Web Clips for 8/7/09

How to download from IRC. A perfect circle. Removing securom. still works for me. Feel like a secret agent, use self-destructing messages.

Hippie Yoga Farmers vs. Internet Video Archivists

Every once in a while, something happens on the internet so bizarre, so random, and so borderline terrifying that it really makes you think about all the strange people who live out there, and what a truly horrifying yet fascinating place the world is. This is a story about one of them.

Maybe about a week ago the blog Coilhouse did a post about the website Everything Is Terrible. I hadn't heard of Everything Is Terrible before I read this post, but I've been reading Coilhouse for a while, and if you don't read it then you should, it's a really great blog about art and pop culture. Anyway, as Coilhouse describes, Everything is Terrible is a website where people link to bizarre tape-recorded videos of random strange things they found on TV. The Coilhouse post didn't really do anything more than praise the website and link to a few of the videos on it, but it was one of these videos that got them into trouble. This video was one entitled "Weird Hippie Yoga Farmers."

I wish I could show you this video. I really, really wish I could. Suffice to say that involved a guy with bleached blond hair singing cheesy kids country songs about yoga with the help of "Rasta the Rooster," a stereotypically Jamaican rooster character, both of whom taught yoga to a bunch of kids in a slightly creepy, new-agey, touchy feely way. And just for your information, I'm trying to be as unbiased as possible in this description. The reason why I can't show you this video is because the person who owned the copyright to this video was a colossal douchebag. I mean, someone trying to protect her copyright. 

Apparently, this was an edited video of clips from a late 90s show called "Ei Ei Yoga." This show starred some dude named Max Thomas, a yoga teacher working in LA, apparently a very good one. The show went nowhere and was forgotten for a while, but some nerd taped it a while back and uploaded an edited clip of it to Everything is Terrible, where everyone proceeded to make fun of it. The clip lingered on that website for a while making almost no impact, until a writer for Coilhouse found out about the website and generated traffic for it, and especially for the yoga video, which she directly embedded in the blog post. When Robin Maxwell, the wife of the Ei Ei Yoga guru, found out as a result of this increased traffic about this video making fun of her husband, she immediately pulled it from youtube and Everything is Terrible, and shortly afterwards EIT had all of their videos pulled from youtube. 

Meanwhile, a yoga website, upon seeing this video, did a post where they encouraged everyone to "make fun of the hippy dippy Ei Ei Yoga farmer." Robin Maxwell was not too pleased, and wrote a comment on this post, which led to the website doing an update. In her comment, she essentially describes Max as a saint who has great wisdom and teaches yoga to sick children. She also paints the viewers of EIT as stupid idiots who did nothing but demonize a good person, and quotes youtube comments that use insults and racial slurs as evidence of this, which is kind of unfair, since there are comments for every video on youtube that have insults and racial slurs. There are lots of other problems with her comment as well.

For one thing, she says, "[Max] was one of the first yoga teachers to acknowledge that if children were taught yoga we would be living in a much saner world," as if this is something that has been scientifically proven, and as if this even has any grain of truth to it. First of all, I've worked with children before. It's hard to get them to sit still, let alone to master yoga positions. Plus, kids could seriously get hurt doing yoga. Maybe some kids would take well to learning yoga, but definitely not all of them. Second of all, yoga is not the key to living in a saner world. That idea displays so many levels of ignorance I don't know where to begin. Yoga can't change the way a person thinks. Yoga can't change the way society functions. And if yoga involves stereotypically Jamaican roosters, I don't see how it could lead to people living in a saner world. 

That's another major issue I have: Rasta the Rooster. While Max may be a hero who feeds the bodies of criminals to starving children, I still can't forgive him for allowing Rasta the Rooster to exist. That character is nothing more than a gigantic insult. First of all, Rastafari is a religion. It's one that I don't believe in, it's one that I have a lot of issues with, but it's still a religion, and it should be shown a certain level of respect. Naming a character "Rasta" is basically the equivalent of naming a character "Jew," especially if that character talked in a stereotypically Jewish voice and had curly hair and a beard (Rasta the rooster had a fake Jamaican accent and massive dreadlocks). The inclusion of Rasta the Rooster is representative of a problem many wannabe progressives have. They are fascinated by "exotic" cultures, such as India, China, and in this case Jamaica, and appropriate the aesthetics of these cultures without knowing anything about what they really mean. I recall one time when I went to a reggae concert on a college campus. I ran into someone I knew after the show. I said something casual to him along the lines of "Hey man, did you enjoy the show?" and he replied by saying "Yeah, Jah, Rastafari!" I immediately left, thinking to myself, "Wow, you have absolutely know idea what that actually means." Rastafari is a religion. A postcolonial, nationalistic, deeply spiritual, homophobic religion. Not an image.

I also take issue with Robin's decision to shut down EIT. Her decision to pull the hippy weirdo yoga video from youtube is kind of an ethical grey area for me. Basically, I think that videos generally shouldn't be put up for free if the creator of it hasn't made much money off of it already, but that if someone uses footage in a video, any footage, they should be able to put it up as long as they cite their sources. On one hand, this video was technically not an original, since it was chopped up, so according to my ethical code it was technically ok for whoever edited it to put it up. But on the other hand, it wasn't edited that much. It was just chopped up, I wouldn't go as far as calling it a remix. It was more of a montage. Also, on one hand the crazy yoga people probably hadn't made much money off the original video already. But on the other hand, there isn't any way they would have made any more money off of it than they already did. And on one hand, whoever edited it did so in a way to make fun of someone who was probably a decent guy. But on the other hand, the show seems really creepy to begin with.

Still, getting all of EIT shut down is just not ok. Robin did not hold a copyright on every video on the website, and there were probably some videos on there that did not violate copyright. And in addition, most of these videos were remixes, and the original copyright holders would not make any money off of them anyway. As with most instances of this happening, this whole ordeal was free publicity for Max Thomas. He could have turned it into good publicity, but instead he turned it into bad publicity. This is also an instance of what Sarinee Achavanuntaku talked about in the interview Bobbicus linked to; the whole idea copyright holders have that "I'm not going to use this product I own anymore, so that means no one can ever see it."

On the other hand, I do feel that I have to criticize EIT just a tiny bit, in a little bit of a hypocritical way. As I've said before, I love making fun of stuff, but sometimes I do feel bad about the people I make fun of. Despite all of Max's cultural insensitivity, creepiness, and douchebaggery, he seems like at least somewhat of a good person. I guess I have to criticize some of the viewers in this case. It was out of line for them to call him things like a pedophile. That said, criticizing youtube comments is one of the stupidest things anyone can ever do, and EIT is definitely far more in the right here.

The only completely innocent party in this story, however, is Coilhouse, and their role is without a doubt the most fascinating one to me, largely because I'm a blogger. It's amazing in this story to see the powerful role that a relatively small blog can have. Coilhouse linked to a website that they thought was funny, and as a result the website got shut down just two days later. It amazes me that a blog post can generate that much traffic and essentially slightly change the course of the internet in such a short amount of time. This makes me feel an incredible sense of power, and makes me want to be careful about what sites I link to, and who I make fun of. Coilhouse definitely gets more traffic than us, but they're still not an insanely popular blog by any means. And if one blog post by them can get an entire website shut down, think about what better power that can be used for. 

Anyway, feel free to chime in with who you think is in the right in this story. Also, EIT will probably be back up soon, so all is not lost.

Web Clips for 8/6/09

Northern lights from space.

Very slick music bit-torrent site. A bit of a small catalog, but what's there is very well done. Worth a look.

pun.

One of my favorite words, that I should use more often.

Please feel better about wasting time here.

Happy Birthday! Us!

 

Yup, just one year ago, I started a blog. Now, The Tartar Sauce is totally still here, and totally more awesome.

Here's to another year of (pop) culture, video games, technology, art, or whatever else we think is interesting.

Web Clips for 8/5/09

Bang on some techno drums.

How people spend their day.

Piracy is serious business, and puts people in jail.

Debating putting this code on The Tartar Sauce. Looks like it would only affect around 1% of our users.

Learn who's hosting what.

Old Stuff: The Three Stooges

Howard Stern recently had a special where Tom Bergeron, host of Hollywood Squares and Dancing with the Stars, played a set of interviews he had done with Moe Howard and Larry Fine of the Three Stooges back in the early 70s, shortly before their deaths. It was altogether fascinating to hear them reflect on their long career, and to hear how much they felt their act was regarded as vaudevillian slapstick, rather than "serious" comedy. I have always been a fan of the Stooges, even though my parents hated them. I had a couple of VHS tapes my grandfather gave me of their early shorts (before the crap budget films they made in the early 60s, when networks and the burgeoning television audience began to discover their work), and I would be absolutely transfixed for at least an hour. While I will not deny that they inherited at least part of their act from the (painful) legacy of vaudeville, looking back I really do think they were hitting on something new, that merged slapstick with Catskills club-honed one liners, hilarious sight gags with almost non-sequiturs. For real, Don Rickles owes Moe Howard at least half his career for the whole "numbskulls" routine. Unfortunately, I've never met anyone with my passion for the Stooges, probably because all their stuff looks absolutely tame after Monty Python, SNL, and Second City, not to mention Pryor and Lenny Bruce absolutely blew them out of the water in terms of material and variety. But I still hold steadfast to my admiration of their innovations in American comedy, and if anyone wants to watch them with me, please tell me. Quickly, I'll list my favorite episodes, two with Curly (and honestly, the stuff with him is all you need to see), and one with Shemp. 1. "You Natzy Spy!": This is the original Hollywood Hitler spoof, before The Great Dictator or "Der Fuehrer's Face," that has Moe as Hitler, Larry as Goring, and Curly as Goebbels. Classic speech scene. 2."Disorder in the Court": The first Stooges short that I watched, and probably my favorite. Great stuff from Curly. 3. "Malice in the Palace": This one was on the VHS I had too; this is with Shemp, who was defintely not as talented or recognizable as Curly, but funny nonetheless. All these are in the public domain so YouTube and Google video should have them. --If people like this I can make this into a regular thing, looking at old TV shows, movies, etc.

Web Clips for 8/3/09

Printable DVD covers for your GOG.com games.

So far I'm going to review these campaigns for L4D:
Back to School
Death Aboard
Dam It!
Night Terror
Yea, they're all fairly popular to start off with, but I think I'm going to make it a series and eventually move on to some more obscure ones I've been playing around with.

Firefox, now with 100% more billion!

The awesome leave me alone box.

Web Clips for 8/2/09

Happy August all.

Extremely detailed thread on Netbook playability for GOG.com games.

The best gaming CPU's for the money, for July. Some interesting developments in the low range, with intel and the i7 unsurprisingly taking the high range.

A ridiculously simple, and blazing fast desktop search tool.

A ton of L4D2 footage.

Golden Years

You've heard it said a million times before: The Simpsons isn't funny anymore. You've heard people say why the new episodes suck: there's no character development, the plots are ridiculous, the jokes are too broad, whatever. I'm the first one to acknowledge that the new episodes suck. In fact, I can't completely say that, since I stopped watching the show years ago, when it was already so past its prime that I couldn't take it anymore. But that's not why I'm here. I'm not gonna talk about why the new episodes suck. Instead, I'm gonna talk about what made the old episodes so incredible.

First off, let's make one thing absolutely clear: The Simpsons wasn't funny at first. The animation was too rough, the characters hadn't really become themselves yet, and most of the jokes revolved around Bart, who just spat out catch phrases. Lots of people like to pinpoint where they thought the show got good. Some people say the end of the first season, others say it was the middle of the third season, but I say it was the middle of the second season; specifically, the episode "Bart the Daredevil." Basically, I recently started watching the series from the end of season 1, and "Bart the Daredevil" was the first episode that I genuinely found funny. It also happens to be Matt Groening's favorite episode. And many critics have noticed that this episode highlights why the series was so good at this point. Critic Jerry Kleinman has noted that this episode shows how The Simpsons stood apart from other cartoons and sitcoms: instead of just having a wacky plot, it also had real character development. This episode showed strong relationships between Bart, Homer, and Lisa that made the episode have real meaning. But the great thing about it was that it wasn't cheesy. To balance it out, we had truly funny jokes, such as the famous one where Homer falls down the gorge. One of my favorite exchanges between Simpsons characters occurs in this episode. Bart tells Otto his plan to jump Springfield Gorge, and Otto says, "As the only adult around, I feel I should say something: cool!"

The strong character development shown in this episode was what made the golden age of the Simpsons so golden. The first season wasn't very good because the characters still had a long way to go in terms of development, and the later seasons have been terrible because there hasn't been any character development. If you think about it, the Simpsons characters are really complex, and their relationships are much darker than they seem. Homer is an abusive alcoholic who tries desperately to be a good person; Marge is a stifled housewife who had to marry someone way below her standards because of a pregnancy; Bart is a victim of horrible child abuse who acts out as a way to get attention; Lisa is a gifted child who's gifts are ignored by everyone except a few people, such as Mr. Bergstrom and Bleeding Gums Murphy, both of whom essentially abandon her. Heavy shit.

Yet, the great thing about the golden era Simpsons was that it never got weighed down by all this character development. It was also really, really funny. That's also why, to me, "Bart the Daredevil" marked the start of the golden age. It had lots of character development, but it was also hilarious. Some of the episodes before it in the second season, such as "Bart Gets An F," were nothing but character development, and they suffered because of it. This episode simply wasn't funny, and its character development simply wasn't enough to carry the entire episode. It ended up being cheesy. Still, this episode still shows that the Simpsons was, at one time, more than just a collection of ridiculous jokes. Bart, who was probably initially the most joke-centric character, still had a real, human side to him.

By the sixth season, it was easy to see the direction the series was taking. At this point, there was a bit less character development. The plots had less to do with interactions among the family, and were more filled with jokes. The first sign of this trend actually occurred at the beginning of the fifth season, with the episode "Homer's Barbershop Quartet." This was really the first episode in the entire series where the story made absolutely no sense within the context of the show. The plot revolved around a series of flashbacks showing Homer's former fame as the leader of a barbershop quartet, which eventually led to him winning a Grammy. It was the first time that a complete change to the backstory of a character was made and absolutely no explanation was given, which is a trademark of the later Simpsons episodes. Still, the episode was funny, and it was a complete anomaly at the time. No other episode anywhere near this one made as little sense. This episode was an indication of where the show would eventually go, but it was no sign of a decline in quality, at least not for a while. 

In fact, by the sixth season the show had improved in many ways. One of my absolute favorite episodes, "Bart's Girlfriend," is from this season, and it features everything that made the show so good: strong character development and insanely funny, rapid fire jokes. So actually just two things that made the show so good. Although this episode did have a spectacular guest appearance as well. Basically, by this point the show was starting to get a little bit more ridiculous, and while it had already jumped the shark with "Homer's Barbershop Quartet," it wasn't consistently jumping the shark yet. The sometimes insane humor of this episode (Groundskeeper Willy flashing everybody, Bart getting covered in glue) never went too overboard, and it was balanced out by strong character development in Bart, and even in the one-time character Jessica. This episode also strengthened the bond between Bart and Lisa, which helped to make both characters more 3-dimensional. Another great episode from this time was "Round Springfield," an episode so sad that even the most jaded viewer can be brought to tears.

Although, by the sixth season there were signs that the show was going to decline. One symptom of the show being nothing more than a ridiculous series of over the top jokes were all the episodes where the Simpsons went to a different country. Every one that I can think of is nothing more than a collection of gimmicky stereotype jokes that aren't very funny, and the first episode like this, "Bart vs. Australia," occurred in the sixth season. This episode isn't as bad as some of the later ones, like where they go to Brazil or England, but it is probably one of the worst ones of the sixth season. It contains some good moments, but forgoes real story and intelligent humor for silly gimmicks. I wouldn't say the episode crosses the line into being offensive, but I would say that it was the start of a bad trend.

The show had some ups and downs in the sixth season, but it really picked up in the seventh. Some of the most daring, critically acclaimed episodes, such as "Bart Sells His Soul" and "Lisa the Vegetarian," were part of this season. This season also marked a turning point for the show, particularly evidenced by two episodes: "22 Short Films About Springfield" and "Homerpalooza." When the writers did "22 Short Films," they had an idea of taking its concept and making an entirely new show out of it; they wanted to make a separate show about minor characters in Springfield. If they had simply carried this idea into the regular series instead, it could have saved the show. Some of the best episodes from later on, such as "In Marge We Trust," and even ones from earlier, such as "The Otto Show," were ones that focused on minor characters. Instead, many of the later episodes focused on the Simpson family and either avoided character development altogether, or developed the characters in ridiculous ways that didn't fit their personalities. The minor characters are the ones that carry the show, and it could have helped to focus on them more.

Instead, the path of "Homerpalooza" was largely taken: gimmicky episodes with ridiculous premises and lots of guest stars. Critic John Bonne wrote ages ago that "Homerpalooza" was an "indignity" and said that it simply pandered to guest stars. I really wouldn't go that far; as with "Homer's Barbershop Quartet," "Homerpalooza" was an indication of things to come, but it hadn't gotten that bad yet. It was really funny and actually intelligent, a great satire of rock music in general. His point about episodes becoming more like this was correct though; later episodes avoided using any real characters at all and simply used lots of guest stars.

However, one issue that I disagree with most people on is the idea that the Simpsons got bad because the plots became ridiculous. Let's get one thing straight: the plots of The Simpsons were always ridiculous. Let's turn for a second to another season seven episode: "Bart on the Road." The plot of this episode is completely ridiculous: Bart gets a fake ID, rents a car, and goes on a road trip, getting stranded in Tennessee, eventually getting back to Springfield via Hong Kong. But critic Dave Foster pinpoints exactly what set this episode apart from similar later ones. He writes, that if this episode were written now, "we'd simply see Bart happen upon a license and skip town without anyone noticing, but here they do give the setup a great deal of consideration both on and off screen." It's not that the plots became more ridiculous; it's that the way they were told became more ridiculous. "Bart on the Road" was at least somewhat believable; it was ridiculous, but at least everything was explained.

Let's move on to the 8th season. This one is in fact my favorite, largely because this was when I started watching the Simpsons. It contains some of the best episodes in the series, such as the incredibly powerful "A Milhouse Divided," where Milhouse's parents get divorced, and possibly the darkest and most realistic episode of the show, "Homer's Enemy." Bonne called this episode "painful to watch," largely because he thinks Homer is a complete jerk in the episode. On the contrary, I think that the episode is wonderfully written, and that Homer tries to be a nice guy the whole time, particularly when he invites Frank Grimes over to his house for dinner. The great thing about the 8th season as well was that it really pushed the limits of animation. In "You Only Move Twice" and "The Simpsons Spinoff Showcase" the animators created entirely new set pieces that work perfectly. And then of course there's the episode where Homer eats the insanity peppers. This is, in my opinion, the best episode of the entire series. The animation is beautiful, the jokes are hilarious, the character development is strong, and the guest voice is perfect and not overused. I've watched this episode probably over 20 times, and it's always a pleasure to watch. Simply perfect.

Then there's the 9th season, which many see as the beginning of the show's rapid decline in quality, particularly with the episode "The Principal and the Pauper." Again, I see this episode as an indication of things to come, but not an indication that the show was getting bad. Despite all the gaping plotholes in this episode, it's still funny, and after it we had so many terrific episodes: the one where Homer becomes sanitation commissioner, the one where Homer goes to "The Island," and the absolutely outstanding one where Homer joins the navy. Maybe "The Principal and the Pauper" wasn't a very good episode, but it wasn't the start of the show's decline.

In my opinion, that episode was the absolutely painful "The Parent Rap," which featured the unfunny, unimaginative character Judge Constance Harm. You can tell from her name that the writers were running out of ideas by this point. There were so many things bad about this episode. For one, the writers forced the character development of Bart and Homer. By this time, there had already been tons of "Bart and Homer bonding" episodes. There didn't need to be any more. By this point, the writers really should have been focusing on already existing minor characters, rather than developing old ones and creating entirely new ones. After this episode there were a few good ones, such as the one where Homer becomes a pothead, or where he goes to rock and roll camp, but even these weren't as good as the old ones, and they were anomalies by this time.

The Simpsons used to be so good because it carried a nice balance of humor and character development. Recently it's just been too much humor, and not even good humor. I know I'm not the first one to say that the show's been declining in quality, but it's seriously time to end this show. They had a chance to quit while they were ahead, or to change the direction of the show, and now they're too late. Basically just watch every episode from "Bart the Daredevil" until whichever one comes before "The Parent Rap" and you'll see the best of what was once a brilliant show.

Asian Appropriation Alert: King of Fighters

I heard about this one from Angry Asian Man. Basically there's nothing I can say about it that he didn't say, or that I haven't already said before. This movie looks bad because it's problematic, implausible, and based on a video game. Just another case of casting being unfair. If we were to argue, as it has been done before, that an actor's race shouldn't factor into casting (which is completely true in many, many cases), we really shouldn't be seeing so many movies with casting like this.