A Sad State of Affairs

Because of this class, I have spent more time watching the news and thinking about the current state of affairs in our country. There were several news stories this week that were disturbing for various reasons. The first one involved a television actor and an alleged attack that took place in Chicago. The actor, Jussie Smollett, claimed that two men attacked him, shouted racist and homophobic slurs at him and tied a rope around his neck. My first reaction was that the attack was disgusting and that hopefully, the perpetrators whould be brought to justice quickly. After the story played out over several days it now appears as if the whole incident was staged in an effort by the actor to gain a more lucrative contractual arrangement with his current employer. What bothers me about this story is that this type of attack actually happens to real people in our cities all the time. The hate that is faced by everyday people is real and has consequences. By his actions, Smollett belittled these victims and now made their stories less believable and subject to question. Unfortunately, these people don’t have the platform to fight back that Smollett had to fake the story. The hate and scars of the words and attacks will live with the real victims for the rest of their lives. I thought that it must be horrible that people are targeted and/or attacked over who they love or how they love. Hopefully, Smollett gets the help he needs. This is a sad story all around.

Another story this week involved the government recently revealing that 245 children were separated from their parents at the southern border of the United States since the current administration ended their “Zero Tolerance” policy last June. I have watched this story over the last year and heard arguments for and against this policy. I watched on television as a commentator said that the parents broke the law and asked “what criminals get to take their children to jail with them?” I watched the pictures of children being put in cages and warehoused. For the first time in my life it made me ashamed of my country. I once travelled to Mexico to build houses for people living along the railroad tracks near Tecate. I met the families and children there who were just trying to survive. Like any of us, they just wanted a better life for themselves and their children. I met a young boy named “Moses” who drew me a picture on a block of wood. The picture was of him and his family in their new home with big smiles on their faces. I still have that block of wood. I am not really sure how we have come to a point in our history where a large part of the citizens of the United States are accepting of children being put in cages. I know we are better than this.

Another story involved a Coast Guard officer who was arrested this week after it was discovered that he had a cache of weapons and had prepared a list of prominent democratic politicians and journalists from NBC and MSNBC he wanted to murder. He was planning to eliminate people based on their political beliefs. Evidently, he thought silencing voices that he disagreed with would somehow help his “cause.” This was covered extensively in the news; however, the President hadn’t commented on the matter as of Friday.

I also read a story this week about a couple with two children who were killed in a motorcycle accident. The two children, a boy and a girl, were sent to live with their grandparents who had financial difficulties. Before he died, the father had been restoring a classic car in order to give it to his son on his 18th birthday. The Grandparents made the difficult decision to auction off the car in order to raise funds to care for the children. The first person who bought the car auctioned it off immediately and gave the proceeds to the family. The second person did the same thing. The third person gave the car back to the family. In all, $100,000 was raised for the children and the car was given to the young boy who lost his parents. It was good to see that there are still people in the world who care and try and help. Unfortunately, with all the hate in the news every day, stories like this are often overlooked.

The point of this writing is that we as a country can choose who we are, and who we want to be. We can control this. The public outrage is what ended the barbaric zero tolerance policy in the first place. There seems to be so much hate in the world. The disagreements of the past are now pitched battles with no compromise. Politics has become a zero-sum game. Unfortunately, this type of arrangement has consequences like children in cages and violent extremists. All that being said, the story of the 2 children and their grandparents reminds me that in our communities we are better and more connected than it appears. I know, based on personal experience, that this is truly the case. It is important that all of us are the catalyst to bring out the best we can be, and do all in our power to defeat the hate that seems to be growing. It is up to all of us to choose our future and the future of our country.

Our Sick World

I have now been reading the newspaper and looking at internet news sites for several weeks. I have complained or made observations about things going on in the world that I found annoying. Unfortunately, this week the news took a weird turn. I uncovered several stories that made me wonder if there are yet, undiscovered tribes in the deepest part of the Amazonian rain forests that are more civilized and well-mannered than the rabble that make their appearance in the weekly news. I am sorry if the following bits of news offend anyone but, don’t shoot me, I’m merely the messenger. This crap is actually in the news.

The first story I came across was from Florida. A 21-year-old man decided it would be a great idea to film himself having intimate relations with a husky. Not “husky” like the larger than average pants the blubbery kid you knew in the seventh grade wore, but an actual husky, as in the breed of dog. Christian Nichols dressed himself in a husky dog costume and set up his camera. In an effort at factual accuracy -the husky dog costume was the breed of dog and not the larger than average dog costume a mentally unstable Floridian would wear before filming himself having sex with his dog. I was confused as to the reason he put the costume on. Did he think it would make him more attractive to the dog? Was he trying to make the dog more comfortable? He was arrested after the authorities were alerted to the video and a complaint was lodged. He was charged with 1 count of animal cruelty (evidently buggery has been stricken from the statutory criminal code in Florida). Whatever the legal outcome, this hound humper should be boiled in oil. The complaint was probably phoned in by the victimized husky. Hopefully the pooch poker will do hard time in the penal sense (well, you know what I mean). I was just grateful that the article wasn’t entitled “Dog Pound.”

Trying to recover from the horrifying details of the dog dicker story, I moved on. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, I came across a story about a man in Zimbabwe who was arrested for bestiality after being caught having a physical relationship with a donkey. The man claimed that he had hired a prostitute for twenty dollars and that somehow the woman turned into a donkey while he was getting to know her. Evidently, he was intoxicated and didn’t fully understand the transactional details when she said she would let him do it in her ass for twenty dollars. This story ended well as the man claimed he was now in love with the donkey and wanted to marry it. It reminded me of a book called “Wet Goddess” where a guy claimed he was having an ongoing relationship with a dolphin. He claimed they were just two mammals in love. He would swim into her enclosure and “free willy” and then... explore her blowhole. These sick freaks would probably stick it in a beehive if they thought they could get honey on their stinger.

Moving on, I came across an article where a guy in New Orleans was arrested for threats and menacing after he went into a restaurant bathroom, told the staff member to clear out because he was going to blow the place up. The authorities were called and arrested the man. He claimed he didn’t mean he had explosives, he was trying to tell the guy in the bathroom that he was about to have a bowel movement so foul that it might cause permanent brain damage to anyone who had functioning olfactory senses within a block radius of the dumping ground. Police were sending him for psychiatric testing. Probably ought to have a proctologist nose around a little too.

I had had enough and was about to swear off the news for the rest of my life when I came across an McDonalds because they were charged the same price for the Quarter Pounder with cheese, even though they ordered it without cheese. This individual was seeking 5 million dollars in damages. I wonder if anyone broke the news to this raccoon that the yellow substance on the burger isn’t really cheese...it’s plastic. Of course, the zit covered kid working the drive thru window thinks it’s funny that the plaintiff thinks that the brown stuff on the bun is a meat burger. Wait until that lawsuit gets filed.

The next lawsuit involved a couple from New Mexico. The man, Peter Wallis was suing his girlfriend, Kellie Smith, because she had impregnated herself without his consent. He claimed that Smith intentionally came off birth control in an effort to intentionally acquire and misuse his sperm. The court ruled that the sperm was voluntarily given and should be classified as a gift, leaving Wallis with no possession rights. Thank God that I was never involved in a lawsuit like that. I am quite sure the court would fine me for littering in a case like this.

The News and Dr. Sausage Fingers

I happened to be sitting in the doctor’s office this week and began to leaf through the periodicals (trust me, I’m using that term very loosely). They were spread out on the table for the patients to read. The guy next to me was complaining to his wife about “Dr. Sausage Fingers” checking his prostate. Apparently, he was not looking forward to the exam. He looked like a first-time drug mule with a pound of heroin in his rectum about to find out how the goods were being delivered.

The first magazine I looked at contained food and restaurant stories. A lot of advertisements with an occasional 2 paragraph “story” mixed in. I came across two food promotions being advertised. KFC was unveiling a new sandwich with what they described as an exciting new twist – Cheetos! They have a piece of chicken on a bun and then cram a load of Cheetos on top of the bird. The other promotion involved Pizza Hut offering free pizza to the couple who give birth to the baby who has an official birth time closest to the time of kickoff for this year’s Super Bowl.

First there is the KFC sandwich. This involves a layer of Cheetos and special Cheetos sauce along with a bun and some fried chicken. The promotion involves a limited release for the sandwich which is only available in the southern part of the United States. If interest is high enough the sandwich will become available nationwide. It is quite obvious to me why this death bird is only available down south. I once had the unpleasant experience of spending an afternoon in Little Rock, Arkansas. This is the first town I had ever spent time in where the toothbrushes clearly outnumbered the teeth. I wandered into a restaurant called The Cozy Kitchen and was introduced to a slice of Americana that most people don’t even know exists. The chef stood behind a lunch counter with stains all over his shirt and his cigar ashes falling into the food as he yelled obscenities at the staff, or staph in this case. The menu advertised such delicacies as, Bar-B -Q chicken, Bar-B-Q beef, Bar-B-Q pork, Bar-B-Q opossum, Bar-B-Q humidity etc. You get the picture. These people would be begging for a bag of Cheetos! The advertisement for this debeaked widow maker should be a picture of the Colonel standing over Chester Cheeto laid out in a hospital bed with the cardiologist pulling a sheet over his head. This isn’t a sandwich, it’s a gastrointestinal hitman.

As for pizza hut, the NFL says it wants to reward its fans that are expanding their family so close to the big game. Free pizza for the entire year for the winner. Fans in New Orleans complained that if the NFL wanted to reward its fans they should call a fucking interference penalty!!! Evidently, they are still bitter. If the NFL wants to reward the rest of the country they would force the Patriots to eat the KFC cheese rooster until the entire team flatlines.

Another article in the magazine caught my attention. A London restaurant in search of sustainable protein is now offering gray squirrel lasagna. Apparently, the chef struck a deal with his wild boar supplier in order to get the squirrel carcasses. Ivan Tisdall-Downes, the chef, claims the meat isn’t as gamey as rabbit and is a really nice white meat. I have a lot of questions here. My first question is – what in the hell is a wild boar supplier? How does one stumble into this vocation? Is there a school for this? Are you forced to watch Wild Kingdom on Animal Planet and then walk around the woods looking for a pig with big teeth? For God’s sake -are they telling the customers they are eating wild boar? Am I ordering a pulled pork sandwich and instead being tricked into eating pulled Pumbaa? How the hell is this supplier getting enough squirrel meat to make lasagna? I wonder if they put the weird little squirrel hands into the lasagna? I made a mental note of the restaurant in case I’m in London but won’t put it in this story so the rest of you can play “Restaurant Russian Roulette” the next time you are in London. Eat up!

I decided to switch magazines at this point. I opened up Live Science magazine. The first article I came across involved researchers in Japan. Evidently, a group of scientists there recently developed a method of transforming human feces into steak. These scientists were asked by the Tokyo Sewage Department to come up with a practical use for the excess sewage. By isolating the proteins from the bacteria in human waste and combining them with carbs and fat they developed a meat like substance. Of course, they strongly recommend cooking the “steak” thoroughly before consuming it. Cooking it will make no difference. I can hear it already – “this steak tastes like shit!” Now, my Aunt Cora will finally be able to keep a job. She’s four hundred pounds and produces enough “steak” each day to feed Myanmar. Every time she needs new shoes she calls a blacksmith. For years she wore a shirt that had the word Man-eater on it but I just assumed she had misspelled the word Manatee. I can’t wait to pitch my new restaurant idea to her.

I tossed Live Science aside and picked up the Catholic Register. There was an article about technology. In January the Pope and the Catholic Church introduced a new app - “click to pray.” The church has begun to embrace technology. Evidently, you click on the app and you can follow mass or pray with the Pope on the new Worldwide Prayer Network. I was kind of surprised that the article didn’t continue with this additional information - Many of the local parish priests feel that there are bugs that need to be worked out before the app will be of any use to them. The app needs to be further developed in order for them to continue to fondle the younger parishioners through the smart phone or I-pad. Yuck!!! The next two stories involved a man who got drunk and lit his prosthetic leg on fire and an article about an epileptic dwarf who made pizzas.

I never got a chance to read those articles because the nurse called my name and my prostate let out a scream! I was only there for a TDAP shot but I quickly looked up the Worldwide Prayer Network on my phone as I headed into the exam room, just in case.

Disney: The Happiest Place On Earth

It was reported in the New York Post recently that park visitors are scattering the ashes of their deceased loved ones throughout Disneyland and Disney World. It has been an ongoing issue in the Park for some time and park custodians have been forced to use a special attachment on the vacuum cleaners in order to suck up the ashes after they have been left at the park. These visitors are smuggling the ashes into the park concealed in camera cases and backpacks in order to evade detection. Disney considers this to be a park, health code violation and is asking for the public to stop doing this. Apparently, the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, the Haunted Mansion along with the Dumbo the Elephant ride are the most popular places in the park chosen as the final resting place for deceased relatives. Experts believe that this is a way in which relatives can visit the “happiest place on earth,” one last time with their departed family member.

While I never really contemplated my own demise before, this article made me stop and think. This subject is not something a typical 30-year-old would worry about, but the more I thought about this, the more I realized I have some things to work through. For instance, after they toss you into the pizza oven and bake you to a crisp, they really don’t know what pieces are where- they just have a clump of ashes with no identifiable body parts (although, several Disneyland visitors have described finding human fingers and eyeballs in the bushes surrounded by ashes- obviously, these are either deceased remains or someone spilled their Chinese food in the bushes). The article also made me realize that I now have to worry that my severely overweight, chain smoking alcoholic uncle is going to head to Disneyland one last time and make me watch him treat himself to a couple of Astro Wieners with pickles at the Space Mountain Galactic Restaurant before he dumps my fried testicles at the feet of some animatronic swashbuckler. I’m going through life fat, dumb, and happy then suddenly I keel over from a tainted piece of romaine lettuce and my crazy Uncle Eddie (who has a giant hump on his back and looks like he should be ringing a bell somewhere) is going to toss my overcooked anus under some big eared, porcine flying pachyderm? Thanks a lot New York Post!

I am also quite sure Walt Disney would have never approved of this type of behavior. Although, come to think of it, Walt did think it would be a great idea to be cryogenically frozen and then have his head placed on a monkey body and thawed out sometime in the future (what a nut job). They should take that human popsicle and dump his ice-cold carcass in the bushes near Splash Mountain just to discourage these lunatics from doing this shit. Once he thaws out and begins to turn, the odor will send a strong message. Or, better yet, they could dump his Haagen Dazs head somewhere on Tom Sawyer’s Island in order to get people to actually go over there. That would be a win/win! Injun Joe and Muff Potter could violate that ice bucket and leave poor Dr. Robinson alone for a change.

Prior to reading this article my only concern with heading to my final reward was that the crew of meat puppets I left behind would at least have the common decency to put me in some underwear and a suit before the dirt nap, and now this. After reading this article I began watching my relatives closely. I am trying to figure out which one of these mouth breathing, fetal alcohol syndrome, carnival workers will be the one to dump me into an ashtray, put on some mouse ears and then scatter me around Mister Toad’s Wild ride because the line to the Haunted Mansion was too long. At the moment I think it might be my sister Jackie. She never liked me, got pregnant at 16 and then married her Driver’s Ed teacher who was 36 years older than her because he had a car. Ironically his name was Ed.

I have had to sit down and formulate a plan in case one of them dies before I do. My current plan, if Jackie goes first, is to cremate her (she’s deathly afraid of fire and is saving her money in order to purchase a cemetery plot near the high school parking lot where she first consummated her relationship with Ed), and then scatter her ashes around that goddamn Small World ride. Let her listen to that “small world” song for eternity – that will settle a few scores! She better hope her ears aren’t in that ashtray! As for the others, most of whom are severely obese and are trying to deal with a few too many chromosomes, I’m just hoping they cremate them so I don’t have to be one of the pall bearers. I have to assume that attempting to lift any of those corpulent bastards will result in my testicle flying out of my abdominal cavity and a seven day stay in a hospital post hernia surgery. As for scattering their ashes at Disneyland, I suppose just dumping their ashes near the tram stop garbage can at the front entrance would be sufficient. There is no way you are packing that many ashes into a camera case. The pile of ashes for each one of them would most likely resemble the smoldering ashes of a bad house fire but would smell much worse. Oh well, screw the New York Post and screw Disneyland!

Sacha Baron Cohen. A public intellectual?

I’ve never been a big fan of New Year’s Eve. In truth, I’ve always seen it as the single-most arbitrary and superficial “holiday” we celebrate as a people. It has no religious or commercial connection yet somehow manages to pack the social punch of a Kardashian Instagram post or new Beyoncé single. Like scores of others, however, I do enjoy the tradition of watching millions of people freeze their bologna ponies’ off in the sub-zero temperatures in the middle of Times Square for the thrill of watching a ball slowly plummet to the earth. While the whole ball thing is riveting, observing several hundred happy couples queue in line for hours for their “unique” and “special” moment to propose has become a New Year’s Eve tradition of my own- this annual test of human endurance and stupidity confirms that we have not evolved enough of a species.

Of all of the asinine institutions that accompany the event, however, the “resolution” is by far the most preposterous. While I admire the couch potatoes who think they can become gym rats overnight and respect the guy who decides to stop binge-watching porn and finally pay attention to his kids, the “new year, new me” people make me want to vomit. That being said, I decided to make one of my own this year. 2019 will be my year of enlightenment. The year I go from uninformed dumb shit to a slightly more informed dumb shit. The year I part from my ignorant, sheltered ways and finally read a book. The year I become a public intellectual.

Unfortunately, there are two major obstacles in my journey to becoming a public intellectual. First, I’m not public. Second, I’m not an intellectual. Statistically speaking, even with this public blog, more people have walked on the moon than have read my work or listened to my thoughts in any capacity. As for the second challenge, I’m by no means an expert on anything. Even if I was, I have found I possess little ability to articulate my knowledge to the public in any comprehensible way (think Rain Man without the whole numbers thing). I express myself with the grace of a rabid baboon and tact of President Trump at a global summit. While becoming a public intellectual may not be in my five year plan, I found the concept intriguing enough to investigate further.

A public intellectual is defined as a well-known, intelligent, learned person whose written works and other social and cultural contributions are recognized not only by academic audiences and readers, but also by many members of society in general (Wiktionary). In short, a public intellectual is exactly what it sounds like; me having to look up the precise definition is further evidence that I’ll never become one.

Upon further investigation, I realized that it is far easier to define public intellectual than to identify a good example of one. For example: Donald Trump is a public figure with millions of dedicated followers, yet is slightly less intelligent than the keyboard I type on. He spews hot garbage into the world in the form of tweets for his sycophants to eat and digest on an a seemingly hourly basis. The Kardashian clan, much like Trump, are all public figures with far more worshippers than brain cells. On the flip side, there are many intellectuals who aren’t public. They are experts in their field, but spend more time contributing to their given areas of expertise than publishing and relaying their findings to the general public. Mathematicians such as Andrew Wiles and Grigori Perelman come to mind (thanks Google!). While being public and dumb seems rather prominent in our digital age there is no shortage of private intellectuals.

This matter of classification and identification is subjective. There are countless public figures out there that are intelligent that may not fall into the category of “public intellectual.” One could argue that someone like Oprah, for example, is more of a public influencer than public intellectual. She has written several books, has a significant fan base, and is certainly intelligent in her own rite, however, it would be a stretch to say that she is somehow a groundbreaking intellectual in any specific field.

One could also argue the same for people like Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk. Both are people of power and, as a result, have an immense public reach. At first glance, both appear to be groundbreaking intellectuals in their respective fields, however, many of their achievements rest on the accomplishments of others (either working for them or with them). This is not to downplay their advancements and contributions- they are both wildly successful, however, I would argue a lot of this is due to their collaboration and management skills rather than their own personal intellect. In 2016 David Frum stated: “One of the more dangerous pleasures of great wealth is that you never have to hear anyone tell you that you are completely wrong.” In my opinion, there is a big difference being an intellect and being a person of power.

I recently did a Google search on most influential public intellectuals in the world and realized that most had one thing in common- money. Lots and lots of money. There exists a great deal of insanely rich people in this world that have somehow generated a massive public following (looking at Trump and the Kardashians again). I’m convinced that a great deal of people out there truly believe that any idiot’s opinion has weight so long as that idiot is obscenely rich (Space Force!). According to the Washington Post’s David Drezner: “Folks like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg take ideas seriously. But they are taken seriously as intellectuals because of their money. An intellectual should be able to influence because of their ideas and not because of their positions.”

With this in mind, I embarked on a mission to find an unconventional public intellectual. One that did not fit the mold in a traditional sense - not a published mathematician or physicist with their own television show. Not a college professor, head of state, or prolific writer, but rather an unexpected contender. An entertainer. A profession that while public, does not typically find itself infiltrated with intellects. Sacha Baron Cohen is an exception to this.

 

Sacha Baron Cohen is an English actor, comedian, screenwriter, and film producer. The youngest of three children, he was born London in 1971 to an English father and an Israeli mother. Because his mother was a movement instructor and his grandmother was a ballet instructor he was exposed to performance from an early age. As a kid, he attended The Haberdashers’s Aske’s Boys’ School in Hertfordshire before attending the University of Cambridge (Christ’s College) where he studied history and graduated with upper-second-class honours. While attending, he became a member of the Cambridge University Amateur Dramatic Club as well as the Habonim Dror Jewish theatre. After college, Cohen made a jump from theater to television and film where he developed countless characters and alter egos. This includes Ali G, an uneducated and ill-mannered thug from Staines, England, Borat Sagdiyev, a sheltered bachelor from Kazakhstan, Brüno Gehard, a flamboyantly gay Austrian fashion show presenter, as well as countless others.

Cohen is famous for his unique and brash brand of humor. He leverages the power and realism of documentary style interviews in most of his routines where his characters can interact with unsuspecting people who do not realize they are being set up for comic situations and self-inflicted ridicule. His characters satirize specific cross-sections or groups within society while his interviews aim to highlight prevalent social issues.

ALI G: Ali G is a satirical fictional character created and played by Cohen that parodies suburban, privileged youth acting in a way that they believe is typical of black people. The character originally appeared on “The 11 O’Clock Show” in the UK before becoming the title character of “Da Ali G Show” in 2000 before being picked up by HBO. The typical platform of the show consisted of an “innocent” Ali G interviewing experts with neither understanding each other. Those that appeared on the show include Donald Trump, Noam Chomsky, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, as well as David and Victoria Beckham, to name a few.

BORAT: Borat is a fictitious Kazakh journalist character created and played by Cohen. In 2006, Cohen released the film “Borat,” (or, Borat! Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan) where the title character travels throughout the United States recording his real-life interactions with Americans. A great deal of the film consists of unscripted interviews between Borat and Americans who believe he is a foreigner with little or no understanding of America or American customs.

BRUNO: “Bruno” is a 2009 mockumentary comedy film that features the fictitious character Bruno, a gay Austrian fashion reporter. Bruno is created by Cohen as well as played by him in the film. The film follows Bruno as he attempts an acting career after he is fired from his television show for disrupting an event during Milan Fashion week. Throughout the film he interviews parents of child models and discusses weight loss and liposuction, confronts members of the Westboro Baptist Church, and at one point even dons a Nazi uniform.

WHO IS AMERICA?: “Who Is America?” is Cohen’s most recent creation. It is a political satire television series that explores “the diverse individuals, from the infamous to the unknown across the political and cultural spectrum, who populate our unique nation.” The show incorporates a slew of newly-created characters by Cohen including Billy Wayne Ruddick Jr., PhD, a far-right conspiracy theorist, Dr. Nira Cain-N’Degeocello, a far-left lecturer on gender studies, Rick Sherman, a british ex-convict, Erran Morad, an Israeli anti-terrorism expert, as well as several others. Like most of his other work, this show is filmed as a documentary and incorporates interviews with unsuspecting guests.

With this background information I reference again the definition of a public intellectual: A well-known, intelligent, learned person who’s written works and other social and cultural contributions are recognized not only by academic audiences and readers, but also by many members of society in general (Wiktionary). Using this definition and breaking it down into its two distinct components will provide an easy way to analyze whether or not Sacha Baron Cohen can be included amongst the ranks of other public intellectuals.

1. Is Sacha Baron Cohen well-known?

In short, yes. He has a lengthy filmography with numerous wildly popular television shows to his name in addition to countless public speaking appearances.

2. Is he an intelligent, learned person who’s written works and other social and cultural contributions are recognized not only by academic audiences and readers, but also by many members of society in general?

Yes. Not only is he a graduate from Cambridge, but his humor is highly intelligent as well. Cohen’s unique brand of satire separates him from other comedians that focus on political and social issues such as John Oliver, Stephen Colbert, or even Lewis Black. While the ladder comment on issues from afar, Cohen submerges himself into the action and gets involved on a more personal level. He doesn’t make fun of people like his contemporaries, but rather cultivates situation and provides real people the opportunity to unknowingly make fun of themselves. He is able to shed light on the ignorance in society by interacting with unsuspecting people on their level through his alter egos and documentary-style filmmaking. Where most comedians comment on events after the fact, Cohen is able to invent situations where he can cover the events as they happen. Rotten Tomatoes, the American review-aggregation website for film and television, stated that Cohen’s brand of comedy is “Fleetingly funny and all too relevant.”

It takes real intelligence, control, and planning to pull off the self-damaging interviews that he has conducted over the years. To play the innocent and often times ignorant interviewer effectively, you have to be a complete expert on the topic you wish to discuss. You not only have to know the topics, but the individual you are interviewing - their history, their business, and in many instances, their triggers. Leading people into a false sense of security where they can let their true beliefs come out in front of a camera takes patience, tact, and manipulation. Cohen is masterful in this arena.

Not only is Cohen a leading expert in his brand of intelligent comedy, many of his shows, films, and interviews have had real life impacts. Jason Spencer, a Republican state representative from Georgia faced backlash after an interview with Cohen aired. Cohen was able to bait the politician into screaming the racial epithets “nigger” and “sand nigger” while speaking in a stereotypical Asian accent before baring his posterior in an attempt to ward off potential terrorists. This interview led to him ultimately resigning from office.

During interviews with the fictitious character Erran Morad in “Who Is America?”, Cohen got former Congressman Joe Walsh, as well as Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, California Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, and South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson, all to endorse a fake program titled “kinder-guardians,” which called for arming school children ages 3 to 16. He stated that arming teachers does not go far enough to curtail gun violence.

Sacha Baron Cohen is a comedian, an entertainer, and a public intellectual. At face value, he is a crass comedian with nothing more than a few off-color interviews under his belt, however, it is hard to debate the impact he has had on the film medium. He has been a pioneer in mockumentaries since Ali G, a masterful character actor and interviewer, and a leading expert in social critique and criticism. To quote Steven Mack: “...our notions of the public intellectual need to focus less on who or what a public intellectual is—and by extension, the qualifications for getting and keeping the title. Instead, we need to be more concerned with the work public intellectuals must do, irrespective of who happens to be doing it.”

The Inaugural Post

I created this blog after a series of embarrassing events made me painfully aware of what an uninformed dumb shit I had become.  My constant references to “Peking” during the last Olympic games (by the way – when the fuck did they change that?), and my attempt to purchase an 8-track at the local Best Buy recently made me realize that I needed to become more informed. So I grabbed a cup of coffee this morning on my way to visit my parents (more on that later) and began my education with earnest by sticking my bulbous nose into the local newspaper.

After getting through all of the daily madness, mayhem and slaughter on the front pages I began to get to the good stuff. The first story that caught my attention concerned a man in Florida who weighed 945 pounds. His visiting nurse had become concerned about his health and so paramedics showed up and removed him from his home. This required hydraulic equipment, tarps surgical masks and the removal of a wall from the house in the bedroom where the man had spent the last five years evidently wallowing in his own filth. It was quite a spectacle as twenty guys wearing surgical masks rolled out the man through the hole in his wall. They covered him with a tarp so nobody could see him as they loaded him onto a flatbed truck and hauled him away. As I read this I couldn’t help thinking – “the visiting nurse had become concerned about his health?” What the hell did that mean? Are you telling me that at 900 pounds the guy looked pretty good and then somewhere around 930 his color began to change. “He looked great right up until he hit the mid 900’s. Yeah he was really active at 850 – rolling over in bed and boosting himself up so the nurse could wipe his ass – he was like a fucking gymnast. Why didn’t she call someone at 600 or 700 pounds before he became a yearlong ongoing show on Dr. Phil while he tries to lose weight from his hospital room? I blame the nurse and those Snackwell cookies with their hidden calories.

The next story that caught my eye involved Peter Pan getting arrested at Disneyland. There was a picture of Peter Pan with that green suit, tights and weird looking Robin Hood hat being loaded into the back of a squad car with cuffs on. I just assumed he had been busted for kidnapping those kids from their bedroom or that the flying fairy dust shit he uses was actually heroin (which I had long suspected), or maybe he did something filthy with a can of Alpo and that dog “Nana” that the kids owned. Pan better hope he doesn’t get convicted because he isn’t going to fare too well in prison with those tights on.  Of course even though he’s 67 years old they have to try him as a juvenile and seal his records because of the whole “never grow up thing.” Wait until his cellmate decides to introduce him to Tinkerbell. It turns out that Pan was in a union and involved in some sort of labor dispute. I thought he was going to make the authorities look pretty foolish by having “happy thoughts” in his cell and flying out of there. What kind of union does Peter Pan belong to anyway? He doesn’t do anything. He pretends all day. Why doesn’t he just pretend that his pretend boss gave him a pretend raise and he could even throw in a pretend promotion while he’s at it? In fact, he could cut out the pretend middleman by just pretending everything at “work” was fine. I have to seriously question whether his working conditions and wages, which he was paid for sitting around in a cave with a bunch of juvenile delinquent no-loads was really intolerable? Is that what he’s claiming? If anyone has intolerable working conditions it’s that sycophant Schmee. He gets abused by a homicidal boss with a hook for a hand and is forced to aid and abet the attempted murder of children all day. Now that is a shitty job. He’s the one that should be protesting. He has a legitimate gripe. Why don’t they have a union for this poor bastard? These theme parks are full of some pretty tough characters. I thought I read that one of those fuckers in the paper mache heads once sodomized a kid because he pulled his tail. These guys in these suits have to let that shit go once in a while. I think I read that that rat bastard Chuck-E-Cheese once punched a kid for throwing pizza at him and pulling his tail and ears. Don’t they screen these people? In his defense, at least Chuckie never sodomized anyone. Anyway, I finished the story and sat there thinking…Peter Pan – what a complete asshole.

There were a few other small articles like the one from Italy where a group of nuns came up with the idea of putting up an inflatable church at the beach so that it would be convenient for people to attend mass while at the beach. They inflated it one Sunday but it blew down. They said they would try again the following week because they knew God really wanted them to do this. Really? I’m no expert on the ways of the Lord but I do think if he really wanted them to do this he wouldn’t have blown the fucking thing down. Another article concerned a family that showed up at a suburban Atlanta funeral home to view their 98-year-old grandmother’s body. When they looked in the casket, they were surprised to see some other old lady wearing grandma’s brooch and dress and camping out in her new casket. The funeral home scrambled to fix it, although I don’t know how that’s possible. Do you have to wash the clothes before you switch them back? Not sure, but grandma probably won’t give a shit. Do they offer the family a free funeral and dinner for two? (Tell them what they’ve won Johnny!) Do they even tell the other family? My rule of thumb here would be that you probably are going to have to tell them if there’s any digging involved.

Speaking of monkeys, there was another story from India where a bunch of marauding chimps threw a politician off a balcony where he fell to his death. The locals in response decided to bring in much bigger and more ferocious monkeys to attack the killer chimps. Is that a good idea? Why am I picturing Charlton Heston in chains telling some ape to get his filthy hands off him? I mean if you can’t handle the little chimps, why up the ante. Can these ferocious monkeys be trusted?  In this country we handle the problem in a completely different manner. Here we elect the chimps to office so if they want to throw a politician from a balcony to their death they simply jump. Seems far more efficient than pinning your hopes on bigger monkeys. I’m sure those monkeys were capuchins. Those little fuckers look cute like Mr. Binks but they bite like a badger and trust me when I tell you – you definitely don’t want one of those things gnawing on your hambone while you sit out on the balcony. They say that capuchins have a small brain and are pretty much focused on food and sex. Hey, wait a minute... I think my uncle might be a capuchin.

Two guys in Georgia claimed they had found a corpse in the woods that was the remains of Bigfoot. These guys spend a lot of time in the woods and normally their job was to look for leprechauns and the Loch Ness monster. They kept Bigfoot in their freezer and had DNA tests done on him. Obviously, marching around in the woods looking for leprechauns is one thing, but looking for “Nessie” in Georgia is quite another. Nessie lives in Loch Ness in Scotland, not in Georgia. That would be like looking for the London Bridge in Arizona…. wait ... bad example. That would be like looking for the Empire State building in Toronto. You’re not going to find it because it isn’t there. When the DNA results came back they were inconclusive but I read that the DNA was from a human and an opossum so the scientific community figures it to be a big hoax. While that’s all well and good for the scientific community I have a couple of questions. Hasn’t anyone watched “DELIVERANCE?” I’m not too concerned that they may have shot an opossum in the woods when it wasn’t varmint season, but I would like to know why nobody is asking questions about the FUCKING HUMAN IN THEIR FREEZER! What’s next for these two guys – dressing up in clown costumes and burying a few of their “finds” under the house or floorboards? Maybe the authorities could stop buy the old shack and pick up these two hillbillies before something else ends up in their freezer. Just wondering.

As I approached the last section I saw that Bob’s Big Boy restaurant had shit canned a fat guy because they couldn’t find a uniform shirt that fit him. Hey, why not rip the overalls off the mongoloid with the weird hair-do you have holding up that fucking hamburger out front? Just a thought. The last two stories were kind of related. One really caught my attention. Orange County California is turning human shit into car fuel.  Wow, my uncle is going to be like Saudi Arabia. They feed him Shredded Wheat and Triscuits and they could power up a fleet of buses for a month just using his morning constitutional. Of course if you want Hi-test you’re going to have to feed him peanuts. His farts will be so valuable, Red Adair and his team will be called in to “cap” him. Talk about going green.

At this point, I know what you’re all asking: “Hey asshole, weren’t the last Olympic games held in Rio?” and you would be correct (see first line of this post). I love my parents dearly but they could be featured on A&E’s “Hoarders”. I used to laugh at them and say that they haven’t thrown out a piece of mail since the Truman administration but the joke was on me this time. It wasn’t until I read about that burger flipping degenerate that I realized the paper I had picked up from the stack was from 2008.

Fuck this, the newspaper sucks and I’m better off uninformed.