The Rocktagon Recap of UFC 154: St-Pierre vs. Condit

Featuring horrible ring attire (resulting in even more horrible scoring), overweight referees, a knockout for the ages and quite possibly the best MMA fight of 2012!

Merry Thanksgiving, folks! Tonight’s shindig is emanating from Montreal, Quebec, Canada, while I am calling it LIVE from the quaint and cozy Bailey’s in K’Saw. Tonight marks the long-anticipated return of GSP after 19 months of rehabbing, and this evening, he takes on quite possibly his most dangerous opponent since…will, probably, ever, really…in Carlos “The Natural Born Killer” Condit. It’s legit champion vs. interim champion in a Welterweight unification bout, and we might just see St-Pierre’s four year-long plus reign as WW champ come to an end a little after midnight tonight. Well, that, or GSP will just dry hump his way to another five round decision. Probably that second thing, after some deliberation. But that ain’t all, folks, as we also have Martin “The Anthropomorphic Corndog” Kampmann taking on Johny “The Beard” Hendricks in a fight which may very well determine the next challenger in line for the Welterweight strap. And also…well, looking at the card, that seems to be just about it. But hey, Mark Hominick IS fighting tonight, so there is the offhand chance that his head will explode for our entertainment again.

With the pleasantries out of the way, who amongst you is ready for THE ROCKTAGON RECAP OF UFC 154: ST-PIERRE VS. CONDIT!

As always, our hosts are Mike Goldberg and Joe Rogan. In case you missed it, the UFC posted the single most amazingly horrible Photoshop job of all time to promote the show, which I’ve lovingly reproduced for you right here.

Folks, this isn’t a joke. If you checked out the official UFC YouTube page around Halloween, THIS WAS WHAT WAS GREETING YOU ON THE FRONT PAGE. And for the rest of the show, if you’re not thinking of the main event in terms of Team Edward vs. Team Jacob, you’re a much, much better soul than I.

Featherweight Bout

Mark Hominick vs. Pablo Garza

Hominick has dropped three in a row in the UFC, and you know what happens if you go on a 0-4 skid. Garza is an absolutely massive featherweight; at 6 feet tall and 145 pounds, I have NO idea why they call him “The Scarecrow,” either.

Short striking exchange to begin, with the Canadian crowd going nuts for Hominick. Hominick hooks Garza with a right. Garza shoots in for a takedown and looks for an armbar, but nada. Hominick sneaks his way out. Hominick drops him with some body shots. Garza firing back. Garza cuts Hominick open with an uppercut, and concludes the round with a couple of jabs to that gooey red eye on Hominick.

Garza begins the second round by trying to bicycle kick his opponent like Liu Kang. Hominick with some punches, but Garza ends up getting the takedown. Garza is just teeing off on Hominick, who’s a bloody mess now. Hominick trying for an armbar. He’s throwing some punches from the bottom, and now Garza’s bleeding a bit. Garza rains elbows to conclude the second. 20-18 Pablo, if you ask me.

Garza throwing kicks like crazy, while Hominick tries to sneak in a body shot when he can. The reach advantage is really, uh, advantageous, for Garza here. Hominick looks for another armbar, but Garza maintains dominance. Garza with another takedown, and more elbows.

A unanimous decision victory for Garza.

Lightweight Bout

Mark Bocek vs. Rafael dos Anjos

Knee exchange city to begin the first round. Dos Anjos with an uppercut and a front kick. Bocek slips. Bocek has dos Anjos up against the cage, working for a takedown. He doesn’t get it.

Dos Anjos gets kicked in the crab apples, so a time out just a few seconds into the second round. Bocek looking for a takedown, and dos Anjos ends up wrestling him to the ground. Dos Anjos can’t get a kimura, so he just rains shots on his opponent instead. Bocek bleeding pretty bad now. Dos Anjos with another takedown, and more dominance from the top. Dos Anjos concludes the round with another takedown. Easily 20-18 for the Brazilian here.

Bocek looking for a takedown in the opening seconds of the third. Not happening. Dos Anjos with a monster slam. Dos Anjos has Bocek’s back. Bocek looking for a kimura, but it’s a null effort. Both guys standing. We get a clinch, dos Anjos nails some kicks, and this one is all over.

A unanimous decision victory for dos Anjos, in what has to be the most impressive performance of his career thus far.

Middleweight Bout

Francis Carmont vs. Tom Lawlor

Tom Lawlor comes out to “Pretty Fly (for a White Guy)" and looking sort of like the bastard amalgamation of Booger from “Revenge of the Nerds” and Spike Dudley. Looks like the spirit of Jason Miller is alive and well in Zuffa-Land!

Carmont, by the way, is noticeably larger than Lawlor. Tom bullies his foe into the cage, and tries to clinch for a bit. Carmont keeping Lawlor at bay with his longer reach. Lawlor bullies him back into the cage, and looks for a kimura. The round ends with Lawlor desperately trying to lock in a guillotine.

A pretty equal exchange to begin the second, and Lawlor shoots for a takedown. And he lands it. Carmont back up almost instantly. Lawlor with another takedown, and another guillotine attempt to end the round. Should by Tom’s fight, 20-18.

For whatever reason, Joe Rogan is just ragging the hell out of the ref during this fight. Carmont with some knees, and Lawlor has to backpedal. Carmont with some kicks and a takedown. Lawlor back up, and the final round ends rather unspectacularly.

Hoo boy, we’ve got ourselves a split decision for CARMONT, somehow. Just how bad is the call? Carmont’s a Frenchman, and a FRENCH CANADIAN crowd is chanting “le bullshit.”

Welterweight Bout

Martin Kampmann vs. Johny Hendricks

Hendricks with some short range punches, and he murder death kills Kampmann with a knockout blow less than a minute into the fight. In the post-fight, Hendricks said that he DIRELY wanted the winner of tonight’s main event, and wished his wife “happy birthday.” Remember, guys: nothing makes a girl’s heart melt more than punching a Norwegian dude, and hard.

UFC Welterweight Championship Bout

Georges St-Pierre (Champion) vs. Carlos Condit (Interim Champion)

Condit comes out Rage Against the Machine’s cover of Springsteen’s “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” while GSP comes out to some hippity hoppity stuff that I don’t know nothing about. GSP does cartwheels and the Triple H water-spitting thing as soon as he gets into the cage. Condit throws a kick, and GSP gets a takedown. Well, didn’t see that coming. Condit on his back, looking for a sub attempt. GSP just raining shots on his adversary. GSP with some elbows, and Condit is already a bloody mess before the first round concludes.

Condit, with a nice crimson mask, is throwing kicks like crazy. GSP counters with a jab. Now GSP throwing some high kicks. We have ourselves an excellent striking match-up going on now. GSP with a superman punch, and another takedown. Condit trying to land some elbows form the top, but GSP is just smothering him. All GSP so far tonight.

Third round begins with Condit throwing some looping kicks. AND CONDIT WITH A HEAD KICK THAT SENDS GSP TO THE CANVAS. Condit hops on GSP and is throwing everything he has at him. This is really the first time we’ve seen GSP in trouble since the first Matt Serra fight. GSP scrambles back to his feet, and lands a takedown. Well, shit. GSP is starting to look a little worse for wear now. Condit with elbows from the bottom, but they’re not doing much. Things get vertical. Condit looks for a standing kimura, but GSP responds with another takedown. The third ends with GSP dominating from the top.

Fourth round, and both guys are trying to land some head kicks. There’s a picture-in-picture box in the lower left hand corner of the screen, showing Anderson Silva watching the bout with rapt attention. GSP with a takedown, and he’s moving into side control. Uh-oh. Condit looking for a triangle, while GSP pops him from up top. Both guys back up, Condit trips up GSP, and GSP responds in kind with another takedown. Condit HAS to finish GSP in the fifth.

Condit throwing more kicks and short range punches. GSP looking for a takedown, and he ends up connecting with a big right. Now it’s jab central. GSP with another takedown, and I think that’s all she wrote. Condit looking for an armbar, but it isn’t happening. As far as I’m concerned, this is our 2012 Fight of the Year right here.

A clear unanimous decision victory for St-Pierre. In the post-fight, he said he was open to a mega-fight against “The Spider,” but only after he talked things over with his agent. And like that, the hype train for the long, LONG awaited GSP-Silva “Fight of the Ever” is officially on track…

So, Where Do We Go From Here? Well, it looks like GSP vs. Silva is FINALLY going to happen, which leaves Johny Hendricks, the clear #2 welterweight on the planet, just kinda’ “there” until at least mid 2013. Why not give him the winner of the upcoming Rory MacDonald/ B.J. Penn fight and have ourselves a bona-fide, 100 percent legitimate #1 contender’s match in the downtime? Even in defeat, Carlos Condit solidified himself as easily one of the top five welterweight fighters on the planet. How about giving him another bout against Nick Diaz when his suspension is finally up come February? And as far as Kampmann goes, it was a pretty crappy loss, but  he’s still a top-ten welterweight, no matter how you slice it. Why not put him in the cage against Demian Maia and see what shenanigans ensue?

The Verdict: Well, the first couple of fights were mildly disappointing, but the Kampmann/Hendricks bout gave us a legitimate knockout of the year contender and the St-Pierre/Condit main event probably IS the best MMA bout of 2012. I can understand a few squabbles here and there, but on the whole? It was a pretty memorable show, and the last two bouts DEFINITELY delivered.

Show Highlight: GSP/Condit was one of the best title fights in recent memory. Hendrick’s super-awesome KO of Kampmann is a close runner-up.

Show Lowlight: Well, that Carmont decision call was pretty lackluster, I’d say.

Rogan-ism of the Night: “How fat can you be and still be a referee?”

Five Things I Learned From Tonight’s Show: 

- If you’re at least partially French and fighting in a French speaking territory, odds are, you’ve already won the fight.

- Whatever Mark Hominick’s face is made out of is probably reverse Adamantium - the weakest substance in the known universe.

- You can almost kill a dude in the cage and STILL lose a round in the score cards.

- On your third anniversary, be sure to get your gal a knocked out European.

- Apparently, fat rolls interfere with your ability to efficiently officiate a contest.

Well, that’s all I’ve got for you tonight. Crank up “Supernova” by Liz Phair and “Lip Gloss” by That Dog, and I will be seeing you in a few.

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In Defense of "Innocence of Muslims"

There’s no denying that the hyper-controversial movie is crude, stupid and highly offensive…but is that really enough to warrant worldwide censorship?

On June 23, 2012, a film called “Innocence of Bn Laden” (apparently, the extra “i” in “Bin” went over the Kinkos budget) was screened at the Vine Theater in Los Angeles, to an audience of allegedly 10 people. And unbeknownst to that scant crowd, they’ll probably be the only folks in history to get a look at the full version of what has come to be known as “Innocence of Muslims”, i.e., “That One Movie That’s Pissed Off A Whole Lot Of People Over There in The Middle East.”

Even before the condensed version of the film went viral on YouTube, it’s history was pretty darn bizarre. The first sighting of the film came in the form of advertisements that somehow made it into the pages of Arab World, perhaps the Los Angeles area’s most circulated Muslim-targeted entertainment industry trade magazine. According to the Los Angeles Times, the ads caught the attention of some fellows over at the Anti-Defamation League, but since they couldn’t read Arabic, they decided to just live and let be.

The crew supposedly filmed the movie on a one-day shoot at the Blue Cloud Ranch, for a somewhat paltry $1,195.00 USD. It’s primary backer was Media for Christ - a Duarte, Calif.-based nonprofit that, obviously, has tried to move heaven and earth in order to distance itself from the incendiary production - who say that they were duped into laying down money for some religious-themed action movie called “Desert Warriors.” A second screening of the film was scheduled for June 30, but according to an expert eyewitness - a Vietnam Veteran who told the L.A. Times that he slipped ads for the screening at various mosques in the area, with the hopes of most likely beating up whoever came out of the theater afterward - not a single soul showed up for the presentation.

And then, some dude named “Sam Bacile” uploaded a poorly edited 13-minute digest of the film to YouTube, and the rest, as the say, is history. And also, 75 dead people and counting, but hey, who’s really keeping score here?

By now, we’ve come to fill in most of the blanks regarding the film’s origin. We know the primary financier of the film was some dude named Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, an Egyptian-born Coptic Christian who, over the last three decades, has been busted by the feds for everything from intent to manufacture meth to bank fraud to stealing the identity of a six-year-old child. We know that the actors involved in the film were totally duped by the filmmakers, who ended up dubbing over their dialogue to include references to Muhammad, Allah and the Quran without their knowledge. But what we don’t know - and may possibly never, ever know - is what happened to the full version of the film, which was said to have been at least 70 minutes long. At this point, it looks like “Innocence of Muslims” - by the way, a media-bestowed title and not an official one, in any regard - has officially joined movies like the original cut of “Greed” and Jerry Lewis’ “The Day the Clown Cried” in the pantheon of legendary “lost films.”

You’ve probably seen the clip on YouTube by now, but if you haven’t, here’s my condensed look at the condensed movie:

The film begins with a doctor’s family being attacked by an angry mob, who ransack the doc’s clinic (in what is easily one of the poorest green screen jobs you’ll ever see) and hack women upside the head with plastic axes. Prior to that, some unnamed general talks about how had Muhammad had 60 plus wives, and how he himself would kill his wife and “steal her medicine” if she became ill.

From there, we learn that the doctor’s family is Christian, and by golly, all them Egyptian forces sure are persecuting them extra hard today. Following some of the absolute clumsiest editing you’ll ever bare witness to, the doctor draws an equation on a dry-erase board explaining how “Muhammad” is the great variable in terrorist activity. Of course, everyone has had their voices dubbed over, and horrendously. If you recall that one episode of “South Park” after Isaac Hayes left, you’ll have a pretty good idea of what audio atrocities await you here.

Then, we get to the stuff that may be considered just slightly offensive to members of the Islamic faith. “Muhammad” is introduced as this thin white guy with long hair - think, an anorexic Conan the Barbarian - who is called both “the unknown father” and “the bastard” by his family. He lays in the lap of a woman, who keeps asking him if he “sees the devil” between her thighs, which is followed up by a quick cut to “Muhammad” labeling a donkey as “the first Muslim animal.”

After that, one of “Muhammad’s” handlers says that he will make a “book” for him, consisting of various parts of the New Testament, the Torah and some flat out lies. Then, we see “Muhammad” as a gang leader, who advocates pillaging, raping and all sorts of perverse child abuse. A few parallels are drawn between Muhammad’s campaign and the Jews’ conquest of Jericho, which devolves into a segment in which not only is “Muhammad” accused of being a child predator, but a H-O-M-O. And if that isn’t enough for you, two of his underlings even debate whether or not he’s a “top” or “bottom,” too.

Then, we see an old lady get ripped apart by horses, because she called “Muhammad” a caravan robber, an oppressor and a tyrant. Following that scene, a dude is killed in front of his wife (once again, an all Caucasian cast on display here), which is capped by a sequence in which “Muhammad” is beat up by two women after some sort of three-way sexual escapade. The film concludes with a blood-soaked “Muhammad” staring into the screen…in essence, the audiovisual equivalent of telling the really, really unstable kid back in the third grade that his mother was a whore, his father was a transvestite and that his breath smelled like various shades of animal anus.

It’s pretty easy to see why so many Muslims would take offense to that. In fact, it’s very, VERY easy to see that. The big question moving from here, however, is whether or not the film has the RIGHT to exist, solely as religiously-anchored agitprop.

So far, the movie has been banned in Egypt, Libya, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Singapore, with efforts currently underway to ban the film in Russia, Brazil and Turkey. After the suits at Google refused to take the video of YouTube, the governments of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sudan responded in kind by simply blocking ALL of YouTube from its national Intraweb. Even members of the Obama Administration are reported to have asked Google to “reconsider” hosting the videos, if that wasn’t Orwellian enough for you. There’s no denying that “Innocence of Muslims” is offensive and stupid and poorly made, but is that really enough reason to attempt to eradicate it from the face of the earth like it was rinderpest or something?

Well, ya’ll know me, and I’m one First Amendment-loving mother-lover. Not only do I think the guaranteed right to free expression is the absolute best thing about America (umm, when it’s allotted, anyway), I would say it’s pretty much the ONLY truly, 100 percent, unequivocally, indisputably great thing about the US of A as a whole. Just try looking at the libel laws in Canada and the U.K, and the staggering number of films banned in such liberal progressive utopias as the Netherlands and Norway, and you’ll see just how much more expressive freedom we have as Americans than any other peoples on Earth. Much more than any other right - the right to healthcare, the right to economic equality, the right to employment, the right to housing, and all of that other jazz we’ll never really have - I value my First Amendment right to say whatever I want, no matter how stupid, illogical, irrational and offensive more than any other liberty. As long as I have mostly unfettered expression as a citizen, I could probably put up with all of the other crap going on in the country, and rather happily, too.

And then, along comes something like “Innocence of Muslims,” and things get all sticky and problematic for everybody. Now, the U.S. Constitution says you’ve got the right to say pretty much whatever you want, barring three exceptions: it’s a threat to national security, it’s obscene (and woo boy, the fun we could have discussing the ridiculously subjective nature of that little tidbit) or a direct public threat to at least one or more individuals. Hell, the Supreme Court even ruled earlier this summer that, technically, lying was constitutionally protected speech, so there ya’ go right there.

Clearly, in the hands of easily frightened reviewers, “Innocence of Muslims” could  be considered a national security threat (well, no shit there, Sherlock) but whether or not it’s truly obscene is in the eye of the beholder. Seeing as how the film has SOME inkling of artistic and political merit, it passes the SLAPS test rather facilely, and the film, while definitely aimed to piss off, doesn’t make any direct, physical threats to any specific, identifiable peoples.

With that in mind, the grounds for censoring the film - in accordance to the presupposed, U.S. Constitution definition of expressive freedom - can only exist in a vacuum in which the film itself is considered a security risk that MUST be suppressed in order to prevent vindictive retaliation from some foreign presence. It’s a film intended to agitate a population known for extreme behavior, no doubts there, but is that REALLY enough of a reason to contemplate banning the video outright?

I say no, for several reasons. First of all, just about EVERYTHING can be considered offensive to a certain population, even something as innocuous, domestically, as giving another individual a “thumbs up” of appreciation. Displaying an image of Muhammad as a wife beater and a chi-mo is certain to infuriate a couple of lunatic fringe Islamists, but in case you haven’t noticed, it’s only a small portion - as in, proportionally, about the same percentage of Christians that blow up abortion clinics and try to keep Martin Scorsese movies from playing at the local cinema here in America - of the Arab World that’s instigating such acts of violence supposedly inspired by the movie. Call me a cynic, but I don’t necessarily think that the film itself was what directly inspired such acts of mayhem and murder; in essence, these are people that have wanted to commit acts of widespread homicide for quite some time, and “Innocence of Muslims” only served as a convenient excuse for the periodic uncapping of said murderous rage.

A secondary reason as to why the film shouldn’t even be in the running for censorship is that it PROMOTES domestic civility. Yeah, you heard me right, I said “promotes” civility. How? Because it’s an artistic, non-violent form of political activity, that’s why. As dumb and offensive as a lot of politically-motivated folks are here in the U.S., we can at least take comfort in knowing that their stupid and offensive behavior is limited to inane blog posts and empty, non-nondescript threats on YouTube. All in all, I’d much rather have some wacko burn copies of the Quran to display religious contempt than having some other wacko drive a truck bomb through a restaurant, so the next time you hear someone bemoan the “wretchedness” of Fred Phelps or Louie Farrakhan, just remind yourself that at least they’re expressing their hostilities with words as opposed to pipe bombs.

And lastly, I parrot the words of a guy I never thought I’d by quoting for any legitimate reason, because if the film IS banned, that means the terrorists have indeed won. By appeasing a loose string of religious fundamentalist maniacs, that’s practically cultivating violent activity as a sure-thing in the future, because it demonstrates that targeted, violent acts WORK as modules and methods of obtaining prior restraint against politically, religiously and culturally dialectic opinions. “If you blow us up,” the message there is, “then you’ll get exactly what you want out of us.” Now, let’s just see how far that little strategy goes in preventing acts of ethnocentric violence in the future.

At the end of the day, there’s no denying that “Innocence of Muslims” is but an attempt to rattle the monkey cages, but guess what? It’s an attempt to rattle the monkey cages that’s decisively non-violent, non-oppressive and ultimately, non-hurtful (directly, anyway) to anyone. It’s crude and stupid and pretty thoughtless, but in those Bizarro qualities, I think you’ll find everything you need to in order to defend it as an artistic vision.

Hey, I’d rather watch a movie that blows than get blown up, any day…

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Jimbo Goes to the Movies: “Wreck-It Ralph” Review

Disney’s New Animated Flick is the Mega-Crossover Extravaganza Gamers Have Been Dreaming Of Since the Days of the Super Nintendo. And on Top of That? It Might Just Be The Year’s Best Animated Movie By An 8-Bit Mile

"Wreck-It Ralph" (2012)

Director: Rich Moore

There was a moment during “Wreck-It Ralph” that I came to the sudden realization that my generation had effectively won the “culture war.” There I was, in a room full of adult human beings, that were giving a standing ovation for Sonic the Hedgehog flashing onscreen. At that moment, I knew that the “necessary succession” between generations that Sigmund Freud once spoke of had officially transpired, and for the next 40 or so years, we’re destined to see pop culture made by us, for us, with sensibilities that are utterly un-interpretable for anyone over the age of 35.

As a guy that spends half of his free time writing about old school video games and junk food, it dawned upon me - about halfway through the picture, really - that either I unconsciously wrote the screenplay for the movie while I was sleepwalking, or - even less likely - that maybe, just maybe, my weird-ass blood pressure is a little bit closer to the national pulse than I’d dared imagine previously.

This movie is absolutely unintelligible to anyone that wasn’t born after 1975. If you didn’t grow up on a strict Oreos and Atari 2600 diet - or feasted upon Dunkaroos with a Sega Genesis controller in your hand - or even jammed Sour Patch Kids down your gullet with a Game Boy Advance by your side - then there’s no way you’ll be able to understand “Wreck-It Ralph.” Baby Boomers would be better off walking into a foreign film wearing one of those “sensory deprivation” bags from Guantanamo on their heads than ambling into a theater screening this movie. The flick is intentionally interpretable only to those that have gaming culture down pat; long story short, if you don’t know what an “Altered Beast” is, you’re waltzing headlong into a briar patch of confusion, befuddlement and perhaps most perplexing of all - the language of Q*Bert.

A lot of movies base their humor on referential comedy, but “Wreck-It Ralph” might just be the first movie I’ve ever seen where the ENTIRE HUMOR of the film is exclusively referential in nature. When the main character of the film picks up an exclamation point, unless you had prior knowledge of the “Metal Gear Solid” franchise, you would be utterly confounded by why everyone else in the room is hooting and hollering and sounding like they’re about one tickled rib from a pair of pissed pants.  It’s this contextual displacement that serves as the crux of the film’s comedy; it’s more or less the fact that Ryu and Ken are in something OTHER than the medium they are known for that makes the movie humorous, and not the fact that Ryu and Ken stop fighting each other as soon as the arcade closes, that gives the film its comedic quality. This film isn’t just a post-modern satire…it may very well be the first truly post-post-modern satire our generation can fully and rightfully claim as our own.

I suppose the best way to approach “Wreck-It Ralph” is “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” only with Eggman and Zangief serving as stand-ins for Donald and Daffy Duck. Yeah, there’s a pretty healthy serving of “Toy Story” in there, too, but by and large, “Wreck-It Ralph” is the come-one, come-all, mega-crossover Apocalypse-a-Geddon that video game wing nuts like me and…oh, probably a good 60 percent of everybody in the world under the age of 30...has been impatiently yearning for since the first time somebody told us that “Mortal Kombat” was better than “Street Fighter II.”

This movie is a pop-culture cluster-eff the likes of which we may never see again…or at least until Walt Disney decides to give audiences in 2030 “Star Wars vs. The Marvel Universe,” which will assuredly become the first motion picture in history to earn an infinity dollars at the box office. “Wreck-It Ralph” is a candy-coated, super-pastel, bug-guts infested extravaganza featuring more copyright protected characters and blatant product placement than just about any flick I can think of in recent memory. It’s sort of what would happen if you merged “Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue” with “Mac and Me,” only with Pixar’s money and screenwriting prowess behind all of the sound and fury and Laffy Taffy name-checks. There’s no denying that “Wreck-It Ralph” is a  dream sensorial experience for Gen-Y kids all across the globe, but the truly remarkable thing about the film - I mean, the absolute awe-inspiring, face-rocking, Goomba-crunching aspect of the flick - is that, on top of all of the sugar and self-fellating humor and cameos and characters with inexplicably huge noses - is that it’s a downright GREAT movie. As in, one of the absolute best I’ve seen this year, and quite possibly the best CGI flick to come down the turnpike since “Toy Story 3.”

The cast in “Wreck-It Ralph” is pretty damned outstanding, even after you factor out 8- and 16-bit icons like Pac-Man and M. Bison. Dewey Cox plays the titular character, a Donkey Kong stand-in that’s plum sick of being vilified just because he’s…well, a villain. Eventually, he grows tired of being dissed by his in-game neighbors, and decides to leap out of his own coin-op and explore the other game worlds of his arcade environs. After a brief stop through “Game Central Station,” he finds himself in over his pixelated noggin when he attempts to score a particular honorary medal from a light gun game that seems to be equal parts “Metroid Prime,” “Gears of War” and “Call of Duty.” Things go about as well for him as you’d imagine, and he ends up getting drop kicked all the way into “Sugar Rush” - a super-saccharine arcade racer that seems to be the bastard amalgamation of “Strawberry Shortcake” and “Mario Kart.”

From there, we’re introduced to all of the movie’s big players. There’s a snot-nosed Bratz doll played by Sarah Silverman, a Samus Aran knockoff voiced by what’s her name from “Glee” and even an appearance by Al Bundy himself at one point. I have to give special props to the dude that voiced “Fix It Felix, Jr.,” the movie’s Mario-ish working class hero, a Southern-drawling, golly-gee throwback that runs around with a hammer that literally has the Midas touch.

I really can’t tell you too much about the storyline, but while it is fairly formulaic at times, the acting and animation is so strong that you can’t help being sucked into the melodrama with a smile on your face. Just about the entire damn movie is an hour and a half of fan service - split-second cameos by Skrillex, graffiti that name drops both “Leeroy Jenkins” and “Sheng Long,” not to mention a sequence where the villain of the film (ingeniously modeled after, of all things, the driver from “Pole Position”) hacks into his computer’s motherboard with a little help from both an NES control pad and the Konami Code. Even moderate video game enthusiasts would get a thrill and a half just tabulating all of the cultural relics herein - it’s like watching a way more focused, way more structured and way more satisfying version of “Scott Pilgrim,” really.

It’s hard not to find the film utterly enjoyable and instantly gratifying - sort of like an all-night “Gunstar Heroes” and Twinkies binge. It’s a movie that really grasps both the source material and the video game culture; as apparent by the inclusion of a Walter Day-ish arcade owner and an end-of-movie Easter egg that harks back to the “Pac-Man” kill screen, the people that made the flick definitely know their way around a Colecovision. Well, that, or they really, really liked “The King of Kong.” Hell, if a Billy Mitchell clone isn’t the sinister, arcade-closing Vaudeville villain in the sequel, I think we might just have to start a riot or two.

Long story short, if you haven’t seen “Wreck-It Ralph” by now, you need to. I don’t care if it’s released by an ungodly, Satanic hyper-conglomerate that acquisition-by-acquisition, is hell-bent on purchasing the rights to ever pop culture institution ever in history, this is as an ass-kicking homage to joystick culture that nobody worth their Earthworm Jim cartridges should overlook. Not only is it one of the most enjoyable animated movies to come out this year, “Wreck-It Ralph” might just be one of the ten best movies you’ll catch in 2012 altogether. And it certainly beats the shit out of what Pixar’s been hocking us for the last two summers, that’s for sure…

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Why Was Obama Re-elected?

The reason why the incumbent succeeded has nothing to do with red and blue issues, but rather, the growing gap between “Green” and “Grey” America

As soon as Mitt Romney conceded that fateful Tuesday evening, GOP strategists across America scrambled to pinpoint excuses as to why the Republican candidate failed to unseat incumbent Barack Obama. And in hindsight - glorious, glorious hindsight - they managed to figure out what the rest of the planet had deduced several months earlier.

Now, I’m no political scientist, but maybe, just maybe, Mitt Romney saying that a good half of the country “didn’t matter” was detrimental to his campaign. I think it wasn’t until AFTER the election that Republican campaigners realized that not only was “47 percent” a pretty big number, but for the most part, a majority of those within said population had the ability, the capacity, and - much to the surprise of conservatives - the motivation to roll out of their public housing and cast a ballot come Election Day. And by golly, all of those welfare-users and food-stampers and non-tax-payers decided to vote for the guy that, shockingly, didn’t call them a bunch of “welfare-users,” “food-stampers” and “non-tax-payers.”

Looking at the statistics, it’s pretty much apparent why Romney lost. You see, the Romney campaign used this old strategy called the “Well, Whitey Will Vote For Me!” approach, and as turns out, heterosexual, happily wed-with-children, land-owning males, preferably middle-aged, AREN’T the only inhabitants of these United States.

Looking at the empirical data, a majority of Caucasian males may have voted for the Mittster, but apparently, Charlie Caucasian ain’t the election-deciding, state-swinging, hegemonic force of nature he used to be.

So, who ended up voting for the other guy, you may ask? Well, I guess it’s not surprising that a good nine out of ten African-Americans cast their vote for the now two-term President, but clearly, it had to have been a SHOCK to the GOP strategists that the Hispanic vote went to Obama - a guy that’s tried to assemble an immigration reform package for the last four years - as opposed to a dude who represented a party that’s been trying to literally throw them out of the country since 1986. Along those same lines, most Asian voters sided with Obama - since, apparently, those same immigration measures would benefit them and their MIT-ready by the eighth grade children. In a year that’s seen numerous Republican candidates try to expound upon the moral latitudes of rape, maybe it shouldn’t have been all that surprising that a majority of women - across pretty much all racial and ethnic demographics - choose Obama over Romney.

Clearly, a number of racial, ethnic and gender issues all played mighty big parts in why Romney lost, but if you really want to dissect why the Republicans took a dump and died at the ballot box, you’re going to have to look at something a little less understated by analysts and pundits.

In essence? You’re going to have to figure out if candidates are “Green” or “Grey,” not “Blue” or “Red.”

You may be wondering what the heck I’m talking about here, so give me ample time to elucidate.

When I say “green,” I’m not referring to Ralph Nader’s horribly orchestrated lampoon of a political party, nor am I referencing a bunch of bean sprout eating environmentalist nut-jobs. In this sense, I’m actually talking about the members of rural America - i.e., those that do not live in large urban accumulations - as a totalized voting bloc.

You see, the inhabitants of rural America - you know, the half of the country that doesn’t live in metropolises or urban spill over sites - tend to have different value sets than those that live in urban and quasi-urban environments (and there will be much more on that demographics later on, dear reader.)

By and large, rural Americans - and to some extent, a sizable portion of those that live in suburban areas - are dependable Republican voters. For the most part, rural and suburban folks are Caucasian, some flavor of Christian (more times than not, evangelical ones on top of that), and heterosexual (or at least, that’s what they tell their wives before embarking upon those mysterious “all weekend fly fishing trips,” anyway.) The socioeconomics run the gamut from very, very wealthy to very, very poor, but for the most part, the “values” of these people are identical: owning a home (and private property) is good, being married is really good, and having children is super-mega-duper good.

As far as age ranges go, it’s an across-the-board deal here, but for the most part, it’s a population that’s skewed a bit towards older individuals. As a peoples, their concerns are mostly centered on individualistic needs - that is, what is good for me and my family is great, and everything else is practically irrelevant (or socialistic, your pick.)

Now, the other half of the country is comprised of “Grey” people, and despite the nomenclature, I’m not talking about decrepitly old and sickly people or “traditional” alien beings. These are the people that live in urban environments, urbanized communities or in the outskirts of major metropolitan areas.

“Grey” voters are people that, almost always, tend to vote Democratically. Here, the racial and ethnic demographics are much more varied than they are in the rural environs - in fact, in most major urban environments, Caucasians aren’t just minority constituents, but frequently only a few percentage points of the entire demographical pie as a subset. Religious affiliation here is also much, much more diverse than it is amongst “Green” voters, and while large numbers within the “Grey” base label themselves as non-religious, even the religiously-inclined “Grey” voters are quick to downplay the importance of religion as a sociopolitical influence. In other words, even if they do believe in some higher power, they DON’T want the forces of religion commingling with the forces of politics in any fashion - a far cry from the beliefs of most “Green” voters, who not only make religiously-motivated issues major campaign matters, but tend to vote exclusively for politicians that share - or at least, claim to share - the same religious convictions as they do.

Clearly, not everybody in urban accumulations are gay, but for the most part, the environments are a little more receptive of homosexual individuals. By and large, a majority of “Grey” individuals believe that gay people should have the right to marry, while most people out there in “Green America” are deeply, deeply opposed to the idea. As with the “Greens,” the socioeconomics of the “Greys” runs from cartoonishly rich to cartoonishly poor, but their lifestyle convictions are almost diametrical to what the rural folks embrace: just about everybody rents property as opposed to owning their living and working space, a sizable portion of the population is unmarried, and compared to the Greens, such individuals are less likely to have children.

You’ll find the young and the old amongst “Grey America,” but for the most part, it’s a population that tends to skew towards younger individuals. For the most part, “Greys” favor collectivistic measures as opposed to individualistic ones…primarily because they live in habitats that require greater needs for environmental safeguards, transportation access and smoother management of scarcer resources.

The big variable here, of course, are those that live in the suburbs. You always hear politicians talking about the value of “middle class” workers, and that’s for good reason - because these people - for lack of a better term, let’s call them “the Browns” - are the population that usually swing votes from “Green” interests to “Grey” interests. As far as gauging which “America” the “Browns” pledge allegiance to, generally, I would say that the lean closer towards “Greener” interests - after all, these folks are more likely to have families and mortgages and all of that stuff, too - but since so many of these people have ties to urban environments (typically, through working connections), they’re also a population that’s more likely to sense the collectivistic needs of the “Grey” voter base.

In this election, I would say that it was most likely “minority” pockets of “Grey” individuals within the “Brown” demographic that effectively swung the election in favor of Barack Obama. If I had to take a swing at why so many “Browns” voted “Grey” instead of “Green,” I would say that it probably has to do with the fact that “minority” populations within the suburbs, and even some rural areas, decided to vote for the collectivistic progression of their own kind as opposed to individualistic interests. There are a lot of women, Asians, gays, young adults out in the “Browns” and the “Greens,” and this election, they’ve been galvanized to vote in favor of Obama due to their own special interest needs. Suburban Asians may want lower taxes, but they also want laxer immigration requirements and permanent workers visas for their families. Suburban women may want lower caps for the deficit in some instances, but they also want access to health facilities and affordable medicine. Suburban gays may enjoy seeing tighter budgeting on the federal level, but they would also like the ability to adopt children and partake of the same civil unions that everybody else in their neighborhood does, too. A lot of young people would like to see more job creation in the private market, but they would also like to be able to afford to attend college, as well.

Since the days of Richie Nixon, the G.O.P. has prided itself on being the party of “Green America,” but over the last forty years, gargantuan demographical and cultural changes have decreased the electoral value of the nation’s hinterlands monumentally. The “Green Values” supported by Republicans are becoming less and less relevant to an ever-increasing number of “Grey” voters - whether or not those voters live within “Grey” environments or are “Green” and “Brown” inhabitants with decisively “Grey” values and mentalities.

While it’s probably a tad too early to claim that this year’s election results indicate a total paradigm shift in national values, it’s probably a little unwise to simply write off the results as coincidental, too. The stark reality is that “Grey America” is becoming a larger and larger piece of the U.S. as a whole, and unless Republicans pull a complete 180 and find ways to accommodate the social and economic needs of the “new majority” through thoroughly un-Republican policy reform, this year’s results may prove an ominous harbinger for the fate of the Grand Ol’ Party.

Obama’s re-election tells us something very simple - and very revelatory - about the future of politics in these United States. If the Republicans don’t shift their focus away from “Greens” to “Greys,” not only is it guaranteed that we won’t see another conservative in the White House for at least two decades…it might just spell the death of “Republicanism” as a national ideology altogether.

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LIVE Play-by-Play from Week 10’s Raiders vs. Ravens Game

Stream-of-Conscious Observations From a Long-Suffering Oakland Raiders Fan

12:39 PM EST - Well, we’re officially at the halfway point of the season, and the Raiders currently foster a rather lackluster 3-5 record, although they did look slightly better than mediocre in some recent games against the Falcons and the Buccaneers.

12:41 PM EST - Sort of an aside here, but Vernon Davis just said on one of those Fox Sports vignettes that the 49ers are a lot like the new Santa Clara stadium - not finished, but getting there. For a minute, I thought he was going to say that the Niners were being illegally funded by siphoned tax revenue.

12:46 PM EST - Oh, and happy Veteran’s Day / Armistice Day, for those of you that still have hard feelings about Verdun and shit.

12:48 PM EST - Wait, Darren McFadden is going to be out for the next four weeks? It’s not even kickoff time, and FML.

12:50 PM EST - Just who the hell is that guy that isn’t Jimmy Kimmel or Frank Caliendo, exactly?

12:52 PM EST - Looks like the Raiders’ performance today hinges on whether or not Marcel Reese and Taiwan Jones can effectively grind against the Ravens’ ghastly D-line. Carson has been playing a lot better than I expected him to as of late, but something tells me that this one is going to be decided based on the run game. Just call it a hunch, I guess.

12:57 PM EST - And of course, the one TV that’s malfunctioning at the sports bar HAS to be the only one playing the Raiders/Ravens game. I wouldn’t want it any other way, really.

12:58 PM EST - Seriously, though, is “Assassin’s Creed 3” REALLY about killing Redcoats with Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu? If so, I may have to pick up an Xbox for Christmas.

1:01 PM EST - Just looking at the stats, Palmer seems to be having a better season than Joe Flacco - believe it or not, He-Who-Makes-My-Life-Miserable has three more TD passes on the season, out gunning the Ravens QB by more than 400 yards thus far in 2012.

1:03 PM EST - Raiders with possession first, starting at their own 20.

1:04 PM EST - Raiders clearly trying to get the run game established here. Third down, and Palmer connects with Ausberry for a 20 yard pick up.

1:06 PM EST - Palmer swings it downfield, but no dice. Third and 2, and it looks like the Raiders are a few inches short.

1:07 PM EST - And Palmer falls flat on his ass on a 4th and 1. F. M. L.

1:10 PM EST - Third and 5 for the Ravens at their own 50. Boldin with a pick-up of about 11.

1:12 PM EST - Another third down for Baltimore. They look about five yards short, so expect the FG unit to take the field.

1:13 PM EST - And the 48 yard attempt is good. Ravens take a 3-0 lead with about 9 left in the first.

1:16 PM EST - Raiders beginning at their own 25. And Palmer gets deflected on first down. Of course he would.

1:17 PM EST - Third down and six. Nowhere close to being enough for a new set of downs.

1:21 PM EST - First down for the Ravens, and they get dropped for a three yard loss on the first play of the drive. Give the Raiders some credit, because they’ve done a pretty good job of stopping the run so far today.

1:22 PM EST - Now, stopping the PASS GAME, however, is an entirely different story.

1:25 PM EST - TOUCHDOWN RAVENS. 10-0, Baltimore.

1:26 PM EST - And somewhere, there’s an alternate reality where a 6-2 Hue Jackson-led, Bruce Gradkowksi-piloted Raiders are on cruise control for their second consecutive AFC West title. I wish I lived in that world, a lot of times.

1:31 PM EST - Current yardage estimates? Baltimore, 85, Oakland, 40.

1:32 PM EST - Well, the Raiders finally manage to convert on a third down. How about that Juron Criner, kids?

1:33 PM EST - And the Raiders shit the bed on an end-around. Well, that’s never happened before.

1:34 PM EST - The Raiders are just struggling offensively here. In terms of net rushing yards, the Raiders only have ten yards on the ground today - not that the Ravens, with just 12, are doing that much better.

1:37 PM EST - Nothing at all on third down. Time for the Raiders to punt. As a plus, though, at least Baltimore will be beginning their next possession from within their own five.

1:40 PM EST - If the Raiders don’t win this game, you really have to start thinking about whether or not this Dennis Allen kid will be collecting a paycheck come the 2013 season.

1:42 PM EST - AND MICHAEL HUFF WITH AN INTERCEPTION! Life can be awesome sometimes, you know?

1:44 PM EST - Brandon Myers with a 21 yard pick-up. The Raiders have a first and goal…finally.

1:46 PM EST - And the Raiders have to settle on a field goal after committing nine million penalties in the red zone. I know I’m beating the barely identifiable skeletal remains of a horse here, but these kids HAVE to do something about all of these penalties. 10-3, Baltimore.

1:52 PM EST - Jacoby Jones with a 47 yard gain. Ravens with a 3 and 4 at the Raiders’ 24.

1:55 PM EST - TOUCHDOWN RAVENS. 17-3, Baltimore. That loud scribbling sound you hear is the sound of the Raiders’ executive office inking up Dennis Allen’s walking papers, I do believe…

1:59 PM EST - You know, a lot of people ask me if there’s anything GOOD about being an Oakland Raiders fan. The answer, in short, is “no.”

2:01 PM EST - The Raiders officially have FOUR TIMES AS MANY penalty yards than they do net rushing yards today. And Palmer just threw an INT.

2:05 PM EST - Not that I’ve been saying this all season, but I think NOW may be the time to bench the ginger. Is it nigh time for Matt Leinart or…gasp…T-Pryor…to begin in the second half?

2:08 PM EST - 20-3, Baltimore. This game might just be the lowlight of the year for the Raiders, and believe you me…that is saying something.

2:11 PM EST - Kids, pro football is the worst thing you could ever do to yourself. If someone offers it to you, DON’T YOU TAKE IT. Trust me.

2:14 PM EST - Two minute warning. This game is so over, you might as well call it “the ceiling.”

2:16 PM EST - If the Raiders don’t score before the second half begins, would you be horribly upset if I just started covering the Saints/Falcons game instead? I mean…really, folks. REALLY.

2:18 PM EST - TOUCHDOWN RAIDERS! DHB with a 55 yard pick-up, and we have ourselves a 20-10 game. Now, just as long as the Ravens DON’T score before the half, I think…think…this game is potentially salvageable for Oakland. Maybe. Perhaps. To some extent.

2:21 PM EST - And with a minute left in the second, the Ravens are ALREADY in field goal range. GAHDDAMMIT.

2:25 PM EST -

2:28 PM EST - At halftime, the score is 27-10, Baltimore. The Ravens have out yarded the Raiders 266 to 200.

2:32 PM EST - Seriously, if anyone OTHER than Palmer will be starting for the Raiders, I will be ecstatic. Ecstatic, I tell you.

2:39 PM EST - At this point in the season, I’m not even all that dejected anymore. Hell, I’m just happy to see the Raiders score at least A touchdown over the course of four hours, honestly.

2:44 PM EST - A penalty? On the Raiders? NO WAY!

2:45 PM EST -

2:46 PM EST - Professional football was invented by Satan. No other explanation will suffice.

2:49 PM EST - If it wasn’t for the existence of fantasy football as a thing, I don’t think this game would legally be allowed to continue.

2:50 PM EST - Marcel Reese with a big pickup. TOO BAD IT DOESN’T MATTER ANYMORE.

2:52 PM EST - So can you folks think of any other activities I could be doing on Sundays? Like, something that doesn’t make me hate humanity as much?

2:53 PM EST - TOUCHDOWN RAIDERS. Denarius Moore with a 30 yard reception for a TD. Now, all the Raiders have to do is stop the Ravens on everything they do from here on out, double their current point count and nail a field goal in OT and this game is ALL SILVER AND BLACK, BAY-BEE.

2:59 PM EST -

3:00 PM EST - And yes, that does mark the third time I’ve killed myself today. That’s the kind of thing that you can do when you’re a Raiders fan, you know.

3:01 PM EST - Ravens, 41, Raiders, 17. Yardage report? 343 for Baltimore, 280 for Oakland.

3:05 PM EST - Well, if there’s a positive I can think of from this evening, it’s that, to the best of my knowledge, all-out nuclear war DIDN’T break out. Beyond that, though, I’ve got nothing.

3:14 PM EST - If you took a shot every time the Raiders committed a penalty today, I’m pretty sure you’d be comatose by now.

3:16 PM EST - Baltimore, 48, Oakland 17. Latest yardage estimates? Ravens, 397, Raiders, 280.

3:21 PM EST - Eff it, I’m just going to start watching the Falcons game instead.

3:22 PM EST - Folks, there are still TWENTY MORE MINUTES of this. There’s an outside shot the Ravens may end up winning this one by triple digits.

3:25 PM EST - Cosmic comedy: this game is playing right beside the Bengals/Giants game, and guess who just flashed on screen? Hint: the guy that COULD’VE been our franchise QB.

3:28 PM EST - Some days, I just wish NFL games were decided solely on which team had the better uniform.

3:29 PM EST - And it is FINALLY time for the fourth quarter to begin. I think all of the Ravens’ starters have been pulled, and so has the likelihood of Dennis Allen remaining employed throughout the remainder of the season.

3:30 PM EST - Wait…you fight bears in “Assassin’s Creed 3,” too? Holy shit.

3:33 PM EST - Gotta’ admit, I’ve been tuned out of this game for the last hour. That Falcons/Saints game, however, is shaping up to be a Game-of-the-Year contender, though.

3:34 PM EST - Ravens 48, Raiders 20. Baltimore has 413 all-purpose yards, while Oakland has just 344.

3:36 PM EST - …just…just…forget it man. Just forget it.

3:38 PM EST - This game isn’t just awful, it’s arguably the worst thing that’s ever happened to humanity as a whole. I swear, that isn’t hyperbole, either.

3:42 PM EST - I wish this game/season/planet was over right about now.

3:46 PM EST - And on a 4th and 3rd, the Raiders bobble in the red zone. This season isn’t just dead, it’s practically feldspar at this juncture.

3:47 PM EST - You know your franchise is in bad shape when the current season is just BARELY halfway over and you’re already pessimistic about your odds NEXT SEASON.

3:49 PM EST - Football is God’s punishment for missing church every week.

3:52 PM EST - You seriously don’t know how bad you have it until you’re an Oakland Raiders fan. Anybody that claims to suffer that isn’t wearing silver and black is just being dramatic.

3:58 PM EST - The Raiders have FIVE TIMES as many penalty yards as they do net rushing yards. Told you the run game was going to prove pivotal today!

4:00 PM EST - The two minute warning is upon us, and it dawns upon me that the Raiders haven’t realistically been in this game since the end of the first quarter.

4:05 PM EST - Well, today sucked. And hard.

4:06 PM EST - The final score this afternoon in Baltimore? Ravens 55, Raiders 20. I hate football, with a passion.

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A Round-Up of the Seasonal Foodstuffs of Halloween 2012

Warning: Reading This Article May or May Not Give Your Eyes Diabetes

I don’t know about you, but to me, it just feels as if this year’s Halloween season flew by WAY too quickly. It seemed like just five minutes ago, we were still having to rummage our way through summertime junk to find the pre-sale Jack O’ Lantern sippy cups at Walgreens, and now? The seasonal sections of every single big-box-mart in America is cluttered with red, white and green trinkets as opposed to black and orange doodads. Hell, All Hallows Eve went by so fast, I’m not even 100 percent sure we actually HAD a Halloween this autumn.

While I can’t say with all sincerity that I got the most out of my Halloween sojourns in 2012, I can say that as far as seasonal junk food went, my ass got fat in a hurry. While lacking in most of the other areas of seasonal merriment, I made darn sure that I wasn’t going to miss out on the cavalcade of “limited time only” releases that get spat out during the autumn deluge, and all in all? I’d say this year’s roundup of seasonal-ish food items was every bit as stellar - if not even better - than the championship season we had back in 2011.

First up on a whirlwind tour of this year‘s Hallow-foods, we’ve got Little Debbie’s “Bat Brownies.” Last year, the same company gave us these weird pumpkin-flavored snack cakes that had spooky (albeit smiling) demon faces on them, and in 2012, they definitely upped the ante and then some.

As you can no doubt see, the bats more or less resemble brown bowties, but really, who can complain about having brownies of ANY size, shape or consistency in front of them?

The overall craftsmanship on the bats isn’t too bad, as the things had a lot of etched-in grooves and lines that gave them a better overall definition than most animal-shaped snack cakes you’ll encounter. That, and the taste was pretty palatable, too - if you can’t enjoy fudge-flavored vampires, how are you ever going to enjoy this thing we call “existing,” anyway?

While I may be cheating just  a bit with these pumpkin pie-flavored Pop-Tarts (in two aspects, since not only are the snacks NOT directly Halloween-related, they were actually released as “limited-time” items last year, as well), I think I can easily be forgiven for this trespass for one VERY compelling reason:

THE BACK OF THE BOX HAS INSTRUCTIONS FOR DO IT YOURSELF POP-TART TURKEYS, WITH CANDY CORN GOBBLERS. If you don’t think there will be a cornucopia of these things at my Thanksgiving table later this month, you sir, have no understanding of what it is that makes life worth living.

As far as the gustatory quality of the Tarts themselves, they weren’t too shabby. I hate to summarize them by saying that they had a pumpkin taste (quite surprising, I know), but there was a pretty strong, almost cinnamon-like flavor on display here. It’s not my favorite Tart variation out there (certainly, it’s no match for the Spookylicious variety we all know and love), but they weren’t too bad, either.

I’ve seen these Russell Stover mini-packets on display for a couple of years now, but this was the first Halloween season I ever worked up enough curiosity to try them out.

As you can see, the two varieties I picked up were of the milk chocolate and peanut butter-with-chocolate-around it genus. Personally, I’m more of a fan of the PB’n’chocolate set-up, but if milk chocolate is in front of me, you know it’s going to get devoured, regardless. Hell, if I was lactose-intolerant, it would still probably get eaten. “Yummy” takes precedence over “burning” any day, doesn’t it?

While the peanut butter variation was, all in all, the better-tasting product, there’s no denying which product had the better aesthetic merits. The one on the right looks more like a hand grenade than a seeded, vegetable-like fruit, if you polled me on the matter.

I saw these Count Chocula cereal bars at just one retailer throughout the entire Halloween season, and had I not strolled in there that fateful weekday evening (primarily because I was out of knockoff vanilla flavored-soda) I never would have known that such a product existed.

Earlier this year, I decided to make my own Rice Krispies-like Count Chocula bars, and wouldn’t you know it? These envious souls over at General Mills had steal my proverbial thunder and make their own comestible of the sort. Granted, the things are more like glorified granola bars than marshmallow squares, but irked, I doth remain.

I hope you like chocolate, because eating one of these things is akin to drowning in a river of cocoa ala that fat German kid in “Willy Wonka.” Traditionalists will be happy to note that the bars have a very distinct Count Chocula taste, but that puffy texture doesn’t necessarily gel all that well with the little chocolate drops that stud the bars like rhinestone. It’s all right, overall, but I doubt that anyone would want to make it a weekly purchase.

White Chocolate Candy Corn M&Ms are one of the few totally new offerings that I gave a look-see this season. As one of officially two candy corn fans on the planet, I was quite ecstatic to see this variation on store shelves. And then, I tried them, and well…let’s just say I have more than a few problems.

I’m not 100 percent sure what the guys at Mars put on these things, but SOMETHING in it has to be an ingredient I’m allergic to. After downing about three handfuls of the candies, my throat started to burn. By the time I was finished with the bag, I was almost ready to dry heave.

Of course, that’s not to say that the products taste bad or anything, because I thought they were pretty damn yummy, actually. That, and I really dug the autumnal color scheme - perhaps not enough to overlook the fact that the product almost killed me, but enough to take it into consideration for a re-buy, though.

Most folks know Cadberry best for their chocolate, syrup-nucleus candies released every Easter. Perhaps smelling dinero to be made-o, they decided to hop aboard the Halloween bandwagon and release a special All Hallows Eve variation - called, fittingly enough, a “SCREME EGG.”

As stated earlier, I’m not the world’s biggest milk chocolate fan, but you really don’t have to twist my arm to eat some, either. Well, this newfangled product officially crossed over my threshold for milk-chocolate tolerance, as it was so damned sweet that I could feel my teeth revolt as soon as I crunched into one.

And for those of you that have a thing against multi-textured food, the inside of one of these things are super-duper sugary and gooey, and to some extent, resemble alien afterbirth. Just for-your-information, folks.

In case you couldn’t tell, pumpkin-shaped candies are the Halloween du jour in 2012, and the fine folks behind Snickers just KNEW that they couldn’t be the only kids on the block without a gourd-shaped chocolate bar this year.

I think these Snickers Pumpkins were probably the weirdest shaped candies I encountered over the holiday season. When most people think “pumpkins,” they think rotund, but the choc-o-engineer Snickers hired decided to take the completely antithetical route. Wait, you mean zucchini AREN’T traditionally used to make Jack O’ Lanterns in the States?

To be fair though, the anorexic pumpkins DID taste quite a bit like Snickers. They may not have gotten the noun right, but at least they can take solace in nailing the adjective part of the item’s moniker.

I guess Wonka’s Spooky Nerds were sort of the odd duck out among this year’s Halloween foodstuffs, since they were literally the only product I tried this season that DIDN’T, in part or in whole, consist of gooey, sugary constituents.

As you’d surmise, the one-two punch here consists of orange and nondescript tropical drink-flavored candies. I’m not exactly sure what the white candies are supposed to taste like, but I think they had a nicer kick than the tangerine ones. And that may or may not mean I’m racist, at least as far as junk food is concerned.

Of course, the fun with Nerds is just shoveling an entire box into your mouth hole and slurping down as many various flavors as possible with about as much discretion as one of Pavlov’s puppies. In that, I can most certainly say that Spooky Nerds, indeed, are things you could probably eat, if you really wanted to.

And to conclude this year’s round-up, we come to yet ANOTHER pumpkin-shaped candy bar variation - this time around, Butterfingers’ attempt to corner the totally not-at-all over-served market.

And visually, these things don’t disappoint at all. While most of the chocolate pumpkin items released this season fluctuate from totally blank to well-defined (albeit predictable), the Pumpkin-fingers look like miniature works of pop-art; if we can build engraving machines that can mass produce artifacts of such a fine aesthetic as these, then certainly, a cancer cure can’t be far off.

And yeah, to totally seal the deal, the things even taste just like their source inspiration. It’s difficult to name any single candy as the absolute best of the holiday period, but considering the qualitative and visual merits of these chocolate bars, I think it’s hard to argue against naming anything else as “the Samhain season’s best.”

And while it wasn’t a bad haul this year for me, individually, I still think I should’ve taste-tested more foodstuffs than I actually ended up ingesting. With that in mind, I assure you that next Halloween, I will at least DOUBLE my tally or I’ll do something amazingly stupid, like eat cheese spread from the Family Dollar or pay full price for a Ron Paul book or something. All in all, my inability to devour as much Halloween candies as I thought I could is surely a sign of detrimental aging. Sigh…I can’t believe I never found time to try the new “spooky-flavored” Big League Chew gum pouches, either!

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The Truth About Columbine

Just How Much Do We Have Wrong About The Massacre? According to Author Dave Cullen...Pretty Much Everything.

For my generation, the Columbine High School Massacre remains one of those shared universal experiences - not unlike 9/11 and, to a much, much, MUCH lesser extent, the death of Michael Jackson - that everyone seems to remember EXACTLY what they were doing when it transpired.

While I didn’t learn about the shooting until later on the evening, when I got home from school, the aftermath of the tragedy lingered on for well over the remainder of my middle school tenure. Bullying became a major no-no (not so much because of administrative policy, but because all the jocks thought one of their victims might come to school the next day with an Uzi) and the very next semester, our principal made shirt-tucking a MANDATORY practice - because as we all know, the only thing standing between us and adolescent bloodshed was one set of droopy drawers.

Columbine was our Kent State, that major moment in American history that - unlike that boring stuff that was going on in Kosovo and whether or not the President did or did not receive something that may or may not have constituted oral sex from somebody not named “Hilary” - had a very direct influence on our daily lives. Of course, EVERY public school student in the country was paranoid for at least a couple of weeks after, and for a while, at least, the entire junior high caste system was in disarray. For the first time I could recall, it was the outsiders and freaks and dweebs that had the element of power over the popular kids, because all of the yuppie offspring thought that one kid they made eat Play-Doh behind the seesaw back in the third grade was finally going to get retribution and plug them full of more holes than Alex Murphy at the beginning of “Robocop.” Of course, it was all over and done with in a year’s time, but for a good couple of months, we were all truly living in the long, towering shadow of a school shooting that went down about nine states over.

As momentous as Columbine was, it’s pretty shocking to me, at least, just how much disinformation is STILL out there about the massacre. It’s been well over a decade since the shootings took place, and even now, most people tend to believe some sort of fantastical, media hodgepodge version of the incident rather than what really occurred. I recently read Dave Cullen’s “Columbine,” an absolutely outstanding recount of the events leading up to the massacre, and it shone a pretty amazing light on what ACTUALLY transpired in Colorado almost a decade and a half ago. Just how much do we have wrong about Columbine? Well, if Cullen’s book is to be taken as the most accurate, factual info we have…apparently, just about everything.

COLUMBINE MISCONCEPTION NUMBER ONE:

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold never intended to execute a mass shooting on April 20, 1999

Perhaps the largest misconception about the Columbine massacre was that - from a structural standpoint - it was never meant by the perpetrators to entail a school shooting. As it turns out, the “shooters’” original plan was to detonate several improvised explosives around the cafeteria, with the hopes of bringing down the ceiling and killing hundreds upon hundreds of people. They also had their cars rigged with crude explosive materials, with the intentions of blowing up the entire parking lot as soon as emergency response personnel arrived. From what was pieced together from video tapes and journal entries, the only reason why the perpetrators brought firearms with them was so that they could pick off fleeing students from the ruins - apparently, the entire “school shooting” was an impromptu incident that was rigged up, on the spot, because their explosive devices failed to go off as planned.

COLUMBINE MISCONCEPTION NUMBER TWO: 

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were not the victims of bullying, Goths, homosexual or neo-Nazi terrorists

The media narrative, to this day, is that Harris and Klebold were long-bullied nerds that, after years and years of harassment, finally snapped and decided to kill their aggressors. This is an accusation that has been refuted time and time again.

Harris and Klebold were considered to be fairly “normal” students that had many friends. Days before the massacre, they even went to their senior class prom, in which Klebold’s date was the eventual class valedictorian. While there’s very little evidence to suggest that Klebold and Harris were the victims of bullying, there’s actually quite a bit of evidence out there that suggests that Klebold and Harris were more or less bullies themselves, as they allegedly had a fondness for victimizing freshmen students. Additionally, both students performed quite well academically, and both were involved in several sports. Despite allegations that the two specifically targeted “jocks” during the massacre, Dylan Klebold - like Eric, a major MLB fan - wore a Boston Red Sox cap throughout the shooting spree.

Similarly, Harris and Klebold were pinned by many in the media as “Goths,” although neither perpetrator was a fan of popular “Goth” music or style. Despite perpetual media reminders, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were never a part of the “Trenchcoat Mafia,” a separate campus clique that had virtually zero associations with either student.

Several accusers in the media have alleged that Harris and Klebold were secretly lovers, and that their deadly attack was spurred on because of “cultural insensitivity” and homophobia. As it turns out, both students seemed to be rather heterosexual, with Harris claiming to have “made it” with a 23 year-old-woman and maintaining lengthy - and depraved - heterosexual rape fantasies in his journal. Klebold, on the other hand, seemed to be absolutely enamored by a classmate code-named "Harriet," who he obsessively referred to in his own diary. The fact that “Harriet” rejected his affection, in some aspects, may have even proved to be a pivotal “trigger” that instigated his decision to join Harris on his rampage.

While Harris seemed to have a penchant for Nazi culture, no research has been trudged up that indicates that he or Klebold was involved in any neo-Nazi organizations. In fact, it would seem a little unlikely that Klebold would be into Nazism, since he himself was half-Jewish. While the two routinely used racial slurs and epithets in their video diaries, both boys were also said to have had several African-American and Asian friends. Furthermore, although some media reports allege that the shooters specifically targeted minority students, just about every official document detailing the shootings indicates that the perpetrators were indiscriminately selecting victims throughout the incident.

COLUMBINE MISCONCEPTION NUMBER THREE: 

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold already had extensive criminal backgrounds BEFORE the shooting took place

Many media reports said that the attack came without warning, and that both students had exhibited no signs of violent behavior beforehand. This, without question, is erroneous.

Both Harris and Klebold had been placed in a juvenile diversion program after being caught breaking into a van, just months before the massacre. Prior to that, the family of a classmate Harris allegedly victimized filed a damning complaint to the police, detailing Harris’ murderous threats against their son. At one point, word got out that Harris had been constructing homemade bombs, and an affidavit had been filed to search the Harris residence for contraband material. If you’re wondering why information of the like was never reported after the shooting, it’s because Jefferson County officials pretty much “covered” it up, with the full information not being released to the public until years after the massacre.

COLUMBINE MISCONCEPTION NUMBER FOUR: 

Neither Harris or Klebold targeted Christian students during the shooting

Shortly after the massacre, the story of Cassie Bernall became a nationwide phenomenon. According to some reports, Bernall was killed after she said she believed in God…even though subsequent 911 audio indicates that she never said anything to her killers before being shot. It was actually another student - who was not mortally wounded in the attack - that addressed the attackers when asked if she believed in God. Even so, Bernall’s story - which, despite being disconfirmed, was turned into a best-seller by Bernall’s own mother - remains a popular myth surrounding the Columbine incident - a rather odd coincidence, as Bernall, during her earlier teen years, was said to have been both suicidal and at least mulled the possibility of murdering her own parents.

COLUMBINE MISCONCEPTION NUMBER FIVE: 

Most of the misconceptions about Columbine stem not from student hearsay, but erroneous “official” statements

According to author Dave Cullen, “every scrap of testimony after day two is tainted” when examining “official” statements on the shootings.

Shortly after the massacre, Jefferson County Sheriff John Stone gave multiple erroneous reports to the media, including doubling the actual body count, suggesting that a third perpetrator may have been involved and alleging that automatic weapons were used in the attack. Instead of releasing information about Harris and Klebold’s juvenile records - which included multiple counts of vandalism, as well as an never-certified affidavit to search the Harris home - the county officials practically “sat” on the info, refusing to release the evidence until years after the incident. And if you want a full report on what went down, you’re going to have to wait a little bit longer, as the official transcripts won’t be released to the public until 2027.

Further demonstrating their complete ineptness, officials ended up selling copies of the cafeteria shooting footage for $25, ultimately prompting a lawsuit from Sarah McLaughlin, whose music was featured - quite illegally - in the video tapes.

COLUMBINE MISCONCEPTION NUMBER SIX:

Despite the magnitude of the event, the massacre didn’t change anything regarding federal gun laws in the U.S. 

While one of the worst high school shootings in history, the ultimate influence of the event - in terms of national legislation - remained virtually non-existent. While several loopholes regarding “straw purchases” at gun shows were closed in Colorado (Harris and Klebold obtained several of the firearms they used during the massacre by getting a friend to purchase the weapons at a gun show in Denver) and a few other states, no federal laws directly tied to the massacre ever came to fruition. In fact, perhaps the single most important legacy of Columbine, as a policy framer, has been for S.W.A.T. usage, as it ultimately led to most national outfits abandoning a hostage-oriented strategy for the now practically-universal “active shooter” protocol.

COLUMBINE MISCONCEPTION NUMBER SEVEN:

It was most likely psychiatric problems and substance abuse issues that “drove” the two to kill…not “Doom” or “Natural Born Killers”

Cullen minces no words when he describes why he believes Harris made plans for mass murder; he was an out-and-out psychopath, an emotionally under-developed human being with less capability to sympathize with others than the common Golden Retriever. According to Cullen, Harris demonstrated all the classical attributes of the psychopath, including a sense of egotistical superiority, enjoyment of causing harm to others and compulsive lying - a so-called “duping delight.” His journals indicated a thorough hatred of humanity, containing multiple “extinction fantasies” - and contrary to what you might have heard, it may have been “high art”, and not low culture trash, that influenced Harris the most as a fledgling mass killer.

While Harris was a fan of violent video games and violent films, he was also an avid reader and appreciator of classical works. He cites “Tess of the D’Urbervilles” and “The Pastures of Heaven” as among his favorite works, and was greatly inspired by both Hobbes and Nietzsche. He reveled in writing essays about the Holocaust, and wrote diary entries filled with sadistic sex fantasies. His favorite musicians weren’t shock rockers like Marilyn Manson and The Insane Clown Posse, but rather, German industrial acts KMFDM and Rammstein.

Klebold, on the other hand, was assumed to be manic-depressive, and most certainly suicidal. Oddly, he seemed to be a very religious young man, and quite possibly an emerging alcoholic. His nickname was “VoDKa,” assigned to him because it was his “drug of choice.” Klebold, an outstanding student, academically, saw his grades slip dramatically during his senior year - a time in which both his depression and alcohol abuse was thought to have been reaching critical mass.

And as far as “direct causes” go, the most viable “trigger” for the killing spree had nothing to do with art, music or entertainment, as most researchers suggest that it was a single incident - the two being arrested and placed in juvenile services for breaking into a van - that proved the ultimate catalyst for the rampage.

Of course, an incident as massive and intricate as the Columbine massacre really can’t be detailed and described accurately in a single blog post, which is why I suggest, yet again, checking out Dave Cullen’s 2009 book “Columbine,” which is far and away the most exhaustive, comprehensive and factual account of the incident in print.

As far as the long-lasting impact of Columbine, I suppose it’s safe to say that it’s cultural import has almost vanished over the last 13 years. Since then, we’ve been assailed by countless more tragedies - 9/11, Katrina, Virginia Tech, not to mention  two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - and in many ways, we’ve become a bit more desensitized to the idea of mass violence as a cultural reality. We shudder, we mourn, and we move on, to the next major story involving bullet-riddled corpses. At the time, Columbine itself wasn’t a new incident - although it was one of the first of its kind occurring in a predominantly upper middle class neighborhood - but the sheer shock of the event, the idea that it could happen to “normal communities,” was enough to cause mini-pandemonium throughout the nation.

As time drags on, and more massacres, with heftier body counts ensue, one wonders if we’ll ever truly retain the lessons taught to us by Columbine. But in examining our social recollections of the tragedy - which are filled to the brim with inconsistencies, inaccuracies and flat out falsifications - one has to wonder if we even remember such lessons at the current.

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