April 30, 2009

Betting your ass, New York style

Rock! As mentioned at last Monday's quiz, Saturday May 16 sees the NYC premiere of my rock & roll–themed traveling quiz-burlesque-variety show, You Bet Your Ass ("Where Q Gets You A"). I'll be digging up some of the old, fun rock-related BQT hits, like the Pop Music Thesaurus and Sloooow Songs, challenging both select members of the crowd (you, quite possibly) as well as my fellow scintillating performers, including…

* Shelly "The Singing Siren" Watson (rock star, used to be a Gorgeous Lady of Wrestling)
* The Lady Aye (awesome female sword swallower—don't joke or she will spit fire on you)
* And burlesque beauties Minnie Tonka (juicy Jewish gyration queen) and Fleur de Lys (hottest beignets in town), plus special guest Fem Appeal.

And hey! It's at the BQT's old home base, The Slipper Room, and DJ GB will be on the decks, so this'll be as comforting as coming back to Mom's house…provided Mom likes to gyrate half naked to Kiss songs (that used to be my mom, until the hip replacement).

The show gets going at 7:30pm, and will cost you a mere $5, hotshots. And be sure not to miss the wild post-show after-party, taking place in your deepest fantasies.

April 29, 2009

Michele Bachmann and me

Some more politics: Surely you're familiar with Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), right-wing loony toon and perpetual subject of lefty blog derision. She appeared on most people's radar shortly before the November election when she said she wished "the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America." This is the least of it; Wikipedia, naturally, sums up the toll of her verbal diarrhea, although her official website is enlightening in its own way.

(By the way, as a former Minnesota resident, I am indeed ashamed that anyone in that fair state would vote for a nimrod like this, but I believe that 90 percent of the Republicans in the state are concentrated in her district. True, that doesn't account for Norm "Crybaby" Coleman, but don't get me started.)

Bachmann's had a couple of new doozies in the past couple of days. First, she noted that it was "interesting" that "back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under another Democrat President, Jimmy Carter." Of course, that last flu scare was 1976, when Gerald Ford—a Republican—was in charge. Then today, she subscribed to the single stupidest anti-Obama canard of the past few months: that spending during a recession was proved faulty when the New Deal plunged the nation further into the Great Depression. Specifically, she blamed FDR for massive unemploymentt, due to his implementation of the "Hoot-Smalley" tarrifs.

First of all, Thomas Paine here is referring to the Smoot-Hawley tariff, signed into law in 1930 by President—yep—Herbert Hoover, a Republican. Furthermore, both Smoot and Hawley were GOP senators. Dumb-ass.

But perhaps I'm being too harsh. After all, as I alluded to here, I am not innocent of making faulty statements about the history of American government. In fact, Monday night, I asked you all this monumentally stupid question:

Q: 1987 was the first year what kind of person was elected to the U.S. Senate?

I have no idea why I ever wrote this down and how I ever determined that this was a valid question for the quiz. Problem A is that there wasn't even a Senate election in 1987. More importantly, my intended answer—a woman—is so completely off the mark, I should be shot with a blunderbuss. The question would have worked if I had said 1930—57 years earlier—when Arkansan Hattie Caraway was elected.

To make up for it, here's a nice photo of the current women in the Senate:
I can name every one of these ladies. In fact, I can name all 100 currently serving senators (along with most of the governors). So let's call Monday temporary batshit insanity. And for the next week, feel free to call me Quizmaster Bachmann.

April 28, 2009

Specter turns face


If you care at all about politics, you've heard the news. Longtime Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter has flipped: No longer Republican, now a Democrat. One of the few remaining moderates in the GOP's Senate caucus, Specter was feeling alienated; perhaps more importantly, former Rep. Pat Toomey, a far-right conservative, was planning a primary challenge for the '10 election, and had been polling 21 points ahead among PA's likely Republican primary voters.

Now then…besides being reminded of the excitement when a professional wrestler flips from bad guy to good guy ("turns face"), I start to think about which other Republican senators might make the big move. You know, in the middle of an post-match interview, smack his tag-team partner over the head with a chair and declare that he's now buddies with Hulk Ho—er, Barack Obama.

Most likely, in my completely unqualified opinion:

1. Dick Lugar (IN) Obama's buddy, despite being the most senior Republican in the Senate (he took office in 1977). A foreign-affairs whiz, no fool, and no lunatic. I like this guy a lot, and I can't imagine he doesn't see which way the wind is blowing. If it keeps blowing as much as it has for the GOP, Lugar might be smart enough to abandon ship.

2. Olympia Snowe (ME). It's got to be hard to stay a Republican in New England, but Snowe is massively popular . She thinks for herself: pro gay and abortion rights, but pro drug war and Cuba embargo. A lot of right-wing groups label her a RINO; the GOP gets less hospitable by the day for people like her.

3. Susan Collins (ME). Much like Snowe, Collins is that rare moderate Republican, the freshwater manatee of politics. They also have similar stances on the issues, and both are lambasted by lockstep conservatives, though Collins trends a little more to the right; she can be a little overzealous about elimination government programs. In my fantasies, Snowe and Collins flip to the Dems simultaneously (yes, my "fantasies").

4. Lisa Murkowski (AK). Lots of ladies here, but hey—that's the GOP's problem, its inability to accept any viewpoints that don't belong to rich and/or paranoid white guys. Murkowski is another moderate; she's lousy on environmental issues, but since she's from Alaska, I give her somewhat of a pass (they have their own considerations). More importantly, she and Sarah Palin apparently despise each other. If the Hockey Puck retains her role as avenging angel of the whack-job Right, Murkowski might feel like she's being forced into the arms of the enemy.

5. Judd Gregg (NH). The only non-Maine New England Republican senator, Gregg was Obama's first pick for Commerce secretary, but backed out and basically stabbed the President in the back when he claimed he couldn't abide the Democratic agenda. I don't know; I saw Gregg's change of tune to be more a political maneuver than one of principle. As the GOP spirals further down the drain, perhaps he'll have a change of heart. Or maybe he's just another raving maniac, and I should've put George Voinovich here.

I don 't even like pastry

As I mentioned via a Lightning Round question, much of last night's very successful quiz I wrote while mainlining caffeine and wrestling with the Wi-Fi signal at the Hungarian Pastry Shop. Many hours there reading about famous pirates and reviewing disturbing Wonder Showzen clips. All for you, my friends.

Also for you, I owe you an explanation of why exactly Empty Nest was not a spin-off of The Golden Girls. (The questions was, "Bea Arthur starred in two sitcoms, each spawning one spin-off. Name either spin-off." Here's one answer, and here's the other.) Simply put, none of the Empty Nest characters had appeared on Golden Girls first, though some of the GGs later showed up on Empty Nest (especially Sophia, who became a semiregular), and it was established that Dr. Weston lived across the street from Dorothy, Blanche et al. So perhaps it was a retroactive spin-off, and thus we can regard…oh, somebody just kill me now.

I still don't know what the team name "Had Sex with a Muppet, Now My Kid's Legless" is supposed to mean, exactly, but I like that team's moxie. Reminds me of this.

Two mea culpas:
I asked this: "1987 was the first year what kind of person was elected to the U.S. Senate?" I claimed the answer was this. That is so wrong in so, so many ways.

Also, we apparently could not determine the actual title of this song:

Apparently, it is properly: "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)." Again, a shame on my house.

But do you know who was right? Gerard Depardouche. The G-Dep claimed victory for the thrice-consecutive time, shutting out its fellow nerd triumvirate into a tie for second. The challenge continues!

1. Gerard Depardouche
2. Fantastic Fournicators/Strippers Killed Stephen Hawking (as they're now known, permaturely) (tie)
4. Cash Cab for Cutie
5. Sugah Titz

May 11, we're back, then it's a four-week break till June 8. Steel yourselves.

April 24, 2009

NT's greatest hits, No. 12 (of 34)

Wow, way too long since I posted one of these. I've been slow with the blogging, trying to Twitter like a good hiptard. But here it is, volume 12. Let's all sing along!

"I Get Around" by the Beach Boys

Really, truly, you have to love the Beach Boys. They are true American treasures (or were; if you have the stomach to contemplate the various entities that presently tour the country under the name "the Beach Boys," you are a stronger person than I).

But it's hard to find a more solid catalog of classic American pop than the Beach Boys' 1960s hits. They simply nailed the form—free-sailing vocals over irresistible melodies, beautifully succinct tales of life at its happiest and its saddest—while expanding the idiom into the realm of true musical genius. Granted, some of the experimentation spun out of control—I like Pet Sounds, but I really regard it as the band's last gasp of greatness. But perhaps I'm not alone; I once spoke with Brian Wilson on the phone, and he acted pleasingly shocked when I told him Pet Sounds was a great album.

But back up to 1964, when the Beach Boys scored their first number one single, "I Get Around." I love this song because it really covers several bases. Typical of the Beach Boys' genius, it melds sunny nostalgia with an invigorating collage of harmonies, overdubs, a wonderfully wacko song structure. But the kicker here is the edge: It has just the right amount of forward momentum to make it a truly killer rock tune. And lyrically, that's a great euphemism: I get around. Translation: I call the shots and I get all the tail I want.

But that brings me to an interesting point: There's an element of this song that I really dislike. This guy sounds like such a douchebag. He's boasting about what a cool badass he is, how people don't fuck with him, how great his car is, how chicks are so into him. There was something of this to a lot of the Beach Boys songs—if you didn't have the right ride and the right girl, you couldn't join the club—but this character comes dangerously close to coming off as a real phony. Nonetheless, you somehow believe him. If he were full of shit, would he be backed up by such a great and original composition? Really, it compensates for his seemingly insecure boasting. Show don't tell, I always say, and while lyrically, "I Get Around" is a lot of tell, musically it's a supreme example of show.

More of NT's greatest hits:
"Local Girls"
"Don't Let's Start"
"Suffragette City"
"See-Saw"
"My Name Is Jonas"
"Mr. Tambourine Man"
"Reelin' in the Years"
"Objects of My Affection" and "Crimson and Clover"
"OK Apartment" and "Just What I Needed"

ROOMS for everyone

All right, so, the spigot of free theater tickets is back on. This Monday, we're giving away more seats to ROOMS: a rock romance. In coming BQTs, look out for Irena's Vow and more of the Hitchcockalicious 39 Steps.

But, even better news: For Big Quiz Thing customers, we're being offered fantastic discount offers on all three shows, starting with ROOMS. See below for a word from our sponsor (and a reprise of that nice poster photo; I like a woman with the Union Jack covering her boobs)…

ROOMS a rock romance
New World Stages
340 West 50th Street (btwn 8th & 9th Aves)
www.roomsarockromance.com

A New Musical in the Tradition of Rent and Spring Awakening

“HIT ALERT! ROOMS ROCKS! SEE IT!” -Talk Entertainment

“A SWEET LOVE STORY, DELICIOUS COMIC MOMENTS. Ms. Kritzer is funny and fabulous. Mr. Kreeger is solid and strong. They mesh perfectly.” – The New York Times

“DELIGHTFUL, CLEVER AND POIGNANT! Fun musical theatre rock ‘n’ roll with an edge, youthful romance and fresh comedy! Fast-rising star Leslie Kritzer is positively ebullient! The talented Doug Kreeger is the perfect counterpart. A PLEASURE TO WATCH!” - Associated Press

“TERRIFIC! Leslie Kritzer and Doug Kreeger are two of the most talented performers I have ever seen! YOU WILL LOVE THIS SHOW!” - WOR Radio

“ENTERTAINING, ENJOYABLE! With canny staging and strong performances.” - Variety

“RIGHT AT HOME AND WORTH CHECKING INTO! Sharp and energetic direction by Scott Schwartz.” - NY Daily News

“WE HAVE A NEW CONTENDER FOR BEST MUSICAL OF THE SEASON!” - BroadwayWorld.com

ROOMS a rock romance begins in 1970s Glasgow where Monica, an ambitious singer/songwriter meets Ian, a reclusive rocker. The two quickly become entangled creatively and sexually. Their music takes them to London and ultimately to New York City, where they become part of the vibrant new music scene and create an intimate partnership, their love deepening while their personalities drive them apart. A five-piece rock band accompanies these two characters as they search for the balance between ambition and happiness. Starring Leslie Kritzer (A Catered Affair, Legally Blonde) and Doug Kreeger (Les Miserables, Thrill Me).

DISCOUNT OFFER
Tickets as low as $46.50! (Reg. $69.50)

HOW TO ORDER:
1. VISIT www.BroadwayOffers.com and mention code RMSHARE309
2. CALL Telecharge at 212.947.8844 and mention code RMSHARE309
3. BRING a printout of this discount to New World Stages, 340 West 50th Street.

RESTRICTIONS:
Offer valid for select performances NOW thru 6/28/09. Price includes a $1.50 facility fee. Offer not valid on Sunday evening performances - all seats $39.50. Limit 8 tickets per customer. Additional blackout dates may apply. Subject to availability and prior sale. Normal service charges apply to phone and Internet orders. Cannot be combined with any other offers or discounts and not valid on prior purchases. Offer may be revoked at any time. All sales final -- no refunds or exchanges.

April 21, 2009

A little preview

I'm ridiculously excited about this Monday's BQT. We have a new game, "Three Degrees of Television Separation." For you old-timers, it's just like "Three Degrees of Musical Separation," but with clips from programs from the friendly old cathode-ray tube. A preview: Name all three shows whose names are phonetically linked:



Tricky, tricky. This Monday, the 27th.

Also, looks like I'll have some more theater tickets for you all this Monday, specifically seats to the Broadway drama Irena's Vow. Details to come.

And while I have you, an advisory: We're not doing the quiz on May 25, Memorial Day. We'll be back two weeks later, June 8. Use the time to study.

April 17, 2009

Milkshakes are the solution

Brutal, brutal week. Bru-taaaal! To placate myself, I went out for a frosty, frosty milkshake, at one of my local hangouts, the Deluxe diner. Famous for its shakes; it even has a separate page on the menu, listing each flavor in a different font (strawberry gets Pac-Man lettering).

I kept it simple: chocolate (I tend to self-mediate with cocoa). It was just delicious.I did note, however, that Deluxe—not the finest restaurant in NYC by any stretch of the imagination—charges a minimum of $6.25 for its shakes. It wasn't so long ago that a $5 shake was considered extravagant. To wit:





(Damn, I love that movie. My favorite ever BQT question about Pulp Fiction: Q: In the Bravo television edit of Pulp Fiction, what character is entirely removed from the movie?)

Milkshakes are terrific. They're one of those consumables that has (or had) a different name depending on where in the USA you enjoyed one: milkshake, frappe, cabinet, velvet. Mass media has basically elevated milkshake to national hegemony (much like it did for sneakers), but a trivia lover can appreciate the history. Plus, you can always count on milkshakes to make a significant supporting role in the zeitgeist every few years; I really dislike the Kelis song, but it was good for a clever pop-cultural meme. And if it weren't for milkshakes, that climactic scene in There Will Be Blood wouldn't have been quite so bat-shit, disturbingly wacky.

And by the way, contrary to rumor, the reason McDonald's calls its milkshakes just shakes is not because they don't contain milk. Milk is the No. 1 ingredient. I'm not sure why the substance is removed from the name, but McShakes are lacking another supposedly vital shake element: ice cream. Your McServer combines something called "shake mix" with milk and flavoring. Yum. Yet another reason McDonald's represents all that is soulless and wrong in the history of humanity.

And milkshakes represent all that is soulful and right. Believe it.

April 14, 2009

Love is all around

Tonight's Big Quiz Thing was all about that most glorious of emotions, love. To wit:

-- The video round, "If They Mated…," dealt with the theoretical result of such amorousness. And it's kind of pleasant to imagine a world in which Bill O'Reilly falls in love with Tina Fey, or Barack Obama makes it with Rachel Maddow. Well, almost pleasant.

-- A team of ladies, calling themselves Young Used Dirty Whores, sat just to my left at the foot of the stage and gave me copious amounts of love-filled cheer and encouragement. Quizmasters get all the tail.

-- Last-place finishers And in Last Place… (psychic? a dive?) got nothing but praise for their humorous audio round fail. When I magnaminously gave them ten points for the round, everyone cheered rather than doling out the usual booing, hissing, thrown cabbages, voodoo-doll sticking, and embittered postshow e-mails.

-- Nice question about barnacles and their massive genitalia.

-- I couldn't coax a hearty round of boos from the crowd when we had a question about the MTA raising a monthly MetroCard 27 percent.

-- Gerard Depardouche repeated their victory, winning with a point total of—wait for it—69.

Etc. It would've been even more lovey if we had indeed used the new clearing in the back of the room for a rollerskating party. Couples skate to "When the Children Cry"—someone would've scored their first kiss, I guarantee you. But this was plenty. To quote my five-year-old nephew, "You have love."

Otherwise, great show, even though I cannot pronounce Dutch. And now, the standings:

1. Gerard Depardouche (second in a row—a new dynasty?)
2. Fantastic Fournicators
3. Strippers for Stephen Hawking (in their new barside domicile)
4. Three Up, Three Down, and the Pirates Are Retired (I am completely not getting it)
5. Ferris Bueller's Madoff (with a paltry two members)

April 27, let's do it again!

April 10, 2009

NT's greatest hits, No. 11 (of 34)

And we're back. On tap for this volume of my favorite songs of all time: something you probably don't know, but should...
"Local Girls" by Graham Parker and the Rumour
When I was in college, I hosted a radio show (most semesters titled Noise Annoys) that focused on my favorite subgenre of rock & roll: punk and new wave of the late '70s and early '80s. All your favorites: Blondie, the Jam, the Cars, the Buzzcocks, the Ramones; I could get as arty as Roxy Music and as poppy as Men at Work.

At least from a rock geek's point of view, this is a pretty broad swathe of the rock idiom. (Go here for an especially savvy sampler.) It wasn't just punk and new wave; we also had power pop, new romantic, mod revival, ska, protopunk, the early glimmerings of electronica…and pub rock. Pub rock was a British style that sought to return the music to its basics: four or five sweaty young drunks bashing out good music for a small room of felow drunk hipsters. And the king of the pub rockers was Elvis Costell…er, Graham Parker.

Costello was the patron saint of my radio show, sure; I was obsessed with the guy in college (and my favorite of his songs will be featured in this series anon). But Parker, along with his band, the Rumour, released the single best album of the idiom—not just of the pub rock subsubgenre, but all of new wave, and perhaps all of rock music entirely: 1979's Squeezing Out Sparks. While I've since come to recognize broader differences between Costello's and Parker's music, I used to refer to Sparks as "the best Elvis Costello album ever." It's a simply blistering rock & roll album—arch, angular, exciting, dripping with both venom and self-aware humor, with hardly a weak song, and several stunningly excellent ones. And "Local Girls" is the unquestioned highlight.

Rarely has a rock recording featured a better performance. Watch and listen; this band is incredible:



Great video; that delicious charm that so many of the pre-MTV videos had, when simply playing music on camera was still a novelty. The song is a Kinksian slice of British life—Parker finds the ladies in his workaday British world to be both irresistible and tiresome, profressing his lack of interest as he subliminaly begs for their attention. The lyrics are good—"Don't bother with the local girls/They don't bother me" is a frequent refrain during my bitterest moments—but the band's performance is incredible. Curdled vocals, flawless support from the interdependent rhythm section, and that astonishing call-and-response between Brinsley Schwarz's lead guitar and Bob Andrews keyboard. All beautifully packaged as yet another "tension-release" song, with the song collapsing off the cliff as the chorus hits.

I played the shit of this song on my radio show; it so perfectly summed up what my show—what my favorite music—was all about. Angry but self-deprecating, awkward by cool, powerfully rocking but with a sense of humor. If every rock song sounded like this, I'd find this a much, much better world.

Earlier editions of NT's greatest hits:
"Don't Let's Start"
"Suffragette City"
"See-Saw"
"My Name Is Jonas"
"Mr. Tambourine Man"
"Reelin' in the Years"
"Objects of My Affection" and "Crimson and Clover"
"OK Apartment" and "Just What I Needed"

April 9, 2009

A rant, part III

…wherein I become a little less ranty. After part I and part II, lets look at a couple of New Yorker cartoons that I actually really like.

But first, to respond to two comments I've received about this extended bout of vitriol: (1) Yes, I'm sure the cartoons were in general much better in the golden age of The New Yorker, the '50s and thereabouts. Makes sense. All the more reason why the magazine should go the extra mile to hire worthy talent today. (2) Of course many of the cartoons lack timeliness because they were drawn months earlier; I know all about evergreen features and articles in the magazine business. But something about Bernie Madoff, or any newsworthy figure, necessarily has a timeliness element to it. If Roz Chast can't draw it when the topic is still a fresh one—or The New Yorker can't run it—then it should be killed.

Now, then, onto goodness. I love these cartoons:
The basis of most humor is the conflict between expectation and reality (which is why the best way to make a baby laugh is to surprise him), and this cartoon is a pretty stark example: That comically over-the-top stereotypical prison goon is this guy's mom. If the word "Mom" were instead "Dad," or "Phil," there'd be no joke here, of course (or at least not a good one). "Susan" or another female name would be okay, by "Mom" nails it. Clever enough, but what really makes me laugh is the drawing. Not just the boilerplate-scary ex-con, but the blandly cheery look on the driver's face. He doesn't look scared or concerned that his mother has turned into Mr. Zsasz; he seems to just be making friendly, typically parent-pleasing conversation. This really works.I have a little more trouble putting my finger on why I like this one so much. First of all, I think it's extremely well drawn; this writer has a terrific, clean yet light style that's perfect for the dry wit that suits New Yorker cartoons best. Also, and maybe this doesn't say anything good about me, but I find inherent humor in hosptials: the surgical masks, the gas tanks, the prone woman on the table; I like dark comedy. Plus, "Feldman" is just a funny name (sorry, chief). Finally, I suppose it's just the clever juxtaposition of surgery and getting lost on the road that this artist synthesizes so skillfully. Another example of what every cartoon in The New Yorker should be like. Perhaps, maybe, someday: I will continue to dream.

April 6, 2009

A rant, part II

Two days ago, I complained about The New Yorker's "famous" cartoons, about how most of them drive me insane with disgust. A rant, if you will. Today, part II: Why am I so pissed off?

(1) They're lazy. One of the primary philosophies of my life is that hard work is itself a good thing: Even if the result is disappointing, I like to give an A for effort. This is one of the reasons I loved The 39 Steps; not only was it a good time, those guys worked their asses off. It's also part of the reason I admire Jimmy Carter; the dude was a flat-out lousy President, but dammit, he really tried, and for that I respect him. (That's not to say I hate anything that doesn't involve hard work; let's trade Jerky Boys quotes sometime.)

But too many New Yorker cartoons foist clichéd, tossed-off concepts accompanied by poorly drawn pictures onto readers and call it art. Not a lot of effort here.And what's most galling is that most of the journalism in The New Yorker is excellent, full of outstanding reporters and writers putting in a herculean degree of effort. I mean, really: Does a napkin scribble and a banal observation about waiting in line really deserve to sit side-by-side with a rigorously reported, 3,000-word essay about the modernization of rural China? The answer is no, and I wish The New Yorker's editors realized that.

(2) They're elitist. As you may be aware, for most of my life, I was big comic-book fan. Mainly mainstream, superheroey stuff—I was a DC fanatic, I wrote my thesis about Batman, although I have an appreciation of the tentpoles of the underground and alternative scenes. And the underdog in me always bristled at how, until recently, comics were basically dismissed by the mainstream. (With age, I've learned just how much of the comics canon is utter shit, but isn't that true of all art forms?)

The New Yorker's cartoons never had that problem. They're routinely hailed as paragons of humor and cartoon artistry. I think it's because for decades, the very medium of comics was debased; so standards were lower, and anything with a shred of an adult viewpoint was regarded as an exceptional example of the form (deserving work has benefited from this as well, of course). And the imprimatur of being in The New Yorker granted these cartoons that dignified shred. But the truth is, most of these cartoons are lousy, and a lot of "juvenile" comics are much better. You want to talk about humor? Try Ambush Bug, or even this:

This ties in with the laziness: New Yorker cartoonists seem to think, "Hey, it's just a cartoon! No one's expecting genius, so a poorly thought-out trifle should get the job done." Wrong: Open your eyes, Mr. Cultural Commentator. There is good comics work, even if it's outnumbered by the crap. Besides, comics is a medium, not a specific genre, marketing strategy or philosophy. Scott McCloud has made this point well: A medium can't in itself be good or bad (though the advent of Twitter has me reconsidering that).

Next post: I lay off the vitriol and show you some examples of New Yorker cartoons that I actually like.

April 5, 2009

A rant, part I

If you know me well, you know that I'm a bit of a complainer. Thankfully, though, I've kept most of the vitriol out of this blog. But tonight, let's taste a little, shall we? Allow me to rant about one of my pet peeves: the cartoons in The New Yorker.

I love The New Yorker; one of the few magazines I read, and the only one I maintain a subscription to (if you don't count my college alumni magazine, and you shouldn't). But I love it for the articles. The pictures, not so much. I have a standing dislike for The New Yorker's famed cartoons: For the most part, they're not funny, they're not particularly well drawn, and they're obnoxiously elitist.

This week is the prime moment to discuss this, because the current issue's cover features work by my least favorite of the regular cartoon contributors, Roz Chast:
Roz Chast makes a career of rehashing the clichéd foibles of modern New York life: everyone's neurotic, men are different than women, cats are lazy, old people can't deal with technology. If there's a hackneyed observation about modern life, she's on the case, with no fresh insight, minimal imagination, and a cartooning style that—while charming—evinces very little originality.

Ironically, this cover is among her best work; it actually made me smile—some clever ideas here, for a change—until I got to the end and saw it was a riff on the Bernie Madoff debacle. So she's at least a few weeks behind the relevance curve (her own magazine published what I consider the authoritative article on the subject two weeks earlier). This highlights Roz Chast's greatest sin, and the greatest sin of many of The New Yorker's cartoonists: She's lazy. She couldn't be bothered to strike when the iron is hot (which is vital, if your goal is topical humor), failing as the cultural commentator that she and many of the other cartoonists apparently are supposed to be.

Many disagree. A few months ago, Slate published an article by someone who'd won The New Yorker's cartoon caption contest, explaining his secrets for victory; basically, don't try to be funny, try to be "witty" in the specific New Yorker way. This is tantamount to saying the cartoons aren't supposed to be laugh-at-loud funny. This is garbage. There's no reason why something witty, timely, charming and intellectual can't be outright hilarious. If you don't believe me, turn on Comedy Central some weeknight between 11pm and midnight. (Thankfully, this writer's lame attitude is in the minority; I actually like most of the winning captions for this weekly contest. Ironically, they have a better success rate than the "professional" cartoonists.)

A few other rotten cartoons from recent issues:Elitist. Bartering is hardly some ridiculously exotic concept, it's very common and always has been. The distance between this scenario and reality is minimal, growing more so by the day, and the fact that this is considered "humorous" just proves that the cartoonist is out of touch (as are the editors for accepting this).
Hey, did you know that men don't like to ask for directions while driving? And that it's funny to imagine that aliens would be just like us? And have you been conscious at any point in the past 30 years? This might have made for an amusing Far Side cartoon 20 years ago, but Gary Larson would've drawn it with infinitely more economy and better design (why is it easier to see the trees than the aliens?).

This cartoonist is just terrible; he simply cannot draw, and 90 percent of his cartoons feature essentially the same image: A couple of poorly defined humanoids standing unnaturally against a nondescript background, talking. (And again, what's with the poor composition? Why are the relevant figures squeezed into a corner at the expense of irrelevant background detail? Go to art school!) Add in the moldy interpersonal observation, and you have a work of "art" that has no business taking up space in any magazine worth reading.

Why does this upset me so? And are there any New Yorker cartoons I do enjoy? Answers to those questions and more in a forthcoming post; this rant has gone on long enough.

April 4, 2009

The Super Mega Ultra Hard Question of the Week

Sorry I've been slow with the blogging this week; busy times. Missives coming soon about cartoons in The New Yorker and the next entry in my greatest-hits series. But, I do have another Super Mega Ultra Hard Question, fresh, hot and ready to go.

While we're at it, how about the answer to last week's (which elicited more answers than any previous SMUH question)?

The query: What adjective describes both a citizen of a Mediterranean civilization that thrived between 1200 and 900 B.C. and a citizen of the current-day most populous state capital in the USA?

The answer: Phoenician. Congratulations to the winner of the drawing from among the correct answers: Ashley Castle. It could be you, too, if you know this…



E-mail your answer to info@bigquizthing.com by Sunday, April 12. May luck be your lady.

April 1, 2009

Recap of the quiz/Soda pop, telephones, and/Baseball stadiums

Maybe I should write the whole recap in haiku… No, it's late, I'm tired (we did yet another quiz tonight), and that's annoying.

Monday was another successful night at Crash Mansion: big crowd, big prizes, big trivia. "Soda Pop Haiku" turned out great; memories of the early BQT days, when "Breakfast Cereal Haiku" convinced me that I might have a facility for this business. Thanks for laughing along at the appropriate moments (and for confirming that I was not hallucinating when I remembered OK Soda).

I took some flak for this question: "This spring, here in New York, it will be the first time ever that two BLANKs have opened in the same city on the same year." Writing "baseball stadiums" (or "stadia," for you prescriptivists) garnered only a half point; I don't know if that phrase makes the statement above a true one. The full point went to "Major League baseball stadiums." A-ha! I will not be argued with. We ended the game on a question about people dying ("What happened at both a March Madness game in Miami last week, and during a 1971 taping of Dick Cavett’s talk show?"). In between, we had April's Fools hoaxes, Wang Chung, Larry the Cable Guy, chicken tikka masala, and Laughing Cow cheese (not "processed cheese food"). That's the formula for a successful evening, in my book.

And the "We're Trying to Use the Phone!" audio round was fun, though yes, in hindsight we should've used "Chantilly Lace," or "911's a Joke," or "What's the 411?," or "I'm Going to Bomb Verizon for Being the Most Annoying Company on Earth." Maybe not all of those.

The standings!

1. Gerard Depardouche -- A long-awaited return to victory! But can they bi-peat?
2. Incontinental Congress -- Still has never won. That's Congress for you.
3. Fantastic Fournicators -- Who?
4. Sugah Titz/Strippers for Stephen Hawking (tie)

Returning champs Cash Cab 4 Cutie only made it to eighth place. But now that Cutie member Jen has a Ph.D. in organizational theory (or something like that), they really don't need the prize money.

April 13, it's on again!