This was supposed to be up during the Holidays, but we're old and lazy, and sometimes our computers don't work. That and the philistine author hated on the Maiden, so he's been made an example of.
A bad year for male role models....
Let me say first that if there are any Iron Maiden lyrics above this line I did not put them there. Drost has some admirable qualities, including dedication to the site and a strong sense of loyalty to that band of disgruntled misanthropes he runs with, but musical taste is not one of them.
Secondly, despite my vast disappointment in his musical taste I don’t want anyone to worry about me. I gave up a long time ago on counting on other men to match my expectations. I’m part of the single-mom generation that gave birth to Tyler Durden and the Big Brother organization. Catholic Priests became a band of maniacal pederasts and Scoutmasters couldn’t be counted on to avoid lightning strikes at a Jamboree during my span of time on this earth. Still it doesn’t change the fact that 2008 was a bad year for the iconic men that substituted for male role models in my addled psyche.
Watching Butch and Sundance run into a hail of bullets was one of those formative experiences that comes creeping out at the therapist years later for me. Obviously it’s better to burn out then to fade away, right doc? Well too late for that. Butch died a salad dressing king and Sundance hasn’t had a relevant moment since he directed Quiz Show. I’ll mourn Paul Newman forever -- but Redford had it coming it to him. How do you go from Katherine-effin-Ross to this hot mess in fifteen short years? I always recommended the dermabrasion.
What’s the difference between Heath Ledger and Heath Ledger jokes? Heath Ledger jokes will get old.
Ledger was never a father figure. But anyone that can make the shocking transformation between gay cowboy and The Joker is someone who I wanted to see acting for a long time. There will be a little more debate leading up to the Oscar nominations and Award show but they will probably just give him the Supporting Actor Award. Giving him Best Actor the way he deserves would just draw attention to the fact that without Ledger Dark Knight would have been a poor follow up to Batman Begins. Call him a brother of the same generation then, and I’ll add him to my list of men without the sack to stick around when the going got tough. RIP anyway Heath.
And then there was What Clint Did.
I think a lot of my contemporaries could whistle the Ennio Morricone soundtrack to The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. We can definitely all recite the .44 magnum speech from Dirty Harry just as easily. I’m a film geek though. When Eastwood really came into his own for me was when he started directing. The Outlaw Josey Wales Stood out in my mind as an incomparable Western until he directed Unforgiven. Despite losing out to Raging Bull in the 2o2p poll of Best Boxing Movies Million Dollar Baby was still an unflinching love letter to a sport that continually pisses on its own heritage year after year. Even stinkers like Firefox and Bronco Billy couldn’t erase the genius of films like Bird, A Perfect World and Flags of Our Fathers. However, Gran Torino just might.
This steaming pile of monkey poo has convinced me that the ultimate badass, Inspector-Every-Damned-Dirty-Job-Callahan, is officially a doddering, old fool that needs to be put out to pasture. The stink of my own mortality followed me out of the theater last night and the site of an old man chewing the scenery put it on me. Completely unbelievable dialogue, contrived plot devices, schmaltzy character development and utterly predictable jingoism hammered the nails on my hero’s coffin.
I’m done.
From now on I’m only idolizing women.
RIP Betty Page and Eartha Kitt.
On to the questions…
Swooshdave asks: Late at nite on TV I've seen ads with "friendly" women who invite you to call singles hotlines. Are they really that good looking when you call? Are they pre-Match.com services helping singles find each other or just quasi-legal phone sex?
Hey swoosh, remember in second-grade when they told you that the only dumb questions were the ones that you didn’t ask? They were lying to you.
Fade Into Black Asks: …a couple of questions my Dad posed me in his last weeks of life...if you want to fail, and succeed, did you fail, or succeed? Also, why is bacon cooked, and cookies baked?
See above rant about the typical failings of men. It also reminds me to add to the list of men that checked out this year and that I will miss, George Carlin. A lot of crappy humor along this vein (why do we drive on parkways and park in driveways, ad nauseum) got attributed to Carlin but I’m here to tell you he never said any of it. Carlin was a funny motherfucker and if his son is any indication at all I believe Fade’s father probably was too. During this time of year I hope you and yours remember him with the same fondness that me and mine consider my mom. Now stop pinning bad jokes on him.
Who cares how they are prepared? As long as the bacon and cookies are ready, let’s eat.
Taxi asks: Dealt pocket 9's, 4 players in the pot above you. Bet hard or bear trap?
The answer here depends on if you are playing poker or just carousing with the dead money that accumulates at the Chitown LAN. Dealt pocket nines and 4 poker players in the pot ahead of you? You and me both know you get the hell away from that train wreck ASAP. Let ‘em fight it out and three players will be poorer then you at the end. At the Chitown LAN though you go all in. Two of them are playing each others suited connectors, one of them has ten high off suit and was playing wise wizard until five minutes before the tourney started and the other is Taxi who couldn’t win a coin flip against me if I gave him heads and tails and took the edge.
Taxi also asks: Cliques: Good or bad for 2o2p as a whole?
I really like the question and I did not even plant it. The language is tricky but let me dispose of it. “Cliques” is a word that got a bad wrap in High School, mostly from me and my geek buddies that weren’t cool enough to get in one. As I get older though I realize that even the geekpile I was in was probably a source of envy for someone even lower down the High School food chain and him and his friends made fun of us too.
People band together. The most outrageous, improbable, anti-social, ridiculous hobbies have multiple adherents. The internetz now brings them all together in the blink of an eye. What took the Christian churches hundreds of years to discover has been hyper-accelerated and now schisms and differences in dogma are instantly categorized, searchable and joinable. The real genius of 2old2play, and I give doodi full credit for this vision, is all of the over 25 gaming churches can come together under one roof here. Clan forums, individual blogs, the public forums and the wiki are just a few avenues that people can use to make 2o2p their own. The occasional dust-up and friction between the various houses are generally pretty healthy and solved by somebody that has seen it all before coming in and telling everyone not to take themselves quite so seriously. I’m not sure why it works as well as it does here. I know it isn’t “maturity” or DSmooth. I think it might be because rather then trying to be a one-size fits all solution the “cliques” here are free to carve out a niche and inflict themselves on each other.
That’s not to say that it always runs smoothly. Occasionally, some of the friction can spin wildly out of control and whole groups will pick up and quit, or get booted. Tribal loyalty can really exacerbate personal squabbles into an “us vs. them” blood bath that can leave whole clans sulking in their corners. However, if it wasn’t for that type of social interaction this site wouldn’t even be here. It certainly wouldn’t be nearly as entertaining to me.
For the most part when we decide as one big group that something is worth doing we do a really good job of coming together for it. The Art Auction is only the most recent example of this. Donation’s to 2o2p families, sick children, cards and gifts for troops abroad, and rigging cute baby contests are just a few of the others off the top of my head.
Are they good for 2o2p? I think they are inevitable. I just think we do a better job then most of using that energy to further our main goal of playing together.
Thanks to everyone for continuing to support articles here on the front page. If you have questions you want answered be sure to post them here. There is a thread near there to complain or feel free to PM me. Remember, I may or may not get to your question but I cherish the hate mail.
Lastly, Happy Holidays to everyone at 2o2p. I'm not even trying to spin that one. The older I get the more I believe that something happens during this season that makes people realize we've turned the corner on another year and are heading towards longer days, warmer weather and the Chicago LAN. Yeah, it's a ways off but the Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa Season always seems to be the first step in shaking off the rust from last year. So Happy Season of Renewal, no matter what you call it. And don’t pay any attention to that cynical bastard Bubba.
