Excuse Me, “Ferro-American”

Because two straight posts about baseball would be wrong.

– This is a commercial advertising something from Adobe, who I think are the guys who are responsible for Photoshop and that annoying update program I seemingly can’t get rid of that launches every time I boot up my computer. It is enjoyable because it portrays human suffering in an inhuman vessel, and the irony delights me. It’s personification and it highlights an emotional weakness of human beings – empathy towards something which is not capable of emotion. Strive to be like me, who experiences no regret that a dirty clicker has rightfully been cast out of a role that deserves the attention of a red blooded human being. Continue to subvert the machines, for they are our servants.

– This is especially true as they creep closer and closer to human likeliness, as this animatronics showreel from Gustav Hoegn terrifyingly illustrates. It’s probably a good idea to just get a head start on distrusting anyone that looks even remotely robotic. Case in point…

function acting = execute query(‘my hand?’, boolean);

– This is the second Uncle Drew commercial from Pepsi (COULD YOU TELL!?!), featuring another NBA talent that has been transformed into old man “Wes” through the magic of makeup. Though it’s getting harder and harder to suspend the disbelief needed for these…I mean, it’s just so fake. All the girls standing around the court drinking Pepsi…because, as first hand real life experience has taught us, pickup basketball games in outdoor courts are littered with women, and specifically women who love Pepsi. I don’t know why, but apparently that’s just how it is. Also, Kyrie Irving successfully disguising himself as an old man…okay, that’s a fun gimmick, I can believe that, sure. But Kevin Love? Hard to buy that all the knuckleheads there are really fooled by a makeup job that doesn’t hide the fact that the dude is fucking 6’10”. Still…enjoyable for just the two seconds of crazy sick handles that Irving shows off (against extras that are presumably contractually bound to avoid physical contact with the actual talent) and any airtime featuring Kevin Love…who might just be overtaking Steve Nash as the funniest and also most talented white player in the NBA.

– Speaking of Kevin Love…check out this USA Today (which is not an unheard of publication) reporting on “civil rights leaders” complaining that the current 2012-2013 roster of the Minnesota Timberwolves is too white. At this point I’d like to remind you that the Minnesota Timberwolves are a professional basketball team in the NBA. Though I would like to point out that it’s not just a bunch of white American players…there’s a Spaniard, two Russians, a Montenegrin, and even a white dude from Puerto Rico…to be fair to Minnesotans, it’s much likelier for them to be racist against these freakishly proportioned foreigners than against regular old black people. And to be fair to the Timberwolves, five black guys on a 15 man roster should still be considered to have an above average representation of African-American players. As per current census numbers, a sampling of 15 random Americans should statistically only include about two black guys. It’s really the rest of the league that’s being racist by under representing white people. I think that’s where the real civil rights issue lies…too many black people in the NBA. Who’s with me!?!

– Speaking of non-black basketball players…the Houston Rockets are planning to retire Yao Ming’s #11. I don’t remember making much of a big deal of when Yao retired last year, so I’ll take this opportunity now to link to this neat Grantland article that spoke to how the immigrant narrative related to Yao’s introduction into the NBA and America. I don’t know if I can personally claim to be able to relate the careers of Yao Ming or Ichiro on any personal/cultural level, but I’m happy any time the “scope of available cultural references” expands beyond Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee. The Rockets, you might remember, also currently employ Yao’s successor as the most popular Chinese athlete; current GQ cover feature (!) Jeremy Lin. It’s a good read, and teaches us that eternal lesson that we should all remember to our last days, which is of course…fuck the Knicks.

DON’T-YOU-BE-CALLING-ME-CLICKER-MAN. DON’T-YOU-BE-SAYING-THAT.