Until I work up the energy to rant about the things and people really bugging me in a serious way, there are always plenty of others who should be told to suck it. Here are the current top ten on the inexhaustible pile.
1. People who veer left to make a right-hand turn, even if they drive small vehicles.
2. Anyone who believes anything they see on a reality TV show.
3. Parents who act like procreation is, in and of itself, an impressive achievement.
4. Male strangers who call any- and everyone they meet "dude," "bra/o" or "dog."
5. White people who call Black men "brother" anywhere outside of church.
6. People who park in two parking spots because they're just so special and their car is just so valuable.
7. Cops who speed on the highway purely because they can get away with it.
8. People who use baby-talk and talk down to kids as if children are stupid.
9. Desperative Housewives--the show, the premise, the public that makes it possible.
10. Females who call everyone "honey" or "sweetie" or, worse, "girl."
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Mini Suck: a new 10
As usual, I have more rage than time, so here's another from my new line of snack-sized hate. This week, the people, places and things who should suck it include:
1. Anyone who belts pants below the ass. While I'm sure your underwear is fascinating to you, to me it's just more information than I want. This is just stupid, and I don't care if that makes me sound old or out of touch. I keep seeing this on campus, and I simply don't get it. Sagging one's pants is one thing, but this doesn't look like a choice so much as an error--like someone just got distracted after doing their bathroom business. I should never look at a person walking away and wonder if they got confused or lost after wiping, unless that person has Alzheimer's. Not to mention, if you insist on showing your underwear to me, make sure it's clean and unstained, Skid Mark, okay?
2. People who share their personal names for their genitals, breasts, or other body parts with anybody who isn't already sharing their bed. It's bad enough that people persist in this cutesy nonsense, but I shouldn't have to be subjected to your body-phobic bullshit unless I'm trying to get in your pants.
3. Shiftless, lazy, unwashed hippies who make liberals look like unemployable miscreants. Don't get me wrong, Moonbeam: be free. It's just that your failure to bathe regularly, groom adequately, listen to recognizable music, find reliable transportation, find legal and non-parasitic income or, at least, retire the bong makes those of us who want social justice but live closer to the center of the spectrum easy to ridicule and ignore. You are not helping the causes you claim to care about so much as you're dropping out of society and refusing to grow up.
4. Those who refer to anyone critical of them as "haters." This gets extended into a little faux-street bit which says "Don't hate the player, hate the game." There are so many problems here. First, sometimes criticism is perfectly valid and has nothing to do with hate. Calling someone a hater suggests that their position is unreasoned and the criticism unearned. It's worse than an oversimplification; it's a complete dismissal. Second, you're not a pimp, so stop talking like you think you are. You are not part of The Game just because you saw American Pimp. Finally, even if you are a pimp, why shouldn't I hate the player, as well as the game? The game is usually demeaning, frequently violent, and always exploitation-based. Anybody playing The Game as usual is worthy of pity at best, and deserving of serious jail time at worst. Without the Players, The Game as we know it wouldn't exist. Stop the player, stop the game.
5. People who get tribal markings and other cultural symbols indelibly etched on their body when they don't belong to the culture it represents. This just bugs, though it does present a good opportunity for tattooists and other artists to manipulate the perceptions of the public a great deal in a kind of subversive way. I mean, if you don't speak the language or have a lived-in familiarity with the complex cultural connotations of your chosen symbology, then you're trusting that the website or book where you found it and the tattoo artist you took it to for inking are faithfully representing the image and honestly sharing its meaning. While the potential for a bunch of culture vultures to get royally screwed does amuse me, this is just a sad shame in a larger sense. Why do people feel the need to "borrow" other people's cultural experience? Everybody already has a culture; in fact, each of us probably belongs to quite a large number of "tribes" in a broad sense. So, why co-op someone else's? I don't care how many tattoos of Asian characters or Totem animals you get: you're still you. And if "you" is white, live with it. Yep, our people are responsible for an awfully lot of the problems. Don't make it worse. Own up. We've got some highlights, too. Learn your own history before you steal someone else's.
6. Door-to-door religion salespeople. In this, the Jehovahs and the Mormons are about equal offenders, with everybody else a very distant finisher. Stop trying to force your book report projects on me. I've read the Book of Mormon, and it's ludicrous. I've read enough of The Holy Bible to know that taking it literally is nonsensical. I have my own faith and values. But, even if I didn't, I do not see how your interrupting my day and insinuating yourself into my life is doing me any favors. If your Gods won't let you into their paradise without your having to recruit others, then it's not Heaven--it's an Amway convention.
7. Any person or corporation that patents life-saving cures for highly treatable illnesses. How dare you pretend to work in the interests of scientific progress and the betterment of humanity and then block the possibility of saving lives, improving life expectancy for entire sectors of the world, and fostering international cooperation--all of which can and does come from the successful implementation of health care into the most impoverished areas. Any company that charges more than 10% over cost for any medication is exploitive. But to take it even further and suggest that, while you've found a cure, nobody can make use of it without your being paid is unconscionable.
8. Habitually tardy people who attribute their rudeness to culture. I hear that people are on "Mexican time," "Mormon time," and even "Mommy time" constantly. You are not on a special time frame. You are not so damned interesting and unusual that we should all make special allowances for the fact that you do not keep your promises and instead selfishly waste everyone else's time in waiting around for you to show up. This is not something you share with an entire category of people, nor is it some unpreventable consequence of membership in the group you were born into or have since joined. You're just rude. But now, in addition to being rude, you're showing that you agree with and perpetuate stereotypes, and you think that doing so is cute and funny.
9. Fame whores willing to behave like animals, exploit their children and families, and shamelessly peddle themselves and their loved ones for unwarranted celebrity. While this is particularly relevant to cretins like the Gosselins, it also applies to Kardashians, the Lamas clan, those weird hillbillies with the 14 kids who run a B&B, and all the rest of them. We get it: you want to be famous. But you're boring, vapid, narcissistic, shallow, wasteful, tactless and greedy. These are not qualities in a person, they're serious deficiencies of character.
10. Parents who blame the schools, the government, the education system, the teachers, television, video games, movies, peer groups and anyone else on Earth that they can think of for their child's poor learning and underachievement. I've got news for you: if you know the name of all the characters on your favorite TV shows, but you don't know the names of all your child's teachers, principals, coaches, and guidance counselors, then the person not making the most of that child's educational experience is likely you.
1. Anyone who belts pants below the ass. While I'm sure your underwear is fascinating to you, to me it's just more information than I want. This is just stupid, and I don't care if that makes me sound old or out of touch. I keep seeing this on campus, and I simply don't get it. Sagging one's pants is one thing, but this doesn't look like a choice so much as an error--like someone just got distracted after doing their bathroom business. I should never look at a person walking away and wonder if they got confused or lost after wiping, unless that person has Alzheimer's. Not to mention, if you insist on showing your underwear to me, make sure it's clean and unstained, Skid Mark, okay?
2. People who share their personal names for their genitals, breasts, or other body parts with anybody who isn't already sharing their bed. It's bad enough that people persist in this cutesy nonsense, but I shouldn't have to be subjected to your body-phobic bullshit unless I'm trying to get in your pants.
3. Shiftless, lazy, unwashed hippies who make liberals look like unemployable miscreants. Don't get me wrong, Moonbeam: be free. It's just that your failure to bathe regularly, groom adequately, listen to recognizable music, find reliable transportation, find legal and non-parasitic income or, at least, retire the bong makes those of us who want social justice but live closer to the center of the spectrum easy to ridicule and ignore. You are not helping the causes you claim to care about so much as you're dropping out of society and refusing to grow up.
4. Those who refer to anyone critical of them as "haters." This gets extended into a little faux-street bit which says "Don't hate the player, hate the game." There are so many problems here. First, sometimes criticism is perfectly valid and has nothing to do with hate. Calling someone a hater suggests that their position is unreasoned and the criticism unearned. It's worse than an oversimplification; it's a complete dismissal. Second, you're not a pimp, so stop talking like you think you are. You are not part of The Game just because you saw American Pimp. Finally, even if you are a pimp, why shouldn't I hate the player, as well as the game? The game is usually demeaning, frequently violent, and always exploitation-based. Anybody playing The Game as usual is worthy of pity at best, and deserving of serious jail time at worst. Without the Players, The Game as we know it wouldn't exist. Stop the player, stop the game.
5. People who get tribal markings and other cultural symbols indelibly etched on their body when they don't belong to the culture it represents. This just bugs, though it does present a good opportunity for tattooists and other artists to manipulate the perceptions of the public a great deal in a kind of subversive way. I mean, if you don't speak the language or have a lived-in familiarity with the complex cultural connotations of your chosen symbology, then you're trusting that the website or book where you found it and the tattoo artist you took it to for inking are faithfully representing the image and honestly sharing its meaning. While the potential for a bunch of culture vultures to get royally screwed does amuse me, this is just a sad shame in a larger sense. Why do people feel the need to "borrow" other people's cultural experience? Everybody already has a culture; in fact, each of us probably belongs to quite a large number of "tribes" in a broad sense. So, why co-op someone else's? I don't care how many tattoos of Asian characters or Totem animals you get: you're still you. And if "you" is white, live with it. Yep, our people are responsible for an awfully lot of the problems. Don't make it worse. Own up. We've got some highlights, too. Learn your own history before you steal someone else's.
6. Door-to-door religion salespeople. In this, the Jehovahs and the Mormons are about equal offenders, with everybody else a very distant finisher. Stop trying to force your book report projects on me. I've read the Book of Mormon, and it's ludicrous. I've read enough of The Holy Bible to know that taking it literally is nonsensical. I have my own faith and values. But, even if I didn't, I do not see how your interrupting my day and insinuating yourself into my life is doing me any favors. If your Gods won't let you into their paradise without your having to recruit others, then it's not Heaven--it's an Amway convention.
7. Any person or corporation that patents life-saving cures for highly treatable illnesses. How dare you pretend to work in the interests of scientific progress and the betterment of humanity and then block the possibility of saving lives, improving life expectancy for entire sectors of the world, and fostering international cooperation--all of which can and does come from the successful implementation of health care into the most impoverished areas. Any company that charges more than 10% over cost for any medication is exploitive. But to take it even further and suggest that, while you've found a cure, nobody can make use of it without your being paid is unconscionable.
8. Habitually tardy people who attribute their rudeness to culture. I hear that people are on "Mexican time," "Mormon time," and even "Mommy time" constantly. You are not on a special time frame. You are not so damned interesting and unusual that we should all make special allowances for the fact that you do not keep your promises and instead selfishly waste everyone else's time in waiting around for you to show up. This is not something you share with an entire category of people, nor is it some unpreventable consequence of membership in the group you were born into or have since joined. You're just rude. But now, in addition to being rude, you're showing that you agree with and perpetuate stereotypes, and you think that doing so is cute and funny.
9. Fame whores willing to behave like animals, exploit their children and families, and shamelessly peddle themselves and their loved ones for unwarranted celebrity. While this is particularly relevant to cretins like the Gosselins, it also applies to Kardashians, the Lamas clan, those weird hillbillies with the 14 kids who run a B&B, and all the rest of them. We get it: you want to be famous. But you're boring, vapid, narcissistic, shallow, wasteful, tactless and greedy. These are not qualities in a person, they're serious deficiencies of character.
10. Parents who blame the schools, the government, the education system, the teachers, television, video games, movies, peer groups and anyone else on Earth that they can think of for their child's poor learning and underachievement. I've got news for you: if you know the name of all the characters on your favorite TV shows, but you don't know the names of all your child's teachers, principals, coaches, and guidance counselors, then the person not making the most of that child's educational experience is likely you.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Suck It: Unemployment by Email
One of the hidden downsides to the technological turn is that now cowardly bosses don't have to face the workforce they're forcibly ejecting from their professions. In fact, they don't have to face that this is what they're doing; it's "downsizing" or "budget crisis" or even, frighteningly, "modernizing." This is in no way a new phenomenon, but the explosion of digital media communications has only normalized this already dehumanizing and corporatizing trend. In much the same way that politicians have long been able to hide from public scrutiny via media exposure behind the mask of a press office, now employers at all levels can hide behind a new smoke-screen: the computer screen.
As if pink slips with your paycheck weren't impersonal enough, we now have eliminated the paychecks by turning them into automatic deposits--and then eliminated the pink-slips too by making the whole thing able to take place purely in digital interactions. First comes the mass email about budgetary woes. Then comes the complaints of policy changes and uncertainty, in the form of a deluge of emails, many incomprehensible. Next, a personal-seeming email expressing concern for your particular situation (insert your name here) arrives. Then it comes. Subject line: Budget Cuts.
The next week, you're erased from the payroll system. Your number--the only way you're recognizable to the entity you've worked for and depended on more than you'd like to admit begins grinding its slow and unpredictable way through the outsourced bureaucracy of COBRA--somewhere in Texas, or maybe Mumbai. Another email comes, reminding you to clear your office, or return your keys, or relinquish your parking pass, or some other impersonal-and-therefore-all-the-more-demeaning demand. You're now a detail to be cleared, a process to complete. You're deleted.
Economic strife and unemployment affect everybody. Job elimination is a reality for many employers, the virtuous and the wicked alike. Part of the reason that managers and administrators make the very good livings that they make (particularly relative to their staffs) is because they have the duty to handle these issues, the unpleasant task of keeping things running smoothly and on-budget. That includes handling staffing at all levels. When someone is let go, either for cause or for budget, notification is part of the duty of management. And when a job disappears for reasons that have nothing to do with the former employee, the bare minimum that employee deserves is an exit interview and the opportunity to hear directly from those for whom they worked directly the reasons for their termination.
Email hiring and firing allows those charged with hiring and firing to hide from the human faces of their decisions. It buys into the false and destructive metaphor that people are nothing more than raw materials, "human resources" to be squabbled over, claimed, mined, and then discarded--that there is no relationship there, no consciousness worthy of consideration or concern. It's dehumanizing, ultimately, to parties on both sides. By treating others as not worthy of human recognition, employers diminish their own humanity as well.
In other words: anyone who has ever terminated an employee by email should SUCK IT.
As if pink slips with your paycheck weren't impersonal enough, we now have eliminated the paychecks by turning them into automatic deposits--and then eliminated the pink-slips too by making the whole thing able to take place purely in digital interactions. First comes the mass email about budgetary woes. Then comes the complaints of policy changes and uncertainty, in the form of a deluge of emails, many incomprehensible. Next, a personal-seeming email expressing concern for your particular situation (insert your name here) arrives. Then it comes. Subject line: Budget Cuts.
The next week, you're erased from the payroll system. Your number--the only way you're recognizable to the entity you've worked for and depended on more than you'd like to admit begins grinding its slow and unpredictable way through the outsourced bureaucracy of COBRA--somewhere in Texas, or maybe Mumbai. Another email comes, reminding you to clear your office, or return your keys, or relinquish your parking pass, or some other impersonal-and-therefore-all-the-more-demeaning demand. You're now a detail to be cleared, a process to complete. You're deleted.
Economic strife and unemployment affect everybody. Job elimination is a reality for many employers, the virtuous and the wicked alike. Part of the reason that managers and administrators make the very good livings that they make (particularly relative to their staffs) is because they have the duty to handle these issues, the unpleasant task of keeping things running smoothly and on-budget. That includes handling staffing at all levels. When someone is let go, either for cause or for budget, notification is part of the duty of management. And when a job disappears for reasons that have nothing to do with the former employee, the bare minimum that employee deserves is an exit interview and the opportunity to hear directly from those for whom they worked directly the reasons for their termination.
Email hiring and firing allows those charged with hiring and firing to hide from the human faces of their decisions. It buys into the false and destructive metaphor that people are nothing more than raw materials, "human resources" to be squabbled over, claimed, mined, and then discarded--that there is no relationship there, no consciousness worthy of consideration or concern. It's dehumanizing, ultimately, to parties on both sides. By treating others as not worthy of human recognition, employers diminish their own humanity as well.
In other words: anyone who has ever terminated an employee by email should SUCK IT.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Quick Suck: this week's 10
people, places and things pissing me off this week include:
1. Anyone who begins articulating an opinion by stating "I consider myself a feminist, but..."
2. Giant Jackie O/Vegas Elvis sunglasses
3. English-only fucktards.
4. People who don't know the sound of their own car alarm and so let them go off on a regular basis, blithely irritating and disrupting entire residential neighborhoods.
5. Wearers of faux-hawks.
6. People who walk their dogs while keeping them on unreasonably tight leashes or in choke-chains.
7. Lousy tippers who act like they have an ideological beef with tipping instead of admitting their own cheapness.
8. Charlatans who undermine the credibility and therefore insurability and usability of homeopathic and natural medicine by exploiting the desperate and credulous.
9. Britney haters.
10. Everyone in any way linked to the commercial revivals of tube tops, jumpsuits, harem pants, ass-baring shorts, spray tans, tooth bleaching, boob jobs, dating old guys and marrying for money.
1. Anyone who begins articulating an opinion by stating "I consider myself a feminist, but..."
2. Giant Jackie O/Vegas Elvis sunglasses
3. English-only fucktards.
4. People who don't know the sound of their own car alarm and so let them go off on a regular basis, blithely irritating and disrupting entire residential neighborhoods.
5. Wearers of faux-hawks.
6. People who walk their dogs while keeping them on unreasonably tight leashes or in choke-chains.
7. Lousy tippers who act like they have an ideological beef with tipping instead of admitting their own cheapness.
8. Charlatans who undermine the credibility and therefore insurability and usability of homeopathic and natural medicine by exploiting the desperate and credulous.
9. Britney haters.
10. Everyone in any way linked to the commercial revivals of tube tops, jumpsuits, harem pants, ass-baring shorts, spray tans, tooth bleaching, boob jobs, dating old guys and marrying for money.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Another Quick Suck: 10 more that should Suck It
1. College and university students who wear licensed, merchandised T-shirts bearing the image of Che Guevara.
2. Women over the age of 25 who think that being called a girl is a compliment.
3. People who post medical photos on Facebook, MySpace and other public sites without warning. I shouldn't have to encounter the contents of your colon or uterus without consent, people.
4. Anyone who can afford better beer but drinks Pabst Blue Ribbon because they think it's hilarious and ironic.
5. Textbook publishers who put out a new edition of their books every two years, even when nothing substantial has changed in the content, gouging students and hamstringing teachers.
6. The University of California again, some more.
7. Fickle Obamaniacs who fell in love with him based on nothing and then out of love over nothing.
8. Students who both ignore instructions and aren't skilled enough to accomplish simple tasks without detailed instructions to guide them.
9. Parents who live vicariously through their kids, whether it be by pushing their children to accomplish the things they've failed to do or putting up pictures of the kids on social networking sites to avoid having to show the world what they look like these days.
10. People who pronounce nuclear as nukular. After the entire Cold War, you still can't figure that one out? Then stop talking.
2. Women over the age of 25 who think that being called a girl is a compliment.
3. People who post medical photos on Facebook, MySpace and other public sites without warning. I shouldn't have to encounter the contents of your colon or uterus without consent, people.
4. Anyone who can afford better beer but drinks Pabst Blue Ribbon because they think it's hilarious and ironic.
5. Textbook publishers who put out a new edition of their books every two years, even when nothing substantial has changed in the content, gouging students and hamstringing teachers.
6. The University of California again, some more.
7. Fickle Obamaniacs who fell in love with him based on nothing and then out of love over nothing.
8. Students who both ignore instructions and aren't skilled enough to accomplish simple tasks without detailed instructions to guide them.
9. Parents who live vicariously through their kids, whether it be by pushing their children to accomplish the things they've failed to do or putting up pictures of the kids on social networking sites to avoid having to show the world what they look like these days.
10. People who pronounce nuclear as nukular. After the entire Cold War, you still can't figure that one out? Then stop talking.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Suck It: Brad Pitt
This one has been coming for a while. There are so many reasons this guy should suck it that it's actually quite overwhelming to try to narrow it down into a coherent rant about the incredible annoyance I feel every time I encounter his smug, aging-playboy face. But, having just seen Inglourious Basterds recently, his irritating countenance is fresh in my mind and it brings the need to vent. There's so much here, though, that I think it merits sub-categories of Suck. Onward to the hate!
1) the face: I don't actually see the allure of this guy. I've heard so many times how handsome, attractive and desirable he is to any number of people, but to me the guy looks squinty, leathery, and a little constipated. His eyes are too small and close together, his forehead wrinkles are eating his face, and sunscreen passed him by. I don't get it.
2) the overhyped body: Again, I get that there is a thing. I saw Fight Club. I did not, however, swoon over his gristle-under-Saran-Wrap physique in it, unlike many of the women and even more of the men I know. There's something very G.I. Joe about the guy's body; it just strikes me as possibly molded out of hard plastic and there's something so deeply, deeply gay about it as an object of desire. Maybe, again, that's just because most of those whom I hear expressing admiration and desire for his body are (allegedly) straight men.
3) the lazy acting and/or lack of talent: There are really just the two Brad Pitt expressions: there's the smug guy, who smirks his way through pictures like the Oceans series and Mr. and Mrs. Smith and then the twitchy guy, who inarticulately spazzes through flicks like 12 Monkeys and Snatch. Smug and grating to twitchy and one-note is not much of a range, in my book. Let's just say I hope Oscar keeps freezing him out until he learns a new color.
4) the overpayment: I read a Forbes article from 2008 suggesting he made up to $35 million dollars per picture, between salary and pieces of the back-end of his films. Seriously? And we're falling all over ourselves as a culture to praise the guy for making a $1 million donation? What's the big deal? If he makes only one picture per year, that's still less than 3% in charitable donation. Hell, I give more than that, and I make about $35,000 a year. Besides which, nobody whose primary acting traits are smugness and twitchiness should be making over $30 million dollars per picture. That's just a gross overvaluation of the appeal of said smug twitchiness. Or twitchy smugness, if you prefer.
5) the apparent lack of an individuated personality: For this observation, I'm really indebted to my good friend Miriam, who pointed out that he has no clear persona of his own and just adapts who and what he is to suit whomever he's currently sharing a bed with. When he dated Juliette Lewis, he was kinda funky and rock-oriented. Dating Gwyneth Paltrow, the woman without warmth, he seemed similarly icy and Aryan. With Jennifer Aniston, he was America's Sweetheart, playing the role of the sunny, blessed, and grateful. Now that he's with la Angelina, he's playing the part of reformed bad boy (when was that era, by the by? I don't remember him ever being a bad boy, unless making a couple of movies with George Clooney and buying a motorcycle counts. For the record, it doesn't.) turned humanitarian. In other words, once again, his persona seems to be a comfortably niche-marketed simulacra of hers. This is why he makes such a good icon, really--because there's little hint of a real person oozing out of his enlarged pores.
6) the inappropriately younger girlfriend: This is an ongoing pet peeve, and not just with this guy. He's not yet Michael Douglas bad. Even still, he bears watching on this front. I mean really; he was already married to a successful, beautiful and age-appropriate woman. Then, it would seem, the inevitable "oh-crap, I'm going to die one day. I will not always be this pretty and overly attended to by an adoring public" midlife crisis set in, and he heads off for someone more than a decade his junior. I'm with David on this one--you get one decade in either direction. That gives you a full generation in which to screw around. More than that is just sad and kind of greedy. But, if he sticks to people around his own age, he might have to encounter women who remember him when he was a Fabio-esque wannabe, and that might salt his game. GOOD.
7) the dismissal of the wife: And that brings me to the plight of Jennifer Aniston. I'll admit that I actually hated her character on Friends and have found her movies to date to be...fine. So, I wasn't exactly her hugest fan or anything. And for years, I drooled over the bounteous beauty of La Angelina like the rest of the breathing world. However, watching the ungracious and utterly transparent way in which Pitt dropped his wife for his co-star and made no bones about the fact that he was leaving her in part for not wanting to have babies on his timeline and to suit his ego needs flipped it for me. It's one thing to grow apart after years--and in Hollywood, those years can rarely be measured in decades. But, it's quite another to make a very public display of ending one's marriage specifically to hook up with a much younger brood mare. That's just tacky. Not to mention sad and cliche.
8) the skrillions of bastard children: I've seen approximately 4,000 articles on the guy, in part because my mother-in-law has decided to adopt Brangelina as her substitute son and daughter-in-law, since they're giving her skrillions of grandkids and David and I will not. Each of these articles written since 2006 talks about what a Family Man he is, and you can see the praise rays radiating off the page even without the capital lettering. However, none of these articles seem to mention that he is in fact a guy who left a stable marriage to shack up with a younger woman, multiply impregnate her, adopt orphan children with her, and then not cohere the family in a lasting legal way. Apparently, this isn't supposed to grate on anyone's nerves, because we're all so laid-back and California about it. That would be fine, sincerely, if it weren't so transparently hypocritical and full of shit. You don't get to play the Traditional Family Man card for sympathy (Jennifer wouldn't have BABIES, man. What's a guy to do?? Cue the violins.) and also be shacking up with your hot, twisted, blood-wearing, serial-costar-marrying, brother-Frenching mistress.
9) the dissing of the ex-wife: In one final turn of the screw on the whole Jen-Brad-Angie saga, recently he's started (allegedly) talking smack about Aniston. That's just tactless and stupid on a whole new level. Aniston gets bitching rights about you until you both die, schmuck. That's the price of being a womanizing ass. You do not get to complain about her saying that your mistress bragging about bagging you is "uncool." Those aren't even fighting words. Be glad you married the classy one and just stick it to the other one, Pitt, because if your ex-wife wanted to rip you a new one in public once an hour, on the hour, she'd have a ready-made audience of other middle aged women who were dumped by their unfaithful husbands. Be glad she's only calling your girlfriend's perpetual case of foot-in-mouth uncool and not painting a target on both your backs or bashing in the front of your house, in the style of Betty Broderick. Seriously.
10) the architectural get-over-yourself: Apparently, between cashing gazillion dollar paychecks and banging superstars, he enjoys looking at houses. In fact, he likes looking at houses so much that he made a bid to restore and preserve a Greene & Greene house in Pasadena(!) about ten years ago. This resulted in a book, and even more attention to the man. His efforts boil down to throwing a lot of money at it, taking some pictures, and then putting his name up on a plaque on the wall. He's not an architect, he's a very moneyed dilettante. He's somebody's rich, busybody Aunt Greta.
11) the rape of New Orleans: And that brings me to his other book, and the Ground Zero of my hate. Just a couple of weeks ago, a book called Architecture in Times of Need came out, pumping Pitt's whole Make It Right foundation and extolling the virtues of their "rebuilding" efforts for the Lower Ninth in New Orleans. The only problem with this is that I was in New Orleans in April, three and half years after Katrina, and Pitt's much-vaunted foundation had only managed to build about a half dozen very high-concept houses, only two of which were inhabited. And, based on the cars in front (both very high end and expensive), they were inhabited by yuppies, not by the previous inhabitants of the Lower Ninth, which has long been one of the poorest districts in the area. To give a little perspective: during the same time window, Habitat for Humanity had managed to build almost 1000 homes in the same area, nearly all of them inhabited, and without anyone in HfH needing to write a book about how awesome their plan was and how cool they are for thinking of it. We talked to some locals while we were there, and let's just say that he's not so universally beloved in New Orleans as the publicity machine surrounding him would suggest. What he seems to be is a guy with more money than sense, and more vague notions of how to heal the world than concrete plans of action for how to get it done. Rather than throw millions of dollars and endless copy at what a saint he is for helping to get built a half dozen impractically high end homes--and the gentrification of the Lower Ninth that these buildings help to further entrench--we'd be far better off sending that same money and press to Jimmy Carter's Nobel Peace Prize winning organization, which actually can and does make things happen, even when nobody from the press corps is looking.
I could probably rant about the guy for days, but I think I'll leave it here for now. I mean, he already gets plenty of attention. Now he's gotten a lifetime's worth from me. So, in that sense, I guess he's won. Like the terrorists.
1) the face: I don't actually see the allure of this guy. I've heard so many times how handsome, attractive and desirable he is to any number of people, but to me the guy looks squinty, leathery, and a little constipated. His eyes are too small and close together, his forehead wrinkles are eating his face, and sunscreen passed him by. I don't get it.
2) the overhyped body: Again, I get that there is a thing. I saw Fight Club. I did not, however, swoon over his gristle-under-Saran-Wrap physique in it, unlike many of the women and even more of the men I know. There's something very G.I. Joe about the guy's body; it just strikes me as possibly molded out of hard plastic and there's something so deeply, deeply gay about it as an object of desire. Maybe, again, that's just because most of those whom I hear expressing admiration and desire for his body are (allegedly) straight men.
3) the lazy acting and/or lack of talent: There are really just the two Brad Pitt expressions: there's the smug guy, who smirks his way through pictures like the Oceans series and Mr. and Mrs. Smith and then the twitchy guy, who inarticulately spazzes through flicks like 12 Monkeys and Snatch. Smug and grating to twitchy and one-note is not much of a range, in my book. Let's just say I hope Oscar keeps freezing him out until he learns a new color.
4) the overpayment: I read a Forbes article from 2008 suggesting he made up to $35 million dollars per picture, between salary and pieces of the back-end of his films. Seriously? And we're falling all over ourselves as a culture to praise the guy for making a $1 million donation? What's the big deal? If he makes only one picture per year, that's still less than 3% in charitable donation. Hell, I give more than that, and I make about $35,000 a year. Besides which, nobody whose primary acting traits are smugness and twitchiness should be making over $30 million dollars per picture. That's just a gross overvaluation of the appeal of said smug twitchiness. Or twitchy smugness, if you prefer.
5) the apparent lack of an individuated personality: For this observation, I'm really indebted to my good friend Miriam, who pointed out that he has no clear persona of his own and just adapts who and what he is to suit whomever he's currently sharing a bed with. When he dated Juliette Lewis, he was kinda funky and rock-oriented. Dating Gwyneth Paltrow, the woman without warmth, he seemed similarly icy and Aryan. With Jennifer Aniston, he was America's Sweetheart, playing the role of the sunny, blessed, and grateful. Now that he's with la Angelina, he's playing the part of reformed bad boy (when was that era, by the by? I don't remember him ever being a bad boy, unless making a couple of movies with George Clooney and buying a motorcycle counts. For the record, it doesn't.) turned humanitarian. In other words, once again, his persona seems to be a comfortably niche-marketed simulacra of hers. This is why he makes such a good icon, really--because there's little hint of a real person oozing out of his enlarged pores.
6) the inappropriately younger girlfriend: This is an ongoing pet peeve, and not just with this guy. He's not yet Michael Douglas bad. Even still, he bears watching on this front. I mean really; he was already married to a successful, beautiful and age-appropriate woman. Then, it would seem, the inevitable "oh-crap, I'm going to die one day. I will not always be this pretty and overly attended to by an adoring public" midlife crisis set in, and he heads off for someone more than a decade his junior. I'm with David on this one--you get one decade in either direction. That gives you a full generation in which to screw around. More than that is just sad and kind of greedy. But, if he sticks to people around his own age, he might have to encounter women who remember him when he was a Fabio-esque wannabe, and that might salt his game. GOOD.
7) the dismissal of the wife: And that brings me to the plight of Jennifer Aniston. I'll admit that I actually hated her character on Friends and have found her movies to date to be...fine. So, I wasn't exactly her hugest fan or anything. And for years, I drooled over the bounteous beauty of La Angelina like the rest of the breathing world. However, watching the ungracious and utterly transparent way in which Pitt dropped his wife for his co-star and made no bones about the fact that he was leaving her in part for not wanting to have babies on his timeline and to suit his ego needs flipped it for me. It's one thing to grow apart after years--and in Hollywood, those years can rarely be measured in decades. But, it's quite another to make a very public display of ending one's marriage specifically to hook up with a much younger brood mare. That's just tacky. Not to mention sad and cliche.
8) the skrillions of bastard children: I've seen approximately 4,000 articles on the guy, in part because my mother-in-law has decided to adopt Brangelina as her substitute son and daughter-in-law, since they're giving her skrillions of grandkids and David and I will not. Each of these articles written since 2006 talks about what a Family Man he is, and you can see the praise rays radiating off the page even without the capital lettering. However, none of these articles seem to mention that he is in fact a guy who left a stable marriage to shack up with a younger woman, multiply impregnate her, adopt orphan children with her, and then not cohere the family in a lasting legal way. Apparently, this isn't supposed to grate on anyone's nerves, because we're all so laid-back and California about it. That would be fine, sincerely, if it weren't so transparently hypocritical and full of shit. You don't get to play the Traditional Family Man card for sympathy (Jennifer wouldn't have BABIES, man. What's a guy to do?? Cue the violins.) and also be shacking up with your hot, twisted, blood-wearing, serial-costar-marrying, brother-Frenching mistress.
9) the dissing of the ex-wife: In one final turn of the screw on the whole Jen-Brad-Angie saga, recently he's started (allegedly) talking smack about Aniston. That's just tactless and stupid on a whole new level. Aniston gets bitching rights about you until you both die, schmuck. That's the price of being a womanizing ass. You do not get to complain about her saying that your mistress bragging about bagging you is "uncool." Those aren't even fighting words. Be glad you married the classy one and just stick it to the other one, Pitt, because if your ex-wife wanted to rip you a new one in public once an hour, on the hour, she'd have a ready-made audience of other middle aged women who were dumped by their unfaithful husbands. Be glad she's only calling your girlfriend's perpetual case of foot-in-mouth uncool and not painting a target on both your backs or bashing in the front of your house, in the style of Betty Broderick. Seriously.
10) the architectural get-over-yourself: Apparently, between cashing gazillion dollar paychecks and banging superstars, he enjoys looking at houses. In fact, he likes looking at houses so much that he made a bid to restore and preserve a Greene & Greene house in Pasadena(!) about ten years ago. This resulted in a book, and even more attention to the man. His efforts boil down to throwing a lot of money at it, taking some pictures, and then putting his name up on a plaque on the wall. He's not an architect, he's a very moneyed dilettante. He's somebody's rich, busybody Aunt Greta.
11) the rape of New Orleans: And that brings me to his other book, and the Ground Zero of my hate. Just a couple of weeks ago, a book called Architecture in Times of Need came out, pumping Pitt's whole Make It Right foundation and extolling the virtues of their "rebuilding" efforts for the Lower Ninth in New Orleans. The only problem with this is that I was in New Orleans in April, three and half years after Katrina, and Pitt's much-vaunted foundation had only managed to build about a half dozen very high-concept houses, only two of which were inhabited. And, based on the cars in front (both very high end and expensive), they were inhabited by yuppies, not by the previous inhabitants of the Lower Ninth, which has long been one of the poorest districts in the area. To give a little perspective: during the same time window, Habitat for Humanity had managed to build almost 1000 homes in the same area, nearly all of them inhabited, and without anyone in HfH needing to write a book about how awesome their plan was and how cool they are for thinking of it. We talked to some locals while we were there, and let's just say that he's not so universally beloved in New Orleans as the publicity machine surrounding him would suggest. What he seems to be is a guy with more money than sense, and more vague notions of how to heal the world than concrete plans of action for how to get it done. Rather than throw millions of dollars and endless copy at what a saint he is for helping to get built a half dozen impractically high end homes--and the gentrification of the Lower Ninth that these buildings help to further entrench--we'd be far better off sending that same money and press to Jimmy Carter's Nobel Peace Prize winning organization, which actually can and does make things happen, even when nobody from the press corps is looking.
I could probably rant about the guy for days, but I think I'll leave it here for now. I mean, he already gets plenty of attention. Now he's gotten a lifetime's worth from me. So, in that sense, I guess he's won. Like the terrorists.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Quick Suck: a Hit List
So, with various illnesses, start of new contract years, ongoing budget fiasco situations, etc., it's been difficult to find both time and motivation to really let loose with the hate. In the meantime, then, the time is ripe to give a quick (and, hopefully, frequently updated) list of people, places and things that should Suck It for various reasons. Some will be more obvious in the reasoning than others. Sometime when I feel like it--a time between now and never, to be sure--I'll come back and elaborate on those which merit explanation.
For now, today's ten that should SUCK IT:
1. Ron Jeremy
2. University of California
3. Yelapa, Mexico
4. Owners of cars displaying more than five bumper stickers
5. Stephen Spielberg
6. Google
7. John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods
8. Warren Jeffs--whack-job and FLDS cultist
9. Wikipedia
10. People who use "text" as a verb.
Updates as events merit.
For now, today's ten that should SUCK IT:
1. Ron Jeremy
2. University of California
3. Yelapa, Mexico
4. Owners of cars displaying more than five bumper stickers
5. Stephen Spielberg
6. Google
7. John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods
8. Warren Jeffs--whack-job and FLDS cultist
9. Wikipedia
10. People who use "text" as a verb.
Updates as events merit.
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