March 5, 2010 | celebrities, lists

Many professional associations hold ceremonies recognizing outstanding achievement in a given field. Give a guy a personalized plaque and it’ll be at least a week before he places a silent call to his boss followed by an email saying he can’t make it to work that day due to a case of acute laryngitis, and sending out resumes like distress signals.

The awards show that trumps them all when it comes to stroking more egos than a brothel on Small Penis Island is the Oscars. Watching them, you have to pinch yourself to remember that Ben Kingsley only played Gandhi, and had no part in actually helping India break from colonial rule. The approbation doled out will have you believe that the recipients spent their lives massaging lepers and filling holes in the ozone layer by hand rather than lolling about in a Malibu pool while a personal assistant organizes a timed sprinkler light display in front of their on-set trailer.

This pomposity reached its pinnacle in 2009, when nominees for the acting categories had a past winner read their IMDB highlights and explain why they were the best thing since the flush toilet. Even those who don’t have a hope in hell of winning can go home basking in the knowledge that Jack Nicholson reenacts scenes from their movies in his backyard gazebo.

The hauteur, the lack of perspective and the threat of being exposed to the comedy of Billy Crystal are reasons enough to get caught up on your Home Shopping Channel viewing come Oscar night. But there have been some moments in the history of the Academy Awards that are obnoxious even by the sky high bar set by Hollywood:

10) George Clooney, Best Supporting Actor for Syriana, 2005:

In 2005, George Clooney’s affected Oscar speech for the baffling Syriana summed up just how deeply Hollywood’s head is implanted up its ass. Responding to host Jon Stewart’s earlier dig that Hollywood was out of touch with America, Clooney said: “I would say that we are a little bit out of touch in Hollywood… It’s probably a good thing. We were the ones talking about AIDS when it was just being whispered, and we talked about civil rights when it wasn’t popular and this group of people gave Hattie McDaniel an Oscar in 1939 when blacks were sitting in the backs of theaters.” Clooney failed to mention how this same group shoved more ethnic stereotypes down people’s throats than racist Uncle Lou the master impressionist at a family barbecue.

9) Bob Hope and Frank Sinatra as hosts, 1975:

The film chosen as the best documentary for 1974 was “Hearts and Minds” a hard-hitting documentary on the Vietnam War by Burt Schneider. Bob Hope, one of the hosts that night was featured in the documentary in a less than flattering light: as a hack comedian and cheerleader for an unjust war (in other words, accurately). He was no doubt refraining from doing knuckle bumps with anyone when Schneider was announced as the winner, but was peeved into action when the documentarian took the opportunity to read a message from the North Vietnamese after the recently signed Paris Peace Accords: “Please transmit to all our friends in America our recognition of all they have done on behalf of peace.” Jane Fonda obnoxious? Sure, but the guy had just won an Academy Award for a film condemning the Vietnam War, so fair pool. A furious Hope scribbled down a message and cajoled fellow presenter, Frank Sinatra, into reading it, purportedly “on behalf of the Academy”. “We are not responsible for any political references made on the program, and we are sorry they had to take place this evening.” Hope became persona non grata at the Oscars following this for invoking the name of the academy because of his bruised ego.

8) Debby Boone (Award for Songwriter Joseph Brooks):

In 1977, singer Debby Boone performed “You Light up My Life” at the ceremony. The ditty would later go on to win an Oscar for songwriter Joseph Thompson, who would go another few decades without accomplishing much before returning to the limelight as a defendant in a slew of rape cases. Boone thought it wasn’t fair that deaf people should be kept from enjoying this terrible song, so she brought a group of 11 kids on stage to sign the song for the hearing impaired watching the broadcast. As it turned out, the 11 kids were not deaf, as everybody had assumed they were, and had no clue how to sign. Deaf people called the performance “mumbo jumbo” and likely offered up a single digit you don’t need conversational ASL to comprehend.

7) Greer Garson, Best Actress, Mrs. Miniver, 1942:

Greer Garson won the Academy Award for her role as a strong wife and mother in World War II England and to support the war effort, the Oscars that year were made of plaster (producers of the Adult Video Awards take note)—a fact you can pull out of your hat if charades fails to enliven the dullest party imaginable. Garson rambled on for what the Guinness Book marks as the longest Oscar acceptance speech in history, one that made the Gettysburg address seem like a knock-knock joke. The presenter sat down and in an eerily prescient moment being that Cuba Gooding hadn’t even been born yet, Garson touched on the arbitrary nature of the awards. Wags dubbed it longer than her performance in the film and due to her long-windedness, speeches were capped.

6) James Cameron, Best director for Titanic, 1998:

Fittingly, as he also directed the Abyss, just when you thought things couldn’t sink any lower, Cameron proved the sea bottom could still be trawled. After thanking the cast earlier for giving him “pure gold every day” (since this is one of the worst films ever to win an Oscar, we’d hate to see how things would’ve turned out if they’d given him the stuff that rusts), Cameron noted “this is for a real event that happened when real people died and shocked the world in 1912 and I’d like…to do a few seconds of silence in remembrance of 1500 men, women and children who died.” Don’t’ forget, earlier he’d completely shattered whatever sense of solemnity he’d manage to craft among the drunken Hollywood assembled, by pumping his fist in the air and shouting: “I’m the king of the world!” not to mention following up that moment of silence with “now let’s party ’til dawn!”

5) Laurence Olivier, accepting the Irving Thalberg Award, 1979:

Olivier is often considered the greatest Shakespearean actor ever to fill out a codpiece while many of his acting rivals only graced a stage when it came time to bask in the glow of their charitable foundations. Olivier has consistently avoided the type of movie that topped box offices that year, such as Meatballs and The Muppet Movie and could’ve elevated the tone of the proceedings by dropping a bit of the ol’ Bard rather than copy that would’ve been edited out of the shittiest ‘thank you’ card, with this: “The prodigal, pure, human kindness of it [the Academy giving Olivier the award]—must be seen as a beautiful star in that firmament which shines upon me at this moment, dazzling me a little, but filling me with warmth and the extraordinary elation, the euphoria that happens to so many of us at the first breath of the majestic glow of a new tomorrow.”

4) Adrien Brody, Best Actor, The Pianist, 2002:

Brody won the Oscar for the Pianist and must have made the director of that film, Roman Polanski proud when he grabbed presenter Halle Berry and dipped the actress for an ill at ease lip-lock. He then cemented himself as a likely pincher of flight attendant bottoms with the lecherous quip: “I bet they didn’t tell you that was in the gift basket.” A follow-up was a meandering spiel mercifully interrupted by the band– a full minute after the usual cut-off time – but not soon enough to prevent Brody from sharing his revelation that war is indeed an ugly thing.

3) Julia Roberts, “Best” Actress, Erin Brockovich, 2001:

In 2001, Roberts, previously known for being out-acted by her body double in Pretty Woman, beat out Joan Allen, Ellen Burstyn, Juliette Binoche and Laura Linney – all far superior actresses. Roberts neglected any pretense of trying to keep things moving along with an under-two-minute speech, by going over six. Given lightning is unlikely to strike twice and she’ll never be granted hardware again, we can cut her some slack, but what made her speech particularly intolerable was her haughty bossing of the orchestra conductor. “You’re so quick with that stick, mister man, so why don’t you just sit down.”  Why the poor slob didn’t strike up the band with an up tempo “Roll out the Barrel”, we’ll never know.

2) Vanessa Redgrave, best actress for Julia (1978):

When Michael Moore won his Oscar for Bowling for Columbine, he proved himself one of the more disliked people in Hollywood by actually being booed by a room full of liberals when he called Bush 43 a “fictitious president” leading the country into a “fictitious war” (the latter sentiment likely not sitting well with the families of soldiers having their “fictitious asses” shot off overseas). But he at least won the award for what could loosely be deemed ‘a political documentary’. Vanessa Redgrave’s Oscar came for her role in Julia in which she played a woman struggling against tyranny in Nazi Germany, so it seemed incongruous to say the least, to single out “Zionist hoodlums” during her speech. That anger stemmed from a sympathetic documentary Redgrave made that same year about the PLO. While “hoodlums” were burning her in effigy in the stadium car park Redgrave said: “I think you should be very proud that in the last few weeks you’ve stood firm and you have refused to be intimidated by the threats of a small bunch of Zionist hoodlums, whose behavior is an insult to the stature of Jews all over the world.”

FACTOID: Redgrave’s middle finger was compounded by further obnoxious behavior later on in the night when screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky, there to present the award for best screenwriter, decided to upbraid Redgrave for her speech earlier in the evening: “I would like to suggest to Miss Redgrave that her winning an Academy Award is not a pivotal moment in history, does not require a proclamation and a simple ‘Thank you’ would have sufficed.” It would have sufficed for Chayefsky to announce the names of the nominees rather than just blurting out the name of the winner following his rant.

1) Marlon Brando, best actor for The Godfather, 1973:

Winning his first Oscar in 1959 for On the Waterfront, Marlon Brando accepted the award with humility, grace, and brevity worthy of rousing applause.  “It’s a wonderful moment and a rare one,” he said, “and I’m certainly indebted. Thank you.” Fast forward to 1973 when it was pretty much assured that Brando would win the Oscar for the Godfather, and he pulled off the most obnoxious stunt in the history of the Academy Awards. Instead of attending the ceremony, Brando sent Sacheen Littlefeather, supposedly as a representative of the Apache tribe, to read a prepared statement about Hollywood’s negative treatment of Native Americans. There were probably a few Italians in the house who found this ironic. Littlefeather, whose Apache credentials later came into doubt as she was reported to be a Mexican actress, had been given a 15-page statement by Brando to read, though the booing and catcalling that greeted her speech cut that short.

March 3, 2010 | lists, weird news

Like a man who gets a disparaging nickname after being seen naked following a dip in cold water, most killer whales are burdened with an unjust moniker, being neither unusually bloodthirsty nor whales – they are the dolphin equivalent of the morbidly obese family member who needs a wall knocked down to get out of the house.

Pliny the Elder, likely embittered by everybody referring so bluntly to his advanced years, summoned the descriptive powers of a man with freshly poked out eyes when he wrote: “A killer whale cannot be properly depicted or described except as an enormous mass of flesh armed with savage teeth.” Apparently, specifics such as “black and white in color”, “big as a motherf’ing really big boat”, were beyond Pliny.

The view of orcas as predatory threats to mankind remained until the creatures were studied and it was found that they were not motivated primarily by a desire to chomp on human extremities. That understanding came partly as a result of research undertaken on orcas after they were captured and put on display in the 1960s. When it was observed that Moby Doll, the first orca to be captured and displayed, didn’t pop off the heads of every second marine biologist it met, researchers concluded that killer whales weren’t the menacing predators that Pliny and his lot made them out to be. In other words, they were the ideal candidates to perform circus-like stunts that may be aberrations of nature, but for which SeaWorld and the like can charge a hefty per-head fee.

Marine parks operate on the Victorian notion that we can better understand nature’s majesty by removing animals from their native habitat, locking them up somewhere the public can gawk at them without being mauled and, where possible, by teaching them skills so they can earn their keep, like riding unicycles or reading sheet music. These parks are skilled at maintaining the pretense that the creatures on show are enjoying themselves and not merely anticipating a fish-guts-based reward.

There are times, however, when the primal nature of creatures not intended by evolutionary processes to play beach volleyball and splash package tourists surfaces, as it did at a Florida SeaWorld recently (See Entry No. 1) when a trainer was drowned by an orca. It wasn’t the first time – even for that particular whale – and isn’t likely to be the last until we realize that nature should be left alone or at least kept at a respectful distance – 32 feet, the spray distance of bear repellent, is about right.

Here are The Top 7 Captive Killer Whale Attacks of All Time!

7. The Fins of the Father

Tillikum is the orca responsible for last week’s death of a trainer at Orlando SeaWorld and indeed, all of the top three killer whale attacks on this list (wags have dubbed him a “serial killer whale”). He is also the father of Ky, a whale that in 2004 at a SeaWorld show in San Antonio displayed the old man’s penchant for taking marine park trainers on unscheduled jaunts around the tank.

In a stunning blow for nature in its battle against nurture, Ky stopped listening to his trainer’s commands and began ramming him and knocking him under water each time he came up for air. The trainer waited it out and eventually emerged unharmed from the incident; though one reckons the bottom half of the wetsuit would have had to go to the cleaners. Afterward, the trainer was remarkably calm for a man who had been nearly drowned by a six-tonne marine mammal, saying, “It looked like Ky lost a little bit of focus.”

6. Shame on Shamu

Shamu, Namu and Ramu are the brand names given to SeaWorld orcas while they’re performing. In 1971, a 22-year-old secretary rode the first Shamu, a legend in orca circles, as part of a publicity stunt. Perhaps unaccustomed to the snapping cameras and harsh glare of the media spotlight, the whale threw Eckis off, kept divers from entering the pool to rescue her, and bit her on the leg as she was finally able to make her exit.

The secretary was left with several lacerations and puncture wounds from the attack. For stunned fans of the Shamu show, the incident was the marine park equivalent of Elvis putting the boots to a puppy at a live concert.

5. Whales Play Trainer Ping Pong

When grisly incidents happen involving wild animals in captivity behaving, well, like wild animals in captivity, attempts are made to rationalize the actions of the animals in terms humans can understand and appreciate. One of the most common is the suggestion that when the killer whale is engaged in the kind of behavior it would use in the wild to, say, drown and eat a sea lion that it is in fact “playing”.

In March, 1987, SeaWorld San Diego trainer Jonathan Smith, then 20, found that playtime is no fun when the other kids in the pool are the size of buses and homicidal. Smith was in the water performing with two whales, when one of them seized him in its teeth and shot to the bottom of the pool before resurfacing with Smith bleeding and spitting him out. Rather than scrambling for the exit or signaling the harpooners, Smith waved to the crowd, who after all had paid damn good money to see a performance. Then the second whale picked up where the other had left off and slammed him into him. Playtime continued as the whales repeatedly dragged him to the bottom of the pool. He managed to escape, but emerged with cuts around his torso, a ruptured kidney and lacerations on his liver.

4. Splash Landing

Divers who don’t properly survey their landing points are a menace in public pools, and, of course, the larger the diver, the greater the peril. But imagine lolling about in a pool, mid-Sunday afternoon swim, only to look up and have the light in your world eclipsed by the descending specter of a diver 60 times the size of Oprah Winfrey.

In 1987, John Sillick, then a 26-year-old trainer for SeaWorld San Diego, was performing a routine with two orcas. He was riding on the back of a female orca, when a fully mature male, Orky, perhaps incensed by the minimal effort that went into naming him, jumped and came crashing down on Sillick. This is enough to warrant an asterisk in any published sentence in which a marine park official stresses the low number of captive killer-whale related fatalities over the years. Survival in this case, like all others on this list, cannot be considered much more than a fluke. Sillick nearly did die, sustaining fractures throughout his body and requiring six operations in 14 months so that he could be “reconstructed”.

Special Mention: In 1987, Joanne Webber, a trainer at SeaWorld California, broke her neck when an orca landed on her during rehearsal as a result of a miscue.

3. Tillikum and the Drifter

Top of the list of awkward points for SeaWorld PR flacks trying to put a positive spin on last week’s trainer killing: the fact that the orca involved, Tillikum, appears to be an incorrigible recidivist – he’s tied to two deaths prior to the most recent one. The second death with Tillikum’s fin-prints all over it involved a 27-year-old man who gained access to Orlando SeaWorld afterhours and found his way into Tillikum’s tank. (Yes, the Darwin Awards people have recognized this man’s contribution to the gene pool). Park staff found the man’s body draped over the whale’s back behind the dorsal fin the following morning. He died apparently of hypothermia, though scrapes on the body suggested he might have been dragged along the bottom of the tank, which falls in line with the MO the orca established in the other two deaths.

After Tillikum was found with a corpse in his tank, SeaWorld’s then executive vice-president Victor Abbey made one wonder whether he is able to differentiate wild animals from their animated counterparts when he said: “This isn’t a bad animal. He’s a good animal.”

In his film, Grizzly Man, Werner Herzog said in reference to the bears Timothy Treadwell “befriended” before they ate him, “I discover no kinship, no understanding, no mercy. I see only the overwhelming indifference of nature.” Extrapolate that to all wild animals and we tend to agree.

2. Tillikum’s first strike

If we were to take a leap and think of killer whales along the simplistic lines suggested by Victor Abbey, then surely an incident involving Tillikum that occurred eight years and involved him drowning a 20-year-old biology student would put him in the “bad egg” camp. On February 20, 1991, Keltie Byrne slipped and fell into the orca pool at Sealand of the Pacific a now defunct marine park in British Columbia. Tillikum was in there with three orcas and Byrne had just finished a show with them. One of the whales grabbed her in its teeth and began dragging her around the pool. When she tried to scramble out of the pool, the whales pulled her back in, screaming, and she drowned. Several hours elapsed before park officials were able to extricate her body from the tank.

An inquest was held and, surprise, it was determined that the trainer’s death was the result of the whales playing a game that got a bit out of hand.

1. Tillikum and the Florida trainer

Tillikum’s killing of a trainer at SeaWorld Florida prompted this blog. Late last month, Tillikum grabbed 40-year-old trainer Dawn Brancheau by her ponytail and drowned her in front of horrified spectators, including screaming children, who will likely be reliving that day in their nightmares for some time to come. Park officials and rescue workers tried to rescue Brancheau, but, minus the crucial weaponry that would have been their only hope in this situation, they couldn’t extricate her from the creature’s teeth until 30 minutes after it had snatched her from the side of the tank and by then it was too late.

The trainer’s death reignited the debate about killer whales being used in marine parks and also a bizarre take on the situation from the American Museum of Natural History’s Richard Ellis. “The fact that they’ve been in captivity for 60, 70 years and not attacked anybody makes this a very surprising event,” he said. He followed up this erroneous statement with his attempt to make like Jonah and get inside the beast and try to guess at its motivations for the attack. “This was premeditated, and for whatever whale reasons, the whale did this intentionally.” More helpful analysis followed: “Whatever prompted the whale to do this, it behaved in killer whale fashion. That’s what it uses to attack with. It doesn’t have hands, so it uses its teeth – it has a lot of them.”

The most worrying quote came from another AP story. Larry L. Smith, president of the Institute for Crisis Management, in Louisville, Kentucky, said the attack could drive up attendance at marine parks among teens and young adults.”It’s not going to draw families necessarily or older people who would typically visit there, but there is an age group that gets excited about the risks and the potential for drama and it may attract some of those folks,” he said.

Killer whale shows would go from being an obscenity in the face of nature to an exhibition made more exciting by the prospect of someone’s ghastly death.  These Sharks will stay out of the no-splash zone.

February 16, 2010 | lists

The Chinese zodiac begins with the year of the rat, which, if one were seen in a Chinese restaurant would not be construed as a sign of good luck under any circumstance.

This year is, of course, the Year of the Tiger (if you see a tiger in a Chinese restaurant, be sure it’s chained up or failing that, that you can beat a hasty retreat to the front door if required).

Notable Tigers include Jay Leno, Tommy Lee, Tom Cruise and Paula Abdul, all of whom, if you were to ask them—share identical personality traits. Tiger people are sensitive and as the list above clearly shows,  given to deep thinking. They are also short-tempered, yet capable of great sympathy.

For a look at what’s in store for 2010, turn your eyes mercifully away from the upper left corner of this page as we look at Year of the Tiger Predictions in closer detail.

1. You will be an endangered apex predator feline that grows to a length of 3.3 meters.

2. Your insatiable sexual appetite will continue to eat into your endorsement deals.

3. You will continue your campaign for an independent Tamil state.

4. Your anthropomorphic self will continue to sell high fructose corn syrup cereal.

5. Your eponymous baseball franchise will continue to lose.

6. You will show stripes in cliches.

7. You will be esteemed for your sexual potency, but the downside is people will want to make your penis the main ingredient in soups (good thing there is no Year of the Shark).

8. You will maul the occasional carnie.

9. Economies on the rise will be named after you prior to being sunk by endemic corruption.

10. You will be named Hobbes and your exploits alongside a mentally ill child named Calvin will be continue to be captured in comic strip form.

11. Your Cincinnati Bengals will amass more felonies and indictable offenses, deepening the talent pool for a Longest Yard sequel.

12. Be wary of effeminate Teutonic magicians

13. Your style of Kung Fu will prove ineffective against a cheap shot to the mush.

14. You will be an off-key falsetto staple of Rocky-themed karaoke nights.

15. Due to increasing human encroachments on your habitat, you might make a quick meal out of Christopher Robin.

Below are the dates corresponding to the sign of the Tiger…if the first line applies to you, congratulations for making it this far and for still being able to read this font.

26 January 1914 – 13 February 1915: Wood Tiger
13 February 1926 – 1 February 1927: Fire Tiger
31 January 1938 – 18 February 1939: Earth Tiger
17 February 1950 – 5 February 1951: Metal Tiger
5 February 1962 – 24 January 1963: Water Tiger
23 January 1974 – 10 February 1975: Wood Tiger
9 February 1986 – 28 January 1987: Fire Tiger
28 January 1998 – 15 February 1999: Earth Tiger
15 February 2010 – 2 February 2011: Metal Tiger