Grant's Rants

"There are a few things more painful than the truth...but I can't think of any."

Art

One of the perks of being nuts.

P.T. Barnum

"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American Public."

"Brown Eyed Girl"

Van Morrison has put out many albums and recorded many songs. Why is this the only one that I ever hear? Wasn't that damn Julia Roberts movie enough for you people? Isn't there a point where you've heard a song enough? I'm sick to death of it. Put on side 2 or something.

And that damn Bob Marley "Legends" album...the man put out many irie records in his lifetime and yet the songs on this album are all most people ever hear. I've heard those songs enough! Haven't you? Move on damn it!

The Beatles are the only exception to this phenomenon. Why are they the only band that gets non-greatest hits songs played on the radio?

Do you really think that the Red Hot Chili Pepper's best song is "Under the Bridge?" If you do, there's something very wrong with you.

Drive Up ATMs, as suggested by Kent Newbright

Why do they put Braille on drive up ATMs? How many blind people drive cars? And even if one did, with the help of a dog or monkey or something, imagine how much feeling around he'd have to do in order to find all of those little raised dots.

Evolution

A little insight for those rigid-minded individuals out there that have been attempting to reconcile scientific research with Biblical Truth:

God Evolves, God has Evolved, and God will continue to Evolve.

Just compare the God of the Old Testament to that of the New, the God of the Spanish Inquisition to that of the Quakers, Moses' to mine. It follows that if God evolves and Mankind is created in His image, then Mankind evolves (and devolves) as well.

Bonus insight:

When you read that the world was created in seven days, you shouldn't automatically assume that this means seven human days. The days of an eternal being would tend to be a bit longer, especially considering that our days our based on the rotations of a planet that didn't exist before it was created.

The Moral:
Don't take everything so literally, people!

Eyes Wide Shut

Plot in a nutshell: Dr. Tom Cruise wanders around Not-New York at an extremely leisurely pace (most likely in an attempt to avoid his head case wife,) almost commits adultery seven times, but, in the end, NEVER ACTUALLY DOES ANYTHING, except eventually break down and reveal everything that he didn't actually do to the aforementioned head case.

Don't bother seeing this piece of excrement, it's a whole lot of nothing, not even effectively erotic. See Spartacus, Paths of Glory, 2001, A Clockwork Orange, or even The Shining (again) instead.

Generations by Robyn Hitchcock

"It seems like every generation has to bludgeon people that much harder to make itself felt. The next thing will be to actually disembowel yourself on stage or eat your own penis or something. I'm sure whatever it is, money will be involved."

The Interpretation of Dreams

Thomas Jefferson: "I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man"

L7: The box rocks.

The Media: "The Media is even stupider than the People, and that's not easy." -Bill Maher

Microsoft: Bill may not have a monopoly, but he does have hotels on both Boardwalk and Park Place.

the 1950s: "Perhaps you don't remember it, or perhaps it was over years before you were born, but '50s America was a peculiar place. It was not evil, as so many suggest, but neither was it particularly innocent, as so many others suggest. It was, rather, complacent and blind and bland. It was a giant suburb, mallifying, highway-building, power-lawn-mower trimmed, split-leveled, television-drugged, munching placidly on its collective cud, enjoying its triumph in the ever-receding war and the bountiful rewards of consumer goods and cars with tail fins."
The Present: The Past is History. The Future's a Mystery.

P.S.A.: Stop doing so many stupid things! Think about what you're doing occasionally. If History teaches us anything, people doing stupid things is inevitable. The key is to do new and creative stupid things, not the same boneheaded mistakes that humans have been making for centuries. That would be a good semester of History class: "Boneheaded Plays Throughout Human History." Falling in Love with the Wrong Person would be lesson one in that class.
Punk Rock: Hurt each other people, but with kindness and unity.

Roman Numerals: Why are they like that? Because they're easier to chisel into granite. Remember that the next time that you have to carve numbers.

Same Sex Marriage: Why so much focus on people who don't seem have much choice in the way they turned out when so many ADULTERERS continue to marry and breed unchallenged by the courts? If gay marriage must remain illegal, then, for the sake of fairness, the stupid, the dull, thieves, perjurers, adulterers, murderers, and anyone else that breaks one of the 10 Commandments should be barred from marriage as well. Stupid people, in particular, should not be allowed to breed, but I have a strong feeling that all of these things will go on unabated.

Most people that are against "gay marriages" seem to be immediately repelled by the image of gays getting married, because marriage=children, so let's join together in order to come up with a word other than "married" to use in the case of homosexuals that want to inoffensively enter into a legal union for the purposes of filing taxes jointly and making inheritance claims. "Legal Union" seems much too staid a term; are there any homosexuals out there that would like to make a suggestion? I picture something hot and spicy, Texas style, but inoffensive.

Enter your suggestion for a term here:

I thought it was common knowledge (a mistake that I don't make too much anymore) that marriage vows are between two people and their God. NO ONE ELSE HAS TO BE THERE! It's probably not the best example, but that scene in "Natural Born Killers" when Mickey and Mallory have that blood-snake ritual on the bridge, after that, as far as I'm concerned, they're married. I doubt if they file jointly, though.

First Gays want to get into the military and then they want to get married, why do they want anything to do with the straight world's most consistently destructive institutions? Besides, if you think divorces are nasty now, wait until we turn on FOX and find two drag queens trying to split up their living room furniture amicably. I, for one, wish that FOX would just stick to car crashes and the Simpsons.

Sayings: Look out for number one; try not to step in number two.

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace: I'm hoping when Anakin finally turns into Darth Vader that he'll torture and kill Jar-Jar Binks as his vitally important first evil act. Hell, maybe it'll be Binks that pushes him over the edge in the first place. If turning to the dark side will get that Uncle Tom off the screen sign me up.

Taiwan (R.O.C?)

This is an actual bus-stop ad from Taiwan.

"Declare war on the cold front" with this German-made space heater.

I taught English to enormous classes in Taiwan for a year and witnessed it's bizarre offspring of Chinese Culture and Capitalism first-hand. Don't get the wrong idea, the ad agency that came up with this marketing ploy isn't run by Nazis. They just have more geographical and historical distance from W.W.II than most other countries and distance is what separates funny from tragic (remember that as you read these rants.)

If you've ever been to Taiwan's neck-of-the-woods, you'll know that nothing sells there without a cute cartoon mascot (think "Hello Kitty,") so pretty much every other recognizable cartoon animal has already been used. What other figure is so recognizably German with the exception of that beer-drinking leder-hosen guy in the little green hat? Besides, many Taiwanese respect Hitler for the undeniably large dent that he put in European history. Hell, if you're able to ignore the genocide and the occasional invasion of neighboring countries, he was a hell of a Fuhrer. Of course, no one in their right mind should be able to ignore mass slaughter, tyranny, and oppression.

Disney's Tarzan (1999)

Some reviews that I've read have complained about the unseen, but suggested violence in the film. To this I respond, "for God's sake, it's the jungle, man! If it was even a shade more ACCURATE it would have been a veritable bloodbath. Children have been forced to come to terms with the savage efficiency of nature for generations, but now we've suddenly decided that it's best if they just don't know about it? That's the whole POINT of Tarzan, nobility in the jungle, a man can survive in a world that transcends good and evil.

And what about their portrayal of the white guy as an arrogant, short-tempered, gun-nut? Oh yeah, some guys are actually like that. And what about their portrayal of vicious monkeys as...ah...vicious monkeys? This must be a vile affront to some special interest group. Call the papers.

Television

Isn't the Internet, in many ways, just a new, interative boob-tube?
pictures courtesy of havana.com and suck.com

"There's no I in T.E.A.M."

But you can't spell it without M.E. either.

Jesse "The Body" Ventura

Ross Perot has (perhaps unintentionally) started a party of entertaining outsiders and this is what a country in which the primary process stretches on for over a year has so sorely needed (no other country that I know of does this.) It's the "Christmas Before Thanksgiving Syndrome" only worse; by the time it finally rolls around everyone's like, "enough already, let's get this thing over with so we can put all of these damn decorations away." So, if it's inevitable that I be faced with these political ass-kissers until November, the least that they can do is be entertaining.

Oh, some of you probably think that this is a pretty shallow approach to "the most important election in the world," but hell, the whole process is inescapably shallow. Two questions:

1. When will they go beyond vague hints of what they'll actually do once they're in office?
2. Who will actually believe anything they say when and if they do?

So, as any actual insight into the candidates or, for that matter, reality is apparently out of the question, we are left with only the American tried-and-true, Entertainment Value, and Jesse's got that in Spades.

As to his, "organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers," quote, it should only be offensive to those who are looking to be offended (and God knows there's no shortage of these boring, weak-minded zealots. If the shoe fits...) The only real problem with quotes like this is that some people don't want politicians to be blunt and succinct about what they think, but wait a minute, last year they were complaining about "Slick Willie" Clinton skating around the issues, speaking without saying anything. Which'll it be, voters? Speaking the truth may make a person damn-near unelectable, but at least it makes them entertaining, and in this day and age I'm not prepared to ask for much else from the primaries in any hopes of actually getting it. God forbid that I should ask for candidates that don't induce vomiting.

(Wabi)

The Japanese word for a positive, maybe even necessary, humanizing flaw in a work of art.

Words

Grant's Favorite Albums Recently: Imperial Teen "What Is Not To Love?" = Pixiesque Pop; Neutral Milk Hotel = "now she's a little boy in spain playing pianos filled with flames"; Ween "God Ween Satan" = at their very Weeniest; Fantomas "Book I" & "Director's Cut" = Whoa!; Medeski, Martin, & Wood "Combustication" = Funky Logic; Cibo Mato "Stereo Type A" = Shonen Knife for the MM's; SubUrbia Soundtrack = Boring film, excellent soundtrack; Can "Monster Movie" = actually any early Can album; Whale "All Disco Dance Must End In Broken Bones"; The Mulchmen "Louder Than Dirt..." + "Planet Stupider"; Todd Snyder = see him Live
Yo La Tengo

Grant's Movie Reviews
"Hey, they're better than Maltin's�"

There's a time lag because I only see movies second-run.
Why see one film for $7 when you can wait a couple months and see two for $4?
Besides, what percentage of the films that you see are actually worth $7?

Spiderman & Star Wars: I think a crossover is in order. Something that explores the connection between radioactive spider venom and midichlorions.
Waking Life: A kick-ass sequel to "Slackers" with the little brother from "Dazed and Confused."
Hot, Wet, American Summer: What the summer camp movies of the 80's never quite attained.
The Sixth Sense: Deeply creepy and even (gasp!) meaningful.; Tied with American Beauty as my favorite of 1999.
American Pie: A giant step up from the days of "Porky's."
Mystery Men: Trust your powers!
South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Un-cut: P.C. brought this one on itself and I, for one, am glad.
The Matrix: Kung-fu for the MM's. Keanu clenches his jaw most convincingly.
The Iron Giant: All it lacks is one well deserved stomping.
Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii: Set controls for the heart of the sun!
Fight Club: Intended to blow your mind. It worked on me.
Three Kings: "Kelly's Heroes" for the MM's.
Mother Night: "You ARE what you pretend to be." -- Kurt Vonnegut
Being John Malkovich: Pleasantly strange without trying too hard.
Galaxy Quest: That was a hell of a thing." See it.
Man in the Moon: I laughed 'till I cried, but sometimes I was the only one. A great justification for people who will do anything for laughs, even if they're only your own.
007: The World is Not Enough: Fun & not nearly as bad as I was led to believe it would be. Sexual double-entendres a-plenty
American Beauty: Believe the hype; it's amazing. See it big-screen while you can. Suburbanites, when they're faced with the Truth, make for a movie that's kind of like "Fight Club" without the fighting.
Princess Mononoke: Yet another gem ignored by an American Public that seems to really enjoy crap while classics like this languish. Saw it twice.

Now it's your turn to rant!

"There are a few things more painful than the truth...but I can't think of any."

Now it's your turn to rant!

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� 2000 by Grant L. Allen & Chuck T. Alien
Contact Us!