10 Monkeys, 5 Minutes

· 1625 days ago by Andy

Kung Fu Hustle

So I rented Kung Fu Hustle the other day. I’ll admit I’m not a fan of the kung fu genre, I just don’t get them. Maybe it’s cultural, maybe it’s that I’m a movie snob and most of the kung fu movies I’ve sat through have been absolute shit.

This one although not quite as stupid as most of the others I’ve seen – all of them so memorable I can’t remember a single name – doesn’t raise my hopes for that the genre is getting any better.

Things started off ok with the dance sequence early on featuring the “Axe Gang.” It was like a Chinese version of the “Beat It” video or old Hollywood musicals. Hell, I was even snapping my fingers and chanting Jets, Jets, Jets…

But then… what the fuck is going on here? Obviously, or at least I thought obviously this is a kung fu movie with a little musical bit thrown in. Or was that suppose to be musical comedy? Then all sorts of shit started piling up: cartoony bits with the cute sound effects – pinball machine noises during one of the fight sequences and the running really fast noise made popular by the roadrunner were the highlights, the struggle between right and wrong or good and bad, the warriors who are tired of fighting, and, of course, the love story. I’m probably missing a few other things here but no need to go on with the //// and ands. But wait, we can’t forget the subplot about the hooker with a heart of gold played by Pam Grier. Uh wait, that last one isn’t in here but it will we in Tarantino’s next rip off that combines this garbage with blaxploitation flicks.

Stephen Chow must have been going through an identity crisis while making this movie since it has so many. That or he took bits and pieces from other movies he made and pieced them together to create this gem. That, actually, may have made more sense or at least may have been a little funnier. This one’s personality was so scattered it was like uh, insert some sort of obscure reference here? Ah, dip into the same old well and say it was like watching Robin Williams in his old coked up days flying all over the place.

So a rating, I guess, is in order. I’m betting 3 monkeys could have banged out this masterpiece in all of 8 minutes. What does that mean? Hell if I know. The movie sucks plain and simple but had some redeeming qualities. Heck, I watched the entire thing so I was somewhat interested in what was happening. That said, I won’t be rushing out to see any Stephen Chow movies any time in the near future. If you want to see some kung fu, try Hong Kong Phooey. Now that’s entertainment.

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· 1645 days ago by Andy

A brief departure from the realm of pop culture today and, instead, a little talk about the mess that is now New Orleans.

I have been reading the news about the devastation that has been heaped upon New Orleans and so many thoughts go through my head. The destruction is awesome – awesome in the sense of large, remarkable, ginormous, pick your adjective – and the level of human suffering… the human suffering is difficult to really grasp. I am inclined to think of that time-honored chestnut: there, but for the grace of god go I.

Problem with that one is I don’t believe in god. Kinda strange idea, this god thing. So many true ones to choose from and this heaven, hell, spiritual limbo, zen, reincarnation and uh, forget it, let’s not even bother spinning too far off on pros and cons of believing in a fictional character.

I do believe, though, that there is an intrinsic need for balance in the earth’s forces and processes. I’m not going Gaia or anything like that, except when I am of course, but more of just a kinda evening out of energy or something like that that balances out the planet. It’s a huge system that we are all involved in, one that is always searching for balance. When this and that happen over here and there then the whole system starts self-correcting in order to balance things out; wherever here and there are, and… well, you get the point.

So this brings me to New Orleans. Horrible, isn’t it, to see so many people floating around face down in the flooded streets of what use to be a city. Volunteers and rescue workers are finding others drowned in their attics or other previously high spots where they thought they would be safe. To top this all off, there are some yahoos (props to J. Swift) taking pot shots at rescue workers to protect their looting activities.

Horrible, awful, whatever other ways the talking heads on the tv are describing it, ain’t it. The thing is, I just can’t seem to develop a whole lot of sympathy for the people of New Orleans as a group. I have this feeling that they got what they deserved and probably got off a little light.

Don’t agree? Let’s go to the tape.

The people of the great city of New Orleans were warned how many times to leave? They most likely even tuned into whatever they choose as their news sources and read how the hurricane was bearing down on them with winds are 100 miles per hour, the Caribbean was getting churned up into a frenzy yet many decided they could ride it out. Brilliant. Mr. Darwin let me introduce you to some former residents of New Orleans. Strike 2.

But not everyone could afford to leave, right? That’s why the government made some half-assed, poorly thought out options available like opening up places like the Superdome as a refuge. Points for effort but it falls into the too little too late department leading to, yep, strike 3.

So there are a couple strikes against the city and those who died right off.

OK, but what is strike 1? How about the fact that the city is 2 fucking meters below sea level! Now, I’m no professional on this here subject but at some point in the history of this fair city a few million people in and out of government should have realized that building a metropolis below sea level was not the best of ideas.

But ok, I’ll give you that history has a way of making previously poor choices, or at least not well thought out, turn into facts we’re dealing with today and the city was built and expanded.

Once that happens the city elders should have gotten together and continued to get together on a weekly/daily/hourly basis to talk about contingency plans for disasters and made sure everyone from the Elders of Zion on down to Blanche DuBois know what the fuck to do when a hurricane comes or when the levee breaks. Fucking Led Zeppelin knew this was going to happen and it seems they were better prepared than just about every elected official in Louisiana or the federal government including the clowns at FEMA. But hey, emergency management isn’t their bailiwick, is it?

I could go on and on about this but, as seems painfully obvious, that the city fathers were more interested in keeping the streets safe for Girls Gone Wild: Mardi Gras than thinking about a heavy rainstorm or one of those bigger storms, what do we call them in these parts? And if you’re relying on federal help – regardless of who’s in power, donkeys or elephants – you’re pretty much admitting you’re screwed.

So sorry New Orleans, but it looked like you got what you deserved and, once again, maybe didn’t get enough of it.

Finally, on a political note, I want to comment on his eminence George II. I’ve been reading that Condi is out there talking about how the Grand Poobah isn’t a racist. I’d have to agree with her and all the other black folks who have been trotted out before her to reassure the United Statesian public that we don’t have a card-carrying KKK member running the country. For once and for all, let me make this clear THE PRESIDENT IS NOT A RACIST.

It is not black people or any people of a particular color that he doesn’t like, it is poor people he doesn’t like or, for that matter, understand. They don’t contribute money to the republican party, they typically don’t vote for his friends or him, and they keep expecting his government to do something to help them out – asking him to create more jobs or just understand that not all poor people are trying to put one over on the government, that sometimes bad things happen to people really trying.

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· 1646 days ago by Andy

A 10 Monkey 5 Minute Manifesto

The basis for this little slice of cyber-living, research tells me, is the Borel-Cantelli lemma which is a theorem of probability theory which involves a whole bunch of variables, superscripts, subscripts, and sequences of this or that.

A special case of this neat little theorem is the infinite monkey theorem whereby and hence if there were an infinite number of monkeys typing away at an infinite number of typewriters eventually they’ll bang out every book in France’s Bibliothèque nationale de France which is what, 25 or 30 copies of the The Little Prince, half of which are in English or German? Anyway, when I first heard this theory it was about Shakespeare – same number of monkeys, still using the typewriters but this time writing the collected works of Shakespeare – which may or may not have actually been written by Shakespeare but that’s another issue.

Which brings us to the glorious summer of 2002. I got my first real six-string. Bought it at the five-and-dime… Uh, never mind. Anyway, I find myself in a nice little gin mill on Polk Street waiting for a friend’s band to play when the random clattering together of various instruments ruins any chance of my enjoying my beverage or conversation. After a few minutes of this noise it struck me that if it took an infinite amount of monkeys an infinite amount of time to write the collected works of Shakespeare then a subset of said monkeys, say 10, could write this bands songs in a subset of infinity, say, 5 minutes.

In retrospect, I think I was being generous to the band.

Fast forward 2 weeks and I mention this comment/theory to a friend and BAM, WHAMMY, and POW the idea for this here piece of cyber-estate was dreamt up.

The more astute may notice that this leaves us 3 years of gestation. Good job. I see your public school attendance gave you the tools to do basic math. You are obviously overqualified to help me out at Walmart.

Which is the tone we’re are going to take in reviewing of (mainly) pop culture.

I’m reminded of a movie review, I don’t remember which but want to say it was Battlefield Earth, in which the reviewer said something along the lines of “being anally raped by giant sewer rats is probably worse than watching this movie, but not much.” That, my friends, is pure genius. When something is bad, don’t fucking say the cinematography was beautiful but the direction lacked focus. What the fuck is cinematography anyway! The movie sucked. We’ll say it, try to find new and creative ways of saying it, and let you whether its worth your time and/or money.

On the other hand, not everything sucks so we’ll be generous to. How generous? I don’t know! I haven’t figured out this whole scale yet – we’re making this up as we go but we will be generous. Oh yes, we will be.

Currently we’re stuck with whatever it is that we’re looking at – what we’re willing to plunk down our hard earned bucks on – so don’t expect a lot of tv reviews or any blockbuster Hollywood has put out. In the future, if we find out that anyone is actually reading this shit and that this isn’t some sort of virtual masturbation, then maybe we’ll branch out and accept suggestions of what to review. And by “suggestions” I mean free copies of stuff. Christ, like we actually care that Brittney from Fayetteville would like us to review the latest Coldplay album.

So uh, sit back, grab some corn and uh, lets, uh let the reviewing begin.

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iTunes vs. Music Industry · 1654 days ago by Jay

based on this article the music industry is at it again, trying to hose the consumer via Apple and iTunes.

On the one hand, I don’t really care what the prices are, as long as all online stores are approximately the same (competitive landscape). On the other hand, I don’t want the Music Industry geniuses to drive consumers to the rental model (just a slippery slope on the way to pay per song play) by jacking the price points up.

But the things that have always frosted me about these issues are:

That somehow Apple is evil because they have large market share – while I am an Apple user and have been known to bash Microsoft on occasion, I don’t follow this argument. I haven’t seen any general concensus that there is a better product out there that can’t gain traction because of Apple’s market dominance – at any price point.

That has been Apple’s argument in the PC world, that Apple make a better product, but it costs a bit more – people buy Windows because they don’t see greater value.

I just don’t see that in the MP3 player space, just me-too products that don’t have enough value add to gain traction. BTW, in this case, value add isn’t a feature list, its customer perceived value add, not company perceived value add…

That there is something inherently valuable about many music stores online. Look, if I had to drive 50 miles to get the iTunes store and the Napster store was at the end of the block, then it might make a difference in my choice. But that’s not the case!

The only thing that makes a difference on the web is (arguably in order of importance): User Experience (first by a mile), Selection and Price (about equal), and Value Proposition (which is different than price in this market (see Subscriptions). So if Apple maintains a lead in ease of use (and iTunes/iPod integration is pretty darn easy to use) and Labels don’t start doing preferential pricing and distribution (which seems to me like it might be actionable by Apple or the Consumer) the way you compete is by creating a better experience or having a better or different value proposition. Which is what subscriptions are about. Some users find the subscription model very compelling. Some (myself for example) do not.

The question becomes do you want to own your music or do you want to rent it. I believe at this stage, people that buy iPods are for the most part music owners. I believe that the majority of people that are going subscription weren’t for the most part part of the music industries target audience anyway – they are the consumers that are buying a small handful of albums a year – for them, renting might make sense.

For people that buy many albums a year, they are probably beyond the radio in terms of playlist, so an online service needs to offer easy ways to discover music – on the face of it, rental appears to make sense, but if I have to pay an album’s worth of rental fee per month and I still don’t own the content, I’m not sure that’s a good value for me. Addtionally, owning the content means that 10 years from now, I can browse through my library and see what I have. If I rented it, I probably have pruned my library over time (to fit on my device or whatever) and will have to remember (rather being able to browse) what that song was. If I own it and need to prune, no problem, burn it to disc as backup – again, still browsable.

eh, lots of ideas in here, some conflicting, some needing expansion. Net Net, The Music Industry wants more money (and eventually wants you to pay each time you listen to a song). Apple has a tough end to end solution to overcome for competitors (and their first and last goals are eas of use, not world domination – that’s tough to beat). Subscriptions are interesting, but are a) a slippery slope to pay to play and b) not appropriate for everyones needs (has a variable value proposition)

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