Pirates of the Caribean is a big silly mess of a movie

And I'm perfectly fine with that. I had adjusted my expectations for it after the following two reviews from friends and readers of this blog:

• "It sucked Kraken balls."
• "Didn't make any sense, bad dialogue, no ending."

First things first. The author of the first review is a malcontent who wouldn't recognize a fun movie if it got naked, painted itself purple, jumped on top of a piano and started singing "Fun Movies Are Here Again."

The author of the second review... well honestly she's a bit more of a friend of a friend, and I guess I respect her opinion. I certainly agree with her review, at least the first two parts of it. Parts of the movie made no sense whatsoever, and some of the dialogue was almost George Lucas level bad, though I think the ending was fine. Having said that, I disagree with the conclusion-- that the movie sucked. At World's End is a mess of a movie. But then again so was Dead Man's Chest and, albeit to a lesser degree, so was Curse of the Black Pearl. I will grant that I did not think it was quite as good as the first two films, I did not think it was bad in the way that Spider-man 3 was (that goddamn jazz club/West Side Story sequence was GAWDAWFUL and more or less single-handedly ruined the movie for me). It's still a rollicking good time (a long one too, so be sure to take a piss and a dump, if necessary, before the movie starts) and be sure to stick around after the credits. The first two films had a short scene, post-credits, and the third film is no exception

100 Greatest Human Beings Who Ever Lived: #72 George Washington

The first serious person on this list, he probably actually deserves to be alot higher than here, but this is supposed to be fun and arbitrary so here comes George Washington at #72.

I think the most interesting thing about George Washington is the incredible mound of bullshit mythology that surrounds him. He might (seriously) be the most important figure in American history but alot of what many Americans think they know about him is purely fabricated. Among some of the more obvious and not-so obvious myths:

• George Washington once threw a silver dollar across the Potomac River. The river is a mile wide at Mount Vernon. Nolan Fucking Ryan couldn't throw a silver dollar across the Potomac River.
• That stupid cherry tree story. A dude named Parson Weems just made it up. That's right, the "I cannot tell a lie" story is complete and unadulterated bullshit.
• He wore wooden false teeth. Not true, though he did have teeth made of lead and hippo bones. This is actually even cooler than wooden teeth if you ask me.
  
• He knelt in prayer during the dark, cold winter at Valley Forge. To me, this is the most egregious of these myths. Washington was extremely private about his religion, conspicuously silent on Christianity. He was almost certainly NOT a Christian and you can read more about it in this book, Moral Minority, by Brooke Allen.

Washington's influence, though much of it might have something to do with the mythology built up around him by the likes of Parson Weems, has resonated on down through the last 208 years since his death in 1799. He set examples in his presidency that continue to be followed today.

Finally, I think any discussion about Washington would be incomplete without mention of his skills as a general. Let's face facts, folks-- George Washington was a bad motherfucker. He was so bad, that the Iroquois took to calling him Devourer of Villages after they bumped heads with him in the French and Indian War and then again in the Revolution.

Next on the list, the best writer in the history of baseball. Also a really nice dude.

Oh snap! Boris Yeltsin croaked!

The first democratically elected president of Russia is dead. I just thought this was worth mentioning. Yeltsin played an instrumental role in bringing the Soviet Union to its death and deserves a little tip of the hat here.

100 Greatest Human Beings Who Ever Lived: #73 Richard Pryor

Richard Pryor was THE funniest stand-up comic in history. Period. Paragraph. End of discussion. Seinfeld may have had the best sitcom; Carlin may be incredibly sharp, witty, and insightful; but Richard Pryor has them ALL beat. Seinfeld himself once called him "the Picasso of our profession" with Whoopi Goldberg saying he was her biggest influence. Pryor's stuff is still remarkably fresh and funny and his influence in undeniable. Just watch Chappelle's Show and then watch or listen to an old Pryor stand up special. The imprint that he left behind is quite obvious.

But Rich ain't on this list for being funny, though he was VERY funny. He's on this list because he was that rare humorist who spoke the truth, consequences be damned. If you care to watch enough Comedy Central late at night, you'll see dozens of comedians who make hacky observations ("why don't they make the whole plane out of the same stuff as the little black box?"), dumb racial jokes just to be controversial (anything Mencia's ever done on the topic), or doing the same bit for years and years (Pablo Francisco, that movie preview guy bit was hilarious, but you've been doing it for going on ten years now). Richard Pryor did none of these things. His stuff was always sharp and insightful-- "Yeah, Jack, the vampires don't like to see crucifxes. I hear their allergic to bullshit."-- his racial humor had a point-- his observations about the push to get Vietnamese orphans adopted ended "Shit we have 3 millions niggers here that need to get adopted."-- and he kept his stuff fresh.

By fresh, I mean REALLY fresh and personal. In 1980, Pryor set himself on fire and ran down the street screaming, engulfed in flames, and ended up suffering severe burns all over his body. It isn't quite clear whether this happened as an accident while free-basing cocaine, or whether it was a botched suicide attempt, but either way it was BAD. When Pryor did his last stand-up show, he waved a lit match in front of him calling it "Richard Pryor running down the street." He also observed that "When you're running down the street on fire, people get out of your way."

I close with a quote by Former Kennedy Center President Lawrence J. Wilker on awarding Pryor the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor:

Richard Pryor was selected as the first recipient of the new Mark Twain Prize because as a stand-up comic, writer, and actor, he struck a chord, and a nerve, with America, forcing it to look at large social questions of race and the more tragicomic aspects of the human condition. Though uncompromising in his wit, Pryor, like Twain, projects a generosity of spirit that unites us. They were both trenchant social critics who spoke the truth, however outrageous.

Next on the list, #72, the Father of Our Country. Yes, I WILL be putting some legitimately great human beings on this list.

100 Greatest Human Beings Who Ever Lived: #74 Hulk Hogan

WHATCHA GONNA DO, BROTHER? WHATCHA GONNA DO WHEN HULKAMANIA, AND THESE 24 INCH PYHONS RUN WILD ON YOOOOOOOOU?????

If those words don't excite you.... well you're obviously well younger than I am and/or not a dude. Terry Bollea, (d/b/a Hulk Hogan) is undoubtedly THE biggest star in the history of professional (that is, "fake") wrestling. And once upon a time, children, wrestling was HUGE.

Hulk Hogan, along with maybe The Rock, absolutely transcended wrestling and became a huge popular culture icon, literally and figuratively. He was Thunderlips in Rocky III. Hogan was actually fired from the then WWF for appearing in the movie, even though it drew attention to him and, by extension, the WWF. Two years later, as Hogan had wrestled elsewhere and started his rise to the top of the grapplin' world, he was brought back to the WWF where he would become its biggest star.

Hulkamania ran wild. Hogan issued "demandments" of his fans, urging us to train, say our prayers, take our vitamins, and of course, believe in ourselves. Never mind that Hulk Hogan was using anabolic steroids at the time. He was a REAL AMERICAN! This all sounds very cheesy and a cynical part of me is kind of admonishing me for doing this post, but wrestling was inherently cheesy anyway, and this stuff was/is extremely entertaining, especially because it was so earnest.

A case in point was the Andre the Giant feud. They were known to be good friends, and were very close in real life, so this was used in a storyline where jealousy tore the good pals apart. Hogan and Andre were being honored in the ring and somehow Andre tore off Hogan's shirt and his crucifix, leaving Hogan shocked. The result was a match at Wrestlemania III where Hogan bodyslammed the 520-pound Frenchman (who really ought to get an honorable mention on this list, if only for his fantastic acting in The Princess Bride) in front of an estimated 93,000 people in the Silverdome in Detroit. Let that sink in. Ninety three thousand people.

People of a certain age will remember how big Hogan was. His career spanned four decades and people my age will remember those Hulk Hogan dolls and his feud with the Ultimate Warrior. In retrospect, Hogan's career has been alot like the Terminator-- he just keeps coming back for more, and just when you think he's done for, he gets up and becomes huge again. His VH1 reality show, which is unbelievably entertaining, Hogan Knows Best, proves just that. The man is an incredible showman, and has had an amazing run. Huzzah for Terry Bollea.

Next on the List of the 100 Greatest Human Beings Who Ever Lived, the greatest and funniest stand up comic of all time. Now how's THAT for a teaser?

100 Greatest Human Beings Who Ever Lived: #75 Napoleon Bonaparte

Le Petit Corporal is an inspiration to short, insecure men everywhere. Napoleon Bonaparte was probably history's greatest general and actually made France(!) a world power to be reckoned with. Some would argue that Napoleon actually hastened the demise of France and her decline to second-rate bitch of Germany and later, the UK and US. Some might even say that Napoleon might just have been the first domino to fall in an unstoppable chain of events that led directly to the First World War and, by extension, Hitler, the Holocaust, the Second World War, and the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe.

Still, Napoleon Bonaparte made a meaningful impact on French and European history one way or the other and the rest of Europe was scared so shitless of him, that they couldn't even put him in prison on the continent or even just execute him out of fear of making him a martyr. Instead they sent him to a little island off the coast of Tuscany called Elba. And then he came back to France and famously was met by a Royalist French army. Approaching the Fifth Regiment alone, he dismounted from his horse, tore his shirt open, offering his breast as a target and shouted, "Soldiers of the Fifth, you recognize me. If any man would shoot his emperor, he may do so now." Some shouted "Vive L'Empereur!" and he took over the damn country by acclimation. Soon thereafter, following his famous defeat at Waterloo, the British were so scared of Napoleon that they exiled him to friggin' St. Helena. Do you have any idea how far away St. Helena is? It's off the coast of central Africa. Go look at the map. And this was in the 19th century, before Phileas Fogg traveled 'round the world in 80 days.

Furthermore Napoleon wasn't really French. He was Corsican, which was more like Italian than French. So ultimately Napoleon doesn't lose points on this list for being French, but actually gains some for overcoming difficult odds and anti-immigrant discrimination and all that.

Also Napoleon liked to eat pussy. Alot, apparently. He liked to whistle in the wheat fields, sit down for a box lunch, bob for clams, and guest lecturing at Beaver College. To wit, some excerpts from his letters to Josephine, courtesy of PBS, of all places:

• A kiss on your heart, and one much lower down, much lower!
• I am going to bed with my heart full of your adorable image… I cannot wait to give you proofs of my ardent love… How happy I would be if I could assist you at your undressing, the little firm white breast, the adorable face, the hair tied up in a scarf a la creole. You know that I will never forget the little visits, you know, the little black forest… I kiss it a thousand times and wait impatiently for the moment I will be in it. To live within Josephine is to live in the Elysian fields. Kisses on your mouth, your eyes, your breast, everywhere, everywhere.

Next on the List, #74 reminds you to train hard, say your prayers, take your vitamins, be true to yourself, be true to your country, and, of course, be a Real American.

SURGERY IS HARRRRD!!!!

So I trekked out to Harvard Medical School to participate in some study involving virtual reality surgery teaching technology. It was a simulation of laparoscopic surgery. Basically the surgeon makes two small incisions and then inserts the instruments and proceeds to do the surgery and fiddling around with your insides while watching in real time on a monitor with the aid of fiber optic technology. Sounds really fascinating, right? My task was basically to match up some arrows in a three-dimensional space by picking them up with these instruments and moving them around. Except these arrows don't actually exist. They only exist on the tv screen in front of me.

It was basically me and another guy. The other guy finished in like twenty minutes. Me? I was 30% done when the software timed out about an hour and half in. So yeah. Things we've learned:

• Surgeons are gods among men.
• I cannot and never will be the dudes from Nip/Tuck. But maybe House.
• Performing surgery is an incredibly specialized physical talent that is not merely a function of intellectual capacity and those guys deserve the money they get paid.
• Also being a doctor is really hard and mad props to both of my readers at Vanderbilt Medical School. Much love to both of you.

If you're a Harvard student and are interested in participating in this study, let me know in the comment section and I will hook you up with the people in charge.

In the Spirit of the Stan Lee Post....

I know this video has made the rounds, but even if you've never seen it a thousand times, much like the Leeroy Jenkins video, gets better with age.... Oh and the audio is NSFW.

100 Greatest Human Beings Who Ever Lived: #76 Stan Lee

Greetings, True Believers! We now reach the Greatest Human Being Ever to Live and Be Involved in the Comic Book Business, Mr. Stan Lee. Yes Superman is certainly the biggest icon of popular culture to emerge from comic books, and everyone does seem to love the Dark Knight, but the cultural and social impact that the creations of Stan Lee have had are almost immeasurable. To wit, an abridged list of characters Stan Lee either created or was a co-creator of:

• Spider-man
• The Fantastic Four
• The Incredible Hulk
• Iron-Man
• The X-Men
• Thor
• Dr. Strange
• Daredevil
• Striperella

Okay, so maybe he shouldn't be so proud of that last accomplishment, but still. That is an impressive list. What's more impressive is that he actually had a social conscience in writing these titles. He famously defied the Comics Code's ban on doing stories involving drug use when he did a Spider-man story where Spidey's best friend acquites a pill problem. Doing so caused the tight-asses at the Comic Book Authority to loosen the hell up and comic books are probably better off for it. Lee also neglected to condescend to his readers, using sophisticated vocabulary in his stories and responding to critics of this practice by saying, "If a kid has to go to a dictionary that's not the worst thing that could happen."

What's more, Stan's creations are all pretty deep and meaningful, especially considering how shallow and pulpy comic books tended to be up to that point. Spider-man is an angsty teenager, dealing with the death of his uncle. The Incredible Hulk tackles some of our worst nightmares about the dangers of nuclear radiation. And the X-men is an absolutely transparent allegory of the struggle for civil rights with Professor X and Magneto cast in the roles of Martin and Malcolm respectively. I think X-Men in particular continues to speak to people today, especially as we have right-wing, Evangelical Christian lunatics running around casting aspersions on gay people. Think of some of the anti-mutant rhetoric by some of the baddies in the old X-Men books and just substitute "fag" for "mutant" and I think you'll find that Lee could very well have been writing about gay people in the 21st Century.

But when I think of Stan Lee, I think most fondly to his extended cameo in the Kevin Smith classic, Mallrats. To this day, I, like Brodie, continue to wonder, is the Thing's dork REALLY made out of that rocky stuff or not?

The 75th Greatest Human Being Who Ever Lived was one of history's greatest generals. And he also apparently REALLY loved to eat pussy, too.

100 Greatest Human Beings Who Ever Lived: #77 Sylvester Stallone

"STALLONE???? You're putting Stallone on the list?" Yes, Grorxy, I am. Sylvester Stallone may be the most misunderestimated famous person this side of George W. Bush. Yes, alot of Stallone movies have sucked donkey balls. I come here not to praise Rocky V, Over the Top, or Stop, or My Mom Will Shoot!, but to bury... I mean praise Stallone himself. He was an 80s icon, on par with the current Governor of California (I still can't believe that Arnie is actually Governor; sometimes I have to pinch myself to make sure I'm not dreaming!) as an action star. As Arnold himself says about Sly in that classic film, Last Action Hero, "The man is an artist. It's his best performance ever!" Of course he was talking about an alternate universe where Sly plays the Terminator in Judgement Day, but that's neither here nor there.

People think of Sly Stallone as a retard with a speech impediment. Yes, he does in fact have a speech impediment. So what? But the man is not retarded. Let's remember that he did actually write Rocky AND First Blood, the former of which won the Academy Award for Best Picture and the latter of which was actually a really touching and profound film that spoke volumes about how we as a society treated Vietnam vets (by the way, that bit about First Blood is absolutely sincere; if you don't believe me, pop that sucker in the DVD player and actually think about it).

Rocky is easily his most important film, not just because it spawned five sequels, but because it basically served as the prototype for every sports movie to come since. The story of an underdog who gets his shot at the champ is an absolute cliche now but when the original Rocky came out, that was not yet the case. What's more is that the original film isn't trite at all. Instead of having some unbelievable sequence of events where Rocky wins the belt (Sly wisely saved this for the deuce) Rocky realizes right before the big fight at the end of the film that he can't possibly beat Apollo, and decides then and there that his goal is simply to have the courage and wherewithal to endure and go the distance with the best fighter in the world. The message of Rocky is universal-- we may not all have the talent of an Apollo Creed, but even the least among us can perservere and triumph in the face of adversity.

Also Sly single-handedly ended the Cold War. I hate to rip off Bill Simmons here, but it's true, it's damn true. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you probably haven't seen Rocky IV. Go see it, though preferably NOT while you're high. Yes, you know I'm looking at you over there in the corner. Don't do that again. Okay that was a reference that like ONE reader will get.

Next time, we'll meet the 76th Greatest Human Being Who Ever Lived. See you soon, True Believers!