Tag Archives: factslaps

No MAGA Hat Required

Image result for sitting on the fence

I’ve sat on the fence too long. You see, it’s a picket one, constructed of splendid splinters. So it’s a bit rough on the ass. But I digress.

I’ve decided to enter my name in the Democratic presidential race. I would have announced more formally than this, but Jack n the Box refused to reserve parking lot space for the press announcement. And after all the lobbying dollars I threw their way…

Anyway, I’m running, joining the other 237 candidates. Unlike those hopefuls, however, I believe in coming out with policy statements immediately out of the gate. And since my likely opponent, Cap’n Bone Spurs, and his evangelical base are so concerned with the candidates’ positions on crotches (why is that, by the way? The GOP lately has been an acronym for Groin of Preference), I figure I better come out with my general positions on people’s dangly bits.

First and foremost: I support the right to genitalia.
In terms of exercising said right: I wholeheartedly support right of choice. In fact, under a Bowlesian administration, only women will have a vote on the abortion issue. If only one gender shoulders the burden of an issue, they should have the right to determine its fate. Until a man can force a bowling ball through his puckered sphincter, we should shut the fuck up on the topic (And let’s be fair: if a proposition arose, say, calling for mandatory circumcision, only men would get to vote on that).
Gay marriage. Last week, Kentucky passed a state law banning bestiality. Really. Last week. It’s not that it’s an absurd law, only that Kentucky yahoos need to be legally told not to fuck Spot. But let’s not go overboard; my administration not only supports gay marriage, but you should have the right to marry the family turtle if the love is there — as long as you have the animal’s written consent.

Beyond the dangly bits, some other campaign planks:

The electoral college: Gone.

Daylight Savings Time: Gone

Political ads on Facebook: Fucking gone.

Gun control: Buy a bazooka if you want. But all gun owners, like car owners, must pass a written and road test if you want to exercise the privilege of ownership. The system would work exactly like auto licensing: You must show proficiency to practice, and paperwork to own. And don’t give me this slippery slope bullshit. Americans haven’t been forced to buy hybrids or electric cars by requiring licensing.

Yet the need has never been greater for licensing. According to the Center for Disease Control, there were 39,773 gun deaths in 2017, the most recent year available, up by more than 1,000 from the year before. Nearly two-thirds were suicides. It was the largest yearly total on record in the C.D.C.’s electronic database, which goes back 50 years, and reflects the sheer number of lives lost. You need to prove you can operate an Acura, but not an AK-14?

Now for matters less contentious, Factslaps:

Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva is a rare genetic disease which causes damaged soft tissue to regrow as bone.
“Stan”, from the Eminem song with the same name, was added to the Oxford English Dictionary, defining it as “an overzealous or obsessive fan of a particular celebrity.”
In Northern Ireland, women earn 3.4% than men on average.
Today’s human population is descended from twice as many women as men. About 80% of women reproduced, whereas only 40% of men did.
4.6 million Americans were severely behind on payments on student loans in 2017.
The average American throws away 70 pounds of clothes a year.
Corporatocracy is a term used to refer to an economic and political system controlled by corporate interests.
Every winter, great white sharks swim for 40 days to meet up between Mexico and Hawaii, and nobody knows why.

Steven Spielberg’s Homage to the Master

Image result for spielberg the shining

I’ve never been one for conspiracy theories. But I think I’ve stumbled upon one.

Steven Spielberg was Stanley Kubrick’s prized protege. They talked often, visited each other’s sets, even teamed up to make the underrated film, A.I. Spielberg has always been an immense talent, but let’s face it: Having Stan the Man as your corner cut man is like a writer having Salinger as a writing tutor. If you don’t take advantage of the teachings, you don’t deserve school.

I’ve been doing an inordinate amount of research into Sir Kubrick of late, and discovered a little YouTube nugget of an interview with Spielberg. In it, he sheepishly admitted he did not care for The Shining when he first saw it, and (very) reluctantly told Stanley as much when Kubrick asked his impressions. Only after watching the Jack Nicholson movie a few times, Spielberg spilled in the clip, did he recognize the movie’s genius and, more importantly, its subterfuge.

The Shining, an adaptation of a Stephen King horror movie, is not the haunted house flick audiences (and King) were expecting. I remember Dad’s disappointment when we left the theater. More than 46% of the nation’s critics at the biggest papers in the country gave it a thumbs-down.

Over time, though, its reputation has risen like a zombie with the munchies. Instead of a haunted house story, critics and historians posthumously realized, The Shining is a haunted human story, touching on domestic abuse, alcoholism, even the genocide of the American Indian. The American Film Institute recently named it one of the 30 most thrilling movies in the past century. The AFI also named Jack Nicholson’s Jack Torrance among the top 25 cinematic villains of all-time. What the AFI failed to note is that Poltergeist, the Disney-fied horror film ostensibly made for kids and families, was secretly a dark homage to Stanley from Spielberg, who wrote and produced the movie.

Try it as I accidentally did: Play The Shining theme over any three minutes of Poltergeist, and you’ll see that the whimsical score and sitcom lighting were simply a ploy to get it a PG rating. But when played with a traditional horror score, the movie feels entirely different — and the images are sheer Kubrickian. Here’s a sample. At 1:20, you’ll swear Stanley rose from the dead for the editing booth:

Now for something less theoretical, FactSlaps:

Chinese princess Xin Zhui’s body, who died in 163 BCE, is so well preserved that her skin is still soft her arms and legs can bend, and her internal organs are still intact.
Camels gave humans the common cold.
Science knows more about coffee, wine and tomatoes than it does about breast milk.
Hugh Jackman was a party clown before being famous.
More people watch online video game play than major cable networks and subscription entertainment services.
The Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest structure, stands 2,716 feet tall. It has 24,000 windows, contains 393,000 cubic yards of concrete and took 22 million man hours to build.
World renowned cellist Yo Yo Ma once left his 266 year old cello, worth $2.5 million, in the back of a NYC taxi. It was returned to him in time for his evening concert.

Ho Ho Ho…ly Shit

I’m not sure whether to feel terrific or terrified by Donald Trump’s downward spiral into 17 concurrent investigations, from Russian ties to his “university” to his alleged charity foundation.

On the one hand, it’s a beautiful downward spiral, as his embarrassing public owning (and pride) of our government shutdown illustrated.

On the other, one can’t help but wonder whether his withdrawal of troops from Syria and Afghanistan isn’t a prelude of his attempt to Tweet the nation into martial law (it would no doubt be spelled “marshal.”)

One thing is clear this holiday season: We could use some truth. Thus, the year-end edition of FactSlaps:

Thomas Edison invented the tattoo pen.
The Netherlands was the first country in the world to make same-sex marriage legal in 2001.
Ratings on Netflix are not actually an average of the ratings of all users, but rather a representation of what users with similar entertainment tastes as you thought of the movie.
St Nicholas is the patron saint of penitent murderers.
The Netherlands paved a bike path with recycled toilet paper.
In the U.S., the death toll from guns is higher for kids ages 0-4 than it is for on-duty law enforcement officers.
Enric Marco, a Catalan mechanic, was a prominent public face of Spanish survivors of the Holocaust for decades, until his story was revealed to be a lie.
Tidsoptimist is a Swedish word for someone who thinks they have more time than they actually do.
To ‘egrote’ is to pretend to be ill to avoid work.
The tallest cactus ever recorded was 78 feet tall.
The Japanese words for wrist and ankle literally translate into “hand neck” and “foot neck.”
During its restoration in 1982, the Statue of Liberty’s head was accidentally installed two feet off-center.
In 1891, a ride was planned that would drop passengers in free fall from the top of the Eiffel Tower into a pond at the bottom.
Parts of Africa no longer want your clothing donations. The vast amount of these imports have devastated local clothing industries and led the region to rely far too heavily on the West.