Posted by Dr Fro 11:06 AM

We shall not rest until George W. Bush drinks the blood of every man, woman and child in Iraq!

I saw Borat last night. My opinion falls somewhere between Junell's and John's. That isn't right. My observations are spot-on with John's, but even though I agreed with him, I still enjoyed the movie. John is right that the humor of Borat lies in the unsuspecting victim he is interviewing, not in the character Borat himself. The movie would have been better if there was less "plot" with Borat and just more interviews. The naked scene was, in my opinion, a cheap laugh that was well beneath the genius that is Sacha Baron Cohen.

Maybe it is just me, but I have been laughing at the line, "I am the son of Asimbala Sagdiyev and Boltok the Rapist and the (former) husband of Oksana Sagdiyev, who was the daughter of Mariam Tuyakbay and Boltok the Rapist. " since he was on Channel 4 in the UK. (That was the 4th of the 4 channels we received in our flat. Ordinarily, getting only 4 channels would suck, but when you are watching Ali G., The Office, Friday Night Poker and The Royle Family, you can't complain!)

Johnny G is also right that the joke is, of course, on us. While the movie is popular here, it is also very popular overseas, particularly in Europe. Borat showed Americans as naive, paranoid, racist, homophobic simpletons. Since this reinforces the stereotypes of Americans held by Europeans, this movie is very popular in Europe. The sad thing is (and this is when everybody gets mad at me), I don't think he had to try very hard to find these people. While the highly sophisticated and high-brow readers of this blog do not fall into this stereotype, I think that there are tens (?) of millions of people living in this country that actually do fit the stereotype well. And that makes me a bit sad.

I was wondering how hard it was for him to keep an interview going when even the most naive should be on to his schtick. Then it occurred to me that several of his interviewees were, in fact, paid: a driving instructor, a humor coach, a manners coach and, who could forget...a prostitute. And it did seem that all the above were on to him. So maybe it is harder to find unsuspecting dufuses than I thought. But the pentacostal church and the rodeo scenes were harsh reminders that not only do we have a lot of unsuspecting dufuses in our country, they tend to travel in herds.

Corby has a merkin

I need to take a shot at DFW sports radio. It, frankly, sucks. I love the Ticket. I listen every day on the way to work and most days on the way home from work. But the Ticket is humor radio, not sports radio. It is very hard to find a couple guys on the air talking sports here. If you do find sports talk, 95% of the talk is about one subject: the Dallas Cowboys. Even during baseball season, you couldn't find people talking about the Rangers. Over the course of the year, there is about 15 minutes of cumulative conversation about college football, all of which is a lovefest for the Oklahoma Sooners. I was driving around town this morning and on one station is two rednecks talking about what type of bait to use to catch yellow bellied snout nosed bass and on the other big station is some yahoo talking about vitamins. Seriously. And once the action kicks off at 11, they go straight to pre-game coverage of local teams that are terrible (TCU, SMU, UNT). Will somebody please tell me where I can find two guys giving continous updates, saying things like "Whoa, there is an upset in the making in Champagne, Illinois!" or "Brady Quinn: Heisman contender or pretender?" because I am sick of hearing about T.O., Vitamin C, lake levels and Conference USA. And just once in the moring, I would like to hear something that isn't a fart joke. I'd even listen to people promote a college football playoff if it meant I could hear sports talk!

We beat down kids from Memorial, Stratford, St. Thomas, Lamar, and Episcopal

And for Beau Ryan, living proof that you can take the dog out of Naughty Dawgs, but you can't take the naughty out of the dog.

Carnac the Magnificent knows all

Although my preseason college football predictions have looked solid thus far, they will come crubling down if A&M beats UT and Notre Dame beats USC. If that happens, I will go from college football guru to just another John Greene Mark May know-nothing hack.

2 Comment(s):

Posted by  Anonymous, at 4:49 PM, November 18, 2006  

Get sattelite radio - I have XM and there are several sports stations.

__________________________________________________

Posted by  Anonymous, at 8:54 PM, November 19, 2006  

Dr Fro:

Be glad you have a "sports" radio show you are willing to listen to. I can barely pick up Austin stations and the SA stations are worthless. I miss The Ticket. A little perspective:

a) If you lived in Austin, most people would rather know whether Colt McCoy took a Pi Phi or a Tri Delt to the formal rather than the intracacies of the hit and run.
b) Whether or not the Rangers, Stars or Mavericks are doing well, the Cowboys are King.
c) The stations down here have no humor, which makes it quite boring in my ledger.
d) Lastly, humor radio with a little sports mixed in is better than sorry ass all syndicated bs that you and I could argue all day.

I found Ticket Sports Saturday and Sunday to be pretty good with update of the major events going on, even if the local events sucked. The "Train Station" is a whip.

__________________________________________________

Post a Comment