Wouldn’t it be great if kids could watch their grandparents’ life stories on TV?

With so many biographies available about empty celebrities, wouldn't it be great if kids could watch their grandparents' life stories on TV?

I’m not going to lie — I enjoy meeting famous people just like the next guy. I’m amused by brushing elbows with celebrities, although I no longer will breathlessly ask for a picture or autograph if the situation is awkward or if I am in a professional setting.

But often, the more exposure I have to a celebrity, the less impressed I am.

The most gratifying moments of my journalism career have been capturing the untold stories of remarkable people who deserve a helluva lot more attention than Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton.

Back in the 1920s, pilot Anne Wood-Kelly was told that little girls didn’t learn how to fly airplanes. In the 1930s, she was told that teenage girls didn’t learn how to fly airplanes. In the 1940s, she left Maine to volunteer for the British Royal Air Force to ferry planes to fight the Nazis.

My grandfather, Abraham “Bob” Tubin, never flew any Spitfire planes. He drove a Boston Herald delivery truck and his life adventure was busting his butt to support his family.

I’m privileged to be involved with a new personal documentary film business called “Reel Profiles,” which seeks to preserve the stories of people like Anne Wood and Grandpa Bob forever. In a much more engaging, dynamic and professional way than the traditional scrapbook or photo slideshow — in a way that harvests archival research and incorporates American history and world events.

Reel Profile documentaries include personal life stories, military histories, family histories, business profiles and celebrations of religious and nonprofit organizations that make an amazing impact on people’s lives.

A personal documentary is the kind of investment that can’t be wiped out by a crappy economy. I believe genealogy buffs would love to capture their family history for future generations. And that many people would love to commission films to celebrate their personal heroes, hopefully for them to appreciate at a tribute dinner, birthday or anniversary celebration.

If you know of any such people, please send them my way!

Capture That Auschwitz Moment

Here’s the tacky tourist equivalent of a bubbly newscaster smiling while he or she reads a report of a deadly earthquake halfway around the world… Some of the clueless dorks I encountered at the Auschwitz-Birkenau deathcamp thought they were in a theme park. But unlike one Holocaust researcher, at least I didn’t see any guys with their shirts off tossing a Frisbee around the gas chambers.

Japanese tourists take turns playfully posing by the barbed wire electric fence at the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau deathcamp, the Nazi graveyard for 1.5 million Holocaust victims.

“Capture That Auschwitz Moment:
Tacky tourism becomes part of the concentration camp landscape“

By Darren Garnick
Originally published Oct. 26, 1998
The Jerusalem Report
**
OSWIECIM, POLAND — The tourist from Japan is on his stomach, straddling the main train tracks that bisect Birkenau. Meticulously resting his camera on the railroad ties, it first appears as if he wants a low angle shot of the camp. But he wants more. Clicking the camera’s self-timer button, he scrambles a few meters forward and sits on the tracks. He now has a better photo: himself crouching in front of the SS “Gate of Death.”

Off to the side, two other visitors take turns posing by the barbed wire fence. At nearby Auschwitz, an American stands stoically for his wife’s camera in front of canisters of Zyklon B, the same ones the Nazis used to gas people to death. The great concentration camp photo-op is too tempting to pass up.

Containing the ashes of 1.5 million victims — 90 percent of them Jews — Auschwitz-Birkenau has the sad distinction of being the world’s largest cemetery, a cemetery that doubles as an international tourist destination. On a scorching late-summer afternoon, the parking lot is filled with tour buses. One reads: “Regular Tours: Salt Mine — Wieliczka/ Auschwitz-Birkenau EVERY DAY.”

One of the throngs is Jeff Lavie, a Los Angeles public school teacher who says he is here to find out more about the deaths of relatives of his maternal grandparents in the camp and to satisfy a “curiosity to understand where my relatives stood.” But, he says, it is frustrating trying to find somewhere to pray among the streams of tourists. “This is a grieving place, but there is no place set aside to pray,” Lavie says, adding that he would like to see a centralized spot more conducive to leaving flowers and candles.

Lavie says most of his fellow visitors were respectful, but also harried by their guides. “Most people were rushed through here. Auschwitz was just ‘Stop B’ on a lot of places to get to that day.”

James E. Young, chair of Judaic Studies at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, has visited Auschwitz-Birkenau more than 30 times for his research on Holocaust memorials. He says he has witnessed numerous tourists who see the trip as a “vicarious thrill.”

The Great Auschwitz Photo-Op

“It is a very slippery line. At what point does a pilgrimage turn into entertainment? I don’t know where the line is drawn, but I know it when I see it,” Young says. “I know when people are playing Frisbee with their shirts off that something is wrong. It doesn’t happen often, but it happens.”

Young says he believes that most inappropriate behavior is not motivated by disrespect. In the case of overzealous photography, he suspects most people just want proof that “we were there. There’s such a thing as unintentional descrecration,” he says. “Even survivors my unintentionally violate the sacredness of the camps.”

Sometimes, tourist behavior can enhance the memorial. Rocks with Stars of David and “Yisrael” written on them left at the edge of the Birkenau tracks by Jewish youth groups may be regarded as more poignant that the official monuments.

As custodian of the camps, the Polish government is often in a no-win situation. If it promotes the camps too much, it will be accused of exploitation. If it stays too low-key, it could be accused of ignoring the Holocaust. According to Young, the most positive change was when the post-Communist government stopped renting out the camps as sets for movies and TV programs.

In 1989, the American producers of “Triumph of the Spirit” (a movie about a Greek-Jewish boxer forced to fight fellow inmates for Nazi entertainment) left papier-mache gas chambers propped up at Birkenau directly over the dynamited ruins left by the Germans. Says Young: “The last thing I’d want is to see a Holocaust denier show up and see a fake gas chamber.”

But fears of commercializing the Holocaust will always loom at Auschwitz-Birkenau, where the differences between the terms “gift shop” and “book store” are subtle. The shops, located right in front of the main entrance, so far have avoided items like T-shirts and key chains; postcards of the “Arbeir macht frei” (”Work makes you free”) gate and the Auschwitz fence at sunset are the closest things to souvenirs now available.

A mini-mall — complete with a visitor’s center, bank, post office and restaurant — is scheduled for completion next February. This is a scaled-down version of a planned larger center, including a supermarket and fast food restaurants. And in an attempt to minimize offense, the mall, which will be located across the street, will be a neutral color and contain no large advertisements.

While the controversy and tension over the crosses placed outside Auschwitz-Birkenau recently by Catholic extremists assume a higher international profile, it may be the identity struggle between tourist destination and Holocaust memorial that will never be resolved.

“When the graves of your family become the historical curiosities of others, the conflict begins,” says Young. “Here’s the choice: Either we put the sites off-limits to everyone but historians… or we end up with kiosks selling mementos. There is no way to win this.”
**

HONEY, GRAB A PICTURE OF ME WITH THE ZYKLON B! (An American tourist wants Nazi poison gas in his vacation scrapbook)

The Original Butt Sketch: Every tush is beautiful in its own way

The Original Butt Sketch elevates sidewalk artists to lucrative trade show gigs

CULTURE SCHLOCK — By Darren Garnick
“Every tush is beautiful — in it’s own way.”
Originally published: March 17, 2000
The Telegraph/Encore Magazine
**
While the scientists on the Human Genome Project aim to discover every DNA sequence in the human body, Texas artist Krandel Lee Newton isn’t concerned about probing underneath the surface. Focusing on exteriors and posteriors, he is driven by one core belief: You never forget your first Butt Sketch.

Newton is a mercenary artist, a charcoal-for-hire sent to fight boredom on treacherous trade show turf. A few weeks ago in New Orleans, I met him at a not-so-boring gathering of TV programming executives. But I just as easily could have discovered the Butt Sketch if I were a florist, a dentist or a mortgage banker.

I begin by walking over to a masking tape line on the plush carpet cushioning my feet. My back to the easel, I spread my feet about three feet apart and put my hands on my hips — my imagined “tough guy” stance.

Krandel scampers in front of me like an art critic looking for a good angle. His hands, too, are on his hips. “Is this the way you want to pose?” he asks, making direct eye contact. His voice softens. “I like what you’re doing. I really do. I just want to tweak things a bit.”

The artist gently nudges my head to my left, pats my shoulder and says, “See you in two-and-a-half minutes.”

I don’t feel self-conscious while my butt is being sketched. Maybe that’s because my pants are kept on. Maybe it’s also because Krandel has a non-threatening, wisecracking style that instantly puts me at ease. For a brief moment, I believe I can quit my job and pose for Dockers ads.

In the end, my Butt Sketch really does look like me and the appeal is twofold. First, there’s accuracy. Nobody thinks about his or her rear end being as definitive as a thumbprint. Yet, Krandel proves that it is, capturing an individual’s personality through tushie language. Second, Krandel’s quality doesn’t suffer despite the self-imposed time limit.

Sharianne Brill, of New York City, watched me get my butt sketched. Satisfied with the results, she tells Krandel: “Wow, that’s good. I hope you do my body justice!”

Three minutes later, Brill is happy. “Oh man, I look hot! My butt says I mean business,” she says. “People always teased me about my booty for years, but if you got it baby, flaunt it!”

Krandel, 41, was an engineer for Westinghouse before becoming a full-time butt sketcher 13 years ago. Trade show paychecks are far more lucrative, multiplying his old salary “more than five times” and bringing in enough business to hire a support team of seven artists. Inspiration came from his days as a sidewalk artist, when bystanders would marvel at his drawings of parades – from the rear.

“There is no horrible looking butt. Every butt is a good butt in my eyes,” Krandel says. “That’s my company line and I’m sticking to it.”

The artist admits he has “been accused of having a flattering hand” in his drawings. Perhaps he should sell women’s bathing suits on the side. Krandel is the consummate salesman, enticing both men (40 percent of drawings) and women to play along with the gag. The co-ed clientele and his avoidance of offensive innuendos have shielded him from inevitable cries of sexism.

“The first time I saw him I was so nervous,” recalls Leslie McClure, a publicist from California. “Nobody likes their own butts, especially women.” Since sketch one, she has been immortalized five more times and even hired Krandel to sketch guests at her 50th birthday party.

For the record, all of McClure’s Butt Sketches are framed and matted. Four hang in her office and two are displayed at home. Krandel, who obviously loves repeat business, insists he doesn’t get tired of drawing the same butt twice.

“We like to call them ‘Butt Upgrades,’” he says.
**
Darren Garnick’s “Culture Schlock” appears every Friday in The Telegraph’s Encore magazine.

**

ALSO SEE: Booty Call: Butt Sketch artists shake up corporate trade shows

Booty Call: Butt Sketch artists shake up corporate trade shows

Original Butt Sketch charcoal artists are shaking up the world of trade show entertainment

THE WORKING STIFF – By Darren Garnick
” BOOTY CALL: ‘Butt Sketch’ artists shake up corporate trade shows”
Originally Published: February 22, 2006 (Boston Herald)
**
It’s called the “Butt Sketch.” And it’s probably the only time co-workers can blatantly ogle their office crush without being accused of sexual harassment.

It’s also the great equalizer between bosses and employees. Fashion doesn’t care what your business card says.

“If there was any tension before in the office, it’s gone when I get through with them,” grins Butt Sketch artist Pjae Adams, who captures “posteriors for posterity” in up to 10 cities per month. “Hopefully, they’ll go back to work with a new sense of comraderie.”

Adams was sketching butt this past weekend at the Hynes Convention Center, where thousands of college students gathered to scout entertainment acts at the National Association for Campus Activities Conference. Her act seems gimmicky at first – Project Runway meets amusement park caricature – but those who walk away with the charcoal picture may momentarily fantasize about posing for the next Macy’s newspaper ad.

Revere’s Jeff Smith, a student affairs administrator at Salem State College, plans to hang his likeness in his office. “It’s a different perspective of you,” he says. “You never see what you look like from the back. There’s no mirror to do that.”

“Some people are shy at first, but there’s a little bit of exhibitionist in everyone,” adds the 29-year-old Adams, who used to design boutique shop windows in Atlanta and Dallas.

The artist’s outgoing personality must have been wasted on the mannequins. Adams begins her two-and-a-half minute sessions with friendly banter urging her models to relax. Usually, the Butt Sketch becomes a group experience with co-workers smirking and laughing in the background.

Original Butt Sketch artist Pjae Adams

“I think this is great for guys and girls,” says Butt Sketch devotee Krystal Johnson, a student at the University of North Carolina. “But you can’t take it too seriously.”

Sage advice.

My turn on the Butt Sketch runway was enlightening. At the risk of sounding trite, I have gained new respect for fashion models. I had trouble standing frozen yet “relaxed” for more than two minutes. And I still can’t pull off a pouty expression.

Nonetheless, my butt does look fantastic. In fact, everyone’s butts look fantastic off the charcoal pencil of Adams, who admits using a flattering touch.

“Whether people believe me or not, that’s what I see. Every butt is different. Every butt has its own personality,” she says.

Just as fascinating as the psychology of the Butt Sketch experience is the backstory. Dallas sidewalk artist Krandel Lee Newton first set up his easel in 1987 at the West End Marketplace, a tourist spot similar to Faneuil Hall. The popularity of his “Original Butt Sketch” appearances at trade shows, conventions and private parties eventually encouraged him to build a Butt Sketch empire.

Today, a dozen artists travel the country to immortalize the tushes of people who’ll likely never have the opportunity to model again. Newton’s company, which charges between $1,700 and $3,000 for a four-hour session, boasts more than 250,000 Butt Sketches in its portfolio — including the famous rear ends of Alex Trebek, Donnie & Marie Osmond, Ted Danson and Queen Latifah.

Butt Sketch artist Pjae Adams

“I never imagined I’d be sketching people’s butts for a living,” says Adams, who hopes the gig will advance her art career. “But I always hoped to use my gifts to support myself.”

Specializing in acrylic paintings of the human form, Adams sometimes finds that her rapid fashion drawings of accountants and dental hygienists subconsciously influence her future work.

“The more butts I sketch,” she says, “the more inspired I become.”

**
Darren Garnick’s “Working Stiff” column runs every Wednesday in the Boston Herald. Story tips from the workplace are welcomed via email at heraldstiff @ gmail.com.

**

ALSO SEE: Every tush is beautiful – in its own way!

Bored with the slot machines? – Try creepy casino corpses!

Bored with the slots? Check out the latest entertainment offering at my local gambling hole, the Foxwoods Resort Casino.

For $20 (or $18 in Foxwoods “Dream Points”), gamblers can enjoy “BODIES REVEALED,” a traveling museum exhibit featuring rubberized human cadavers frozen in cutesy sports poses.

I’ve been a relentless critic of competing corpse shows. Let’s just say that I am no fan of playing with dead people like they are action figures. And that the mad scientists who make these creepy corpse action figures are not fans of mine.

Maybe I was brainwashed with all the God talk and respect-for-life babble in Hebrew School. But dipping human flesh in plastic and posing it with soccer balls and tennis racquets is UNETHICAL. And perhaps even a tad bit evil.

Even if they have the permission slips to do it.

Check out the contrite disclaimer on the official BODIES REVEALED site, which no doubt refers to fears that China may have found a new way to make political dissidents disappear:

Premier Exhibitions’ suppliers certify that the specimens in the BODIES REVEALED exhibitions have been donated by the deceased or their authorized family member for education and that the specimens died of natural causes. Premier employs a retired anatomy professor and a biological anthropologist to examine the specimens and they have never found any evidence of trauma associated with bodily injury. Premier cannot, however, independently guarantee the origins of the specimens.

But my favorite public relations BS has to be the marketing of this exhibit as the ultimate dieting aid. From the Foxwoods Resort Casino Press Room: “Authentic human specimens illustrate the damage caused to organs by over-eating and lack of exercise. The Exhibition will change the way people see themselves. It is designed to enlighten, empower, fascinate, and inspire.”

Any way to buy one of these obese human figurines to stick next to your treadmill?

Phishing for Jewish Heritage

Though many may see Phish as the heirs to the Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia’s band never regaled audiences with renditions of “Jerusalem of Gold” – in Hebrew, no less

GEFILTE PHISH
Originally Published: December 26, 1996
The Jerusalem Report
By Darren Garnick

They never asked to inherit the mantle of the Grateful Dead after Jerry Garcia’s death. They seldom sing about utopian peace, love or brotherhood. But whether they accept the honors or not, the members of the undefinable Vermont band Phish are the shaggy-haired heirs to the Grateful Dead. Their ever-expanding and faithful population of “Phishheads,” comprised mostly of those born after Volkswagen buses went out of vogue, are keeping the American hippie mystique alive.

Guitarist Trey Anastasio, keyboardist Page McConnell, bassist Mike Gordon and drummer Jon Fishman, all hovering around age 30, often bounce mid-stage on trampolines, not missing a beat in their performance – which is never the same set of songs as the previous night. The crowd-pleasing Fishman wears a polka-dot dress in concert and sometimes plays the vacuum cleaner as a musical instrument. Like the Grateful Dead, Phish has always sold more concert tickets than albums and encourages its fanatically loyal fans to make bootleg tapes of their shows.

It is no accident if some of Phish’s infamous free-wheeling jams – which never get airplay on mainstream radio stations – include occasional snatches of Hebrew. Fishman and bassist Mike Gordon are Jewish, and bundled in their tie-dyed core are strands of klezmer and even “Jerusalem of Gold.” The Hebrew lyrics of Naomi Shemer’s classic song, which turned into an ode to the reunification of Jerusalem after the 1967 Six-Day War, was featured in the liner notes of the group’s 1994 album “Hoist,” and the melody made its way into the end of a long instrumental on the disk, just as it sometimes unexpectedly surfaces in concert.

Gordon, who attended the Solomon Schechter Hebrew Day School in Newton, Massachusetts, in his youth, used to hear the tune on one of his parents’ Israeli “Greatest Hits” compilation albums, which got major air time in the house. “It’s been a melody that has been stuck in my head since childhood. We sort of sing a mediocre – or bad – version of the song,” the self-effacing Gordon recently told The Jerusalem Report. “The first time we played the song in concert was a great moment. It was at a sold-out show near Boston, and 17,000 people were perfectly silent. They didn’t know what they were hearing” – not surprising, since Phish was performing it in Hebrew. “It was special, because my grandmother was there.”

Gordon, whose grin adorns the cover of Phish’s 1996 release, “Billy Breathes,” recalls that the non-Jewish band members “were eager to do ‘Yerushalayim Shel Zahav.’ I’m more familiar with Hebrew than Jon. It was difficult for them to learn their parts. I’m not as religious as I used to be,” he says. “But at the same time, I feel I have a strong Jewish identity and it is an important part of who I am.”

THE “PHAB PHOUR,” as some wryly refer to them in writing, are always striving to outdo themselves on the quirky meter. Adopting “musical costumes,” for Halloween concerts, the band has done shows consisting entirely of cover versions of the Beatles’s “White Album” and The Who’s “Quadrophenia.” This year they were the Talking Heads, performing songs from their album “Remain in Light.”

While non-Phish fans are quick to dismiss some of the band’s own lyrics as foolish babble, they will never be accused of attending the Cliche School of Songwriting. “Scent of a Mule,” for example, is about a girl and her donkey trying to make peace with their UFO abductors. Trying to be diplomatic, she urges the aliens: “Stop, we ain’t looking for a fightin’… Come on over for some lemonade – just follow me now with the whole brigade.” The appropriately titled “Dinner and a Movie” is an endless reel of the dating refrain, “Let’s go out to dinner and see a movie.” And another foot-tapper called “Contact” is a silly, rhyming tribute to our dependence on the automobile: “The tires are the things on your car that make contact with the road… Bummed is what you are when you find out that your car has been towed.”

The band has been together since 1983, when three of its four members met as freshmen at the University of Vermont. Attracting a strong following on the college pub circuit, the musicians held a series of jobs as odd as their song lyrics. According to their fan newsletter, “Doniac Schvice” (the name was chosen by the band itself, and has no known meaning in any modern language), McConnell once worked in a candy store painting white spots on chocolate cows and Fishman formerly stitched maternity bathing suits.

What probably draws most fans, Jewish or otherwise, to Phish is the energetic dancing the band’s concerts afford them the opportunity to partake in. “The appeal of a Phish concert is sweat, gallons and gallons of sweat, although the stench from the unwashed hippies can be a turnoff,” says Al Kaufman, a music critic from Austin, Texas. “Phish just plays. There is no overpowering light show or technical wizardry. It is just a bunch of great musicians on stage enjoying what they are doing. That’s rare today.”

That may be why a two-day concert at an air force base in Plattsburgh, New York, last August, drew 135,000 fans. And why, in the spirit of the Deadheads, Phish has a ferociously loyal national following that includes fans who follow them from show to show. And though live performances are still their bedrock, record sales are nothing to sneeze at either: The band now has three gold albums (500,000 copies sold), “Hoist,” 1995’s “A Live One” and “Billy Breathes,” their latest.

Cincinnati social worker Jonathan Willis, who regards himself as a fan of both Phish and the Grateful Dead, maintains that the comparison between the two bands is an unfair one. “Obviously, the death of Jerry contributes to their recent surge in popularity. The Generation X-ers are looking for a sense of community and bonding around the ideas of hope and peace. People are projecting that onto Phish,” Willis says. “But Phish has a much more ironic and fun view of the world than the Grateful Dead. They don’t buy into that peace, love and harmony bit as much as the Grateful Dead theoretically did.”

Phish fan Lynda Segal, who works in magazine production in Massachusetts, claims to be drawn by the band’s nonromantic lyrics and Fishman’s offbeat feminine wardrobe, which has been copied by numerous male fans. “I hate groups that sing about love. Love is so overrated,” she says. “And I have to admire any guy who wants to wear a skirt. Pants are very restrictive. There is a certain freedom that comes with wearing a dress.” (Fishman, it should be noted, is not a transvestite per se; he’s just a guy in a dress who plays the drums.)

Segal, who says she was first exposed to Phish while visiting an American friend who was spending time studying in Israel, also likes the idea of Hebrew-influenced hippies: “It’s cool that the band has tapped into their heritage. It’s cool that a Jewish song has become a pop song. But I wonder if the crowd really understands it.” Gordon, who occasionally has sung verses of the High Holy Days hymn “Avinu Malkenu” in concert, concedes that not too many fans probably “get it.” Phish fans, however, have come to expect becoming familiar with the unfamiliar.

“To some, it seems blasphemous to take a holy prayer and play it in concert. I don’t sing it as a joke. It’s an acknowledgment of my heritage,” Gordon says. “When we play it, I can always look up and see the Jews in the audience smiling.”
**

IS IT TRUE THAT 30 PERCENT OF PHISH HEADS ARE JEWISH?

I’ve read this unsubstantiated statistic in several Phish profiles, based on anecdotal evidence at Phish concerts (or by prejudiced bastards who think they can spots Jews in a crowd just by looking at them).

In any case, I highly recommend checking out the most entertaining travelogue ever written about the Jewish-Phish connection: Felix Vikhman’s 1999 Salon essay exploring those “looking for God in a haze of mushrooms and acid.”

Admit it, you secretly wish you were playing shuffleboard (and smelled like) New Kids on the Block

Some of the 30-year-old “girls” blessed to be playing shuffleboard this weekend on Carnival’s New Kids on the Block cruise were observed kissing cardboard cutouts of their favorite boy band as they boarded the ship.

For the screeching girls sake, I hope that Danny Wood, Joey McIntyre, Donnie Wahlberg, Jordan Knight and Jonathan Knight are in a better mood on the lido deck than they were at a Manhattan Macy’s where they were promoting perfume.

According to the photographer who snapped this pix that ran in the NY Daily News, the NKOTB gang seemed pissed to be promoting their product:

“The group poses for photogs at Macy’s Herald Square where The New Kids On The Block were promoting thier Izod Fragrance … The kids seemed not very enthusiastic about posing for the photogs and seemed to just go thru the motions … for what seemed to be all of two minutes and then the security person called a halt to photographing and the photogs were cleared from the store…”

Back to the issue of kissing cardboard cutouts, this behavior is actually quite common amongst devoted boy band fans. Because I simply cannot spread around this link enough, here is the most passionate cardboard kisser on the planet — perhaps the most entertaining character EVER discovered by me and filmmaker Peter Koziell.

If you know any New Kids on the Block fans who deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Tony — fans who have changed their hair color more often to please the NKOTB — please let me know and we will dispatch a camera crew there for a “Totally Devoted” sequel.

Budget permitting, of course.

Elephants to Disney: Can you spare a frickin’ Snapple?

Disney’s environmentalist propaganda offensive, the movie “Earth,” serves up phenomenal how-did-they-get-that footage and delivers on its rated G promise to not sensationalize the endless murder sprees in the wild kingdom.

Plus, not a single polar bear or sperm whale drops the F-bomb.

Nevertheless, I find two scenes hauntingly disturbing:

1. ELEPHANTS SUCKING ON DUST — We see a mommy and baby elephant trudge through a drought-ravaged corridor of Africa.  Making the lack of water even worse are the clouds of dust that line their throats, thick enough to make the movie audience cough.

I know the camera crews thought they were being responsible documentarians by refusing to alter the story, but couldn’t they occasionally spare a bottle of frickin’ Snapple or spring water?  Inconsiderate bastards.

2. PACIFIST WALRUSES — Picture the scene… one famished and scrawny polar bear arrives on an island filled with fat and brawny walruses. The polar bear lunges, at nursing home speed, at the yummy walrus children.

How do the fully-armed (well, tusked) walruses respond? Most of them run away. A few of them scrape their daggers into the bear’s fur, but mostly you see tails. it’s a slow-motion chase to nowhere because the bear tires of running for food, and tires of simply living.

Although the walruses lucked out with a weak enemy, their parenting behavior and overall self-esteem is absolutely disgraceful. You could arm these walruses with fully-stocked F-16s and Apache helicopters and they would use them to fly away from the bear.

Honestly, the “Earth” storylines were no more compelling than the average nature documentary on the Discovery Channel. But all the drama in these kind of films is artificially constructed anyhow.

Spoiler Alert! Here’s what happens in the movie…  Animals are born, they eat, they look for more things to eat, they move around some more, and then they die.

There, I just saved you nine bucks a head.

Enough is Enough: Time to shed those pirate-themed pajamas

Do these pirate pajamas from The GAP glorify the Somalian pirate thugs?

While the rescue of the American ship captain from B-List terrorists in the Gulf of Aden is fantastic news, it is now time to re-examine our society’s glorification of pirate culture.  These kidnappers weren’t wearing puffy shirts and didn’t look like Somalian Johnny Depps, but they still “deserve” to call themselves pirates.

After all, the original pirates were greedy, murderous bastards. And I’m not buying the PR campaign that these are nice pirates only interested in fundraising by ransom. They don’t carry AK-47s for the conversation value.

The CIA generally does not take advice from pop culture columnists. They should.  I warned about this threat back in 2005…

**
CULTURE SCHLOCK – BY DARREN GARNICK
“Unwelcome Comeback: Time for landlubbers to strike back at the pirates”
Originally Published: December 1, 2005
**
Given the widespread backlash against toy guns and other violent toys, it is astounding how many kumbaya-singing parents out there are okay with their kids pretending to be pirates. Saying “Bang, bang, you’re dead!” is bad. But it’s perfectly fine for the kiddies to impale each other with a plastic sword.

Let’s be frank. Once you move beyond their charming relationships with parrots, pirates are nothing more than flamboyantly dressed street thugs.

They rape. They loot. They pillage.

Do Playmobil pirate toys glorify the Somalian pirate thugs?

Yet, if you survey the toy world, you might think pirates are as innocuous as Care Bears or Rainbow Brite. Lego has a whole slew of new pirates led by a maniacal-looking Captain Redbeard, who, according to his bio, “believes in fair play.” Playmobil, the European playsets popular with preschoolers, dedicates a two-page spread in its new catalog to its smiling band of thieves. And there’s even a pirate version of Hello Kitty, the sweet Japanese icon of pre-teen femininity.

You have to give credit to the Wiggles. To my knowledge, Jeff, Anthony, Greg and Murray are the only elite pop culture figures to publicly call for the demilitarization of pirates. Captain Feathersword, whose name is self-explanatory, currently headlines the Wiggles’ “Sailing Around the World” tour.

Souvenir program from when I saw Captain Feathersword perform live. "Fruit Salad" sounds much better live.

All of this might be cuter than a pair of pirate pajamas from The Gap if these binge-drinking scoundrels weren’t in the midst of a meteoric comeback. According to an Associated Press report than ran in The Telegraph (“21st century pirates can be found around the world,” Nov. 17), more than 100 commercial and private ships were hijacked this year between January and June – most in the South China Sea. Attempted attacks have occurred off the coast of every continent except for Antarctica.

Part of the blame belongs to Johnny Depp, who made the profession sexy again in the 2003 movie, “Pirates of the Caribbean.” He is now concurrently filming two sequels slated for release in 2006 and 2007. But today’s pirates aren’t prancing around in puffy shirts and eyeliner. They’re packing machine guns and holding passengers and crewmembers hostage for whatever measly riches they can pocket. Cash. Jewelry. All-U-Can-Eat shrimp platters.

In the past six months alone, pirates have struck 25 times off the coast of Somalia. In early November, the Seabourn Spirit luxury cruise ship was 100 miles off shore in the Indian Ocean when it was greeted with rocket-propelled grenades and the pop of AK-47s. The crew miraculously fended off two pirate attack boats with a defensive weapon “that directs earsplitting noise” at enemy eardrums and then sped away to safety.

Betsy and Dick Egan, of Amherst, Mass., were two of the 151 passengers on board who found the captain’s candid announcement rather unsettling. “There are some boats out there that don’t look, that I don’t like the looks of,” the Egans recalled hearing on the public address system. “… We are under attack!”

Dick Egan told WHDH-TV that he later looked out his window and saw an unexploded rocket wedged into the side of the cruise ship. Not something he saw in the brochure.

A quick glance at the Seabourn Cruise Web site reveals no mention of anti-pirate weaponry on board. If I were in charge of marketing, I’d brag about it at least as much as the spacious suites and gourmet salad bar.

What’s most impressive about the Seabourn’s hellish noise device is that the crew knew when and how to use it. Add a few cruise missiles (no pun intended) and hire a few Navy Seals (have them teach pottery or ballroom dancing during downtime) and I might even sign up for the next “Sights of Somalia” tour.

I don’t know if the Egans have young grandchildren. But if they do, I bet you they won’t be buying them pirate pajamas.
**
Darren Garnick’s “Culture Schlock” columns were originally published in The Telegraph.
Reader comments are welcomed at darrengarnick @ gmail.com
**

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Egyptians to Israel: 30 years of peace is OVERRATED

Egypt's October 1973 War Panorama Museum (New York Times photo)

One of my biggest regrets during my post-college backpacking jaunt through Cairo was that the October 1973 War Panorama Museum was closed.

Like a kid stretching his neck over the fence at a shut-down amusement park, I stared through the iron grates at a sculpture garden decorated with Russian MiG fighter jets.  I wanted to at least bring home a snowglobe from the gift shop, but the place was undergoing renovations.

This museum is a monumental tribute to Egypt’s “victory” in the 1973 October War (or Yom Kippur War if you’re willing to acknowledge the military value of surprise and meanness to attack on a religious holiday).

According to the Egypt State Information Service, the museum was inspired by President Hosni Mubarak’s 1983 trip to North Korea and is divided into four areas:

The Circular Hall: Highlights the achievements of the Egyptian Armed Forces in the period from 1967 to 1973.

Hall 2: In which the crossing of the Suez Canal is graphically shown.

Hall 3: Showcases the achievements of the various branches of the Army during the October War.

Hall 4: A library with a reading hall attached.

Now, thanks to The New York Times, I can see what one of the museum panoramic views looks like.  Looks like a lot of Egyptian model railroaders were employed by the state in some kind of job stimulus package.

The Times also reports that many younger Egyptians are pissed about the 1979 Camp David Peace Accords. An entire generation grew up without shedding a drop of blood in the Sinai desert and they are pissed.

They saw a couple of war movies and well, it looks like a whole heck of fun!

From the Times:

“Today Egypt is not influential in anything,” said Osama Anwar Okasha, a leading Egyptian television writer. “It is a third-class country in this region. Egypt was the leading country and it gave up this leading role. Now it is like a postman, delivering messages.”

“The public mood is dark all around right now, and the sentiment points to the treaty as the start of Egypt’s decline and diplomatic impotence.”

But the 81-year-old Mubarak, who has been eligible for his AARP membership for those same 30 years, is still alive and he remembers how unfun bleeding in the Sinai can be.

Yet, he’s also the guy who likes to build war museums. Even if his exhibits don’t tell the full story (memo to Mubarak: Israel won — even Wikipedia says so), I still want my October Panorama snowglobe.

LINKS TO MORE MIDEAST SCHLOCK:

* Visit the Hezbollah Children’s Museum!

* Learn the Arab-Israeli conflict’s impact on Syrian lingerie exports!

* Compared to Jessica Simpson, how popular is Yasser Arafat at Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum?

* Reminisce about the Saddam Hussein Yard Sale!

* Netflix Kitschy Pick of the Day: Otto Preminger’s “Exodus!“