I’m not sure how many of you have heard of “The Insane Clown Posse.” I’m also not sure how to explain them to those that haven’t, partly because I am not terribly familiar with them, but also because they are so hard to explain. In any event, I guess they are theoretically gaining relevance, because I saw this video this morning on MTV. Let’s see if we can work through this together…
0:21 – I am fairly certain that the sun is not “closer that it’s ever got”, but I am not the one in the video wearing clown makeup. I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt on this one.
0:26 – “Crud” and “hood” could technically rhyme, if you tried harder. I’m disappointed, ICP. I expected more from you.
0:41 – Those are the only two choices in an ICPocalypse.
0:57 – Mad scientist-themed keyboard player? Check.
1:14 – “The Devil’s in the sky.” Again, fairly certain this is not his assumed location. Strike two on the fact checking, ICP.
1:21 – That just makes no sense, meteorologically speaking.
1:58 – I was starting to wonder why they hadn’t let this guy rap yet.
2:14 – Now I know why.
2:19 – As opposed to non-apocalypse situations, when everyone knows exactly how and when they’ll die.
2:24 – Shit gets real.
2:32 – So, God declares nuclear war? Or was it the aliens? Or the angry residents of whatever planet we bumped into after spinning out of orbit? This is pretty heavy, there’s a lot to take in. Maybe the world of ICP is more complex than I thought.
2:48 – I’m actually going to go with “living a happy, normal, non-interrupted-by-the-apocalypse life” would be second best to seeing the world begin.
2:57 – I guess this pick up move might theoretically work for a guy wearing clown face paint during the apocalypse…
3:05 – …or not.
3:07 – This can’t be real. He’s just shouting out any word that ends in “osions.” Fortunately, I guess, most of them are somewhat apocalyptic, though “corrosions” just makes me think of rust.
3:22 – Here’s where ICP realizes they still have $850 of their $900 special effects budget left, and make no mistake, these guys came up with this video before they came up with this song.
My takeaways here are that I can’t tell if this is sincere, or some of the greatest performance art I’ve ever seen, and that this is definitely the worst song I’ve ever had stuck in my head. Or it's the best song I've ever been tricked into thinking was a bad song. Which would be the exact kind of intellectual trickery you'd expect from the Insane Clown Posse. Damn, these guys are good. Or are they? I'm more confused now than before I saw this video.
You win again, ICP. You win again.
The Year of the Stache
2012 has a lot of things going for it. Actually, I can only think of “presidential election” and “leap year”, but I just wanted to start out on a positive note. So, mission accomplished. Anyway, everyone knows I’m into big ideas, and everyone knows I’ve been doing a lot of mascot creation lately – and by “a lot” I mean “I’m sporadically working on one.”
Through the exhaustive research that goes along with creating a mascot, I found this little tidbit: The 1978 New England Patriots “almost” adopted a new logo. They eventually decided to stick with what they had at the time, but not until a replacement logo had already been selected and introduced to fans. This is true, and here is the "new" logo:
I am sure you have noticed exactly what I did, and no, I don’t mean “wow, that looks sort of similar to the current logo, which they switched to in 1993.” No, I mean that this logo is literally screaming for a mustache:
Holy shit, it’s Tom Selleck. Tom Selleck, NRA spokesperson, a.k.a. “patriot.” This totally means something. Don’t believe me? Think you can slap a mustache on any old mascot and have it make sense and remain aesthetically pleasing? Let’s take the new Patriots logo, and add a mustache:
He just looks very concerned. Let’s try to distinguish the ‘stache a bit:
No better. My point is proven, whatever it was.
Why am I wasting your time with this, you ask? Well, I think that this is all coming together to tell me something, exactly like what happened to Richard Dreyfuss in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, but with more action and less cheesy jumpsuits. If you've never seen that movie, don't bother*, I'm basically just saying that I see it as a sign that mascot research and boredom led me to put a mustache on the discarded 1978 replacement logo for the New England Patriots. Pretty obvious when I put it that way, right? Okay.
My friends, it's therefore apparent that the powers that be are trying to tell me that it’s time to declare 2012 “The Year of the Mustache.” I know, I know, mustaches are played out, ironic, hipster-y jokes – and I’m just attaching myself to that phenomenon by proposing this, right? Not even close. Men out there, how many of you have worn a mustache? Now, how awesome did it feel? If we agree that even 25% of that feeling was the knowledge that you were doing something “edgy”, you’ve still got a full 75% of awesome feeling that’s coming from the power of the mustache. For those men out there that haven't worn one, tell your girlfriend or wife to shut the hell up (nicely, of course; Super Bowl coming up) and grow one. Can't grow one? Draw one on. No excuses.
Look, we can wait for some other time to hash out the details as to why the mustache went from being a “prerequisite for professional athletes” as recently as 1990, to “ironic, hipster, ‘it’s news that Wes Welker has a mustache at the Super Bowl’ status” just 20 years later. I will remind you however, that during the reign of the ‘stache in the 80’s, and then through much of the 1990s, there was another form of ostracized facial hair: the full beard. Don’t believe me? Go ask some woman over 36 if she remembers when Noah Wylie from "E.R." grew a beard. She will. And look at beards now. In fact, try not to look at beards now. See my point?
So let it be known that here at GhostOfTyrone, 2012 is now officially “The Year of the Mustache.” Men out there: get growing. We will win this battle based on the simple logic that “it can’t be wrong if we all do it together.” It’s time to reclaim our upper lips and cover them in pubic hair like God intended! Wait, wait, that came out wrong.
Just get growing!
*By the way, “Close Encounters” confuses the hell out of me. Does Richard Dreyfuss construct the Eiffel Tower out of French fries if he wants to take a French vacation? Would that “mean something”? And every time I want to give that little five note, hand signal “communication” music credit, I think “the whole rationale behind that was to let the aliens know we were trying to communicate,” as opposed to there just happening to be this huge lab with 10,000 enormous spotlights out in the middle of the desert, exactly where the aliens had told us to set it up. So yeah, better make sure they are aware that this was not a coincidence. For crying out loud, it's 1975 and Richard Dreyfuss is playing an electrician that does not have a mustache? No wonder everyone thought you were crazy, Dick! Ok, I’m done.
Through the exhaustive research that goes along with creating a mascot, I found this little tidbit: The 1978 New England Patriots “almost” adopted a new logo. They eventually decided to stick with what they had at the time, but not until a replacement logo had already been selected and introduced to fans. This is true, and here is the "new" logo:
I am sure you have noticed exactly what I did, and no, I don’t mean “wow, that looks sort of similar to the current logo, which they switched to in 1993.” No, I mean that this logo is literally screaming for a mustache:
Holy shit, it’s Tom Selleck. Tom Selleck, NRA spokesperson, a.k.a. “patriot.” This totally means something. Don’t believe me? Think you can slap a mustache on any old mascot and have it make sense and remain aesthetically pleasing? Let’s take the new Patriots logo, and add a mustache:
He just looks very concerned. Let’s try to distinguish the ‘stache a bit:
Why am I wasting your time with this, you ask? Well, I think that this is all coming together to tell me something, exactly like what happened to Richard Dreyfuss in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, but with more action and less cheesy jumpsuits. If you've never seen that movie, don't bother*, I'm basically just saying that I see it as a sign that mascot research and boredom led me to put a mustache on the discarded 1978 replacement logo for the New England Patriots. Pretty obvious when I put it that way, right? Okay.
My friends, it's therefore apparent that the powers that be are trying to tell me that it’s time to declare 2012 “The Year of the Mustache.” I know, I know, mustaches are played out, ironic, hipster-y jokes – and I’m just attaching myself to that phenomenon by proposing this, right? Not even close. Men out there, how many of you have worn a mustache? Now, how awesome did it feel? If we agree that even 25% of that feeling was the knowledge that you were doing something “edgy”, you’ve still got a full 75% of awesome feeling that’s coming from the power of the mustache. For those men out there that haven't worn one, tell your girlfriend or wife to shut the hell up (nicely, of course; Super Bowl coming up) and grow one. Can't grow one? Draw one on. No excuses.
Look, we can wait for some other time to hash out the details as to why the mustache went from being a “prerequisite for professional athletes” as recently as 1990, to “ironic, hipster, ‘it’s news that Wes Welker has a mustache at the Super Bowl’ status” just 20 years later. I will remind you however, that during the reign of the ‘stache in the 80’s, and then through much of the 1990s, there was another form of ostracized facial hair: the full beard. Don’t believe me? Go ask some woman over 36 if she remembers when Noah Wylie from "E.R." grew a beard. She will. And look at beards now. In fact, try not to look at beards now. See my point?
So let it be known that here at GhostOfTyrone, 2012 is now officially “The Year of the Mustache.” Men out there: get growing. We will win this battle based on the simple logic that “it can’t be wrong if we all do it together.” It’s time to reclaim our upper lips and cover them in pubic hair like God intended! Wait, wait, that came out wrong.
Just get growing!
*By the way, “Close Encounters” confuses the hell out of me. Does Richard Dreyfuss construct the Eiffel Tower out of French fries if he wants to take a French vacation? Would that “mean something”? And every time I want to give that little five note, hand signal “communication” music credit, I think “the whole rationale behind that was to let the aliens know we were trying to communicate,” as opposed to there just happening to be this huge lab with 10,000 enormous spotlights out in the middle of the desert, exactly where the aliens had told us to set it up. So yeah, better make sure they are aware that this was not a coincidence. For crying out loud, it's 1975 and Richard Dreyfuss is playing an electrician that does not have a mustache? No wonder everyone thought you were crazy, Dick! Ok, I’m done.
Maple Syrup
After repeated pestering by Change.org about how unpopular my “Change the Toronto Raptors to the Canadian Bacon” petition is, I’ve decided to really take this to the next level. I’ve discussed the need for a legitimate logo for this new franchise, but I need to do more than that. I need to appeal to the people of Toronto, and the people of Canada as a whole. So yesterday, I decided to look into the history of basketball in Canada, so that I could better appeal to the fans. I didn’t get very far.
Now, raise your hand if you were aware that there is an NBLC? That’s “National Basketball League of Canada.” Well, as of 2011, there is. Here’s that league’s logo:
Naturally, because I love Canada, I’ve decided to grant them permission to update their logo to something more appropriate by using one of my “rough drafts” for the Bacon logo:
So, you’re welcome, NBLC. Now obviously, I wanted to make sure there wasn’t a franchise called “The Bacon” in this prestigious league, so I checked. I found no bacon, but I found what might be the worst team name of all time:
This is not a joke. Rainmen. Halifax: are you kidding me? Was The Halifax “Boys Who Could Fly” taken by the local curling team? In a league with teams called the Mill Rats, the Kebs (?) and the Miracles, you have to do some extra legwork to have the worst name, so good job Halifax Rainmen.
“Rainmen must mean something I’m missing; it must have some sort of other significance,” I thought. So I looked it up. I searched for “rainmen” and got nothing but this team. I searched “Rain Man” and did actually get another meaning that did not have to do with Dustin Hoffman and memorizing phonebooks (in case you’ve been having trouble following me so far): “Rain Man” is a computer programming language.
So, either Halifax was going for the “it rains here a lot and no potential negative cultural associations are going to stop us from letting you know that, via our NBLC team”, or we have the equivalent of “The Seattle JAVA.” Which actually works. Because, you know, JAVA script, Seattle, coffee… whatever, it’s better than “Rainmen.”
The moral of this story is: 1. I no longer need to research the history of basketball in Canada in order to better appeal to the fans, and 2. I am 100% confident that basketball fans in Canada will be perfectly fine with “The Canadian Bacon.”
Now it’s just up to us to make sure they hear about it.
Sign the petition.
Now, raise your hand if you were aware that there is an NBLC? That’s “National Basketball League of Canada.” Well, as of 2011, there is. Here’s that league’s logo:
Naturally, because I love Canada, I’ve decided to grant them permission to update their logo to something more appropriate by using one of my “rough drafts” for the Bacon logo:
So, you’re welcome, NBLC. Now obviously, I wanted to make sure there wasn’t a franchise called “The Bacon” in this prestigious league, so I checked. I found no bacon, but I found what might be the worst team name of all time:
This is not a joke. Rainmen. Halifax: are you kidding me? Was The Halifax “Boys Who Could Fly” taken by the local curling team? In a league with teams called the Mill Rats, the Kebs (?) and the Miracles, you have to do some extra legwork to have the worst name, so good job Halifax Rainmen.
“Rainmen must mean something I’m missing; it must have some sort of other significance,” I thought. So I looked it up. I searched for “rainmen” and got nothing but this team. I searched “Rain Man” and did actually get another meaning that did not have to do with Dustin Hoffman and memorizing phonebooks (in case you’ve been having trouble following me so far): “Rain Man” is a computer programming language.
So, either Halifax was going for the “it rains here a lot and no potential negative cultural associations are going to stop us from letting you know that, via our NBLC team”, or we have the equivalent of “The Seattle JAVA.” Which actually works. Because, you know, JAVA script, Seattle, coffee… whatever, it’s better than “Rainmen.”
The moral of this story is: 1. I no longer need to research the history of basketball in Canada in order to better appeal to the fans, and 2. I am 100% confident that basketball fans in Canada will be perfectly fine with “The Canadian Bacon.”
Now it’s just up to us to make sure they hear about it.
Sign the petition.
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