Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Over & Under Rated 7 (2009)

OVER RATED

Rapper Moms
After watching “Notorious” and listening to Valetta Wallace wax poetic about the greatness of her son and waiting for inevitable holiday season release of yet another posthumous 2pac album masterminded by his mother Afeni Shakur, am forced to wonder if these women deserve to be celebrated. Biggie’s mom stood by idly while her only child sold crack, got locked up, dropped out of school, rose to prominence with songs about drugs, sex and violence and by the age of 24 had an incredibly tangled web of relationships with females and two children he chose to ignore in favor of chasing fame and fortune. While Biggie’s music is amazing it hard to believe our society exalts the woman that allowed his life to be bad enough that he wrote “Suicidal Thoughts” or “Somebody’s Gotta Die” to the status of cultural icon. Possibly worse than Mrs. Wallace is Afeni Shakur, by her and her late son’s admission she was incarcerated or addicted to drugs for most of 2pac’s youth and has only cleaned up since his death in time to cash in on his estate by releasing countless albums of exponentially decreasing quality of her son’s recorded vocals over sub-par production and “collaborations” with artists of questionable talent and integrity.
While it is widely understood that you are “Nobody ‘Til Somebody Kills You” (you can’t diss a dead guy and somehow everybody that passes away is some kind of hero), I don’t believe we should continue celebrating the type of parenting that leads to selling drugs, obscene levels of materialism, misogyny, violence and early death.

Water Sports

“She asked me if I wanted to lay out or go on the jet skis. And I decided I didn’t want to answer any more questions about water sports or see any of these people ever again”
-Anthony (Luke Wilson) in “Bottle Rocket”

Water Sports are inherently stupid. They involve an incredible investment of both time and money and in most cases are not really that much fun. I really doubt anyone can have $100,000 worth of fun on a boat or enough fun on a Wave Runner to warrant an entire day of their lives. When you factor in cleaning, maintenance, fuel (good thing President Obama got right on top of that), licensing and the fact that in many areas you can only use the watercraft a few months of the year, the whole thing is incredibly silly.
Further, personally I do not like social situations that I cannot leave the second I become bored, tired or sickened by the people I am with. Most boat trips consist of endless hours of bobbing around listening to drunken baby boomers talk about restaurants and “American Idol” and being completely helpless to leave the situation…awesome.
Finally, boating and drinking go hand-in-hand like red wine, xanax and housewives but how is it possible nobody can stay sober to drive the boat back? It is incredible there are not more serious boating accidents when most people’s mantra is: “I just drank a fifth of vodka…dare me to sail?”

Celebrating High School Graduation
The United States has always had inflated high school graduation rates, but since the “No Child Left Behind” policy was instituted a few years ago, anybody with even the slightest interest in graduating high school can “earn” a diploma. The only kids that are “left behind” in 2009 are those that repeatedly assault their teachers, hardcore criminals that can’t attend classes due to incarceration, and kids that blatantly refuse to go to school (and a lot of these “students” end up with degrees through GED Programs, Home Schooling and Alternate Route Tutoring).
Needless to say, celebrating an “accomplishment” that was attained simultaneously with hundreds of people from your school, thousands of people in your town, tens of thousands of people in your state and millions of people nationwide is not that big of a deal. Stop bothering people with these idiotic cookouts and begging for gifts and save the party for when your kid graduates from a highly esteemed college with the literacy level of an 11-year old, no writing skills, no concept of basic mathematics and completely intimidated by the process of banking/credit/finance, and then you can complain that the state of the economy and what the Republicans/Democrats did is the reason your son or daughter can’t find a job.

UNDER RATED

Subway Restaurants
Subway restaurants are the epitome of cleanliness, efficiency and quality. Subway is the only “fast food” outlet that supplies good tasting and fairly nutritious fare for such a low price and they are everywhere, you can find one of these in the most remote gas station in Tarborro NC and the Italian BMT will taste just like it does in Times Square…fresh and delicious. Also, the price is awesome, a $5 footlong combined with a large drink (about 10 in. high) and two cookies (about 4 in. each in diameter) provides nearly 30 inches of food for under $8.

Professional Cameramen
Why do professional athletes and entertainers feel the need for them (or a member of their entourage) to carry a home video recorder to film All-Star Games, Award Shows or other public gatherings? These events are already being taped by professionals, with professional grade equipment and the footage will be readily available on television and the internet. This practice falls in the same category as flying planes, lighting fireworks and taking racy photos…leave it to the professionals.

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