RAISON D'ETRE

Penn State football coach Joe Paterno died of lung cancer early Sunday morning. (No shit Ron, way to get a scoop!) Now I'm not going to eulogize the man or talk about his tarnished legacy, the whole boy-touching scandal thing or any other such stuff. Not gonna talk about what he did or didn't do or should have done, what he knew or when he knew it, I think there's been enough said about all that. And frankly, the subject just turns my stomach so best left alone unless you want me vomiting on my keyboard. Is that it? Is that what you want? Yeah, didn't think so.

But I do want to talk about one aspect of the whole sorry tale that has nothing to do with nastiness and that's just how quickly the end seemed to have come for the man. Now I have no idea what went on with his health as of late, but from my perspective as a fan of college football, the man seemed as fine as he'd been for the last few years right up until the time that he was fired from his position. Forty-six years as college coaching royalty and then it was all just over for him, out on the street like a regular schlub. A week later he looked like hell, understandable considering the shitstorm he was caught out in. Then soon after he was diagnosed with lung cancer, broke his hip, went downhill fast and then shuffled his ass off this mortal coil. (What the hell does that even mean anyway?)

The man was just gone within three short months of his dismissal. And while it's not unusual for a man of his advanced years (He was 85 BTW.) to go so quickly after a diagnosis like that, I can't help but wonder: did getting fired play a factor? The man literally lost everything he had to live for. Without Penn State football what did he have left? His wife, his kids, grandkids, people who loved him? YAWN! JoPa's death could be seen as proof of what I've been saying all along…FOOTBALL IS LIFE! Totally possibly that if not for the scandal that got him kicked out, he might be alive today, out there recruiting young warriors to follow him onto the field of honor to battle for glory, for blood, for victory… FOR SPARTA!

JOE PATERNO: THE EARLY YEARS.

The lesson here is find something to keep you on this Earth for as long as you can. That's what Raison d'Etre means, it's French for 'reason to exist'. And if you try to convince yourself that family is the answer then you're a fool. Already told you, Paterno had that shit and it did him no good. He died anyway while they just stood around and let him instead of hatching some complex hair-brained scheme to convince him he was still a coach. He was 85 for God's sake! How hard would that have been? You get the local high-school team to let him stand on the sidelines and pretend to listen to what he's saying. Give him an empty clipboard and a whistle and the guy thinks he's back in the saddle again. Could've lived another ten or fifteen years like that. So family is all well and good and everything, makes for a nice holiday card, keeps you from looking like a sad-ass loser at restaurants and gets you a couple of tax breaks. Other than that… f@%king useless! As for me, what do I love enough to stick around for? Too late to seek a career in football and apparently, organ harvesting is illegal. So what's out there for me?

Guess I'll just go with my love of boobs. Loving them has kept me around this long and I'll trust that love to keep me going well into my golden years. So ladies, if you care about me, if you love me, if you don't want me to die, then by all means show 'em to me. Hell, even if you don't give a crap about me and just need to make a couple extra bucks in this shitty economy, works for me too. I got spare change.

YEAH, BRUCE WILLIS KNOWS
WHAT I'M TALKIN' ABOUT.

And while I've got you here and we're on the subject of football, (before) just gonna go ahead and mention that the New England Patriots are back in the Super Bowl. And once again it's the hated New York Giants that stand between us and hoisting the Lombardi Trophy. If we win and take revenge for what happened back in 2008, then all will be right with the universe and I'll finally be able to sleep through the night. If they lose… if they don't… I don't even wanna think about that because they're not gonna lose. Right God? We made a deal, remember? Sacrifices were made!

One last thing. Couple months ago on this blog I talked about some television shows that I was digging and one of those fine programs was the NBC cop drama Prime Suspect. Well NBC has since pulled the plug on the show, stopped production on it around the same time I gave it praise. They aired the last two episodes this past Sunday just to fulfill some contractual obligations. Great show but not the world's sexiest cast playing the roles and I think that's why it didn't catch on. I mean, how are they supposed to get noticed over shows like this?

EVERYONE'S SO FIT AND WET AND SHINY.

Not one person in that photo is even Hawaiian. I call bullshit!

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT:

Oh man, another MLK Day come and gone and this year's party was even more out of control than last year. There was food and drink, the music was loud and bumping and the girls were… okay well, the girls were nowhere to be seen, just like last year… and the year before that, place was pretty much a sausage-fest. But we still had fun. And by we I mean I had fun since it was just me alone in my living room with a 26 year-old boom box, a bottle of Peach Snapple iced tea and a bag of Fritos. So the sausage-fest really only had the one link. But it was out of control like I said though, the neighbors complained and everythjing. Mainly because I left the blinds open and they all have young children who shouldn't be exposed to such a pathetic display of loneliness.

But look, I didn't come here to bring you down with my tales of sadness. Came here to talk about something that's on my mind, and with yesterday being the day we celebrated the life and works of Dr. King… honestly that had f@%k all to do with any of it. Now I don't wanna get off on a rant here… bullshit, of course I want to, it's what I live for. That and the thrill of opening the seal on a fresh new soda. Makes that "Pssssshhhht" sound. Oh man, that's livin' right there, I'll tell you what.

A heck of a human being and my
personal grooming inspiration.

I'm here to talk about my man, Wesley Snipes, currently serving a three-year sentence in the McKean Federal Corrections Institution in Pennsylvania for tax evasion. Why Wesley Snipes? Well I caught Jungle Fever the other day… the movie by Spike Lee. I didn't catch the real fever and help some white girl get back at her daddy, that's not what I'm about these days. But in my youth… yeah, still nothing. No rebellious snowflakes for young Ronny. So anyway I watched the flick, watched Mr. Snipes and his co-star Annabella Sciorra navigate their way through the racial minefield that was Bensonhurst, NY circa 1991. Film gets to the end, Halle Berry in her first acting gig stumbles about as a crack whore, offers to wash Wesley's junk in her mouth for $5. (Had Oscar written all over her even then.) Credits roll and I flip channels, land on E! Network and catch some story about Lindsay Lohan and my first thought was: Wow, I wonder how much she's charging for junk wash? But then my next question was: How the hell is she walking around free when Snipes is still in jail?

Now Snipes got hooked for tax fraud or evasion or something that basically means he made millions and Uncle Sam didn't get his cut. Lindsey Lohan got arrested twice for DUI, made multiple court appearances, violated her parole several times and is just a plain awful wreck of a human being. But still, she only saw the inside of a jail for thirteen days. And that wasn't even one stretch. Those thirteen days were all totaled over various stints. Meanwhile, Snipes is looking at three hots and a cot for roughly 1082 days more than Lohan got. That bitch put people in danger… twice! And has yet to stand up and say "Yeah, I did that shit, sorry." Whoever died from tax evasion? M.A.T.E. (Mothers Against Tax Evasion) exists in only one place on Earth, and that's in this f@%king sentence!

And of course Lohan's not the only celeb out there getting off light. Seems like they all do. Keifer Sutherland, Paris Hilton, Mel Gibson, Shia LaBeouf, Heather Locklear, Ty Pennington and Mötley Crüe front man Vince Neil are all celebs who saw little to no time for a crime that could have potentially taken lives. And Vince Neil did take a life back in '84 when he got drunk and wrapped his car around a pole and killed a fellow singer on a beer run. Yeah, drunk as shit and looking to get even drunker. Served just 30 days for that and then got caught again in recent years and served another 15 days. HUH?

And lest you think that I'm saying it's a racial thing going on here, oh no. Charles Barkley, The Office star Craig Robinson, Vivica A. Fox (My girl!), Michelle Rodriguez and Klhoe Kardashian (She's got a lot of black in her… usually.) are all famous folk of color who simply got their wrists slapped after blowing above the legal limit. Of course now I can see how you would have thought I was going for the racial slant since I segregated the list like that. DRAMA!

Anyway, as further evidence that the whole Snipes conviction wasn't a racial thing, (at least in my mind) is the fact that Survivor winner Richard Hatch served three years back in '06 for the exact same crime. Sad thing is that if it were a race thing, I think it'd be easier for me to take. If racism were the issue then it would be understandable that the situation not make any sense. (Did that sentence even make any sense?) But the truth of the matter is that not paying your taxes is considered a more serious crime than getting blitzed, climbing behind the wheel and possibly turning your car into an engine of death.

Now my research (Wikipedia) has shown me that the big difference here might be that tax evasion is a federal crime and drunk driving is prosecuted on the state level. Therefore places like California can make up their own rules to give preferential treatment to celebrities. In that case I should be talking about other federal crimes like dog fighting, which Michael Vick was convicted of back in 2007. He got a 23 month sentence, spent 19 in jail and served the rest of his time at home. How nice. It's bullshit, but still nice.

Because of that glaring bit of injustice, since Uncle Sam apparently cares more about getting his money than he does about animal cruelty, I'm starting the campaign to free Wesley Snipes from the Man's bullshit system!

Although with CGI anything is possible.
So who knows?

That's it, that's the whole campaign right there. I made the graphic, posted it, what more can I do? That thing represents the blood and sweat and tears of seven minutes of my life! More than that I cannot do for Mr. Snipes, there's nothing left for me to give.

Whew… told you I liked ranting. But I'm done now, ready to get down off my soapbox. If someone could just maybe help me down? Kinda high up here and I don't want to fall or nothing. Anybody? Please? Ronny's scared!

TRAPPED IN THE THEATER:

I'm back my friends! Vacation was wonderful, thanks for asking. Of course I got you a souvenir, unfortunately the drug sniffing dogs wouldn't let it through customs. Good thing I'd shoved it in that kid's backpack before going through the gate. He'll be fine, how hard could life in a Malaysian prison be for a seven year-old? They've got finger paints, right?

Well the Oscar season is upon us again and just like last year, I don't give a crap. However, there is a slight difference this time around. This year not only haven't I seen a single one of the films that are reportedly up for consideration, a lot of them I haven't even heard of. The Artist, Midnight in Paris, The Tree of Life, In the Land of Blood and Honey? What the hell? Were any of those even released in theaters? Did they star Americans or is it all just junk from overseas that some eggheads think are meaningful and poignant because they're in black and white and contain metaphors and words at the bottom of the screen that require reading skills and comprehension and an attention span that lasts longer than your average bucket of popcorn? (BTW, $10.00 for a large? Blow me Rave Theaters!) I think Brad Pitt's in one of them, I just don't care enough about him to find out which one.

Me, I'm an old-fashioned son of a bitch, I like my movies with boobies and shit that blows up! Doesn't always have to contain both, one or the other is good enough. Films like Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (in theaters now) currently kicking ass at the box office. Haven't seen it yet but I look forward to it. No boobies (I'm guessing) but action and explosions and that's what going to the movies should be about.

And I'm not the only one who thinks that way, just look at the list of domestic grosses for 2011, the top ten earners were all action heavy films, the nearest Oscar contender being The Help at number twelve. Nearest one after that is Midnight in Paris at fifty-seven. Guess watching black women clean houses just gets more asses in the seats than watching… whatever the hell Midnight in Paris was about. (Racists!) But to be fair I'll look it up… let's see, says here it's by Woody Allen… and I'm already bored and moving on. A flick about maids must be like straight adrenalin compared to what Allen's been putting out the last twenty years.

But still, nothing beats the real classics, man movies like Die Hard, still one of the most awesome movies ever made, not ashamed to admit that I feel that way. If it's on, I'm watching it. And if I'm watching it, then I'm quoting along with it. Bruce Willis trapped in a building, fighting for survival, keeping America safe from Euro-trash terrorists. A claustrophobic mix of suspense and action, with witty banter thrown in for good measure. Created a whole genre of films. After Die Hard we got movies about dudes trapped in all kinds of shit. Steven Seagal got trapped on a boat in Under Siege and then a train in Under Siege 2: Dark Territory. (And really, a film about a train called Dark Territory, how did the porn industry miss making that parody?) Wesley Snipes got trapped in a plane in Passenger 57. Sylvester Stallone got trapped in a tunnel in Daylight. Keanu Reeves got trapped on a bus in Speed, not really the same, but kinda. And then even the ladies got in on the act when Sandra Bullock dumped Keanu's ass and made like Seagal by getting trapped on a boat for Speed 2: Cruise Control. But she did it without Seagal's Akido skills… or his douchebaggy attitude.

Willis helped Hollywood realize that claustrophobia sells, and it's even gone so far as to give us Ryan Reynolds trapped in a coffin last year in Buried. The ultimate in claustrophobic terror. Never saw it, (because it would give me nightmares for the rest of my life) but I think the whole thing is just him underground in a box. And supposedly it was pretty good. So I guess it's possible to make something interesting without boobs and explosions. Go figure.

But then Hollywood went and took it just a little too far last year with Devil, a film produced by M. Night Shyamalan (should be all you need to hear) about five people trapped in an elevator with Satan. Yeah, I said elevator and Satan. And at the time I really thought that we had reached the limit, didn't think there was anything left to lock people in for two hours. Of course I thought that back in 2002 as well, Colin Farell… Phone Booth… Dear God.

But I was wrong in '02, and apparently I was wrong last year because I just saw the trailer for the upcoming film ATM a flick about three people trapped in an ATM kiosk by a lone menacing figure. So sometime last year, some studio suit got pitched an idea that contained the words 'three people… ATM kiosk… lone menacing figure… trapped'. And the next words out of the suit's mouth were: "Green light, we have a deal!" Reality television really has ruined us, hasn't it? They're not even trying anymore. I can only hope it's a really elaborate hoax or a fan trailer. If either one is the case, then bravo, you got me. If not, then I expect the big screen adaptation of R. Kelly's Trapped in a Closet any day now.

No golden shower jokes… keeping it clean.

BTW, there's a link to the ATM trailer up there in case you missed it. Seriously, check it out because it really defies description.

And please believe me when I tell you that I had a whole different direction in mind when I sat down at the keyboard today. This one went off the rails quickly and I veered off into Crazy Town. And now, a moment of silence for those poor citizens killed in the tragic Crazy Town wreck of 2012.