..:S...P...I...D...E...R...B...I...T...E...S:..

Saturday, March 19, 2005

"When i was sixty one, i lied about things i'd done..completely full of shit...when i was sixty one."
- Frank Sinatra

"...and Jack just left town."
- Ash from "Army of Darkness"


today i attack Frank Sinatra. he was recently voted the "best singer of all time" and that just boggles the mind. Sinatra is quite possibly the most overrated entertainer in history. what did he ever do? jack and shit. he came up during the only time in history that he could have come up. today he'd be a friggin' golf caddy or smarmy bartender at best. however, that Rat Pack bullshit and fake tough-guy crap was enough back then, and he's ridden along on it ever since. i actually don't know that much about him but i can comfortably base my hatred of Sinatra on three things, because three is a good number:

1.) i was just watching "The Godfather" the other day and they say that the horse's head-in-the-bed scene was based on true events. not that a horse was killed but maybe some director was bullied to put Sinatra in "From Here To Eternity" or something and while i sat there watching the Sinatra-inspired "Johnny Fontane" snivel and whimper while Brando slapped him around, it made me want to believe it bad enough to believe it.

2.) after tough-guy Sinatra died there was this mostly-ignored press release that said he had been on the payroll for the government for a long time, actually squealing on those same mafia "connections" that he always hinted at whenever he wanted to seem like a bad-ass. turns out he was the worst kind of rat and i regret that he died before he was exposed as the bitch he always was. talentless bastard died thinking he was the shit. too bad we can't put some jumper-cables on that hack long enough to show him those headlines, show him how he'll really be remembered. or should be remembered because that news didn't really make the front page. see, people already forgot.

3.) the reason for this post: i watched "The Manchurian Candidate" remake last night so i decided to watch the original this morning. and after the movie there's this interview with Sinatra and the writer and director. it's bad enough that the entire interview consists of the director and writer kissing Sinatra's ass, but we also get to listen to the asshole lie about some incident on the set. he's so fucking stupid and used to believing his own hype that he tells a story that is proven wrong by the movie that just preceded it. there's a goofy Pink Panther-looking fight scene in the middle of the movie between a Korean spy and Sinatra's character. Sinatra karate-chops through a coffee table during this scene. it's obviously part of the fight and the table is obviously made out of styrofoam or balsa wood or whatever. but in the interview they ask him about the fight and he starts yammering about how the other actor didn't speak good English and "didn't know his left from his right" and how Sinatra ended up breaking his hand smashing a table during the fight. let's analyze how fucking stupid this man by thinking about this for a moment. first of all, there a big difference between not knowing the WORDS "left" and "right" and not knowing your left hand from your right hand. like all idiots and casual racists, he confuses not speaking English with ignorance. i'm pretty sure there's a Korean equivalent for "right" and "left." next, you can watch the movie and clearly see that the fight scene is supposed to have the Korean guy move out of the way and Sinatra lurch forward and punch the table. it's so obviously a choreographed part of the scene that only dumbasses in the 60's who weren't used to seeing many kung-fu fight scenes could have mistaken it for someone ACTUALLY missing a punch and smashing a real table. and finally, if Sinatra did actually break his hand, and therefore have to invent this bullshit fairy tale to explain how he hurt himself on a fake coffee table made out of popcicle-sticks, then he's an even bigger pussy than i imagined.

4.) hold up. just remembered one more. i was at a bar like 5 years ago and some frat-boy was playing Sinatra songs all night and singing them with this look on his face like he was so proud of himself for knowing the words to something. he was up in everyone's faces singing and smiling while everyone smiled back uncomfortably and waited for him to stop. it was worse than someone overquoting a movie. imagine someone starts quoting a movie and then continues to spend the next two hours reciting the entire flick with a big stupid grin on their face and you'll have some idea of how dumb this douche-bag looked. and he thought he was the man that night. he thought he was like old-school and hip to be singing that crap and it's just proved (among other things) that you don't need to have any vocal talent to sing those stupid songs. those songs sound just like someone talking in a dull conversational tone. now the guy from Type O Negative? his voice sounds like a nerf-football stuck in a garbage disposal. see kids, THAT'S a voice.

p.s. "The Manchurian Candidate" remake is decent. i like how they have both men practice killing innocent people during their brainwashing.

okay, since an anti-Sinatra rant isn't very timely, here's one just for the kids, i'll attack a more contemporary hero:

50 Cent? you guys think he's tough because he got shot in the face nine times? that's not tough. you know what's tough? getting shot in the face nine times......by a bow and arrow. that's tough. the day that a rapper steps forward with nine arrow wounds, that's the day i buy his album. actually, i'd settle for like three arrow wounds. or even one photo of an arrow still in someone's face. right on the album cover like Bushwick Bill from the Geto Boys. picture it, my hero will have on all the gold and platinum rings and chains and a purple fur coat and gold Groucho Marx glasses and he's flashing his East Coast gang sign...all the while the feathered end of an arrow sticking out of his face. now THAT'S a tough guy. and imagine how much more interesting the aftermath of a drive-by shooting would be if everyone was full of arrows instead of bullets? i mean, you can't really SEE the bullets. here's the crime scene:

see the usual police lights flashing, girlfriend crying, mom clutching the victim's unopened SAT scores (that would have revealed he had gotten into "State" College after all, sniff), and there on the porch, a kid with a tiny hole in his head. now, how about, instead of all that, we see a kid in the middle of a chalk outline with arrows sticking out of his back? see what i'm saying? much more dramatic. i tried to explain this to a carload of people last night and all i could get out of one of them was, "you couldn't load a bow and arrow fast enough for a drive-by." well guess what? Dave Chappelle addressed that very same issue at about the 70-minute mark in the 81-minute masterpiece "Half Baked." anyone remember what he said? you come up with the line and i will send you my copy of "Open Water." anyone see that movie? should have been called "Open Ass." you can re-enact the entire flick in your sink with a couple of bobbing cornflakes. it truly IS the Blair Shit Project on the ocean and that's not a good thing.

i am now eating my first eggs in my new slightly-larger apartment. the cats are freaked out and won't leave the closet. well, the black one, Shaft, left the closet, but the gray one, Ash, is curled up on the shoes, all poofed out with his eyes black and dilated. poor little dumb-ass. every time i move it takes him at least 48 hours to understand that the world has not changed.

::: david - 1:59 PM [+] :::
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