I respond to emails about my near fight on the streets of L.A., fixations on Lorenzo Lamas and Matt Lauer, and a rebuttal from a guy who I wrote had probably hanged himself for not inventing Google.
Inbox-O-Rama comes a little later this week, because, well, quite frankly I dicked around all of Labor Day weekend so my entire schedule is thrown off. So let’s dive into questions, comments and thoughts from 11 Points readers.
As always, anyone whose message is featured in an Inbox-O-Rama gets a really cool 11Points sticker. Provided (1) you’re patient, because four weeks in I’m still waiting on those bad boys to be delivered (2) you e-mail me, a total stranger, your mailing address so I have someplace to send the sticker and (3) you live in the U.S., because I can’t blow my entire annual budget on mailing stickers to Micronesia.
Now, on with the show.
1 | Sam’s strange fixation on Lorenzo Lamas
I had no idea I’d developed an obsession…
You’ve made a lot of references to Lorenzo Lamas on this blog. [Including here, here and here.] Is he your go-to guy for 80s references? Do you have one for other decades or pop culture events?
–Zach
It’s funny that Lorenzo Lamas keeps coming up in my lists, because I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen a single movie featuring him. And I didn’t watch Renegade during its surprisingly long five-season run.
I think I find myself referencing Lorenzo Lamas because I’m pretty sure he’s the biggest douchebag in the world. He’s just got that face where you look at him and can’t help but instantly hate him. How many people have that? Not many. And he’s the a Totally ’80s example of it.
I’m still letting my classic ’90s reference work itself out. Who’s it going to be? Matt LeBlanc? Arsenio? Andrew Shue? James van der Beek? Let’s see who rises to the top.
2 | Where’d the movie reviews go?
I haven’t posted a movie review since October 13th of last year. A few people have noticed…
I was looking through the related lists yesterday, and I re-read your 11 Points movie reviews from last year, and remembered how much fun they were–are there ever going to be more? Did you stop going to the movies? Am I the only one who enjoyed them? Just curious–I would like to see some 11 Points reviews of this year’s movies. Not that I would stop visiting the site or anything otherwise, just a thought.
–Jeremy (via Facebook)
And…
Out of curiosity, is there any reason that you’ve stopped making the 11 points reviews? They seem like a good regular feature to the site…
–Yellowkirby (via the comments)
I’ve done six movie reviews on this site. Really, there are two main reasons I stopped:
1.) They’ve proven to be incredibly unpopular lists over time, with all six camping out in the bottom quartile of my lists, traffic-wise.
2.) I don’t particularly enjoy writing them, and I think, with my writing style, it’s very easy to tell when I’m finding my subject exciting or finding it a chore.
That’s not to say I won’t write more. I wrote about half of a list about Bruno but ended up shelving it because the list was coming out so preachy that I felt like Ziggy. (Or, at least, Homer and Mindy’s opinions on Ziggy.)
So if I get inspired I may knock out a movie review from time to time. And at the end of the year I want to do some best-worst lists (from 2009 and from the entire decade), so there’ll be plenty of movie talk there.
3 | In defense of The Simpsons season 12
An Inbox-O-Rama wouldn’t be complete without some big Simpsons debate…
Hello sir. I am a big fan of 11points.com and a fellow simpsons fan. In your most recent inbox-o-rama you responded to a bunch of questions from a reader about the “golden age” of the simpsons. I have always wondered when the “golden age” actually ended. I own the dvds for seasons 2-11, and i enjoy them all, but i am wondering at what point did they start to enter the “average” stage i feel they are in now? Since i shared many of the same favorite characters, episodes, etc.. from your response to the questions, i thought you would be a good person to ask. So should i buy season 12 or not?
–Shane.
I’m definitely not as much of a Simpsons purist as a lot of fans — while I recognize the “Golden Age” I still think there have been tons of modern episodes that have been absolutely fantastic.
So, for you, Shane, here are 11 reasons to love season 12 of The Simpsons.
- Sideshow Bob hypnotizing Bart in a plan to have him blow up Krusty, in an episode featuring the lines, “Yep, getting drunk at the old flower shop” and “Ah, Kettle Chips the perfect side dish… for revenge!”
- The fact that the boy band episode will imprint the song “Yvan eht nioj” in your head.
- Homer confusing tennis for “the sport where the chicks wail on each other … foxy boxing” in the episode “Tennis the Menace”.
- During “Pokey Mom”, as the family drives home from the apron expo, Homer says he’s looking forward to going home and relaxing with a nice juice box, “because at the end of the day– PRISON RODEO!”
- The best episode of the season: “The Great Money Caper”. Homer and Bart become con artists. The episode features a wealth of hilariously outdated carny lingo (“flim-flammin'” “now you’re on the trolley” etc.)
- The surprisingly good “Homer vs. Dignity” episode where Homer becomes Mr. Burns’s prank monkey.
- As Homer and Ned drive to save the children in “Skinner’s Sense of Snow”, Homer lying to Ned that he wrote the song “Feel Like Makin’ Love” in memory of Princess Di… and Dodi.
- The very cleverly done “Trilogy Of Error” episode, featuring Linguo AND 123 Fake Street.
- A great travel episode where the Simpsons go to Africa AND a great “Simpsons retell stories” episode with tall tales.
- “A Tale of Two Springfields” featuring a brilliant storyline about dividing the town, and a running gag with Homer misdialing the phone.
- In “HOMR”, Moe’s business card reading, “That’s right, I’m a surgeon.”
Still not convinced? The actual Albuquerque minor league baseball team changed its name to the Isotopes based on the season 12 episode “Hungry, Hungry Homer”.
4 | Putting the Soul Man controversy to bed
So in my list of the 11 Worst Movie Posters of the 80s I wrote about the Soul Man poster and mentioned that I thought its tagline — “Guess Who’s Coming to College?” — was completely irrelevant. Here’s one response to that…
The Soul Man tagline isn’t completely irrelevant, it’s a play on Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner a play about a white girl who brings her black boyfriend home to meet her conservative family. However, the tagline alone isn’t enough to convey the plot of the film.
–Smackracer
Smackracer was just one of lots of people wrote in to tell me it’s not completely irrelevant, it’s a reference to Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, which was also race-centric. (No one mentioned that the movie was remade with Ashton Kutcher and Bernie Mac.)
I’ve included only Smackracer’s e-mail in Inbox-O-Rama, though, because he sums up my thoughts exactly. OK, so the tagline references Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, which voids my “completely irrelevant” comment… but it’s still not a good tagline for the movie.
5 | Another new black person Photoshopped in or out!
Here’s another “Photoshop out the black guy!” [The black guy was originally added for the English version of the site.]
–Kat
Once again, I am proud that my 11 Photos Where Black People Were Awkwardly Photoshopped In or Out list is starting to make me a go-to guy for these race-swappin’ pictures. However, in retrospect, maybe I should’ve called that list guess who’s coming to Photoshop.
6 | Such an appropriate T9 switch
Sometimes I think that T9 is actually just reading what’s going on in your subconscious…
I discovered another T9 word switch that I think is pretty funny. Try typing “Smirnoff” … its first guess is “poisoned”.
–Ian in Vermont
This is another great T9 switch. As much as I’m now a BlackBerry (and, therefore, fully QWERTY keyboard) guy, these are so good that I’m now fully on board for a list about the best 11 T9 switches. Please send yours in now so I can put it together!
7 | Irish newspaper offering blow jobs
You may have seen the attached picture before but if not, i thought you might get a kick out of it. Belmullet is a only a few miles from where i live but i’m seriously thinking about moving there!. Maybe you could include it in a list like the funniest unintentional newspaper headlines or something.
–Shane in Ireland
I’ve reread this headline over and over and can’t possibly figure out why they would’ve phrased it that way… except to get attention. So, mission accomplished.
Also, I named that image “mayoblowjobs.jpg”, because I feel like that could lead a lot of Google Image searches to my site.
8 | There’s something about Matt Lauer
Perhaps, as a heterosexual male, you are not the right person to ask- but you mentioned it. What in the world is it with women and Matt Lauer? I am a women and do not at all find him attractive. At all.
–Jess (via the comments)
Ya know Jess, I have no idea the appeal of Matt Lauer. Even though I’m a hetero male, I just don’t think he’s even remotely handsome.
9 | On second thought..
I’ve decided to skip ahead and compare you to Matt Lauer now. Because in this photo you really do remind me of him.
–Alyssa
The more I think about it, I guess I do see some real handsomeness in ol’ Matt Lauer.
10 | The hobo fight
This all began on at 12:04 AM on August 30th, when I excitedly punched this into Twitter:
@11points: My friend John & I just got into a fight with a crazy hobo at a bus stop. John handled the shoving b/c of my knee. It was kinda awesome.
The citizens of Socialmedialand did not match my glee…
@GeneralSalt: You ganged up on a hobo? Not cool. You should have defused the situation with hugs, love and words of peace.
@ImThatDingo: Crazy hobo encounters are thrilling…
@djphob: Violence is never the answer and you are never too old or too cool to listen to your mother.
@froggfan09: You shoved a hobo? Rude
Well… I think it’s time to clear the air on what really went down that Saturday night.
A small group of friends and I were at my house, enjoying a not-so-delicious beer that I won’t mention by name. (Let’s just say it comes from all Natural ingredients. Perhaps that will shine a Light on what beer I’m talking about.) Just before midnight we decided to walk to a bar about four blocks from my house… aka the max distance it’s legal to walk in Los Angeles.
The five-person group splinters on the walk and it’s left with me… my friend John… and Kathleen, who’s my friend Molly’s sister, and a wide-eyed, brand new L.A. resident.
John, Kathleen and I are walking and talking, loudly, and as we passed a bus stop, apparently, we didn’t hear a guy at the bus stop saying to us, “Hey! Hey!” So we kept right on walking toward the bar.
Moments later, we turn around and this angry man is sprinting toward us screaming “You didn’t hear me? You didn’t hear me?” We turn around and say “What?” and he responds, “Oh, now you speak English!”
He lets us know he was trying to get our attention to find out what time the bus comes. I tell him we don’t know, and that we weren’t ignoring him… we were just engrossed in a deep conversation so we didn’t hear him. (Patently untrue, by the way, our conversation wasn’t engrossing, we were just loud and had been drinking.)
He says, “Oh, ok. Good. I just thought it was a racial thing”… and starts to walk away. And everything could’ve ended there. Except I decided I was going to defuse the situation with a hilarious joke so we could all go our separate ways with a smile.
In retrospect, a terrible decision. As we all concluded later, the kind of guy who leaves a bus stop to chase down three total strangers because they didn’t respond to him saying “Hey” isn’t the kind of guy who is up for jokes… especially my brand of jokes.
So as he walked away, I pointed at my friend John and said, “No it’s not a racial thing! He’s Hispanic!”
Now, technically, this is true. John’s mom is from Chile, making him a legitimate half-Hispanic. But, while that’s accurate… appearance-wise, John is one of the world’s whitest-looking people. Like, other than albinos and the Irish, John’s as Caucasianed-out as you can find.
So the angry guy instantly turns around, fury back on his face, and charges at us. “Man, fuck you man, I’m not Hispanic, I’m Indian!”
First of all, this was a lie. He was clearly Mexican. His t-shirt was from a Mexican soccer team. There was no doubt about it. Why he decide to play the “Indian” card, we’re not sure… but he did.
Second of all, we had a little situation. As longtime readers might know, I had ACL replacement surgery back in February and, because the recovery time from that is so long, I’m still not close to 100 percent. And this night was my first one leaving the house without wearing any sort of protective brace. Meaning I was not exactly ready for a fight.
Well, let’s blame it on that, not on the fact that I haven’t been in a fight since my first and only one in 4th grade… aka 1989. That’s 20 fight-free years.
John, knowing my ACL situation… and hearing Kathleen’s shrieks-bordering-on-tears… stepped in front. The guy shoved John. John shoved him back. We were all yelling, they were shoving back and forth, more yelling, more shoving. Fortunately, the guy never took a swing at John, which would’ve escalated things… and John clearly wasn’t going to swing at the guy, because we’re not a fightin’ people.
Finally, after much shoving and yelling… and just as a crowd began to gather… the guy gave up and walked back to the bus stop, ranting the whole time.
We headed to the bar as briskly as possible. Crisis averted. Adrenaline running high, I Twittered about the incident. And now you know… the rest of the story.
11 | Oops!
This one comes in reference to something I wrote in my list 11 Firsts In Internet History. I mentioned that the first search engine, Archie, was created in 1990 by a Canadian university student named Alan Emtage. Then, I speculated, because he failed to go on to push himself, invent Google and become a billionaire, “I assume at some point around 2004 he hung himself by his neck in his fucking closet.”
So you can imagine my surprise when this e-mail came my way…
Hi Sam,
A friend of mine sent me a link that he’d run across in which you mention me in one of your lists.
I just wanted to let you know that I’m alive and kicking and (as far as I’m aware) in good health….oh, and I haven’t been in the closet for almost 25 years 🙂
–Alan
Awesome. Just… awesome.