Look, I'm not saying that it's not a great song. It certainly is. In terms of importance within the genre, there are few songs that can compare.
I get all that.
Still, you have to admit, from a procedural standpoint, "F*ck Tha Police" is all kinds of screwed up.
First off, you've got Judge Dre residing [sic] "in the case of NWA versus the police department." If ever there were a time for a judge to recuse, a case where the judge is a founding member of the group of plaintiffs would seem to be one. Remember your first judicial canon: A judge shall uphold and promote the independence, integrity, and impartiality of the judiciary, and shall avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety.
Next, we hear that the "prosecuting attorneys" are MC Ren, Ice Cube, and Eazy (muthaf*ckin') E. Ignoring the obvious conflict of interest, why are there prosecuting attorneys for something that is styled as a civil case (NWA v. "the police department," which I assume is the LAPD)? That this must be a civil case is more or less confirmed at the end of the song, when the officer is found "guilty of bein' a redneck, whitebread, chickensh*t muthaf*cka," which is nowhere to be found in the California Penal Code.
But, then, maybe they are using "prosecutors" as some weird colloquialism for "plaintiffs' attorneys." Even then, there's a problem, since the attorneys in question are also the only witnesses called in the case. Under Rule 5-210 of the California Rules of Professional Conduct, an attorney "shall not act as an advocate before a jury which will hear testimony from the [attorney] unless: (A) The testimony relates to an uncontested matter; or (B) The testimony relates to the nature and value of legal services rendered in the case; or (C) The member has the informed, written consent of the client. Here, (A) is certainly not uncontested, and (B) is not an issue. As for (C), I suppose it's possible that the clients --- DJ Yella and/or Arabian Prince, I guess --- gave informed, written consent, but we have no proof of that, and that's something that Judge Dre should have inquired as to when the first attorney was called as a witness. (Of course, Judge Dre inexplicably called the witnesses for the plaintiffs, but whatever.)
An even bigger issue is that the defendants in the case do not seem to have an attorney (or at least a competent attorney). During Ice Cube's testimony, all sorts of objectionable statements are made: he speculates that the police stop him because he's "brown" and "a teenager with a little bit of gold and a pager," he speculates that the police "think they have the authority to kill a minority," he accuses the police of being homosexuals, and he both begins and ends his testimony with "f*ck the police." Yet no objection is made. (The same goes for the testimony of MC Ren and Eazy-E as well, and all three witnesses could have been charged with contempt and with felony conveyance of a threat under Cal. Penal Code sec. 422(a).)
Then, at the close of the plaintiffs' case, the defendants' attorney inexplicably decides not to present any evidence whatsoever, nor did he inform the court that being a redneck, whitebread, chickensh*t muthaf*cka was not actually a cause of action under California civil law. Without the objections and without moving for a directed verdict at the close of the plaintiffs' case, the defendants' attorney failed to preserve any of those issues for appeal as well.
So what do we make of this? Is it possible that the whole thing was perfectly crafted meta-commentary, where the "bad guy" in the song was railroaded by a system that was designed to work against him from the start? Actually, no, that's probably not possible; we are, after all, talking about a group that did a stream-of-consciousness song about selling crack. So the odds are beter that N.W.A. simply had no idea how the legal system worked and, thus, were unaware that the premise of their song was so flawed. But the first theory is way more interesting.
On to the Bag!
~Jay:
How tender & delicious would Kelly Clarkson be if you slow smoked her at 225 deg for about 16 hours? All that delicious fat rendering through her ample meat…I can only imagine she would fall right off the bone. What kind of dry rub do you think would best compliment her meat's flavor profile? And what kind of wood would you use? I call the ribs. Since that's off the table, which cut would you want? Would you butcher her first? Or cook her whole on a spit with an apple in her mouth? Or bury her luau style?
How tender and delicious? I'll put it this way: were it available, Athena would have given smoked Kelly to Heracles rather than ambrosia. William Congreve would have said that smoked Kelly soothes the savage beast. In Proverbs, it would say that the words of a whisperer are like smoked Kelly; they go down into the inner parts of the body.
You get my drift.
As for preparing the songstress, I think you have to embrace her Texas roots and go with a classic rub of equal parts black pepper, kosher salt, granulated garlic, and chili powder (a/k/a the beef rub at Taylor Cafe in Taylor, TX). I would recommend splitting her down the front and cooking her, ribs down, on a bed of pecan and apple coals in a closed pit. (Mesquite might overpower her subtle deliciousness, so I'm avoiding it here or at least using it very sparingly.) She seems like she carries a decent amount of back fat, so that should render down into the meat in a delicious manner.
Additionally, I think she's a perfect candidate for injected marinade. Equal parts cider vinegar and peach nectar, maybe with a little canola oil in it.
When it comes time to eat, I'm taking the butt. (Wasn't that an Easy-E lyric?) Slow cooking it like that should leave it very similar to brisket.
I should add that my initial reaction was that Adele would be an even better meal than Kelly Clarkson, but I don't think that's right, mainly because Adele is a smoker. (Also, as I fully plan to marry Adele should I ever channel my inner-Bill Henrickson, it would be better to keep her alive, even in a cannibalistic scenario.)
grungedave:
1. When Community is unceremoniously cancelled in December 2012, what should Alison Brie's next role/job be?
Assuming that Mad Men continues beyond that point, I would hope that Brie would find a new comedic vehicle for her talents. She's surprisingly funny as an actress --- and without the annoying zaniness of a Zooey Deschanel, whose personality occasionally makes me wish she would spontaneously combust --- and it would be a net loss to television comedy to lose her (to say nothing of losing Community). I can't see her as an actress that you would work into an existing sitcom successfully, either; they'd try to add her to a terrible sitcom in the hopes that she "saved" it or they'd shoehorn her into something like Modern Family, where she'd never really be a solid fit. So I guess my preference would be that she find another smartly written comedy and join it from Day 1.
And, now that I've said that, I just realized that there might be one existing show that she would work well in: The League. She's hot enough that the female characters could be jealous of her (though Jenny would never admit it), and you could write her in as a new attorney at Ruxin's firm who gets invited to play in the league because one of the never-seen, off-screen members of the league drops out. Her sense of humor would work really well there, regardless of whether they made her the hot chick that knew nothing about football or the hot chick who knew just enough to be competitive. (In fact, in the latter scenario, you'd create some hilarious tension between Brie and Jenny, so there's that.)
2. How old do you think Sterling Archer is?
I think we can probably figure this out to a surprising degree of certainty. First, we know that he was 36 in the pilot episode, "Mole Hunt."
The weather in "Mole Hunt" was mild --- Sterling broke into ISIS in a tactileneck, neither Cyril nor Lana is wearing a coat when they arrive at ISIS that night, and Krenshaw is wearing only a raincoat. Working under the assumption that the episodes in a given season flow in chronological order (though not tied to the actual air date), the following episode, "Training Day" does not suggest that the weather has cooled (or, I suppose, warmed). "Diversity Hire" does not have an outdoor scene until Archer and Conway Stern get to Miami, so we can't tell much there. In "Killing Utne," which is NOT a reference to the shot-putter, neither Archer nor Elka Hoopsh (?) suggests that it's slightly chilly outside. In "Honeypot," Mallory wears a trench coat when outside early in the episode, but the show winds up in Miami again, so there's not much help beyond a slight suggestion that it's cooling off in New York. "Skorpio" takes place mainly in Saint-Tropez, so no help there. "Skytanic" doesn't tell us much, though Pam is wearing long sleeves when she and Cheryl wind up on the blimp rigid air ship. In "The Rock," the protestors do not seem to be fazed by the weather, and nothing in "Job Offer" suggests that the weather is anything but nice. In "Dial M for Mother," the Germans and Trinette seem dressed for cooler weather. At best, I think Season 1 suggests that Archer has a springtime birthday, and the end of season 1 is in mid-Fall.
Moving to Season 2, the idea that Season 1 ended in mid-Fall is supported by the obvious winter that has hit Germany --- the Alabama of Europe --- in "Swiss Miss." In "A Going Concern," Pam is wearing a sweater that she brought back from Jamaica, which would make sense if she, as HR director, took her vacation in early winter before W-2s were due (end of January). "Blood Test" seems to suggest it's warming in NYC --- no one is wearing coats, but there are long sleeves --- and, in "Pipeline Fever," it's obviously really warm in Louisiana, suggesting that they've hit at least late April by that point. "The Double Deuce" is too flashback-y to tell what's going on, but it seems warm on Archer's terrace. So, by this point, I think Archer has aged about a year. ("Tragical History" and "Movie Star" bear this out.) By "Stage Two," we've got some late-summer-style thunderstorms going on, coupled with heavier raincoats, and "Placebo Effect" takes place two weeks later (per Archer's conversation with Kreiger). The beginning of "El Secuestro" shows Cheryl in a jacket but Pam only in sleeves, and the Monaco Gran Prix occurs in May, so we kind of have a reference for "Jeu Monegasque." In "White Nights" and "Double Trouble," it's snowing in Moscow, so we've hit winter of some sort. However, since it's NOT snowing in New York, and everyone seems fine on Archer's balcony for the wedding, I would assume that the last two episodes occur in March-ish.
In "Heart of Archness: Part 1," we learn that Sterling has been missing for three months, which puts us into June or so and makes him 38. Parts 2 and 3 of that mini-arc don't change this. Then we get the long pause between "Heart of Archness" and "The Man from Jupiter," in which we know it's Sterling's birthday (39 . . . paging Dr. Boy . . . Dr. Birthday Boy . . . ). "El Contador" (jungle) and "The Limited" (Canada) are not time-frame specific really --- I assume winter hits in Canada around Labor Day in the U.S. By the time we hit "Bloody Ferlin," it's cooled off a bit (Ray and Archer wear jackets of the West Virginia fashion variety), but not enough to apparently matter (see Ray's sister-in-law's outfit). So we're looking at early Fall there. In "Crossing Over" and "Skin Game," we don't get much in the way of a frame-of-reference for time, other than to know that it's snow in Siberia. But we can definitely pinpoint the time-frame on "Space Race"; if they were launching for Mars, it almost certainly had to be before in the first few days March 2012, as that is when Mars is in opposition (and closest) to the Earth.
So, to answer your question, it would appear that Archer is either 40 or very close to it.
5StringJeff:
Is any team ever going to move to LA? If so, who, and will the league need to realign the divisions afterwards?
I think it's pretty much a given that someone will move to L.A. in the next four or five years. A TV market that size is simply too enticing from a monetary standpoint. Until they got the stadium deal done, I would have said Minnesota was the most likely, and my Schadenfreude tingled at the thought of L.A. stealing two teams from the Twin Cities. But, with the stadium money in place, they're going nowhere in the near future.
Which leaves us with two obvious choices: the Jacksonville Jaguars and the St. Louis Rams. While we love to tease the Jags' fans (all four of them) about the team taking its tarps and heading west, the Rams seem like a more likely answer to me. Stan Kroenke owns a buttload of teams in Colorado, and he was recently named a finalist in bidding on the L.A. Dodgers. If he moved the Rams out to L.A., his sports empire would be much more consolidated geographically, and having two teams in L.A. would likely give him more leverage in negotiating certain advertising and naming rights. (Counterpoint: Kroenke is from Missouri and is named for two famous St. Louis Cardinals.) Additionally, given his stake in EPL club Arsenal (BOO!), having the Rams in a major market would make it easier to expose the team to people in London (noon PST kickoffs would start in prime time at 8 p.m. in London) and make the idea of the Rams as half of the annual London game a near-certainty.
JBal:
The 1992 film Cool World addressed the vital social issue of its time. I'm speaking, of course, about sex with cartoon characters. Were this possible, which cartoon character* would you most like to bang, and why? (*comic book characters don't count)
This seems like a good time for a Top 5 list, counting down, with a brief explanation as to each:
5. Ariel, The Little Mermaid. I like redheads and, in human form, she spent most of the movie as a mute. That's always a plus.
4. Erin Esurance, Esurance commercials. Sexy secret agent whose only disguise is inexplicably changing from a brunette to a chick with pink hair. She can also play basketball and dunk over 10-foot tall robots, which is pretty impressive. (Protip: Don't Google "Erin Esurance Sexy," lest you are in the mood for some jacked-up fan fiction. See also Rule 34.)
3. Holli Would, Cool World. The blond, non-bunny-banging Jessica Rabbit. I'm just saying, it's hard to fault Gabriel Byrne for the decisions he made. (Note: I am not including Jessica Rabbit in this list, because banging a rabbit is a deal-breaker for me. Though it could be Bobcat Goldthwait's next directorial move.) (Subnote: I note the hypocrisy here, what with my #5 entry having formerly been part fish.)
2. Pam Poovey, Archer. Why? Because when a world-class poonhound like Archer describes sex with someone as the best, most mind-blowing sex he's ever had --- and he is so obsessed with having more of said sex that he neglects almost everything else in his life, even going so far as to smuggle Pam on board a rocket --- that's quality.
1. Lana Kane, Archer. My word, she's hot. Just like ... whoa. (Truckasaurus hands notwithstanding.) And she's dirty. I like dirty.
tehGrindCrusher:
Two questions, actually. 1) What's the best way to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Do you spread the peanut butter first, or the jelly? What about wiping the knife on the unused bread before going to the second condiment? Is that gauche or am I on the right track here?
I think you're on the right track. I spread the jelly first, then wipe the knife on the other bread before spreading the crunchy peanut butter. This is a combination of growing up with a mom who hated peanut butter (and didn't want peanut butter going into the jelly) and the fact that dragging a butter knife with peanut butter on it longways across a slice of a bread tears the bread far too often. Also, not that you asked, but the proper proportions are 2 parts crunchy Jif to 1.5 parts strawberry jam, on white bread, with a couple strips of crispy bacon in the middle.
2) My roommate in college (senior year) was a Canadian who had a peculiar way of making a pb&j. He would use three slices of bread and would add slices of banana as well. So far, so good, right? Problem was, he called his creation the "TD PB& J with B." My other roommate and I had real problems with the double use of the letter B, once to stand for "butter" and once for "bananas." Him being a Canadian, my roommate saw no problem with this confusing formulation. What's your ruling?
His naming system struck me a little odd at first, so I can see why you didn't like it, but I don't really have a problem with the doubling of letters. I mean, lots of famous initialisms have one letter that stands for two or more different words. Think NASA, NCAA,DGDB&D....
I'm more troubled by his inclusion of "TD," however. Well-established sandwich nomenclature holds that the bread is rarely, if ever, referenced in the sandwich name. (Exceptions include deli orders of something "on rye," or fast-food sandwiches such as the Egg McMuffin and the Crossain'wich.) No one refers to a club sandwich as a triple-decker club, nor does the Big Mac reference the middle bun. If a third bread is standard in your creation, it just is, and you don't have to remind people of it. I think the proper name for your roomie's sandwich would be a PBJ&B; the "PBJ" is not going to confuse anyone, and the "&B" makes it clear that the second B is referring to an additional ingredient.