Then there's this guy. C'mon? A kid I understand. But a grown man? In the woods? Without a shirt?

F***in' priceless.

Not new, or even newish, but still pretty damn funny. That kid can dance.

OT - just saw a new article listed on RCP: Why the U.S. is Screwed in Iraq. Unsurprisingly, it's by Juan Cole, but what made me giggle is that it was published in Informed Comment. How's that for irony?

No, I don't have anything to say about the article itself; I didn't read it. C'mon, it's Juan fucking Cole...

You're still missing the absolute best one: http://www.bignickonline.com/StarWarsKid2.0video.htm

I've been looking everywhere for the swk2.0! I saw it a couple times from http://www.jedimaster.com but they took it down. It's good to see it again.

God damn, that's some funny shit.

Any more Star Wars posts and we'll have to start calling you Ace Windu.

My son somehow downloaded the movie last weekend. (wrong, I know) Anyway, saw it. Not impressed but then I am not easily impressed.

I just came back from seeing it. It was definitely the best of the first 3 but that's sort of like saying having your fingers broken is better than piercing your eyelids. And any movie that kills off that whiny, wimpy Natalie Portman is going to score points with me.

Later,
bbeck

ace, that video is like 2+ years old at this point. Where's Dave "The Enforcer" from Garfield Ridge when you need him?

Heck, at this point, telling Ace that he's posted something old is itself old. D@GF, being the with-it hipster that he is, knows that it just wouldn't be the def, hep, fresh thing to do.

$300 million in one weekend goes to prove the old saying that some people (and movies) are famous for being famous. The people I know who saw it say it sucked as did the last two (I didn't like any of them) but went to see it anyway because of the hype. Hopefully this schlockey genre with its hokey special effects (that the public finally is bored of) childish and totally unbelieveable action sequences that feel like they were written for pre-kindergarteners, pathetic acting, and plots that suggest bad opium dreams, is coming to a close.

The worst part about the Star Wars movies is that with all the possibilities of this genre, all of the talented, creative people and the expensive technology employed, they had an opportunity to make masterpieces and chose to pander to a very low common denominator, kids and people who think like kids.

Someone will come along someday and make the masterpiece Star Wars should've been.

ACE from Freeper:

I had just walked off the comedy stage glad the audience spoke English when a young man who identified himself as a “devout Muslim” came up and asked me a question.

“Why are you making fun of 72 virgins?” he asked, face flushed with ire.

“I’m not making fun of 72 virgins,” I said.

“Yes you are,” he insisted, calling it “haram,” the Arabic word for “a sin.”

“No. I am making fun of the idea that you can kill your sister if some stranger says she slept with a strange man, but it’s OK to enjoy 72 virgins if you die for a good cause.”

That only made him more agitated. He explained that according to his religion, those who sacrifice themselves for a just cause will enjoy the beauty of heaven and 72 virgins.

It was exactly that kind of logic that got me into standup comedy in the first place. Standup comedy is an industry in America, a style of humor that is somewhat different from what most people in the Middle East are used to.

Humor the most powerful weapon

Both Palestinians and Israelis have humor, of course. But it doesn’t hurt to have even more. Humor is the most powerful weapon a person can use to defeat hatred, overcome animosity and to calm the angry.

Most of the time.

If you can get an angry person to smile, you’ve won.

Faced with this noble struggle, I decided I wouldn’t give up. I tried the joke on him again, just in case he didn’t speak English very well and thought I was making fun of 72 sturgeons, a tasty fish that has never been the cause of any Arab-Israeli conflicts that I know of. Well, there was that one incident during the Crusades …

Anyway, I launched back into my act, just for him.

“They said that American who wanted to blow up the airplane with his shoes, Richard Reid, was promised 72 virgins. Obviously, he doesn’t speak Arabic. It’s not like English. You read Arabic from right to left.… So, it’s not 72 virgins. It’s one virgin and she is 72 years old … and they promise her to everyone.”

Still no smile. But I wouldn’t give up.

72 rejections

“Let’s face it. Just what I always wanted. 72 virgins. For what? So when I get to heaven I can be rejected 72 times? That’s not my idea of a good time.”

Not even a smirk.

“Listen,” I continued. “If you want to make me happy, keep the 72 virgins and give me one good looking prostitute who’s only been at her job one week … that’s my idea of a real reward.”

At this point, he started to yell - in Arabic. And although my parents are Palestinian, it never made any sense to me. I just stood there nodding my head.

Finally, I interrupted him.

“You mean to say, it’s okay to defile 72 virgins. I don’t have to marry them. I don’t have to care for them. It goes far beyond the legal limit of four. But I can’t have a prostitute instead?”

Some people just don’t have a sense of humor.

Butt slapping one day, killing the next

I do know for a fact, though, that most Palestinians and most Israelis do have a sense of humor. The real tragedy is that Palestinians and Israelis have wide mood swings. We are both the most emotional people in the world. One day we love each other, and the next day we are killing each other.

Like Yasser Arafat and Ehud Barak slapping each other on the butts at the entrance of the Camp David meeting one day and literally killing each other the next.

The best way to stop the conflict is to stop the anger. It’s easy to hate a stranger. It’s hard to hate a friend. Nothing builds friendship more than humor.

If we can laugh together, I know we can live together.

Okay. Maybe the stern jihadist who confronted me after my show and I were not going to be the best of friends any time soon.

But I was certain it wouldn’t be any different if we had sat together over a hot plate of freshly cooked sturgeon.

Sometimes, you just have to look past the anger.

ACE - Sent you a donation after using up your bandwidth. Now can I make Moslem jokes?

Hopefully this schlockey genre with its hokey special effects (that the public finally is bored of) childish and totally unbelieveable action sequences that feel like they were written for pre-kindergarteners, pathetic acting, and plots that suggest bad opium dreams, is coming to a close.

Virgins, unfortunately, that's not going to happen when such movies are raking in profits left and right.

I went to the movie because of our children and they loved it. And, I'll probably go to MORE bad movies in the future because they want to. There's not a lot you can do until your kids are old enough to recognize what a BAD movie is. I have been working on it, tho, by showing them good films (like John Wayne's stuff :)).

Later,
bbeck

Drunken virgins
Your jokes were funny and your heart is in the right place, but don't count on acceptance. Lenny Bruce covered the whole "hate is a religious value" thing 50-60 years ago and many people still have not forgiven him for it. Read "How to talk dirty and influence people" by him. It is as sad as the line in HiHitchhikers Guide where they say (paraphrase) "The last guy that told everyone to be nice to each other got himself nailed to a tree" People just do not like having their views questioned-just yours. Like, for instance, how many rules do their prisons have regarding the proper care of the Bible or the Torah? Probably none, but it does not give any one the right-or desire- to kill anyone because of it. To them, however, this would signify a LACK of values on our part.

bbeck

I know very young kids like the Star Wars movies. But I am certain that if these were better, kids would like them even more. Comic books often have much better plots and dialog, i.e., they don't dumb down as much to the readers and kids appreciate it. Books like Harry Potter prove beyond a doubt that quality sells and that imagination, clever plots, charachters and dialog that doesn't dumb itself down is really appreciated by kids, and adults too.

J.

I wish they were my jokes and agree with you that they won't make a difference and that after the war has been settled by force, perhaps we laugh at ech other. But it was a pretty good schtick.

Too true, Virgins. Remember the good ol' days when cartoons and family films were written to entertain both kids and adults alike?

Later,
bbeck