S**t that Pisses Me Off

Perhaps a bit strong, but it’s a return to the “sucks” issue I tackled earlier.  This time it’s about bathroom Issues.  I won’t go into too much detail here – no more than necessary.  You may want to pass on reading this around meal time.

 No-Flush.  What is with people who don’t flush?  Are they that forgetful that they can’t remember to take care of that?  I could understand if the output was a bit excessive, but there are two responses to this: (1) I’ve seen non-flushers where the output was only #1.  How would that cause a backup?  More like you just want everyone else to have to smell your urine.  No thanks.  (2) If you did do a #2, flush after the output, THEN wipe, then flush again.  Odds are very low that these two elements flushed separately will clog up the toilet.  This isn’t rocket science.  Toilets have been around since the 19^th century, far longer than any of us have been around.  There is no mystery to using them effectively. FLUSH, people.

 No Access.  I have a major problem with commercial establishments which refuse to grant bathroom access to even their customers.  The Washington Metro is a big example of this.  As yet, Metro has not replaced its human employees with non-peeing or poo-ing robots.  So these Metro employees obviously have to pee and poo somewhere in the Metro, and since I haven’t seen them doing so publicly, they must have somewhere private to do their business in the normal, civilized fashion.  Answer: their “bathrooms” are labeled “water closets”.  But the general public is not only not allowed to use them, Metro won’t even acknowledge their existence.

            Slightly below this are the stingy, nasty places which insist that “bathrooms are for customers only”.  I had a Subway boss in downtown Baltimore suggest that I should buy the foot-long combo BEFORE I relieved my obvious (!) need to use the bathroom.  No thanks.  I went to a strip club next door and used theirs.  Sales to Subway?  ZERO.  To be fair, this was the only Subway that made that demand. 

            Giant, most gas stations, and Staples are cool about letting you walk in and use the toilet and then walk right out without buying anything.  But their reward is that I’m that much more inclined to buy stuff there.  Assholes deserve nothing.

 Parabolic Urinals.  The urinal engineers must have been paid off by a shady conspiracy of dry cleaners, detergent manufacturers, and soap companies.  Because no matter HOW or WHERE you aim, somehow the curvature of the porcelain is deliberately designed and engineered to send a yellow spray back to your legs and knees, requiring soap for your bare legs if you’re wearing shorts, or a good washing for your pants if you’re not.  I demand a Congressional inquiry into this matter, immediately (but not on my tax dollars). 

 Hole in the Floor.  I haven’t been to Japan to sample their uniquely refreshing toilets, but I have seen some bizarre examples of solutions in Europe (Paris, in particular):  a hole in the floor with footprints.  The idea is that you’re supposed to squat down with your feet in the footprints and …drop into the hole.  And these were in fairly modern restaurants which post-date the invention of toilets.  Even an outhouse or port-a-potty has a seat!  What went through their minds?  “Nah, toilets are too expensive.  A hole in the floor is good enough.”

 Wash Up After.  I’ve heard horror stories of waiters in India not washing their hands after using the bathroom – even after doing a #2.  Recall that Seinfeld episode.  Given the persistent posting of “Employees Must Wash Hands Before Returning to Work” signs in commercial restrooms – as much to reassure the customers, I’m sure – perhaps some people do, in fact, need to be specifically told to do the obvious.  Because for whatever reason, somehow it’s not obvious to them.

The Grammys

Every year the Recording Academy doles out its music awards, the Grammys.  According to the Academy, “The GRAMMYs are the only peer-presented award to honor artistic achievement, technical proficiency and overall excellence in the recording industry, without regard to album sales or chart position." In other words, these are claimed to be on the basis of quality and not merely commercial success.

This year LL Cool J was the MC, and English singer Adele cleaned up the awards. By the time she was up on stage accepting the last Grammy, and rapidly losing words to say, she seemed visibly embarrassed, as if being the fortunate beneficiary of a rigged competition.  Let’s face it:  the majority of the Grammys went to acts which actually did perform that night.  Lady Gaga did not perform: and lo and behold, although present, she won no Grammys (I understand she knew it was Adele’s night and wasn’t going to pull a Zoolander and embarrass herself).  Bruno Mars needs to pay the estate of James Brown some heavy royalties.  Though I thought Smurfette Perry was just as hot as ever.

 The problem with this is that the awards appear to be given on the basis of popularity and (official denial notwithstanding) commercial success.  Let’s look at a few examples.Of the so-called classic rock albums, only Sgt. Pepper won a Grammy; no other Beatles album has won – and that includes the White Album and Abbey Road.  The Rolling Stones, whose peak was in the late 60s to early 80s, won for Voodoo Lounge (?).  Dark Side of the Moon?  Nope.  In fact, Pink Floyd’s sole Grammy is for “Marooned”, an instrumental from Division Bell (1994).  No Grammys for Deep Purple.  No Grammys for Jimi Hendrix (!!!).   No Grammys for the Doors or the Grateful Dead.  

 As for harder rock bands: No Grammys for AC/DC – not even for Back in Black.  Van Halen’s sole Grammy is for the F.U.C.K. album – not David Lee Roth era material. No Grammys for Led Zeppelin.  Black Sabbath won only recently for live performance of “Iron Man”.  Remarkably, even Def Leppard has failed to win a Grammy.  High quality progressive acts such as the Moody Blues and King Crimson, whose virtuosity is unchallenged, and rarely matched, are completely ignored.   Frank Zappa, whose output is immense, won only two Grammys.  Even Rush have no Grammys.

When “hard rock/metal” was finally recognized in 1988, the award went to Jethro Tull for Crest of A Knave, although Metallica’s …And Justice For All album was much better esteemed.   Why didn’t Aqualung win a Grammy?  Metallica’s black album finally won some recognition in 1991. 

The music awarded with Grammys typically winds up as the most bland, flavorless, universally appealing product for people who really don’t care much about music.  For them, music is for the background, mood music for sex, or danced to (which may lead to…mood music for sex), but not to be listened to on its own merits.  It’s the musical equivalent of fast food.  Imagine a Food Awards where the winners are typically “McDonald’s for the Big Mac,” or “Wendy’s, for a Big Chicken”, or “Taco Bell, for Crunchy Quesadilla,” – and restaurants and producers of fine food are ignored. 

To make matters even worse, the televised awards ceremony ignores many actual categories, including the heavy metal category and of course, any spoken word or classical music.  Betty White won the spoken word award this year.  Did anyone see her at the Grammys?  

I’ll leave this on a good note.  For all their commercial appeal, the Foo Fighters aren’t half bad.  And the night included a Beach Boys tribute which included the Beach Boys themselves – Brian Wilson and Mike Love on stage together for the first time since the 60s; it’s too bad both Dennis and Carl Wilson are dead and could not join in, except perhaps in spirit.  And Paul McCartney finished up the night with an all-star jam on the appropriately named final track from Abbey Road, “The End” (no one noticed the irony that that album had not been recognized back in 1969).  

Flash Gordon

In the past few weeks I inflicted myself with a barrage of Flash Gordon.  I don’t know why.  Maybe I was curious about the intrepid space hero and thought I’d see something fun and interesting in it all, but very little of it was very entertaining.  The least I can do, however, is describe my experiences.  Maybe someone else will enjoy it more than I did.

 Characters.

Flash Gordon.  The rugged, handsome, space hero.  Not a genius, but bright enough to get the job done.  He can fight, but it’s mostly brute force; he doesn’t seem to know any martial arts.  Flash has no particular skill as a space pilot and not much in the way of ray guns, rockets, or other high-tech gadgets.  Mostly he seems to punch his way out of trouble.  Buzz Lightyear is actually smarter than Flash.

Dale Arden.  The obligatory female love interest so we don’t wonder about Flash and the other male characters (a real danger given some of the costumes, which are more flattering for the men than they are revealing for the women).  She is marginally attractive, average intelligence, and doesn’t seem to do much besides scream and get into or out of danger.  In a sense, she’s the prototype for most of the Bond movie women.  Unlike those women, however, Dale never appears in a bikini or even shows even the slightest cheesecake – nor, for that matter, do any of the other women.  Like Star Trek: The Next Generation, where sex in the future seems to be obsolete.

 Dr. Zarkov.  The scientist, not particularly mad or really that much of a genius, not all the brilliant or imaginative (I could claim that Geordi would run rings around him, but even Scotty is his match) but given Flash’s aptitude for science (or lack thereof) that really makes the Dr. the go-to guy for this by default.

 Emperor Ming (the Merciless).  Despite the name and make-up, he doesn’t seem to be Asian, especially since none of his minions from Mongo appear to be Asian either.  In fact, all the extra-terrestrial races appear to be white.  Even Edgar Rice Burroughs gave the aliens different-colored names (though these were still simply alternate-colored whites, even the “black” and “yellow” men). 

 Sources

Cartoon.  By Alex Raymond.  This appeared in the Sunday comics from 1934 to 1943.  By now there are compendiums available on Amazon.com for $46, but I wasn’t tempted to splurge on these.  I’m not really into comic books in general and don’t even spend that much on Dr. Strange or the Freak Brothers, much less this one that I’m only marginally interested in.  I can’t even remember reading them in the papers myself (I was born in 1969).  So I had to pass on the original source material.

 Movie Serials.  These were black & white and fairly short episodes done in three batches:  Flash Gordon (1936), Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars (1938), and Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (1940).  They were originally shown in movie theaters as trailers before the main features, but each of these was later turned into a feature length film.  I’ve seen the 2^nd and 3^rd.  Buster Crabbe plays the lead role.  He has the strongest claim to having established the character, as no one else improved on his portrayal. 

            The acting is about as good as any porn movie, and the special effects are endearingly cheesy, but both elements wore thin to me in about 5 seconds.  Overall I found them extremely boring.  Something about the plots struck me as being as sophisticated and enthralling as those of a children’s TV show, yet these are supposed to be for adults.  The absence of the slightest romance (even with Dale) pushes this further into the kiddie zone.  Even Harry Potter has more than these.  So they managed to make a space-adventure epic series, spanning all sorts of different planets and races, which is dreadfully boring. 

 1980 Movie.  It had a modestly impressive soundtrack by Queen, featuring Sam Jones as Flash, Timothy Dalton as Prince Barin (the Robin Hood type guy), Topol (best known as Tevye from “Fiddler on the Roof”) as Dr. Zarkov, and Max von Sydow as Ming.  It was pretty flashy (!) with respectable production values and special effects, and had considerably better acting than the original serials, so this is probably the best format to enjoy it in.  Despite not liking the movie serials, I did enjoy this movie. We had actually seen it in the movie theater in Paris, France when it came out.  This one does the best job of keeping some element of campiness without being too silly – the right balance.  Sam Jones has a cameo in "Ted", as Mark Wahlberg's character has a particular nostalgic fondness for this film. 

 1974 Parody – Flesh Gordon.  Remarkably, this predates the 1980 movie by 6 years; there is enough similarity with the latter (though a completely different plot) that I wonder if the 1980 producers had seen this.  For a soft-porn parody the acting is remarkably good.  Moreover, it has considerable stop-action animation special effects, in the famous Ray Harryhausen tradition: some penis-snake one-eyed monsters early on, corkscrew penis killer robots later on, and a huge Cyclops type of demon at the end.  These ingredients alone give it some cinematic merit, though I’ve never heard of it being touted as a cult film, e.g. “Jason and Argonauts”, which some (Tom Hanks) consider the premier stop-action animation film.  Of course there is also considerable nudity and some soft-core sex (the collector’s edition DVD, despite its claim, did not restore the long-lost hard-core scenes which were cut out long ago).  I put this as a close #2 to the 1980 film.

 Honorable Mention/See Also:

Leather Goddesses of Phobos.  Ages ago, back in high school (1982-1986 B.C.) we were playing text adventure games by an imaginative company called Infocom (watch for a blog in the future).  This was a time at which graphic adventures were developing but still fairly primitive and not all that impressive; we never did finish the “Hi-Res Adventure: Cranston Manor”.  I suppose the Infocom designers were frustrated novelists, because they felt that a thousand words were much better than any picture.  Anyhow.

            LGP was their tribute to Flash Gordon.  Since it was kind of raunchy (it even had a 3D cartoon booklet which included considerably more cheesecake, though no nudity, than the original Flash Gordon) I’m beginning to suspect the writers had indeed seen “Flesh Gordon”.  I have to say I enjoyed it.  NOW, someone needs to adapt these text adventure games as smartphone apps.  Who’s on it?

Quality / Price = Value

This is yet another vague and abstract topic, but it still means something – insofar as our buying choices in a capitalist economy are varied.  I suppose in the USSR your options are “generic, generic and generic” – all shitty, when they’re available at all.

 I reduce the formula to Q / P = V where

Q          =          quality

P          =          price

And

V          =          Value.

 This results in the following outcomes:

a)         If you raise quality relative to price, you increase value. 

b)         If you lower quality relative to price, you reduce value

c)         If you increase quality, but increase price even more, you reduce value.

d)         Similarly, if you reduce price, but reduce quality even more, you also reduce value.

 If you were to chart price and quality on a graph, with x axis being price and the y axis being value, you would probably wind up with a bell curve.  The cheapest stuff is crap.  And the most expensive stuff is a bad value because the marginal cost far exceeds the marginal benefit.  So items in the middle are the best value.  For any item there will be an equilibrium point of maximum value where additional expenditures do not offer correspondingly higher quality, thus value drops off.  This, however, not completely objective as “quality” is by its nature subjective and some features mean more to some people than others. 

 “Cheap” people claim to be focused on value but in reality simply take the cheapest item as a matter of principle, even if a slightly more expensive item has a much higher quality, i.e. is a better value.

 Extremely rich and status-conscious people at the other end of the spectrum pay top dollar for the highest quality even if it means ignoring value.  They are aware that they are ignoring value, their point is, “I’m rich enough to be able to afford to be indifferent.”

 The rest of us, with limited budgets but some appreciation of quality, prefer to actually focus on value and seek it in the goods and services we purchase.