Tag Archives: Leonardo da Vinci

May Heinous Breakdown: Keystone Light Division

8 May

Grab some stones.

Time is almost up to submit your May Heinous bracket to Sherman Ave for your chance to grasp the Morty Schapiro Cup! To compete for this vaunted prize, not to mention eternal glory, download your bracket and submit it to us at shermanave1@gmail.com. Now without further ado, here’s our preview of the Keystone Light Division that Evander Jones scrambled to put together (with the aid of Brother Jürgen) before tonight’s deadline.

Perfectly engineered to dominate the pong table.

Leonardo Da Vinci and Peter the Great
Da Vinci is among the most diversely talented humans who ever lived (second only to this guy), and archeologists have discovered entire notebooks of Da Vinci’s devoted to researching the kinematically perfect beer pong bounce shot. It has also long been rumored that Da Vinci’s The Last Supper is actually a depiction of Jesus clearing his table for a game of pong, a crucial plot point in Dan Brown’s next novel. Peter the Great, meanwhile, has been listed by reputable academic journals as one of the broist figures in history, thanks in a large part to his latent alcoholism, filicidism, and mustache. Pre-tournament polls placed the team at a close second behind rival Keystone Light Division heavyweights Hemingway and Roosevelt in the “pure man” category. Look for Da Vinci and Peter the Great to either go far in the tournament, or invent helicopters to wage a war against the Turks.
Strengths: Science, Being Russian
Weaknesses: No freshwater ports, Opus Dei
Team Cohesiveness: 8.5/10
First-Round Opponents: Mohandas Gandhi and Chief Sitting Bull
Evander Jones

I wonder what the feather symbolizes…

Mohandas Gandhi and Chief Sitting Bull
As of press time, it remains unclear whether Gandhi and Sitting Bull will focus their efforts on sinking cups or writing open-letters protesting the lack of racial tolerance within this year’s May Heinous field of contenders. Analysts are excited to see how Gandhi’s policy of non-violent civil disobedience will mesh with Sitting Bull’s strategy of “Going Little Bighorn” on his opponents’ asses, but given both leaders’ propensity for getting assassinated, hold little hope for either. Expect Chief Bull to draw on knowledge he gained touring with Bill Cody’s Wild West Show, as Gandhi tries to force a victory by boycotting the tournament altogether.
Strengths: Crying single tears, Civil Disobedience
Weaknesses: Glasses, Bows and Arrows
Team Cohesiveness: 3/10
First-Round Opponents: Leonardo Da Vinci and Peter the Great
Evander Jones

Hey there pretty lady.

Leon Trotsky and Sally Hemings
Leon Trotsky aka Snowball was the leader of the Russian Revolution’s Red Army until he was ousted by Stalin, that jerkface. Meanwhile, Sally Hemings gave birth to Thomas Jefferson’s children, despite the fact that she was, y’know, his slave. Um.
Strengths: Hemings will be used to the borderline sexual assault that accompanies most beer pong matches, while Trotsky was once rumored to have downed a fifth of vodka while leading the Red Army against 16 invading foreign armies.
Weaknesses: The fact that both of these people got fucked pretty hard in their lives (Trotsky in the sense that he was stabbed in the head with an icepick, and Hemings in the sense that she was literally fucked by the President) leads me to place them squarely in the category of “People Who Aren’t Badasses.”
Team Cohesiveness: 6/10. I don’t see any reason that they would disagree, except that Hemings might eventually get annoyed by Trotsky’s constant lectures about how she should lead a revolt against her masters and institute an egalitarian paradise and shut him out.
First-Round Opponents: Florence Nightingale and Pope John Paul II
Brother Jürgen

Shawty, I roll up, I roll up

Florence Nightingale and Pope John Paul II
Florence Nightingale was famous for being really nice. She basically founded nursing. Pope John Paul II was the Pope of the Catholic Church until he died and was succeeded by a man who may have been a Nazi. During his long tenure, he helped overthrow Communism in Poland, survived an assassination attempt, and drove a Popemobile. As if that wasn’t boss enough, he is currently 2/3 of the way toward becoming a saint.
Strengths: Pope John Paul II survived an assassination attempt, which is more than his opponent Trotsky can say, and Florence Nightingale spent the majority of her life caring for wounded soldiers on gory Crimean battlefields. Their ability to win depends on whether you think their demonstrated hardness can be easily translated into alcohol resistance.
Weaknesses: Weaknesses are pretty obvious here, given that this is a beer pong contest, not a “which one of us is holier” contest. The number of combined beers drunk by this pair in their lifetimes is probably less than five.
Team Cohesiveness: 9/10. Both of these people are pretty nice and holy. I predict them getting along well, and if their ability to survive wars and revolutions develops into an ability to survive copious amounts of shitty keg beer, their chemistry will only improve.
First-Round Opponents: Leon Trotsky and Sally Hemings
Brother Jürgen

Swag.

Ernest Hemingway and Teddy Roosevelt
Hemingway and Roosevelt bring forth even more masculinity than Chuck Norris giving the Dos Equis Man a reach-around. The resulting Norris/Equis facial would not even compare to the payoff provided by these two titans of testosterone, quite possibly the two most virile men this great nation has ever produced. Hemingway’s years of grizzly bear hunting, drinking, and misogyny have primed him for this year’s beer pong tournament, while Teddy Roosevelt remains the only American politician to not even take a shred of shit for being a progressive. Even if shot mid-game, expect the President to not only finish the game, but guzzle every remaining brew in sight.
Strengths: Graduating Oak Park River Forest High School, Wrecking Shit, Rough Riding
Weaknesses: n/a
Team Cohesiveness: 10/10
First-Round Opponents: Winston Churchill and Frida Kahlo
Evander Jones

What were you saying about Adele?

Winston Churchill and Frida Kahlo
One continuous eyebrow says it all. These teammates have pluck, but it will probably take either a miracle or American military involvement to stave off a crushing defeat at the hands of Hemingway and Roosevelt. Churchill has famously proclaimed that his team shall “pong on the beaches, we shall pong on the landing grounds, we shall pong in the fields and in the streets, we shall pong in the hills, we shall pong in the basement of ZBT, and we shall never surrender,” but sources claim that the prime minister was “totally wasted” on scotch at the time, and promptly chundered in a wastebasket at the conclusion of his speech. Kahlo frequently attempts to use her unibrow to distract opponents, but it’s unclear how her uncompromising depiction of the female experience and form will translate into sinking cups.
Strengths: Cigars, National Resolve
Weaknesses: Polio, Unibrow
Team Cohesiveness: 3/10
First-Round Opponents: Ernest Hemingway and Teddy Roosevelt
Evander Jones

Taken some time before compromising his soul in the 2008 election.

Thurgood Marshall and John McCain
The maverick team of Marshall and McCain are the wildcard contenders within the Keystone Light Division. Both are fighters, McCain surviving two presidential campaigns and torture at the hands of the North Vietnamese (not sure which is more taxing), while Marshall endured an equally torturous nineteen years on the Supreme Court with Justice Rehnquist. Marshall gained fame in the early 1960s as Solicitor General, arguing that rebuttal shots were a blatant violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment, and McCain is a fierce proponent of beer pong finance reform, urging all beer pong hosts to limit expenditures on beer to a maximum of $15 per case. McCain has also been known to surge towards the end of his beer pong matches, usually hopeless mires of sectarian violence, in an attempt to claim victory.
Strengths: Jowls, NAACP
Weaknesses: Vetting VPs, Escaping capture
Team Cohesiveness: 7/10
First-Round Opponents: Isaac Newton and Leopold II
Evander Jones

Pretty hard to believe he never got some.

Isaac Newton and Leopold II
You can’t spell “douchebag” without “chode,”* and both Newton and Leopold II are both chodes and total douchebags. Newton, for instance, not only stole the entire idea of differential calculus from Leibniz, but was extraordinarily proud to die a virgin. Leopold II of Belgium, however, was presumably too busy inventing waffles and brutally running the Congo as his own personal fiefdom/plantation to pay much attention in math class. It remains to be seen whether these two will use their pent-up sexual/racial aggression to their pong advantage, but one thing’s for certain: they’ll be total dicks about it no matter what.
Strengths: Extracting personal fortune from the natives, describing gravity and motion
Weaknesses: Getting one’s dick wet, public relations
Team Cohesiveness: 8/10
First-Round Opponents: Thurgood Marshall and John McCain
Evander Jones

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*Fun Fact: You can.

5 B-Grade Historical Movies We Can Only Hope Will Be Made

4 Apr

Say "Apartheid" again. SAY "APARTHEID" AGAIN!

5. “A Long Walk to Freedom,” starring Samuel L. Jackson as Nelson Mandela
While Nelson Mandela’s story is known quite well throughout the United States, there are parts of his life that are still shrouded in mystery. This cinematic biography sheds light upon the complete legend of Mandela, from his dabbling in the Jedi arts as a youth (the guy had a lot of fucking midichlorians) to his acting roles in Quentin Tarantino films. During his 27-year prison sentence, he became notorious for being a mediator and peacekeeper; in one memorable instance, he interrupted some good old-fashioned prison shower rape by viciously fending off the perpetrator, asking “Does he look like your bitch?!” The film also delves deep into Mandela’s political activity after his release from prison. In arguably the most poignant scene of the movie, Mandela – in his first speech to the public after his release from prison – proclaims: “I’m tired of this mothafuckin’ Apartheid in my mothafuckin’ country.” Supposedly, Samuel L. Jackson repeatedly tried to add gratuitously violent fight scenes into the film, but was forced to settle for an allotment of twelve “mothafuckas” to add anywhere in the script.

Louis XVI feels the internal repercussions of drinking so much "tiger blood."

4. “Liberty, Fraternity, and Raunchiness,” starring Charlie Sheen as Louis XVI and Sarah Silverman as Marie Antoinette
Adequately described as a combination of Les Miserables, A Tale of Two Cities, and American Pie, this film is the only one to have ever gotten Ebert and Roeper’s worst rating, “Two thumbs up my ass.” As the working class of Paris begins to revolt against the monarchy, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette respond as any concerned leaders would: by making dick jokes. In fact, as indicated in one of the opening scenes, the phrase “Let them eat cake” was actually a reference to a secondary meaning of cake in the aristocracy, which was “Louis XVI’s wrinkled scrotum.” So Marie Antoinette suggested the poor masses address their severe hunger by eating Louis XVI’s wrinkled scrotum. Most critics agree that the most heinous scene of the movie is either the one where Louis XVI uses the guillotine to circumcise his nephew or the one where Louis XVI does lines of coke off of a rotting peasant carcass. Rumor has it that the director of the movie, Judd Apatow, has already started filming a sequel, featuring Jim Gaffigan as Maximilien Robespierre and Rosie O’Donnell as Napoleon Bonaparte.

I came, I saw, I failed to convince anyone that I'm a credible actor

3. “The Roman Empire: Abridged,” starring Keanu Reeves as Julius Caesar
Predictably failing to accurately portray the manifest heinousness of Caesar, Reeves captivates audiences who happen to be blind and deaf. He effectively delivers his lines with the voice inflection of a 14-year-old skateboarding protégée after taking LSD, and that is quite evident in lines like “Whoa – the Rubicon!” and “It’s, like, the Gallic Wars.” Of course, Caesar’s political strategy doesn’t go over especially well with Brutus (played by Vin Diesel), who had just finished snowboarding down the Matterhorn. In an especially uninspired scene, Brutus knifes Caesar, as the latter famously whispers, “Et tu, bald man who looks like a serial rapist?” The Augustan Era is only very quickly reviewed, with a few memorable lines from the famous emperor Augustus, who – in a rather questionable casting choice – was played by Mike Tyson. After the reign of Augustus, the movie quickly becomes depressing, as we see the rule of Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero, all of whom are played by Nicolas Cage.

Cera, shortly after mispronouncing "clitoris"

2. “A History of Impotence,” starring Michael Cera as several historical figures
This cinematic masterpiece takes us back to the beginning of time, telling the story of the development of the human race through various case studies of sexual ineptitude, with every impotent character portrayed by semi-adolescent boyman Michael Cera. The film opens with a depiction of the Cro-Magnon man first exhibiting a distinct lack of sexual prowess, resulting in a series of unsettlingly detailed cave drawings. The movie proceeds to travel through history, beginning with impotent men such as Nebbuchadnezzar (turns out his obscenely lengthy name was merely overcompensation for his obscenely short dingalong) and Emperor Constantine, lovingly referred to by his subjects as “The 3-Minute Wonder.” Moving on to the Renaissance, we gain some insight into Leonardo da Vinci’s personal life; his famous “Mona Lisa” aimed to portray the woman in the most hideous way possible, as revenge for her publicizing his lifelong problem of chronic premature ejaculation. After exposing a few more renowned impotent historical figures in early modern and modern history (think Lewis AND Clark), the movie ends with an earthshaking reveal about Ronald and Nancy Reagan’s honeymoon.

Sadly, Joseph Kony's fashionable sweater was made by - you guessed it - children.

1. “The Axis of Evil,” starring Jackie Chan as Kim Jong-Il and Ryan Gosling as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Based on the best-selling novel by Nicholas Sparks, this film depicts the backstory behind the romantic relationship between these two world leaders. The star-crossed dictators first met in the most fateful of ways: rolling on ecstasy at a Skrillex concert. After an ephemeral but sticky affirmation of their love for each other and authoritarian rule, they make a pact to build an “Axis of Evil.” Kim Jong-Il establishes his rule in North Korea through a masterful implementation of his ancient martial arts skills, while Ahmedinejad seduces dozens of Iranian politicians (all of whom are women, of course, because there are definitely no homosexuals in Iran, and lots of women hold political office) in order to work his way up to the presidency. After separately attaining their positions of power, they embark on an astonishingly homoerotic adventure to find a third party to complete their political threesome, encountering prominent figures like Vladimir Putin (played by Tom Felton), Hugo Chavez (played by Antonio Banderas), and Joseph Kony (played by Bill Cosby).