Rant Warning

Once again, I find myself without a specific topic to take on this week, but I have a large buildup of venom that must be directed somehow, someway, and somebody. It's not that I am a hateful person, I do not think I specifically hate anyone. However, there are things that get under my skin and I feel I have to give them what they deserve... a cyber-tongue lashing. Therefore, enjoy these multiple rants I have ready to roll with this week...

Nickelodeon, the cable network for kids, presented a special the other night dealing with homosexuality. This network has done things like this in the past, most recently dealing with the Clinton scandal with Monica Lewinsky in a way that does not shock or offend parents, and they got a lot of praise for it. However, once you bring up the word "homosexuality", suddenly the usual suspects come out of the woodwork. Family groups orchestrated a phone call/e-mail attack that sent literally over 100,000 complaints to Nickelodeon's offices. Jerry Falwell, who appeared on the special and to my knowledge was not portrayed in any way that shows him to be hateful of alternative lifestyles (difficult though it may be to achieve that), pulled a 180 and started protesting as well. Their agenda, of course, is based on their misguided belief that one becomes homosexual by choice, and therefore any discussion of homosexuality or even the existence of people of alternative lifestyles is "promoting homosexuality".

Naturally, these people couldn't be farther from the truth, at least the truth that a majority of Americans seem to believe. We, the majority, believe that your sexuality is defined genetically; you are born that way, and that way you naturally will stay, even if at some point one feels pressured into heterosexual relationships. Do we have proof? Honestly, I don't know, but I don't see convincing proof to the contrary, so I shall stick to my guns. Therefore, talking about it is not "promoting" it. The truth of the very existence of people of alternative lifestyles has to be revealed today, in an age where the most common schoolyard taunt is fast becoming the word "fag", and many children are growing up with two parents of the same gender. The religious right keeps believing that if they ignore it long enough, it will go away. That will not happen, the "ignore it, it will go away" strategy hasn't worked for much in our society, it's not going to work here, eventually every single one of us must know and learn and live with all that the world has to offer.

And that includes (as I take a 180 degree turn from the sublime to the ridiculous) sudden changes in the weather. I live in an area of the country where you can turn to the Weather Channel and watch the radar as a thunderstorm literally blows up on top of you, out of nowhere. Such is the weather in this region just east of the Appalachians, where cold fronts rumble over the mountains, hit the humid air over top of the Cumberland and Shenandoah valleys and, as the morning meteorologist on Channel 9 in Washington says, "pop a couple of thunderstorms". These storms then proceed east to play havoc on Philly, Baltimore, and Washington; this spring they spawned a devastating tornado in eastern Maryland. This being said, there is no reason at all why anyone should try to get their weather forecasts in this region from the MORNING PAPER! This is a swipe at me more than anyone else; since I no longer work mornings, I am no longer treated to the computerized voice of the National Weather Service telling me exactly what will happen in the next few hours. So, my only source is the paper (where the forecast was printed too long ago to be that accurate) unless I choose to turn on the news at 12 noon, which I rarely do. Apparently not many other people do, either, as it has quickly become a rite of summer for myself and several other people to dash out to our cars to roll the windows up when a sudden downpour drops on us out of nowhere. And the TV and radio stations alerting us to severe weather alerts are all well and good, but how about just a general "we think it's about to rain, you'd better get inside or roll your windows up" warning. It doesn't need to be loud and screeching like the severe alerts, a nice gentle voice to warn us would suffice.

Meanwhile, just for you to chew on, here's the latest examples of fan "enthusiasm" in the World Cup: a South Korean soccer fan felt his team didn't quite have all the support it needed, so he wrote out a suicide note proclaiming that he would become the team's "spirit" and proceeded to set himself on fire. The plan didn't work; he was "spared" by some bystanders, but let's put this in perspective. The last time we saw something like this, it was Buddhist monks in Vietnam setting themselves ablaze to protest a tyrannical government. That in itself I don't get, but then I don't know much about Buddhism. On the other hand, this was a guy setting himself on fire over SOCCER!

Despite this guy's failure to fry himself into the supernatural, South Korea still defeated Italy in their second round match. The game was not without controversy, as an Italian player was ejected during the match, leaving some to object to the officiating. More specifically, a crowd of Italian soccer fans in Rome were chanting "death to the referee!" They then proceeded to attack a much smaller crowd of Koreans who were cheering their home country's victory. It's things like this that make me wonder whether or not we are a more civilized world today than in the past. Sure, nations like the United States, Britain, France, even Russia have been able to exist peacefully for a good amount of time now without the need for a global conflict along the lines of our two World Wars. Sure we now have a war on terrorism, but I would see that as a small minority of uncivilized types trying to bring down our more civil societies. However, does this now mean that rooting for your nation's soccer team and doing whatever it takes to do so is now the new kind of warfare? Does winning a soccer game mean partying in the streets like it's V-E Day? Does losing mean you have to go find some property to destroy or some people from the winning nation to attack? If that's the case, let's hope this never escalates to the point where some trigger-happy prime minister somewhere decides to launch a full-scale military attack at someone because that nation beat his in a World Cup soccer match.

World Cup Madness (Not the Good Kind)

Well, folks, things are well underway in the international soccer spectacle known as the World Cup. Now I know there are a lot of people who couldn't care less about soccer, never have, never will. I understand; I have given soccer plenty of chances in my life as well. I tried playing youth soccer as a kid, never figured out the game. At least when I played Little League baseball, I knew I stunk, because I understood WHY I stunk. Then, a few years later, one of my childhood friends from my old neighborhood broke his leg playing soccer. In high school, I tried rooting for my friends on the girls' soccer team, and unfortunately, I proved to be nothing more than a bad luck charm for a good team, so that didn't last long. Then, there was the '94 World Cup. The United States' finest hour, and I actually watched some of the games. And I was bored stiff.

Don't get me wrong, there are some good things about soccer. I like the guy who yells "GOOOOOOOOOOAL!!!" Let's see, what else... okay, I guess that's it, the guy who yells "GOOOOOOOOOOAL!!!" I have several problems with the game itself, like the fact that there is little to no scoring. Sure, it's like that a lot in hockey, but at least in hockey, there's usually 20-30 shots on goal per game for each side, as opposed to about 10 in soccer, and in hockey, there's checking into the boards and hitting and fights. In soccer, if you do anything like that, you get a CARD. A FREAKING CARD!!! The ref takes a card out of his pocket, writes your name down, and that's it. Now, I know they can add up to suspensions and red cards mean you're out of the game, but seriously, A CARD?!?

Also, I can't really take a sport seriously where you don't have any clue when the game is going to end. In theory, you have two 45 minute halves, but then after the clock gets to 45:00, it's not over, there's "injury time". "Injury time" is supposed to make up for all the time used to get injured players off the field or any other stoppages. The only people who know how much "injury time" there is are the referees, so only they know when the game is over. How can you watch a game where you see that time has theoretically run out, but the game is not over and you have no idea when it's going to be over, and your team could still lose the game during this unknown quantity of time?

And then there's the "other stuff", the kind that causes rioting and looting and death and chaos. This is all attributed, I think, to the fact that soccer is WAY too emotional a sport. I mean look at what happens when somebody scores; you'd think the guy just found out he won the lottery. He runs around like an idiot, rips off his jersey, dances with his teammates, all manner of overreaction. Imagine what would happen if the people who run the NFL ever got a hold of this sport. You think there's "excessive celebration" in football? And check that, I should say "American football", as the rest of the world refers to soccer as "football", which of course makes us Americans look stupid.

That seems to be the point of international soccer: Americans are stupid. Nobody takes our team seriously, because WE as a country don't even take our team seriously. Now I know the ratings for World Cup games are breaking records, even at 2:30am on the East Coast, but even if a "staggering" 1.4 million households are watching the U.S. soccer team, that means some 100 million are not. It's the rest of the world's game, and they love being better than us at it. Which may explain why the rest of the world is starting to get bent over the fact that we actually WON a game last week. We beat Portugal, who I guess was a pretty good team, but apparently they're not, seeing as how they lost to US. Next up, we play the host nation of South Korea, and the next thing we know, there are security concerns around our team and anti-American protesters all over the place. What is this? We win one game in the World Cup, and suddenly there are anti-American protests? What's next, the Seattle mob? "America is trying to force the other soccer nations into their corporate slavery and oppression!" Well, no, it's actually due to the fact that we have some 37,000 troops protecting South Korea from its communist neighbors to the north. Real nice that the South Koreans apparently have issues about this, when they should realize that if we weren't there, they'd be singing the communist anthem in about three hours, even if the North didn't have nukes.

What's more, a bunch of South Koreans wore speed-skating helmets and chanted "We want our gold medal". This of course, in reaction to Apollo Ohno winning the gold in short-track speed skating back at Salt Lake City in the Olympics a few months back, after a South Korean was disqualified after he finished first. Do I have to be the one to tell these Koreans that they are the only people left in the world who CARE about this? I really wished someone else could've done it. Protesting a military presence is one thing, even if it's not justified; protesting a Winter Olympics medal four months later, when we've already gone into our four-year cycle of not caring about any of those sports, is quite another. American coach Bruce Arena said it best when his reaction to the protests was as follows: "What was it, snowboarding?"

Of course, as we all know, soccer doesn't just cause people to get mad at America; more often than not, it causes people to take out their frustrations on property, police, and each other. This is why you can imagine my surprise when post-game riots broke out amongst soccer fans in RUSSIA! Not England, not Brazil, RUSSIA! Cars set on fire, many injured, one person even dead. This is the kind of thing that happens in South America or Manchester or, well, anywhere else but Russia!

Speaking of South America, two transplants from Argentina, living in Bangladesh, fell to their deaths while trying to hoist Argentinian flags. Should I even mention that Argentina was later eliminated in the first round for the first time in 40 years? Here's what I worry about in that case: how many Argentinian PLAYERS are going to get killed now? That happens too during the World Cup. If you'll recall, the last time we Americans advanced to the second round, it was partially due to a win over Colombia in which a Colombian player accidentally knocked the ball into his own net. That player was murdered upon his return to his homeland. Should we be worried that some Argentine soccer "hooligan" is going to try to blow up the plane bringing the team home?

This is why I'm glad that the Americans' games are on during overnight hours, because let's face it, even if your team just won, if it's 4:30 in the morning, well first of all, it's 3 hours past last call at your favorite sports bar, and secondly, you're going to want more to go home and sleep rather than take to the streets and set some cars on fire. That being said, I think I should probably go into hiding and stay in my apartment for the rest of the World Cup, because I really don't want to be outside doing whatever when a soccer game ends and the inevitable "emotional release" starts...

Well, Considering I Already Know What Happened...

This is something that has baffled me right about this time every year. Every year we get to the week of the MTV Movie Awards, and suddenly we are blitzed by reports of what happened at the awards before it even airs. Now, me being eager to expose any secret entertainment world conspiracy theories, I thought at first that the mainstream media was in cahoots with the Academy Awards people to divert people from watching the MTV awards. Considering that the MTV Movie Awards pretty much flips the straight-laced AMPAS folks the bird with their show and their very existence, the fewer people watching this thing, the better. So, I figured, the Academy gets the mainstream media to start telling everybody who won all the awards and what the major hijinks were as soon as they could Monday morning; then, knowing what already happened and no longer feeling the urge to see the show broadcast Thursday night, people wouldn't watch, and that means more potential viewers for the Oscar wine and cheese party the following March. I really did believe this, especially considering how the mainstream media rarely takes MTV seriously anyway.

Well, imagine my surprise when in my efforts to steer clear of news of what happened on the MTV Movie Awards, I came upon the MTV website, where I saw (gasp!) details on what happened on the show! I mean, it's one thing to tape your award show four days early and have everything that's going to happen revealed before you get your show on the air, but to reveal it all YOURSELF? I was watching TRL the other day (research purposes only, I swear), and you had Carson Daly throwing to a pre-taped John Norris from four days ago saying how exciting the MTV Movie Awards were going to be. Then, minutes later, he's interviewing Kelly Osbourne and showing clips of her performance on the awards show, which hadn't even aired yet! How do you make this even look believable? I was half-expecting Carson to then say, "Now that we've shown you clips of Kelly's act, let's throw it back to John Norris and pretend it hasn't happened yet!" Then again, this is the network that still tries to make you believe Britney Spears is still relevant to the music industry. On this particular day, Britney was #1 on TRL with a song that peaked in the 30s on Billboard and had long since dropped off, from an album that had left the Top 50 months ago. I'm surprised Carson didn't do a segment trying to get his New Jersey beachside audience to express their dismay over the Ohio senator who boycotted a recent environmental hearing because one of the friggin' BACKSTREET BOYS was testifying! By the way, kudos to Sen. Voinovich for walking out; I can sympathize with him, as I try to boycott EVERYTHING the Backstreet Boys do...

So, after having taped the Movie Awards Thursday night (I was on the air, and besides, what's the rush, I already knew everything that was going to happen), I was really wondering whether or not I should even devote a column to critiquing a show that was so far from kept-under-wraps as far as its content. Then again, I figured that spending half the column ranting about the full pre-show disclosure would make up for it, and I didn't have anything else to write about this week, so here comes the critique...

First off, let me say how nice it was of the MTV people to keep the tradition going, as Britney lost yet another award, to Mandy Moore, no less. Now you may try to say that it's awfully convenient that MTV gave an award to one of its most visible stars (speaking of conspiracy theories), but she deserved it. Although the acceptance speech was a little too Academy Awards for me; Mandy, here's a tip-- the standard acceptance speech for this awards show is say something funny or embarrassing. Extra points for profanity and depravity. Of course, this is never gonna happen from wholesome Miss Mandy, but Kelly Osbourne has it down pat. On the other hand, you would expect that from an Osbourne. Her description of Miss Mandy ("she's like a f@$%ing supermodel!") was not only quite Osbourne-esque, but probably the first time that someone on television has used profanity to describe America's Sweetheart.

Speaking of the youngest Osbourne, you would be expecting a comment from me on her musical performance. Well, I pretty much picked up the vibe very quickly that this was not going to be quite as musical as it was a performance. I hope this is seriously just Kelly having fun being a sudden TV star and not a calculated "next move" for the Osbourne media empire. However, considering how the Osbournes were all over the place making mischield during the show, I have my doubts. Still, I have to admit I did laugh when I saw Sharon sitting on Ben Affleck's lap and Jack sitting on Natalie Portman's lap.

As for the evening's affable hosts, Jack Black, and Sarah Michelle Gellar, I sincerely hope they had script approval coming in, because there were so many moments in this show that could only be described as uneasy. For me. To watch. I counted FOUR times that I said to myself, "DUDE, that is just WRONG" in the first 45 minutes alone! To tell you what these were would be totally wrong for a column that I try to keep as squeaky-clean as possible; you'll just have to catch one of the endless repeats of the show that MTV will air in the coming days and weeks.

That said, I will prove myself a hypocrite again and have a "guy" moment: was that really Linda Cardellini with the rest of the Scooby Doo gang presenting an award? You'll excuse me if I only remember her as a shy tomboyish circa 1980 teen wearing an Army jacket in "Freaks and Geeks". I was just starting to get used to the idea of her as Velma (you'll remember the unfortunate urban legends associated with THAT character that I mentioned in recent weeks). I guess I may just have to get used to her obligatory "I'm-about-to-become-a-star" makeover; still, that would be the only pleasant surprise in a show where the surprises were kept to a minimum. Okay, there was one other: the White Stripes. It took me a while to warm up to them, but I got into their performance. The 60s "Shindig" look kinda bugged me a bit (and speaking of which, I got tired of the omnipresent dancing girls after about 10 minutes, not a good move, MTV), but I can kinda understand why; Jack White sounds a lot like Ray Davies of the Kinks. Aside from the fact that he looks like he's about 16, I really liked the performance.

So the surprises were still kept to a minimum, and perhaps it's really gotten to the point where MTV should stop pre-taping this show and air it live. That's what they do with the Video Music Awards, and there are just as many bleeps in that show as there are on the Movie Awards. Oh by the way, Eminem slipped at least one 4-letter bomb past you guys, and you had, what, FOUR DAYS to edit that out? Give it up, air it live, because then you give me less to write about.

On second thought, I like having things to write about, maybe we can come up with a happy medium...