Saturday, February 26, 2011

Did we post this yet?

Because we should have.

Egypt: Tariq Ramadan & Slavoj Zizek - Riz Khan - Al Jazeera Englis

Everyone needs more Zizek in their lives.

Like this wonderful clip--

I mean, come on, he's crazy. It's wonderful. I'd call him a holy fool, but I'm pretty sure he isn't religious and I'm even more certain that he's smarter than me and above three or four other people put together.

He also calls films "fillums" and that is delightful.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Episode 9-- 2 Fast, 2 Darfurious

It's that time again. Here comes the notes for "Episode 9-- 2 Fast, 2 Darfurious!"

The article that topped off our discussion on MOTHER FUCKING DRONE WARS was from Wired's Danger Room, a fun little blog that I think we talk about waaaaaay to often (the article about Drones v. Genocide can be found here). Not that it isn't worth reading, but if it wasn't for us talking about comic books occasionally, one might think that our one and only source for news is the Danger Room.

I guess there's worse things. I guess you could get your news from Fox. Or talk radio. Zing!

As the conversation carried on, I think we kind of realized that drones are the big talking point about national security and war nowadays. At one point in history the discussion might have been about naval power or air superiority or hearts and minds. Now it's just UAVs. Everyone loves them. The CIA, the army, the American people.

Not Pakistanis, though. I can't figure out why that is.

They come in all shapes and sizes, too. We've got stealth drones to hummingbird drones and even miniature drones. Now, as scary as the future might look to you, this isn't anything new, not really. Unmanned drones have existed since the second World War, where they were controlled by a combination of radar, radio, and television. How crazy is that? It just wasn't until a decade or so ago that they were sophisticated enough to kill a single person five thousand miles away from the person driving it (or capable of remaining in the air for days on end).

Quick side-note-- We haven't discussed the Sudan/South-Sudan situation on the show, but considering we mentioned Darfur (which is a region within Sudan) and the ethnic conflicts that occured there, I figure it was worth linking an article about it. We should definitely try to do a follow-up episode on the region.

After we started making fun of military acronyms, I mentioned that the Marine III Corps uses Frank Frazetta's "Death Dealer" as its mascot.



Sure beats the hell out of a cougar.

And speaking of bad military badges. . .


Moving on, Iran has had some trouble over the past couple of weeks (shocking, I know). Obviously the root of the trouble is the fact that many people have grown tired with the status quo in the country (that being that the nation is simply a military junta run by a cadre of fanatical, election stealing theocrats). The recent protests, like many protests in the middle east, were spurred on by Tunis' revolution*, along with the success of Egypt's ousting of Mubarak. What's interesting is that as heavily as the powers that be in Iran are willing to come down on the protestors, despite initially praising the Egyptian peoples' will.

Idiots.

But, we'll sum it up for ya: Shit's fucked, getting fuckeder.

So, we mentioned Bahrain, as well. It's not a nation we're intensely well versed in (as indicated by the fact that neither of us knew where it was on a map or that it existed at all before three weeks ago, I mean, half of us don't even know where Hizbollah works out of). Things have gotten pretty ugly over there (but not as ugly as in Libya, mind you) in recent weeks.

Is it too nerdy to point out that those women in that video are dressed like white mages from Final Fantasy? It is, isn't it? Hold on, just compare the two. Tell me I'm wrong.

Come on. That's uncanny**.

Things were just getting started in Libya when we recorded, but things are going fucking nuts over there. Lots of violence and lots of anger seems to be culminating into a full-blown, clinical case of clusterfuckitis. Gadafi has hired a bunch of mercenaries to abuse and harass those protesting his forty year rule. He's also called in the army to shoot protestors. I was watching a report on Al Jazeera today and besides the big news story of Gadafi calling the army to drop bombs on pepole from jet fighters (and the defections that resulted), some estimates state that as many as a thousand people have been killed in the clashes. A thousand. That's madness.

Just look at how demonstrably crazy and delusional this man is. No sane man would ever look like that (and no sane man would ever surround himself with models-cum-deadly-viper-assassination-squad).

Also, the Lara Logan thing really isn't worth putting any links up about.

And while we could link some articles detailing some poorly laid out thoughts on the matter, that really isn't even worth your time, either. It's a mess and, even though it's a private thing that happened to a public figure, that hardly justifies picking over it like ghouls.

Maybe that comes off as hypocritical concerning the name of this episode and our general tone when it comes to death, murder, and all kinds of other violent acts. Our main drive when making jokes about awful events is too somehow uncover something true or important about those events. With this there isn't much to joke around with, especially considering how little information on it has actually been made available.

Which is just as well, really.

Jeese. Shit got real in the blog. Sorry.

Alright, what else have we got here? Oh yeah, fuck Anderson Cooper. I don't care if he's a good reporter or not or if he highlights human stories that often go overlooked, he can take a few hits from some anonymous internet dweebs. He'll be fine.

FUN FACT: Gloria Vanderbilt was an early pioneer of designer jeans. See? Fashion. I was almost there.

Now with that said, let's let Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds play us out--


SUB-NOTE: Dave has a much better impression of Anderson Cooper than I do-- which isn't to say that it's a good impression, but that Dave will not be asked back on the program for one-upping me. There are just some things you don't do.

* 60 Minutes, a show in which Lara Logan works for, recently had a segment about the match that literally started the fires of revolution in Tunisia. It's a pretty interesting story which has been fairly well over-shadowed by the goings on in Egypt. It's worth hunting down. (EDIT: Oh, here it is. That was easy.)

** I realize that I completely misnamed that image of the Bahrainian woman. Looks like I just pulled a Joe! Oh man, why is that the first time I've ever thought of hunting down that clip on You Tube? This is going to completely change my life.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Oh, and Here's a Thought

I'll post a link to Episode 8: Joe and James: Real Americans right here--

Boom.

Enjoy. I'll be the first to admit: Not our best work, but still, it's a good A-/B+ in the grand scheme of things. Nothing to be ashamed of.

Episode 8 Notes

I'm going to valiantly struggle through this cold/allergies/dog bite to bring these annotations to you, the people.

Ugh, I want to die.

Anyways, here goes, notes for Episode 8:

We started off the episode by talking about the artist Frank Frazetta, who died last year. He's probably most famous for painting about a million covers for Conan and a bunch of other pulp novels.

Case in point:

Meow.

Here's a fun fact, Frazetta's most iconic creation, the "Death Dealer" was turned into a comic book that was written by Glen Danzig (of Danzig) and drawn by Simon Bisley*. That's the craziest thing I've read all day, including the instructions on how to use a Netti Pot when you're hopped up on half a dozen Dayquils.

Bust that one out at a party the next time you find yourself without anything to say. You're welcome.

After that we move on to talking about the Captain America Super Bowl teaser.



All in all, I think we can agree that it could use some more quick cuts. I mean, you've got 24 frames a second to work with, why let so many go to waste like that?

We also went on to say that Ed Brubaker's run on Captain America (at least towards the beginning) was really damn cool. It more or less encapsulated everything that makes Captain America cool without any of the hokum that comes with the character (not unlike some sort of nerd-barnacle).

Next up, we reviewed Captain America: Truth, a comic book that told a secret chapter of Captain America's origin**. We came to different conclusions regarding the quality of the book, but we agree on one thing, that it's worth reading and it has one hell of an ending.

After a cursory search on Google, I couldn't find any images of the comic that are worth a damn. Oh well.

Instead, here's an insane drawing from Jack Kirby.


This is what my dreams look like.

Alright, play us out, Patton.



* I met Simon Bisley once at a bar. He called me an asshole. True story.

** Joe was wrong about the amount of issues. There was seven of them, not five.

Saturday, February 12, 2011

We Did It, Guys!

Our podcast kicked autocrat Honsi Mubark (AKA "Dirty M") out of office!

Alright, I'll admit, I'm overstating it a bit, but, I think I'm safe in saying-- And I am sure you will all agree-- that our humble podcast helped in deposing one of the Middle East's longest running autocrats.

We made our effort and the deed is done.

So, keep an eye out this week, because we got another episode in the pipeline and a follow up on Egypt and the Moscow airport bombing soon. We, if anything, shall leave no stone unturned-- or made fun of. Or ignored.

We are a consistent paradox, if nothing else.

Lord knows that Egypt's future is as uncertain , but, we think that at very least Egypt has the potential for being a positive force in the region (which is a line we're stealing from Dan Carlin, by the way). There aren't any certainties and getting too excited is silly, but no one can deny the fact that it is pretty cool that you (and me) were witnesses to something your kids are going to learn about in high school. There's a select few of these events that don't involve people dying. This is important.

While White Guys, Square Glasses, as a podcast, didn't quite crack the surface of Egypt's complex political dramas, we'd like to think that we got one or two people interested (besides the tens of thousands we galvanized for the Revolution, I mean). We won't ever get too polemic, but we have no desire to shy away from talking about important, complicated shit that is going on in the world-- even if we are discintly unqualified.

This is exciting times to be podcasting and we're chuffed as nuts to be here.

Now, I'm going to leave The Clash to play us out.

Thanks, Joe.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Hey, Here's a Thought

We should actually embed our podcast so people can listen to it!

Episode 7 is concerned with the Green River Killer, Brian "Jakes" Jacques' death, bad fantasy novels, and worse fantasy art. It's a gosh darn blast, I tell you what.

Click here to listen.

What a concept.

Episode 7 Notes

While Episode 7 discussion doesn't quite lend itself to hyperlinks like Episode 6 did, we cited more than enough stuff to justify making another bunch of annotations.

So, without further ado, we mentioned the "Green River Killer" AKA Gary Ridgway AKA "The Sultan of Slaughter" AKA "Hooker Killer MacGoo" AKA "A Major Asswipe" AKA "Best Buy Salesperson of the Year." Here's the article we used as our source. See, it's just as easy as sniffing around the BBC to pretend like you're an expert on crime and punishment.

And here's how James probably thinks he should be put down (blog exclusive content!!!).



Author Brian Jacques passed away this past week at the age of 71. Also, we should add a correction. We pronounced his last name as "Jaw-khs." Several people-- nerds-- have told us that his name is actually pronounced "Jay-kes." After a brief perusal through the internet, we have discovered that his last name is pronounced as "Ee-noh." You are welcome.

Lastly, here's a sample of the awful, yet strangely inoffensive art from Larry Elmore.



The man clearly has some semblance of skill. It's kind of odd that he seemingly refuses to use it. Here's his official website, because we just know you're looking to buy a print (Joe's wedding is coming up soon, hint, hint).

Does that about cover it? Probably. It's good enough for me. It's not like any of us are getting paid for this.

Now I'm going to let Creedence play us out.





Thanks, guys.

Hey There, Reprobates!

Hi, there and welcome to the premier, official blog entry* for the White Guys, Square Glasses show!

Don't know who we are? You don't? Really? How the hell did you get here? Are you looking for twink porn? Because this isn't that. It's close, but not close enough. Sorry. Just hit the back button a couple of times, I'm sure you'll land on something eventually.

For those who aren't looking for hard core gay porn, White Guys, Square Glasses is made up of two recent college graduates who go by the names Joe Bryant and James Kislingbury (Note: One of us is writing this and it's super weird to talk in the third person about yourself. It's a fresh new level of narcissism. Thank you, 21st Century!). We make a comedy podcast that concerns itself with news, pop culture, and politics. We hit a lot of bases and none of them well. Our main goal is to make people laugh and our secondary goal is to get people to notice news stories and think about events in the world that they might not want to otherwise.

Basically on a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of in-depth/dry/pedagogic reporting, 1 being the Weekly World News and 10 being CSPAN, we're about a 5 and a half**. We want to talk about world affairs and movies (or whatever) without putting off anyone on either end of the spectrum. We might not get too indepth or philosophical with our wheelings and dealings, but we aren't making anyone vomit in rage, either.

It's just how we are.

You can find us on Podomatic on iTunes**. You can also make like we're buddies on Facebook and follow us like a bloodhound on Twitter.

Tell your friends. Tell your neighbor. Tell your cats, why don't you?

* There has been a shocking amount of unofficial, unlicensed, and undesired fan-sites. We have vowed to crush them with the full-force of our velvet fist.

** That's not bad. The McLaughlin Group gets a 7. Good company, if you ask me.

*** We're all okay with not linking iTunes, right? Everyone knows how to find that, right?