CHRIS WALKER VS. BODY SPRAY

Body spray for men is stupid. Body spray commercials for men are even stupider. Sure, appreciate them for their humor and abundance of hot girls (and MILFs!) but if you actually believe hosing yourself down with an overpowering musk will put you in a situation where, let’s say, your girlfriend’s mom uncontrollably molests you – you’re an idiot. It will never happen, no matter how much man juice you pump onto your bird chest.

I never thought I’d write a post about men’s body spray. I really don’t care about it; I’ve never used it; it’s a product for…I don’t know, junior high kids. The only reason I’m writing about body spray and body spray commercials is so I can put up a picture of this woman, Rachel Specter:

Rachel Specter – the spokeswoman? model? commercial girl? for Right Guard’s new body spray – has to be one of the best-looking chicks I’ve ever seen. Yes, I obviously have “a type”. If you’ve paid attention to my taste in completely unattainable women (see: Emmy Rossum, Eva Green) there’s clearly a pattern but am I right, or what? Her commercials are seriously one of the only times I stop what I’m doing and pay full attention to the television.

I’ve only got two problems with the commercials: 01. they’re for a shitty body spray; 02. the tagline, “Are you ready to step up?” is ridiculous. Am I ready to step up? To what? Freshman year? I thought I stepped up when I started using cologne. Isn’t body spray just a high-school-mentality, Maxim-generation equivalent of that? I don’t know, I don’t want to sound like I’m taking the body spray/cologne argument too seriously – I’d hate to have another half-assed history professor school me on the finer points of good-smelling man applications – all I know is Holy Christ, Rachel Specter is hot.

CHRIS WALKER VS. THE DUMBING DOWN OF AMERICA: GRATE YOUR OWN CHEESE

I’ve tried writing this post several times but every time I start I end up depressed, praying for the Apocalypse. It never comes. It just breaks my blackened heart to know somewhere in America a poor, disillusioned soul is opening a bag of Kraft Crumbles with the notion they’re actually preparing a meal. What pains me even more is that poor, disillusioned soul could very well be you.

Eat ‘em up – on your way to hell!

I remember the first time I saw Kraft Crumbles. I was walking through the grocery store – in the cheese section – when they appeared before me: broken up…little, pieces…of pre-crumbled cheese. That was the first time I prayed for the Apocalypse. I thought, “Are they serious? Have Americans have become so lazy we need pre-crumbled cheese? Can we not even grate our own cheese anymore? We had a good run, folks. Let’s shut it down.” I mean, pre-sliced deli meat is one thing – who wants to take home an entire slab of ham? But pre-crumbled of cheese? Some lines weren’t meant to be crossed.

Later that same week I saw the Crumbles commercial. By now you’ve probably seen it, too: the anemic grade-schoolers digging into the cheese bag while mommy shoots up black-tar heroin and slips into the bedroom with her ‘wrestling coach’ Billy as EMF’s early-Nineties hit “Unbelievable” is whored into the jingle, “They’re crumbelievable!”. No, that wasn’t the version you saw? It might as well have been. Kraft is trying to sell you pre-crumbled cheese! Am I the only one who sees a problem with this? They’re implying you’re too lazy, or too stupid, to do it yourself. You need a shortcut for cheese! What’s next, bread that’s already been toasted? It’s only a matter of time before Rachael Ray is the on the front of the Crumbles bag, telling you to melt it and pour it over Triscuits for under $40 a day. Someone hold me; I am frightened.

Perhaps even more terrible and gluttonous are Oscar Mayer’s Fast Franks. Fast Franks are microwavable hot dogs that already come in a bun. I repeat: microwavable hot dogs that already come in a bun. I didn’t even know you could do that. How do they, and then they… seriously, it boggles my mind. So, now you’re telling me not only can Americans no longer grate cheese but they can’t even take the time to cook a hot dog and then put it into a bun? How’d we end up with this nationwide obesity problem again?

I don’t know who to be more upset with: Kraft and Oscar Mayer (Oscar Mayer is a division of Kraft, by the way) for having the gall to think American consumers would actually buy this garbage or American consumers for actually buying this garbage. The whole thing infuriates me the point where, if I tried to fully articulate it, my head would explode. On the up side, at least Food Network’s resident super-villain, Sandra Lee, has two new items to include in her next Semi-Homemade Cooking bullsh– I’m sorry, book.

(Side Note: To Sandra Lee’s credit she does seem to make a lot of alcoholic drinks on her show. Then again, I always catch it while I’m on a treadmill with the sound off so it could be my imagination. Whatever.)

Call me crazy but I think some things should be done the old-fashioned way. I still chop garlic with a knife (instead of one of those absurd ‘gator’ contraptions); I make salad dressings from scratch; I can crumble or grate my own fucking cheese. Believe me when I say this: cooking is not as hard as it seems.

Food items (and I use the term loosely) like Kraft Crumbles and Fast Franks epitomize everything that is wrong with America’s food culture: unhealthy instant gratification. Sure, you could crumble your own cheese or grill a hot dog but why bother when you can have it now and easy? Stop buying this garbage. I hope no one thinks they’re actually “preparing a meal” with pre-crumbled cheese. It’s just another way of letting shitty fast food culture invade what is otherwise the tool shed of culinary arts (i.e. food markets). And, if you couldn’t tell by how fat and disgusting we all are, that invasion comes at a heavy price.

I’d say we should rise up and boycott these and other similarly awful items but I know that’s far too ambitious. I’m realistic. If I’ve convinced or rallied even one reader to not purchase these products and maybe, god forbid, attempt to actually cook – I’m satisfied. For the rest of you content with McDonald’s, a complete lack of cooking ability, and rampant obesity – just know I’m laughing at you…

…while I grate my own cheese.

CHRIS WALKER VS. HOW MUCH BULLSHIT ARE YOU WILLING TO WATCH AT ONCE?

I figured out why Grindhouse made a disappointing $11.5 million last weekend – it fucking sucks.

Before I bash Grindhouse any further I’d like to clarify a few things: I’m aware Planet Terror and Death Proof, the two movies that make up Grindhouse, are meant to be B-rated, exploitation films. The characters are supposed to be campy; the plots are intentionally ridiculous; the action is deliberately unrealistic, and the violence and gore are over-the-top. I accept that and appreciate everything Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino tried to achieve with Grindhouse. In fact, I applaud the two directors for being such innovators. With the double feature, fake trailers, and prevue and restriction reels they made going to the movies an actual experience. Despite the fact Fanlo and I walked out twenty minutes into Tarantino’s Death Proof (the second of the two films) if Tarantino and Rodriguez attempt this kind of cinema again I’ll go see it again.

(The following contains spoilers) The sad part is Grindhouse starts so awesome with a fake trailer for Machete, starring Danny Trejo as “Machete”. The premise is Machete is an ordinary man hired by some shady guys in suits to assassinate a senator, or a governor, or some shit. Just as Machete is about to get the job done the shady guys in suits double-cross him. Machete wants revenge. Revenge includes (but is not limited to) mounting a Gatling gun to a motorcycle and riding off an exploding ramp; making out with two topless women at once; starting a knife army; cutting people’s heads in half, and bringing Cheech Marin out of priesthood to shoot people in the face with shotguns. After the Machete trailer I was like, “Yes, this is insane – I’m fucking excited!”

Unfortunately, that excitement was short lived. Enter Planet Terror. In Planet Terror I found myself suffering through Naveen Andrews (Sayid from Lost) – whose character, Abby, has a fetish for cutting off people’s balls – with his mouth on said castrated balls; mustard gassed penises; a young boy shooting himself in the head; Quentin Tarantino acting (no one should have to watch that); more castrated testicles; Quentin Tarantino trying to rape Rose McGowan while his balls melt off, and I repeat: QUENTIN TARANTINO ACTING. There’s a difference between intentionally bad and downright intolerable, Tarantino’s acting falls into the latter category.

I loved the insane amount of violence in Planet Terror: zombies getting decimated by a speeding truck; “Sex Machine” from From Dusk Till Dawn getting torn into pieces; pointless explosions and guns with infinite ammo; Freddy Rodriguez nailing zombies with a magnum while riding a mini-bike; Rose McGowan with a rocket-launcher for a leg, and most of all: Fergie (of Black Eyed Peas) getting her brains eaten out of her skull – I enjoyed every retarded minute of it. But melting balls, castrated balls, and other disgusting variations on balls? Not so much. It wasn’t entertaining or gory in a cool way, it was just disgusting. I feel sick recalling it – it ruined the whole movie for me. Maybe the more-repulsive-than-necessary nature of it is the point and maybe I just don’t get it but if that’s the case: I don’t want to get it. Those parts of the movie are pointless, way too much – especially the Tarantino part. Rodriguez should’ve left that shit on the cutting room floor.

By the end of Planet Terror my ability to appreciate subtle, sick humor and things that were shitty-on-purpose had reached its limit. Under normal circumstances, I might’ve laughed at Eli Roth’s fake trailer for Thanksgiving (a spoof on the Halloween horror franchise) – where every guy a girl makes out with (or goes down on) ends up decapitated and actor Michael Biehn kneels over a headless pilgrim, tastes the headless pilgrim’s blood and goes, “Yep, it’s blood,” – but I was so irritated and numb at that point I couldn’t even muster the strength to chuckle. I was done.

The only reason I didn’t walk out of the theater (which I thought about doing several times) was because I thought Tarantino’s movie, Death Proof, would be better. Sure, Tarantino is crap in front of the camera but he’s good behind it (or, he’s good when his ego doesn’t get in the way). Sometimes it’s important to edit yourself, Tarantino forgot this in Death Proof.

Death Proof starts with a girl with a not-so-flattering ass (and a close-up of her not-so-flattering ass) walking over to her couch and lying on it. Then her girlfriends come to pick her up but instead of just picking her up one girlfriend has to run up to her place so she can take a self-proclaimed “massive shit (or was it massive dump?)” and we’re treated to a close-up of a girl running up apartment stairs with her hand firmly planted on her crotch. Already, I’m irritated.

After that, the audience is treated to three barely attractive women engaged in Tarantino’s self-indulgent dialogue about scoring weed and the intricacies of making out for TEN FUCKING MINUTES. I couldn’t take it; I wanted to bang my head into a wall. By the time I found out shit-bag director Eli Roth had a cameo and he spoke during his cameo I’d had enough. I turned to Fanlo and made the “let’s go” sign. He was just as ready to leave as I was. We walked out of the film.

Dong Wang, who was also with Fanlo and me at Grindhouse, chose to stay for the remainder of Death Proof. He called me once it was over and said that he enjoyed the entire film, particularly Death Proof and called us pussies for leaving – and I’m sure Death Proof wasn’t as miserable as I thought it was – but by that point I just couldn’t endure anymore crap. Grindhouse should have its name changed to How Much Bullshit Are You Willing To Watch At Once? That’s really what it is. I’ll give Death Proof a shot, on its own when it comes out on video, but I can’t really see myself watching Planet Terror again – unless I fast forward through the balls parts.

The best part about Grindhouse is that Robert Rodriguez is actually making the Mexploitation fake film Machete into a real full-length film. That’ll be fucking awesome.