The Real World: Liberty City

I’ve probably spent four or five hours playing Grand Theft Auto IV since my roommate purchased it yesterday. Even more so than its predecessors, GTA IV is a stunning looking game that’s pretty enthralling. I can’t even begin to imagine how much work went into the game – the attention to detail is astounding and the depth of gameplay immense. In every way, it lives up to the hype. If you are a human being with vices of any sort, you’ll get some perverse pleasure out of playing. Guaranteed.

So does that mean running through GTA IV is the most fun I’ve ever had while sitting in front of a TV set with a controller in my hands? Absolutely not. Although I appreciate all the additions to the latest generation of Grand Theft Auto, the game now teeters on being too real for my tastes.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I get the chance to blow up helicopters with rocket launchers very often. But the game is realistic enough that it includes several more common scenarios, like playing pool with a friend or stopping by the store to buy new pants (sadly, not wearing any pants is not an option).

Within hours of popping the disc in, the following situation unfolded. My roommate took a turn, completed a mission that resulted in him getting a girl’s phone number, and then handed me the reigns. I proceeded to use my virtual cellphone to call the virtual chick to ask her out on a virtual date. She turned me down, so I decided to beat up some pedestrians and ended up getting shot in the face while trying to steal a cop car.

So, it was my roommates turn again. He gave the sim lady another ring. This time, she accepted his offer, and he took her to a bar. After a time lapse sequence, he drove drunk to get her back home, where the two engaged in noisy intercourse. Pretty different for a video game, right? But I can’t make this stuff up.

Wait a second, I can totally make this stuff up – it’s called college, and I spent four years living this lifestyle. The whole virtual exchange felt so real that it just struck me the wrong way. There should be a greater element of disbelief in play. Getting rejected in real life isn’t any fun. But getting rejected in a video game is far worse, because you can’t help but think about how you could have used the same energy to fuck up a similar real-life situation, where at least there was a chance that something meaningful could have come of it.

Nothing comes easy in GTA IV. Driving is more true-to-life, which means it can be a real bitch. Also, it’s much more challenging to steal cars or commit acts of random violence because there are cops everywhere. I’ve already encountered situations where I needed to stop at a red light to avoid getting the attention of the police. Sure, it’s uber realistic. But it kinda blows.

It’s not like I’m going to boycott GTA IV or anything, but I think the designers went a bit overboard with the realism. I’ll let the Tracy Morgan and Judah Friedlander of 30 Rock explain.

What’s so great about this clip is that the Uncanny Valley is a real concept. And so incredibly relevant to the point I’m trying to make about GTA IV. Here’s a diagram in case you couldn’t make it out from the video.

First of all, it’s hilarious that “prosthetic hand” is on there (I think that anyone who watches Arrested Development would agree with me). But I digress. If GTA IV was plotted on the graph, it would be in the same area as Tom Hanks from The Polar Express. The next-gen graphics really push the game over the threshold. Honestly, it looks and feels (and is) more real than an episode of The Real World XX.

Because of this, playing the game can be a pretty unnerving experience. I never thought I’d long to go back to the day when realistic video games were the ones you played while wearing gaudy visors. But at least virtual reality was pure fantasy and folly. With GTA IV, you’re essentially using a video game to escape to the same world that already exists all around you.

You’re right. Who am I kidding? I’m just bitter about the virtual rejection. Maybe I’m not as good with my joystick as I thought.

Manny being Manuel

WARNING: The following post pertains to fantasy sports. If you’d rather stick one of those sword-shaped toothpicks through your eyeball than listen to someone blather on about his theoretical baseball team, then feel free to watch the hilarious video below, ignore the text afterward, and pretend this never happened. 

By the way, the video is from the early 90s sketch comedy show The State, which included the whole Stella troupe and most of the cast of Reno 911. If you haven’t seen it before, I recommend at least downloading an episode or two from iTunes. 

Now to the somewhat taboo topic of fantasy baseball. I’ve noticed a development not necessarily specific to my team that warrants discussing. It involves the former closer of the Colorado Rockies, Manny Corpas.

Last year, Corpas was a fantasy stalwart for my squad. But all he’s done this year is pitch poorly enough to be the first closer in Major League Baseball to get demoted this season. So what’s the deal? Did he change his mechanics? Does he have a lingering injury that he’s managed to hide? How the fuck would I know?

Of course, there is one difference in Corpas that I have noticed. In the Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Baseball database, his first name changed from “Manny” to “Manuel” at the beginning of the 2008 season.

This would be like if everybody started calling me “Christopher” when I began blogging a month ago. Where Isn’t My Mind? would have been sunk because mentally, I would have felt 115x lamer than usual. I’d would have been a sad sack with a pretentious name, and I’m pretty sure my genitals would have decreased in size accordingly.

This is obviously what happened to Manny Corpas. Just take a look at the numbers.

Manny Corpas (2007): 4-2, 2.08 ERA, 19 saves   
Manuel Corpas (2008): 0-2, 6.91 ERA, 4 saves

So I’m blaming Yahoo! for Corpas’ struggles this season. I’ve even set up an online petition for the billion-dollar corporation to change his first name back to “Manny.” It can be accessed here.

Just kidding, that’s not a real link. I’m not that much of a loser. At least I wear pants. 

The NBA Playoffs – Where Radiohead happens to be playing in the background

Have you seen these new NBA Playoff spots? You know, the split-screen ones that look a bit like a “If They Mated” composite if your eyes aren’t focused.

I thought the first one with Kobe and Shaq was pretty sweet, but now, after seeing the Steve Nash/Jason Kidd commercial that features Radiohead’s “House of Cards”, I’m even more infatuated with the advertising campaign. 

It’s a bit surprising that Radiohead would permit the NBA to use their music to pimp the playoffs. But you can’t call Thom Yorke’s crew a bunch of sell-outs when the band allowed buyers to name their own price for In Rainbows. Clearly, it’s not all about the money. Maybe Radiohead just loves basketball. I could totally see them playing pick-up games when they’re not in the studio making tunes worthy of God’s iPod.

The somewhat ironic thing about the commercial is that both Nash and Kidd are currently a game away from playoff elimination. Perhaps the ad execs should have used “Let Down”, “Exit Music”, or “How To Disappear Completely” instead.

“What The F*ck Are We Saying” – Ten mind-numbing lines from Lenny Kravitz

Sorry for the inactivity. I spent yesterday in the fetal position after getting food poisoning at a chinese buffet. 

Anyway, I’m going to make another post related to the Spoon concert I went to on Saturday. More specifically, the review on indy.com of the show. I found a particular passage of the write-up particularly egregious. Here’s the link and the lines in question:

As the show unfolded as a exercise in “spot the influence,” one of modern music’s mysteries presented itself:

Why is Lenny Kravitz vilified for retracing the sounds of the past, while Spoon is held up as a champion of the cutting edge for doing the same thing?

Is this guy fucking serious? No one is putting down Lenny Kravitz for having a retro sound. They’re just calling him out for sucking ass, especially when it comes to writing lyrics.

He might be the worst songwriter ever. Don’t believe me, check out these examples arranged in an easy to digest “Top 10 most terrible” format:

Ed. Note: I haven’t actually heard most of these songs. All I did was look up the words. My pain threshold is only so high.

10. “Get up put your feet on the ground / Wake up to an ice cold shower / The coffee’s hot but the cream is sour” – Good Morning

Putting sour cream in your coffee, eh? That’s about as odd as calling yourself a Christian and a Jew.

9. “Tunnel vision goin’ through my head / Lay me down your flying bed” – Tunnel Vision

I’m picturing one of those kid car beds, only painted to look like an airplane.

8. “We’ve hurt Mother Nature / Can’t you see her, she’s crying / We’ve robbed and we’ve raped her and taken her child” – Can We Find a Reason

What a Mother (Nature) fucker. 

7. “The opportunity’s takin’ me over / I’m gonna put on a mask / I’ve got to be outrageous for my fans / I’m not gonna waste this moment / Because these moments don’t last / So tonight I will shake it and show my ass” – Flash

Why do you have to be outrageous for your fans? Maybe because they’re disinterested with your idiotic lyrics.

6. “Once you dig in / You’ll find it coming out the other side” – Dig In

I never would have thought to write a song about White Castle.

5.  “We are like pirates and we are comin’ with the biggest ego / We’re gonna bring it down and give it to you, that’s how we go / We’re gonna drop from the sky like a killer tornado” – Back In Vietnam

You’re probably convinced that I made this one up – I mean, just look at the title. But I swear it’s real. I couldn’t be that hilarious if I tried.

4. “Higher and higher and higher we get / I’ll freak you like a sex-o-lette” – Stop Draggin’ Around

I’m going to assume that a “sex-o-lette” is like a “port-o-let.” And that Lenny Kravitz enjoys German shiza videos.

3. “You are my everything / My sistamamalover” – Sistamamalover

This is a terrible, terrible image. Only Freud gets off to shit like that.

2. “Lay your body next to mine / You don’t have to take off all your clothes, ooh / But if the only thing you take off is your mind / You and I goin’ have a real good time” – Come and Love Me

Apparently, Lenny Kravitz took off his mind when he wrote this lyric.

1. “Black velveteen don’t give a damn, she’ll do dishes / Black velveteen knows all the nightspots in France / Black velveteen’s cat smells like strawberry kittens” – Black Velveteen

Take a look at all the lame words in this verse that should never be used in any rock and roll songs: “velveteen”, “dishes”, “nightspots”, “France”, “strawberry” and “kittens”. That’s six in three lines. A rather remarkable feat.

There you have it. I hope that indy.com reviewer feels stupid for making such an absurd comparison, and that you all feel dumber after reading all these Lenny Kravitz lyrics.

BTW, the title of this post is the name of another Lenny Kravitz song. He really couldn’t have made this commentary any easier to write.

I Was There: Spoon @ The Vogue – 4/19/08

The curious thing about The Vogue is that it oscillates between epitomizing everything I love and everything I hate. As much as I appreciate Deer Creek’s ambiance (see: the parking lot pre-gaming scene), there is no place around Indy where I would rather see a concert than The Vogue. I’ve gotten to stand within arm’s length of so many great bands because of the nightclub’s intimate setup. And I actually enjoy the crowds there. At the concerts I’ve been to, once you get close enough to the stage, you’re surrounded by people who feel passionately about the music being played. Occasionally, there are some asshats who try to push their way to the front. But most of the time, everyone manages to bring a high level of energy to the show without being disruptive. More often then not, I end up clinking bottles and singing in unison with strangers. Although it’s not for everyone, it’s definitely my kind of scene.

When they’re aren’t any musical acts at The Vogue, it turns into Broad Ripple’s most detestable nightclub. Sure, I’ve been to a few Wednesday night Retro Rewinds in my day (all white people like 80s nights – the blog told me so). But it can be a real depressing place. Before the dance floor opens, all the girls get dolled up in their tight jeans and tennis shoes, and the guys refill their prescription cocktail mixers and put on their pastel-colored polos. It’s one of the cornerstones of the city’s hip-hop scene, and generally somewhere that I prefer to avoid at all costs. And don’t think it’s because I’m one of those guys who won’t be caught dead dancing. I’ll get down – I just prefer to do it around people who don’t embrace ignorance and superficiality.

Even though I loathe what The Vogue stands for on most nights, I don’t really have a problem with it. The people who run the club typically do a stellar job of keeping the two conflicting worlds separate. But this was not the case for the Spoon concert on Saturday night.

The marquee ended up proving my point. It read SATURDAY / SPOON / DANCE CLUB AT 10. As my posse waited an inordinate amount of time for the doors to open, I joked that people are probably going to walk by and wonder what SPOON DANCE CLUB is. I was just going for a laugh, but in reality, the lack of separation was essentially an analogy for what followed.

We finally got in, and Spoon played a great set. Plenty of new classics (“Black Like Me”, “Finer Feelings”, “Don’t Make Me a Target”) spliced with some old faves that I wasn’t sure I’d be fortunate enough to hear (“Utilitarian”, “Everything Hits at Once”, “Small Stakes”). The band even peppered the show with oddities. They played “Don’t You Evah” twice: the original album version to open the show and the Ted Leo reggae remix after the encore break. And they closed with a cover of The Smiths song “Panic”, deciding to take a jab at Vogue organizers for forcing them off the stage at 10 p.m.

In case you’re not familiar with The Smiths (I wasn’t – I know, shame on me), the song climaxes with chants of “Hang the DJ.” If there had been ropes readily available, I bet several people in the crowd would have followed through. I’m more of a pacifist, but come on – why did Spoon and dance clubbing have to share the same bill? If I was Britt Daniel, I’d be offended. His critically acclaimed band was essentially an opening act for DJ Shitforbrains and a bunch of floozies from the latest “Girls With Low Self-Esteem” video.

Maybe I’m being too harsh. I guess The Vogue’s faux-paux made me cherish my first Spoon concert even more, because it now seems unlikely that I’ll ever get the chance to see the band play in Indy again.

SETLIST (not definitive = order approximate, some songs missing)

Don’t You Evah
My Mathematical Mind
All the Pretty Girls Go to the City
The Ghost of You Lingers
Utilitarian
I Summon You
Jonathan Fisk
Everything Hits at Once
Eddie’s Ragga
Black Like Me
Stay, Don’t Go
You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb
Anything You Want
Don’t Make Me a Target
They Never Got You
Finer Feelings
The Underdog
—
Don’t You Evah (Ted Leo Remix)
I Turn My Camera On
Rhthm and Soul
Small Stakes
Panic (Smiths cover)