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In 1998 I was in love with Ministry. They were the only band I had ever cared about, a love unrivaled by any band since. I’d wear this  shirt with a guy waving an american flag with bloody meat dripping down his head, the cover to their sixth album, Filth Pig. I’d walk around my High School campus with that shirt, a pair of  jnkos, and my discman, blasting hard metal scrapping against synth. Nine Inch Nails was for sellouts, Marilyn Manson was just a kid playing dress up, Deftones were cool, but if you mentioned Korn you were dead to me. I still listen to The Land of Rape and Honey, MInistry’s first departure from the goth synth scene, and think about the old days.
Since high school I mention Ministry with a sense of embarrassment. Their last few albums have been awful and age has not been nice to their rocking. But I found out that they’ve called it quits today, I can’t lie,  I got  emotional. And embarrassed or not, I’d still recommend watching some classic ministry videos.

stigmata
same old madness
land of rape and honey (live)
NWO
Revenge

When I didn’t recieve my absentee ballot in New York this November I wasn’t too concerned. I was sure that everything that I wanted was a sure thing. I woke up to an Obama America with a text message on my phone that read “Shame on you America! Lets protest…”. Prop 8 had passed and everyone that I knew was pissed.  I was pretty sad that my vote was neutral and not on the loosing side.
Gay marriage is always going to be an issue, and i think i’ve figured out a good way of dealing with it. Let’s illegalize marriage all together. People feel very strongly about marriage, but there’s no reason the state should. Prohibiting marriage would solve everyones problem by democratizing the couples, save the state millions of dollars, and clean out those pesky green card citizens( I’m looking at you Gerard Depardieu).  Marriage isn’t a political issue, its a religious act. let the church marry anyone they want, but keep my bachelor dollars our of dirty family pockets. Tax breaks should come when children enter the family, because marriage alone rarely warrants any extra money.
I read a paper on Gay Politics, and it talked about how gay marriage is a Christian issue, because the act of marriage validates gay sex in the eyes of God. God is a strange figure in politics, because he never votes, and everyone is always talking about how he feels on the issues. I just don’t see why 2 women cant get married and i can still order the Red Lobster Endless Shrimp Basket. God talked about shellfish forever(rrrrrrr), and didn’t mention a single lesbian. I always wondered why he made so many shellfish if he felt so strongly against them, and why would he made them so delicious? I feel the same way about gay people. Why would God make so many of them if he didn’t want them, and why did he make them so delicious?

Its not often that I love something more than myself, but there are a few exceptions. Speed Racer is one major exception. When I was a little kid, they used to play it after Beavis and Butthead, and I instantly fell in love. But staying in love has been an incredibly hard task, because Speed Racer, though the best show ever, is the worst franchise of all time.

To be a Speed Racer fan, you have to have a good understanding of kitsch. This is why recreating the magic is so hard. Kitsch is something that you can’t try to create, it has to happen naturally. Every itteration of the show, besides the original, has been so heavy handed or completely aweful.

Around the time I got into Speed Racer, The New Adventures of Speed Racer debuted. It was the first American attempt to capture the magic. It was so stupid, it only lasted thirteen stupid episodes. A race car driver, and dimensional time traveler, Speed Racer and his Mach 5 battled against mutant aliens, for the safety of earth. Even as a 9 year old kid, I knew this was the worst cartoon I’d ever seen. Its angry jingle metal theme song, embarrassed me, yet didn’t stop me from watching the cartoon every sunday morning.

Along time passed, and I heard rumors of a reprisal. A Japaneses version of the show, and a new hope for Speed Racer bliss. This animation studio, took the Digimon approach,using computer drawn characters with really thin lines. The show had very little to do with racing, most storylines focusing on Speed’s high school life. The racing that did take place looked like it was lifted out of Tron. This series never made it to the states, and was incredibly hard to find when it came out. But that didn’t stop me, unfortunately.

Now in 2008, theres a new Speed Racer push. A new movie and a new cartoon series. And if you didn’t already know, they’re both art directed vomit. I’ve come to terms with the situation, and I’ve learned a few things. Speed Racer is deceptively simple. People that love speed racer, really love speed racer. But if you truely love Speed Racer, leave it alone. Please.

I watch a significant amount of television every day. And in a era of constant conflict between producers and writers, I think about reality television quite a bit. Its one of the few genres that was untouched by the writer’s strike, because the shows are seemingly unscripted. But the premises of the shows are proposed and executed, quite strictly, by the producers. Most of these shows are pretty formulaic; ripoffs of other popular reality shows, with some tacked on gimmick to differentiate if from the original. So being a bright, creative person, I figure, How hard can it be?

My first idea is a show called, So You Think You Can Live In Fire. 18 contestants compete for one million dollars by jumping into a pit of fire in hopes that they are impervious to the extreme heat. Most, if not all, contestants will burn to death, so episodes will be filmed in realtime at 1/60 the speed. If any person should pass the first round, their wounds will be treated, and they will be set on fire, chained to a wooden wheelchair, and pushed down a sulfur mine.

Of course, this is just a rough outline, but the idea is there. There is also possiblities to branch out into other markets with So You Think Your Kids Can Live in Fire?, and So You Think You Can Live in Fire: Celebrity Roast.