Keep the NFL Violent

            The NFL is back. I think I speak for most Americans when I say thank god. My worry however is that now that we’re back to America’s most popular sport the powers that be will now get to work trying their best to make it less fun to watch. In recent years the NFL has made slanted the field significantly in the offense’s side. When it comes to the quarterback we are in near two-hand touch territory especially if you’re the type of QB that could grace a Wheaties box. Last year the rules became more stringent once the season had already begun. Fines were handed out to players for hits that would’ve seemingly been legal only a week prior. I think this is the worst thing that could happen to the sport.

            One of my earliest memories from childhood was seeing quarterbacks with filthy jersey. That used to be a thing, the tough quarterback.  Getting beat up used to be part of the game. That’s no longer the case. Can you remember the last time you saw a quarterback with a messed up jersey. The common theme now is a big name quarterback getting touched a second to late and then pleading with the referees to call the penalty. I don’t blame the quarterbacks; it’s not their fault. You can’t blame them for trying to exploit an advantage that the league has given them.

            For some reason everyone is now concerned with the health of NFL players. I understand the concept of protecting the basic health of another human being, but when your livelihood is incumbent upon risking your health then I say you made your choice. If they were rounding up people and making them play football, then I would say lets protect those pour people from Ray Lewis, but when you are strapping on pads from the time you could walk knowing full well that every time the ball is snapped someone on the opposing team is going to try to hurt you I don’t feel sorry for you and I don’t think that they need to be protected.

            If the players union feels that work habits are unsafe then they should raise an issue. However, the players union is not bringing about these fines. The reality of the situation is that Goodell appears to be acting on his own accord. It would appear that the mid-season fines were an attempt to prove that the owners and the league actually did care about the health of its players when in fact they were attempting to endanger them further by adding two games to the length of the season. The fines and the entire issue could have been a public relations stunt to garner fan support and give the impression of concern. Who suffers? The players suffer because money is taken out of their pocket and the fans suffer because they are now privy to a lesser product. Big hits used to be a huge part of the game. When I was growing up in Tampa the entire city was enamored with John Lynch. What was the reason? He gave huge hits to receivers coming across the middle. That was the reason he was so popular. I never knew how many interceptions he had, to me he could’ve been completely mediocre in every other way, but his hits were memorable. His hits made him popular. Now, those hits would get him a fine.

            What is a more lasting impression? Would you rather see Tom Brady pleading for a penalty or Ndamukong Suh trying to rip a QB’s head off? If I want to see whining and flopping I can just watch soccer. We watch football because it’s violent we watch it because it’s brutal. If the league is going to remain successful it needs to maintain that aspect of its appeal. Why should the health of NFL players be a concern at all? There doesn’t seem to be much of a public outcry for the health concerns of coal miners or ice fisherman, why? The reason is they understand the risks of the job and they accept them. The same is true for the players of the NFL. The only difference seems to be that a large portion of the players in the NFL are millionaires. To me those millions should buy the consumers of that product a little entertainment.

            Basically, lets all stop pretending that we care about NFL players. Sports journalists pretend to care because it gives balance to all of the terrible things that they say about the players.  Football players understand the risks and they accept them.  If you want to protect someone, protect workers rights in non spectator occupations, protect high school football players, protect college players, protect any number of people that aren’t millionaire union members with pensions. Spectators like football because it’s violent, players like football because it’s violent, let’s keep the sport violent and the hypocrisy to a minimum.

The Acoustic Guitar: More Harm Than Good?

The acoustic guitar has long since been the tool of the artist. While the cool kids were using electric to expand their sound the artists of the world had no need for such frills. They preferred their simple instrument; they choose the natural sound that can only be created by strings, wood, and the traveling of sound between the two. Let the superficial jokers have their amplified sound. All they need was six strings and soul. Well in my opinion that’s ridiculous. I’m not here to say that the acoustic guitar has no place in music. There are many songs that I can site that are excellent examples of songs that I enjoy. However, I would say that the deck is stacked powerfully against the guitar. For every Nirvana: Unplugged there are thousands of chubby frat boys singing Dave Matthews covers in your local bar. For that reason I would submit that we as a society should consider removing the acoustic guitar from our lexicon or at the very least reduce it to accordion status.

I’m sure that the first person to write a song with the use of an acoustic guitar was quite sincere and possibly could be considered an artist. The problem is now because of those pioneers we now have to suffer throngs of trite fools that now have a short hand to appearing deep. If you have access and the ability to play an acoustic guitar you can now be considered emotional and passionate. That’s not fair you shouldn’t be able to buy your emotional status on craigslist. Whenever a band wishes to show there softer side they need only to play the exact same songs on a differently amplified instrument and instantly the song takes on a new connotation and feel. This is completely superficial. This is the antithesis of art. We are all victims of a Pavlovian response most likely created in adolescence. In the case of my generation it was probably “Good Riddance” by Green Day or perhaps it was earlier and that’s actually a terrible song. We may never know. German might be a beautiful language, but we’ve all seen too many documentaries with Hitler shouting so now no many how many lovely Dirk Nowitzki-type Germans come our way the language will always just sound Nazi-esque. I believe that a similar phenomenon is taking place here. Artists played acoustic guitars ergo acoustic guitars create art.

Personally, I feel that an electric guitar is simply the next logical step. It’s not an alternative it’s a progression. Submarines are now powered by nuclear energy, we fly airplanes with jet propulsion, TV’s are HD, and guitars should be amplified with the use of electricity. It is my belief that acoustic songs sound better when played on electric guitars, but almost never vice versa. For example, it is almost indisputable that “All Along the Watchtower” was much more enjoyable when performed by Jimmy Hendrix. On the other hand try listening to the acoustic version of “A.D.I.D.A.S.” by Korn. It’s an abomination. Even the greatest acoustic album of all time in my opinion, Nirvana: Unplugged, used some electric guitar. I feel that if even at its highest level a medium needs help from another, it becomes lesser. Black Sabbath didn’t need an acoustic guitar.

I know that most people will dismiss this argument as silly and to a certain extent it is. There is room for the acoustic guitar in the lexicon of music, but imagine for a minute the world that we would live in sans the acoustic guitar. No longer would you have to speak louder in a local pub because some tri-delt is really belting out “Screaming Infidelities.” No longer would your kegger be interrupted and brought to a screeching halt because the local stoner knows a couple Jack Johnson cords. Metal bands wouldn’t get that extra soft hit that infiltrates your mind for an entire day. We can stop paying attention to Bob Dylan. That’s the world that I want to live in. Join me; together we can make the world a better place.

Superhero Movie Villains

Superhero movies. They’re big business. We will probably never again experience a summer without one. It doesn’t seem to matter how many come out or how many times they remake the same one the public still calls for more. The appeal is so great that the powers that be will remake a movie involving the same character within a five-year span. “The Hulk” came out in 2003 and then they redid it in 2008 with “The Incredible Hulk.” The extra word made all of the difference. Spiderman is being remade and will be out next summer and for those keeping score “Spiderman 3” was in 2007.  Superman is being remade once again after “Superman Returns” didn’t work out the way everyone had hoped. I say all this not to judge. I will go see all of these movies no matter how many times they get remade and I’ve never read one comic in my life.

However, one point did occur to me recently. The further down this rabbit hole we go the less the casual fan is going to be able to enjoy the movies. My reason for believing this is that comics are primarily for children and are not always of the highest caliber. Therefore if you’re like me and have no attachment to the base material and are there just to see cool characters dress in cool outfits and do cool stuff that most people don’t do, at least not while wearing a cape if the characters are stupid we’re not going to enjoy it. I came to this realization while watching “Captain America.” I was watching Hugo Weaving do the typical Nazi villain for the better part of an hour and then all of a sudden he pulled his face off and revealed a red skull face. Wow. Now I understand that this isn’t the fault of Weaving or the filmmakers, they were just doing what someone else had drawn. If they would've drawn outside the lines, as it were, they would’ve probably pissed off the very fan base that lines their pockets. Unfortunately, for me, I never read Captain America so the nostalgia was lost on me and I was left watching a Nazi caricature with a red head. I believe the “The Green Lantern” suffered the same fate. When I first heard they were making a superhero movie starring Ryan Reynolds I was ecstatic, then I saw the trailer. Needless to say I was less than ecstatic. It looked like a cartoon; it involved aliens and space travel, two things that will almost assure me not seeing your movie. Before I judged I checked with a comic book nerd and he assured me that that was what the comic was like and contrary to me he was excited about the film because of the trailer. There’s the divide. The comic readers are desperate to protect the integrity of their treasured base material and the non-comic readers, the people that just want to see action movies with bright costumes.

In the last decade I don’t think that anyone could debate that Batman is doing it best. They seem to be appeasing the nerds while at the same time basically making a crime driven action movie with costumes that anyone could enjoy. “The Dark Knight” was one of the highest grossing movies of all time and my guess is the villain. Heath Ledger’s joker was not just one of the best comic book villains, but he was probably one of the best flat out movie villains of all time. My question is why can’t all comic book movies follow suit? To be fair not all comic books have gritty reboots written by Frank Miller, which is exactly what the most recent incarnation of Batman is based on. That is how the new Batman is able to appease everyone, they’re following comic books, but the ones they are following were written more recently by one of the most widely respected authors in the graphic novel industry with a lean towards darkness and realism. I understand that there is only so much that a filmmaker can do, but the villain is an area that I think we, as a fan base should be able to find some common ground.

Why, so often are comic book movie villains one-dimensional caricatures? Is it because they have to be the polar opposite of the unwavering goodness of our protagonist? Is it because of the need for a PG-13 rating? Would it be so bad for the villain to be funny? Why can’t they be evil and entertaining? In the past decade we’ve seen some of the best actors in the industry completely handicapped by this need for a one-dimensional character. Willem Defoe, Kevin Spacey, and Collin Farrell have all fell victim to creating stupid characters and I’m not sure that it’s their fault. I feel like they all did the best with what they were given, but their characters were stupid and they probably played them like they were drawn. The best were probably the aforementioned Heath Ledger, Jack Nicholson (The Joker), Alfred Molina (Dr. Octopus), and this is going back a little but Gene Hackman (Lex Luthor). These guys created great characters that didn’t need the costumes to be interesting, with the exception of Molina, they all got laughs. They were not caricatures they were characters. That’s what they should all be striving for. Maybe I wouldn’t have minded Hugo Weaving’s red face if his character wasn’t so unwaveringly evil. Ron Pearlman has proven that red face paint doesn’t stop you from creating a fun character and Christoph Waltz proved that a Nazi could be fun to watch even funny at times.

This is in no way an indictment of the comic book movie industry or even of villain-playing actors. It's just something to think about. These movies can be better. Maybe if we were more focused on making compelling stories with compelling characters rather than staying true to something that most people have only a vague knowledge of then the movies would be better. This is going to have to be a team effort. Chris Nolan can’t do it all.