Life Imitates Fiction

zdaughter likes to watch a cartoon called "Sheriff Callie's Wild West" on Hulu. The show is named after its main character, a female cat named Callie who is the sheriff of a town called Nice and Friendly Corners. Callie has a magic lasso and a blue horse named Sparky who has glitter in his mane and tail. Callie thwarts bad guys every episode, thereby keeping Nice and Friendly Corners nice and friendly. You can see why this would appeal to a four year old girl.

It's a Disney show so the actors are reasonably famous. Mandy Moore voices Callie and other cast members you might recognize include Kevin Michael Richardson, Cree Summer and Mo Collins. Flea, Iggy Pop and Henry Rollins (somewhat inexplicably) made cameos as bad guys. Pop and Rollins were the Silverado Brothers, two ice skating stoats. Stoats like weasels, not stoat the baw.

I watched season 2 episode 21a with zdaughter the other day, it's called "New Sheriff in Town." The premise is that Rusty, the leader of a group of dogs who rustle, runs for sheriff of Nice and Friendly Corners. Rusty is a sheepdog with a preposterous mop of hair. He acknowledges that he used to be a bit of a shady character but claims to have seen the light, turned good, and now wants to keep the town safe.

His stump speech promises preposterous things like free milkshakes everyday and rollerskating anywhere and anytime you like, and chores will be against the law. His slogan is "Vote for Trusty Rusty!" The townspeople don't take him seriously but Callie, ever the proponent of free and open elections, says that he should be allowed to run. Nevertheless, as all the animals of Nice and Friendly Corners wait in line to vote they all agree that Rusty will be lucky to get even one vote. Callie is eminently qualified with years of relevant experience! Nice and Friendly Corners is ready to have a female leader.

Right as the voting ends, Rusty's crew cause a distraction and switch the ballot box out for one containing only votes for Rusty. They rigged the election!

The townspeople can't believe it! Callie tells everyone that Rusty should be sheriff if he won fair and square, but she suggests that everyone take a look at the votes and the ballot box. Before she can begin her investigation, Rusty takes her badge, pins it on his jacket, and throws Callie in jail for breaking a law that he made up right then and there, audaciously stating "You just broke mah new law which means you're goin' to jail!! " and as an side to his crew "Where she'll be out of my way!"

He then fires Callie's deputy (Peck the woodpecker), makes his cronies deputies, and throws Callie in jail. Rusty goes on to perpetuate all sorts of new laws that accrue only to his benefit. His motto is "I'm the one who makes the laws and if I can make 'em well I can break 'em! So when me and my boys see things we like well we're just gonna take 'em!" He drinks everyone's milk, takes their vegetables, swipes their coins, and all manner of other things that are neither nice nor friendly. The corruption is mind-boggling.

Luckily, Rusty's cronies are wildly incompetent. Whilst imprisoned in a jail cell, Callie offers to teach one of Rusty's deputies how to use her magic lasso and because he's concentrating so hard on trying to learn she tricks him into explaining how they rigged the election and where they hid the ballot box. She relays this information out the window to her faithful deputies outside (one of whom is a talking saguaro cactus named Toby who rides a goat).

The real votes are eventually found and counted. Of course, Callie won. She lassos Rusty and throws him and his crew in jail. Nice and Friendly Corners is nice and friendly again.

It's a nice story but really, who could imagine a fact pattern so preposterous?

zman Bouillabaise

I've been meaning to post a couple of things but haven't had the time to do a fulsome job so you're getting more zbouillabaise.

1. adidas stands for "all day I dream about Sketchers"

adidas received a preliminary injunction against Sketchers because Sketchers ripped off their Stan Smiths. I was really excited about this collision of sneakers and IP law, and I was going to write a lengthy post about trademarks and trade dress and what they are and how they work but all you need to know to decide this case is this:

I think the rule the judge applied was "you can't rip people off like that."

2. A Porsche cartoon!

The Porsche 911 is a pretty goofy design. The engine is in the back with a significant amount of weight behind the rear wheels. This setup is great for straight-line acceleration and braking, but it's a nightmare if you want to make a turn. Just ask Rootsy!

Regardless, I will own a 911 before I die. But which one? And does it really matter? As you can see from the video below, the 911 hasn't really changed that much over the past 50+ years (aside from the shift to water-cooled engines in 1999 which made a lot of Porsche fans clutch their pearls, and I'm not a snob about cooling systems).



I'll take mine in Gulf Blue.

3. Macklemore made a song with DJ Premier and KRS-ONE?

Macklemore released a new song yesterday called Buckshot. I was more than a little surprised to see that it was produced by DJ Premier and features a verse by KRS-ONE. If you aren't familiar with Premier, KRS, or their collaborations, you should check out Return of the Boom Bap. You'll thank me. Just ask Rootsy!

Primo hasn't lost a step and the Blastmaster will always be the Blastmaster. I just never expected them to appear on a Macklemore record. Which isn't to say I have any problems with Macklemore, but I wouldn't think that KRS-ONE would offer up 64 bars of hot fiyah to a guy with songs like "White Privilege" and "White Privilege II." This makes me feel even better about paying $15 for KRS's last album on Bandcamp when he was only asking for $10--it's so hard out there he's taking money from Macklemore.



I gotta admit it's a pretty good song though. Once again, Big Daddy Kane is right.

Gheorghemas Is The Giving Season, Pt. 2

It's beginning to look a lot like springtime, as it's a balmy 69 degrees in Virginia, but it's still the holiday season -- that holiday being Gheorghemas!

As we round out the home stretch of your Gmas offerings, here comes another batch of gifts from the original gri-onch, Clarence.

For Mark and Zman: this is a dandy.

The Rap Year Book: The Most Important Rap Song From Every Year Since 1979, Discussed, Debated, and Deconstructed

This thing looks bad-assed.  It could be all flair and no pizza shooters, shrimp poppers or extreme fajitas, but were I to judge a book by its cover (and a brief peek via Barnes and Noble), I'd say it's solid. The book is fodder for arguments of the significance of each year's selections (e.g., no tunes by the three bad brothers you know so well), but in my milieu of early to mid-80's rap, I see no egregious inclusions.  This gift is for Mark and Z, but I wanna borrow it.  Friends... how many of us have them?


For Dave:

Very Semi-Serious: A Partially Thorough Portrait of New Yorker Cartoonists

A documentary of the world of New Yorker cartoons, the cartoon department, the cartoonists, etc. Dave has been a cartoonist since we sat in college classrooms not paying attention together.  I would play the initials game and flirt gamelessly with co-eds; Dave would doodle and make cartoons.  Later he submitted captions and possibly even cartoons to the magazine.  Enjoy.

For Danimal:

Sorry, dude.  It's not worth that much, but it's not nothing, either.

Until the next time, Happy Gmas!

Cheers,
Clarence

Gheorghe: The Sitcom (Episode 1)

G:TB continues to expand its multimedia empire. From blogs to podcasts to...amateurish cartoons. This video is about 1% as funny as it could be, but it's a good way to set the bar very low for future episodes. And it's so bad that it's good. Like Clerks (I say to myself).

(It's very possible the web site hosting this functionality will drive Mr. Truck insane and lead to his wife divorcing him in two years.)

Enjoy Episode 1: Chick with Certs.