Scrotum, and Farouk was promptly incapacitated by he and the crew, with the plane arriving safely at its destination. Not surprisingly, subsequent interviews have revealed (Spoiler Alert!) that Farouk is mentally deficient, and not the Jihad-Man-O-Steel the chattering class would have you believe. Apparently they grade on a curve at Camp Terror, particularly for those that arrive on the short yellow bus. And after examining the bomb, most experts agree that the quantity of explosives Farouk was carrying was not enough to blow up much more than his own lap. And in a Youtube footnote, a man seated several rows behind Farouk was seen videotaping him before, during, and after the explosion, yet was not questioned. A little entertainment for the CIA New Years Party perhaps? It keeps getting curiouser and curiouser.
The Con: Simple. After the failed Christmas Day Johnsonbomb, Chertoff, while still the Head of Homeland Security, went on every available Talking Haircut News Show claiming that that the only way to insure airline passenger safety was to install $150,000 full-body scanners at every airport in the United States, and ultimately, the globe. Looks like The Vulcan took a page out of the Cheney/Halliburton playbook, because less than a month later, Chertoff was replaced at Homeland Security by scary Dyke-A-Potamus Janet Napolitano, and he immediately soft-landed his golden parachute in the bountiful hay bales of Benjamin’s that line the D.C. private sector. Wasting no time, he installed himself as the head of a shiny new consulting firm, The Chertoff Group, and began using his influence and contacts to attract the power-addicted money-class leeches that dine on fresh White House flesh.
Not surprisingly, OSI, builder of the Rapiscan machines that are at the forefront of full-body scanner technology, promptly latched on as a Chertoff Group client, as they knew his political pull would get their machines to the head of the Congressional Pork Barrel trough.
It is now crystal clear that this incestuous OSI/TSA gangbang has already started to pay big dividends, and will ultimately garner tens of millions of dollars for OSI, Team Chertoff, and his Henchbastards. Aren’t coincidences amazing?
The History: Roman Emperor Diocletian was an early pioneer in the fine art of using misdirection to control his subjects, and his method of choice is still being applied by governments around the world to this day – it’s the ingeniously simple “Problem-Reaction-Solution”.
Here is how this little social engineering gem works; Governments create a problem and blame it on others, then watch their citizen’s angry reaction. The people demand that the elected officials do something, even at the expense of their own civil liberties, at which point the leaders offer a solution that had in fact been planned long before this crisis occurred. And the magic of this “solution”? It always reduces the freedom of the populace and increases the power of the government. Stalin, Lenin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Saddam, and evil little poodle Tony Blair, are among Diocletian’s modern acolytes, and all used his governing approach to great effect…but not so great if you are on the receiving end.
Our very own Bush the Second applied this ancient Roman’s perception management technique to perfection during his dictatorship, leaving us mired in two wars, trillions of dollars in debt, and a with gutted First Amendment. Mission Accomplished!
If you find this concept difficult to believe, please look up The Burning of the Reichstag, The Northwoods Document, The Gulf Of Tonkin Incident, and Iraq II – The Weapons of Mass Destruction Hoaxfest.
I could list many more Problem-Reaction-Solution/False Flag events that have been perpetrated by People In Power on their naive citizens, but I don’t want your brain to blow up.
The Payoff: Enormous Piles O’ Cash, simply by exploiting the fears the hopelessly gullible American Sheeple! Not to mention the steady conditioning of the public to accept fewer rights, less privacy in exchange for the right to travel, and desensitizing people to the idea that the government is allowed to grope your children.
Thanks, Team Chertoff! And to keep the panic at a Shark Week level, Chertoff has been on a Mainstream Media Scareblitz, serving up piping hot fear like a rabid Carnival Barker, persuading air travelers that chugging his Rape-I-Scan X-Ray Snake Oil is the only way to prevent their 747 from being blown up by a Dick Bomb.
And to add yet another fetid ingredient to this steaming cauldron of insider stew, the CEO of OSI Systems, the ironically named Deepak Chopra (I’m not kidding) was invited to travel with none other than Barack Obama on his recent trip to India. So Mr. Rapiscan and the President are now traveling buddies, and you can’t get any more inside the belt of the beltway than that.
The Suckers: You, me, and the tattered remnants of our Post-Patriot Act civil liberties. The White House is relentlessly expanding it’s Nanny State reach, and wrapping it around your throat like a starving Anaconda. And since radiating and groping your genitals for the privilege of flying is already in play, I suspect that Chertoff and his minions are already working on their next Orwellian money-making project: The Cavity-Search-A-Tron.
The Response: Wednesday, November 24th, is National Opt Out Day, where airline travelers will hopefully unite and Opt Out of being microwaved by Chertoff’s Naked Body Scanners. Take back what is rightfully yours – the ability to enjoy air travel while being treated like a human being, not an inmate in a police state. It’s unfortunate that most perpetually frightened Americans would willing to submit to a Public Airport Gladiator Fisting administered by the TSA than to actually question what lead to said fisting in the first place.
Now is the time to start asking those questions.
The Conclusion: And here are a few questions to ponder:
If you missed any answers on this test, please slide your hand across the top of your spongy dome – chances are pretty good that you will strike a dunce cap as you do so. Happy Holidays!
The Expendables, a geriatric slugfest between faded Hollywood action stars is currently lighting up the box office. The plot is simple: nine overpaid, monosyllabic meat puppets, twenty years past their sell-by date, jacked up on a lethal dose of ego, HGH, and Botox, engage in a cinematic circle jerk to rob decent American citizens of their hard-earned movie money.
Don’t fall for it.
Instead, go see the “The Tillman Story,” a film about an actual hero and an actual warrior, who walked away from wealth and fame to fight for what he thought his country represented: honor, integrity, and opportunity. He was rewarded for his selfless behavior by a murderous fratricide, high-level cover up, and a Congressional hearing filled with enough breathtaking perjury by our military leadership to keep you soiling your pants for a week. It’s the Feel Good-Feel Bad movie of the year.
Let me set the stage for this heroic yet heartbreaking saga:
FADE IN: It is present day, and like unkillable Zombies in a craptastic B movie, the hellish criminal legacy of Bush and Dick continues unabated, both in this country and around the globe. Here, the demolished financial engine that was once our robust economy sits up on blocks like a stripped Gremlin in a dystopian Detroit ghetto, and handcuffed to the steering wheel, the Statue of Liberty; bruised, bleeding, and speechless after being anally raped by BushDick of her civil liberties.
CUT TO: Post 9/11 USA. Pat Tillman, more idealistically American than you or I could ever hope to be, walks away from a multi-million dollar NFL contract and straight into the corpse-strewn hellscape of Operation Iraqi Goatfuck as an infantry soldier in 2003. After what he witnessed on that tour of duty he began voicing his opinion about the illegal nature of the Iraq war, and was promptly sent to Afghanistan, his superior officers apparently trying to find a battle for him that wasn’t actually a blatant, trillion-dollar oil heist. In Afghanistan his disillusionment with the mission grew stronger, and he arranged to meet Noam Chomsky after his tour was over, presumably to discuss what he had experienced, and have it get traction in the national media cycle through Chomsky’s access and weight.
Spoiler Alert!: Pat Tillman is subsequently cut down at close range by his own men, under deeply suspicious circumstances, and a high-level coverup ensues that goes all the way to the top of the political food chain, giving us the most tragic, Non-Hollywood Ending ever written.
FADE OUT: This film is exceptional, and will engage, inspire, and infuriate you as you watch the unwavering determination of the Tillman family in the face of relentless stonewalling by the military and the government…soulless fucktards that they are.
EPILOGUE: 2011 Academy Award, Best Documentary: “The Tillman Story”
Sylvester Stallone, tanned and glistening, having just flown in from the set of his latest film, The Expendables II, hands out the award.
To paraphrase the famous quote: “Never engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed Famewhore.”
Sarah Palin, America’s freshest steaming pile of political arrogance and hypocrisy, got served a hot cup of Shut The Fuck Up by a fellow Alaskan for all the world to see.
Mama Grizzly and the rest of her inbred clan traveled to Homer, Alaska to shoot a segment for her television show “Sarah Palin’s Alaska”, featuring Palin faux-fishing to enhance her Blue-Collar-MILF street cred. Upon arrival, she noticed that local school teacher Kathleen Gustafson had unfurled a homemade 30-foot banner that read “WORST GOVERNOR EVER”.
Palin decided to confront Gustafson, presuming that a couple of winks and “you betcha’s” would win the day. Gustafson, however, is smart, blunt, and straightforward, which means she is Kryptonite to the ex-Governor, and she had the Alaskan Assclown against the ropes from the opening bell.
The cringe-worthy beatdown is on the Interwebs for all of the world to see, and it will be difficult for the failed Governor/Beauty Queen/Shitforbrains to “refudiate” the fact the she got schooled by a school teacher. However, it will be interesting to watch the contortions both Palin and her Fox News Clownshow comrades go through to spin this this as a victory for Team Dipshit, but I guarantee you they will try.
And for those of you that still support for Palin For President in 2012 because you secretly want to bang her, much in the same way you voted for Bush because he seemed like the kind of guy you could have a beer with, please move to Retardistan to be among your people.
Mel Gibson, America’s favorite racist, sexist, homophobe nutjob has doused his fame with kerosene and ignited it with flaming vitriol. Not one to be content with swimming in his lap pool filled with $100 dollar bills and gracefully aging out of a 30-year film career, Mel random-banged Oksana Grigorieva, a Russian serial starfucker-babymaker, and produced Kid Number Eight. Apparently having seven hopelessly spoiled offspring living off of your engorged cash tit while they achieve absolutely nothing is not enough, so let’s throw another shrimp on the Malibu Barbie. As a tasty coda on this retarded relationship, I’ve featured a clip I shot of Oksana a decade ago, ironically titled “Flirt”, where she shamelessly turns on the honeypot in search of hunky manflesh. A new voiceover is provided by Mel G, and is both touching and heartfelt. Enjoy.
Post-birth, the Aussie Asshole should have given Oksana a tidy cash settlement and driven his overactive manjunk to Vasectomytown, ending the potential for future bimbo baby extortion.
However, Mel’s ego, which at this point must be the size of a small country, would not allow him to follow the First Rule Of Holes: When You Are In One, Stop Digging.
So, first he punches out a couple of Oksana’s teeth, and then calls her up repeatedly, ranting about everything from her ham-fisted plastic surgery to his desire to receive a pre-house incinerating blowjob. Classy.
Oksana has clearly been around the sex-for-security block before, and wisely taped all of her conversations with Mel, speaking in a calm, measured tone while he bloviated raw insanity, which makes all the more fun for us.
Original Spot Credits:
Shoot Date: Febraury 3, 2000
Production Company: Tool
Line Producer: Johanna Woollcott
Director: David Jellison
DP: Mark Plummer
Editorial Company: Filmcore Sf
Agency: Arnold Ingalls Moranville (SF)
Producer: Melisa Dugan
Creative Director: Rob Ingalls, David Moranville
Art Director: David Moranville
Copywriter: Rob Ingalls
Client: Ehow.Com
The most spectacular spot for the World Cup is undoubtedly Nike’s tour de force “Write The Future” commercial. It embodies everything that is amazing about our industry. Very seldom do all of the forces align that allow a good idea to emerge unscathed from the bowels of the collective brain pans of the creative forces behind it. This time it worked.
The First Rule Of Holes: When you are in one, stop digging.
Nike has about 100 million reasons to try to humanize the robotic Ubergolfer-cum-Whorebanging machine that is Tiger, as one hundred million is the media guess as to what the 5-year extension to Woods’ endorsement contract cost Team Swoosh, and that is widely viewed as conservative. With his epic Bone-a-Thon of more than a baker’s dozen of skanktastic tarts coming to light after a post-Thanksgiving beatdown at the hands of his enraged wife, most of Tiger’s corporate sponsors have taken to the lifeboats, paddling away from the hedonism party boat that is the S.S. Woods.
(The spoof featuring Morgan Freeman)
Unbowed, Nike is the last big nickel advertiser standing, having been with Tiger since he turned pro back in 1996, when banging porn stars and pancake waitresses was just a gleam in his eye.
This weekend marks Woods’ return to golf at the Masters Golf Tournament in Augusta, GA. In a move that is borderline stupefying, the normally brilliant Advergeniuses at Wieden+Kennedy have created a spot featuring a faux-repentant Tiger staring into camera for thirty seconds while his dead father delivers the voice over in which he asks, among other things, “What your thinking was” and “did you learn anything?”
Adding to the almost overwhelming irony of this narrative is this little chestnut: one of the most heartbreaking moments in Tiger’s life was discovering as a teenager that his father had cheated on his mother! And now Earl Woods, that hypocritical bastard, is back from the grave to judge his son? Sweet Jeebus, I think I have just shat in my Aeron chair over the sheer insanity of this commercial. And in answer to his father’s query, I suspect the one thing that Tiger did learn in this chapter of his life was never to send text messages to porn stars, saying: “I want to treat you rough. Throw you around, spank and slap you.”
So, as a favor to us all, Tiger, please pick up your club and shut your goddamn pie hole. We still believe that you are the greatest golfer on the planet, but we don’t believe you feel bad about jetting hot women around the globe so they can straddle your manparts.
You just feel bad about getting caught.
(The actual spot)
Fame is a cruel mistress, and a year ago she gave Shane Hurlbut a scalding notoriety enema. During the filming of Terminator: Salvation (shot on Canon HDSLR) , Shane was the cinematographer on the receiving end of Christian Bale’s infantile four-minute vitriolic rant.
Shane’s crime? Quietly walking the perimeter behind camera to examine his lighting approach from various angles during a take.
What an asshole! Or so sayeth Bale, among many other less flattering things. Granted, being distracted by anything during a performance will ruin a take for an actor.
And Bale was well within his rights to pull Shane aside and a give him a succinct, private bollocking, but a four-minute arm waving shitfest in front of the entire crew is beyond the pale.
Anyway, I digress; the point of this tale is that those of you that own HDSLR cameras and are making films with them should visit Shane’s website, hurlbutvisuals.com, as it is loaded with real-world analysis of Canon HDSLR cameras in a filmmaking context. Shane is an excellent DP, and offers sharp anecdotal advice on how to utilize your HDSLR camera to its full filmmaking potential.
You’re welcome.
Jesse James and Sandra Bullock
Jesse James: Biker, Pornstar Meat Puppet, and Assclown.
Obviously, I have no idea what the inside of the Vanilla Gorilla’s relationship with America’s Sweetheart looks like, and it certainly could have been the contrived frigid hellscape that most celebrity marriages reveal themselves to be when pried open by the tabloid crowbar.
However, no one deserves what happened to Ms. Bullock, with the possible exception of Kate Gosselin.
On March 7th, after receiving the highest award in Actorville, Sandra concluded her acceptance speech by heaping a gooey helping of praise on her husband, Barney Rubble, as tears flowed down his porcine cheeks for the world to see. “We are all deserving of love, and to that trailblazer who allowed me to have…that”, Bullock said, fighting back tears of joy as she pointed to her dimwit mechanic groom.
A mere ten days later, Bullock was rewarded for her lust for monosyllabic grease monkeys by finding out that James, the first person who she gushed “had her back”, was also having the back, front, top, and bottom of Michelle “Bombshell” McGee, a garishly over-inked Pornstar/Stripper/Skanky McFuckerton.
The point of this fable is as old as time itself; you can take the dumbass out of the trailer park, shine him up and put him in a tuxedo, but you cannot take the trailer park out of the dumbass. Hell, before James met Sandra he was married to porn star Janine Lindemulder and even had a child with her, so stand by for the Spoiler Alert Ms. Bullock: Jesse James likes whores! However, I suspect Sandra will have the final laugh in this garish sideshow, as her future ex-husband is on Minute 14 of his fame ride, and his recently cancelled show “Jesse James Is A Dead Man” now just seems ironically prophetic.
Here is an excellent example of what can be achieved with the Canon 5d MkII if you have talent, a Kessler Pocket Dolly, and a travel budget:
My point? Stop dicking around and buy a Canon 5d Mk II.
No, not the 7d you cheap bastard, spend the extra $900 dollars and buy the MK II. It is a full chip HDSLR, and with the new 1080p 24p upgrade that came out this week it will be able to integrate with footage you shoot on digital film cameras. Of course it has it’s limitations; it will need color-matching in telecine with the A-camera footage, work the best when paired with a RED as your primary camera, and at this stage of it’s development I would use it to pick up coverage that will enhance the narrative as opposed to being critical to the story. But $2460 dollars is a small price to pay for having access to a second camera for your shoot, and lens options I will cover in the next post.
