Well, it’s all downhill from here, folks. We got what we came for, and what we came for was the perfect animated musical. See, as a human being with a heart, two eyes and a set of ears, I can confirm that Continue reading
Then again, I’d be depressed if I had to wear that cardigan.
Seasonal affect disorder is a thing. A REAL thing. I mean, the acronym is literally SAD so the shrinks who came up with it were either fucking with us or spent a half hour with a Northwestern student (read: me) and realized Googling “teach me how to be happy” and “people having a worse day than me” on a semi-regular basis are grounds to be concerned about mental stability. And this SADdness infiltrates your life in every way until the only thing saving you from full-blown depression is the knowledge that a repeat of House Hunters might be on later and that maybe the couple will be beautiful and loaded.
Dear Disney:
There is no such thing as the perfect woman.
In recent days, we as college students facing down the stresses of life and such (JK I’m in the School of Comm) and yearning for a simpler time have been treated by you to a treasure trove of nostalgia-inducing revivals guaranteed to warm even the coldest pop-culture heart. First, it was confirmed that Ben Savage and Danielle Fishel, better known as Corey and Topanga, the couple at the heart of Boy Meets World who make any other romantic pair just seem weak and unnecessary by comparison, agreed to return to play the parents (yeah that’s right, you’re all old now, bitches) in the Disney Channel spinoff series Girl Meets World. Then, out of nowhere, Heinous Incarnate Tyra Banks agreed to return as Eve in a SEQUEL to her 2000 doll-come-to-life epic, Life-Size, a film which many would consider to be the greatest DCOM of all time (a solid case could be made for Get a Clue or My Date With the President’s Daughter , among others. Like all of them). Finally, everyone’s favorite former Disney star, Lindsay Lohan, reinvigorated her career with her star turn on Lifetime’s Liz And Dick! Oops never mind on that last one it was a fiasco sorry Lindz better luck next time.
Three of my top five worst sexual nightmares are included in this image.
So by now you’ve probably heard of the ensuing deal in which Disney is buying out LucasFilm and the rights to the greatest sci-fi franchise ever (come at me, Trekkies) for $4 billion. You likely found out on Facebook, where somebody posted a status being all “I FEELZ A GREAT DISTURBANCE IN THE FILMS L0LZ!” but don’t be fooled. This is a good thing. Hell, it’s great.
Regardless of what RTVF majors have to tell you, Disney is not the worst thing to happen to films since Howard the Duck. They have created numerous masterpieces of the moving image, and the succession of Jewish chief executives recently more than makes up for the fact that Walt was kind of a raging, yet deservedly cherished, asshole. Not to be on their dick or anything, but Disney has also used their acquisitions incredibly well. Their most recent CEO, Bob Iger[1], has channeled his inner JD Rockefeller and went on a shopping spree of potential competitors, buying up Pixar in 2006 and Marvel in 2009. With these franchises, he has made: Up, WALL-E, Toy Story 3[2], the new kickass X-Men, the new attractive-people Spiderman, and the superb eyefuck that was the Avengers. Also, the people who directed Disney pictures and would probably be picked to do Star Wars Episode VII are like the pantheon of nerd heroes. You’ve got Brad Bird, Gore Verbinski, Brett Ratner, JJ Abrams, and freaking Joss Whedon. HOW AWESOME WOULD A JOSS WHEDON STAR WARS BE.
Oh yeah, this “article” is about Star Wars. This brings me to my next point: George Lucas is an aging hack. I know this has become a cliché among the fandom, but that doesn’t make it in any less true. He has his defenders, who will say that since he made this great story in the first place, he can make any movies he wants and should still be loved. Yeah, that’s like saying that Mitt Romney is undeserving of critique because he was a pretty good governor of Massachusetts. But according to soothsayer Nate Silver, Obama’s up by 20 in the state, and George Lucas left a huge blemish on my childhood with Jar-Jar and rat-tails and “This is so wizard, Ani!” He had numerous chances to do well with the Star Wars franchise after the 80s, and he failed in unique ways every time. I say, good riddance. Change is good, and Disney will do some sensational things with the franchise.
Our mousy overlords will probably rely on the immense Expanded Universe for the prophesized Episode VII, but they will come up with newer characters than the original trilogy. Han, Leia, and Luke are all WAY too iconic to replace, and the old actors simply can’t do them. Even though Princess Leia would have been the first Disney Princess to be elected to the Senate[3], Carrie Fisher is simply too coked out to reprise the role. Harrison Ford is only concerned with cashing his Medicare checks and saving people with his helicopter, and Mark Hamill would love to come back, but he reeks of desperation and cheap schnapps[4]. So this means the series will maybe take place in the Knights of the Old Republic Universe[5], but it will probably actually deal with the Thrawn trilogy which occurs after the original series, and shoehorn in Jacen and Jaina Solo, Han and Leia’s spunky twin kids. This will be sweet, since it can be political, endearing, deal with simple moral issues, and still have probably the coolest antagonist in the series, Grand Admiral Thrawn. This is an alien who succeeds in an institutionally racist organization because he is dispassionate, ridiculous witty, and learns from the enemy by studying their art. This is as close to a Bond villain as the Star Wars movies will get, complete with special death-dealing gadgets. Also, (old) Luke will have a romantic interest who’s not his sister[6], which is good. I’ll leave on that, with the glorious image of Scarlett Johansson as Mara Jade. This is the future, and it is sexy.
[1] Who married some Catholic shiksa, this is the son I raised…
[2] That was us, remember!?! Except you can totally bring your toys here, just make them face the wall when you’re smanging someone
[3] Sorry Kirsten Gillibrand!
[4] Did you know he voiced Fire Lord Ozai? Do you think he has Zuko’s honor in his trailer?
[5] With the aptly named HK-47, C-3PO’s more badass and snarky cousin
[6] What is it with blonds and incest, amirite?
Dear Friends,
He at least could have shaved his armpits
On April 21st, I saw something I was not supposed to see. As I was walking through the frat quad to purchase some hummus at Lisa’s, a high-pitched noise befell upon my ears. As I furtively peeped in the windows of the offending house to find out what it was, I saw inside some dress-up games being played by a group of male Northwestern students. I later learned that this was a strip poker tournament, which typically involves groups of men using their poker skills and the game’s rules to induce the clothing removal of somewhat intoxicated women.
But what I saw Saturday afternoon was really just the “Sexist Poker Tournament.” In this house were at least 50 students, all representing some demographic of women. There were sexy housemaids, sexy flappers, sexy hippies, sexy pirate lasses, sexy nurses, sexy Disney princesses, sexy pioneers, and one feeble attempt to emulate Mila Kunis in Black Swan. There were so many sexually appealing women in that room that I considered dropping my skirt to make a “sexy nudist” costume, crashing in, and being a lesbian for the night. Then I remembered that this was a fraternity and there was a small floppy penis underneath Mila’s tutu.
This idea sounds.... intriguing.
The sickening noise I had heard came from several Katy Perry impersonators who were attempting a rendition of “The One That Got Away,” which unintentionally borrowed elements from a 12-tone piece by Schoenberg that I think I once heard in a foreign horror film. All of the students were dressed up in short skirts, high heels, makeup, excessively padded bras, sequins, glitter, and other stereotypical female garb (the overwhelming majority of women do not wear any of these on a regular basis, but rather legging-pants and a DM t-shirt). The annoying squeals of delight, the sexualizing of sluts at the expense of normal women everywhere, and the sheer number of applications of the word “adorbz” was sickening and traumatizing. This is a brutal incident that has imposed upon the various female communities on campus. This was an act of violence.
The fraternity cannot be identified at the moment due to privacy issues, but they have issued this statement:
“Religion and race have been an issue this quarter, but nobody’s done anything controversial involving gender. We wanted to give everyone an equal opportunity to be offended.”
In other news, Sigma Phi has announced that their next fundraiser will support the Women’s Center.
The most hated white man in the league since Toni Kukoc
1. Rick Perry’s Presidential Campaign
Here at Sherman Ave we love Rick Perry. Oh wait, no we fucking don’t. No one in their right minds could ever stand to be in the same room, much less vote for, that intolerable shitmuffin. It now seems utterly ridiculous that people as intelligent as Mike Murphy actually thought that Perry could win the Republican nomination. Well, they were about as wrong as Custer’s last words. If only David Stern had stepped forward in August to stop this embarrassing shitshow of a campaign from ever launching.
His dreams were crushed by David Stern. M. Night Shyamalan's should be, too.
3. No Shave November
I’ll be honest, this year I tried doing No Shave November for the entire month, to see once and for all if I could really grow a beard. I can’t. And I’ve got news for everyone else who has tried it: you can’t either. You do look like an atrocious hobo, though. Congrats. Scumbag Steve would be horrified by your hygiene. Now let’s please agree to never do No Shave November again.
4. New Rebecca Black songs
Rosa Parks' personal hero
Apparently not. Apparently the ARK Music Factory thought that when 268,000 people disliked the “Friday” video, that meant “we love this, give us more please.” I hate to be the one to break this to you, Patrice Wilson, but when 268,000 people disliked the “Friday” video, it means they didn’t like it. At first, Rebecca Black was sad and kind of funny. Now she’s just sad.
5. Bill O’Reilly’s book about Lincoln
The only thing more ridiculous than the sentence “Bill O’Reilly wrote a book about the Lincoln assassination” is the sentence “Bill O’Reilly wrote a book about the Lincoln assassination that wasn’t true.” Yes. We live in a fucked up world. And while I think we have all accustomed ourselves to Fox News’s ridiculous excuse for news coverage, we don’t need them fucking up history as well. That’s Ross Packingham’s favorite subject!
6. “Ultimatum” by Jeph Loeb
If you’re a normal person, then it probably doesn’t mean anything to you when I say that Jeph Loeb fucked up the Ultimate Universe, but he did, and it is an intolerable atrocity.
Something doesn't seem right...
But in the year 2008, Marvel executives handed the creative reins of the Ultimate Universe to Jeph Loeb. It seemed like a sensible decision, as Loeb had won acclaim writing Batman at DC Comics. But whereas Loeb had done well on Batman with a strategy of utilizing Batman’s colorful cast and intriguing antihero sensibility, his plan for Ultimate Marvel was a little more like “destroy everything and kill every character.” His miniseries “Ultimatum” was basically a giant shit all over the Ultimate Universe, whose comics had helped spike my interest in the medium and which I still give to people who mention an interest in comic books, and I can no more forgive him for that than Eddie Murphy can forgive SNL for making one joke about him once.
And most importantly…
My First Quarter Grades
More important than any of the other things combined. I must admit, I got so caught up in college heinousness this quarter that I didn’t exactly get Will Hunting grades. Sure, it’s not like I stayed up past 2 am sequestered in the library every night of reading week preparing for my Ancient Philosophy final, but if Stern could have some words with Morty re: my grades, that would be dandier than Sebastian Flyte.
If that isn’t a convincing reason for giving David Stern a time machine and being done with it, I don’t know what is.
Sherman Ave 
