Lights, Camera, Genuine Rage!

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Sometimes fake is just as good as real. Splenda works pretty well. Turkey bacon isn’t *that* bad. Women faking orgasms is an unmitigated act of kindness – thanks to all of you. Even tubes of wax that pose as headache remedies can’t actually hurt you, unless you tried to swallow it whole like a dose of Advil.

In 1982, Ricardo Montalban made a dent in the zeitgeist by uttering the fictitious Klingon proverb that ‘…revenge is a dish that is best served cold…” He did this while wearing a fake chest, presumably because his own pecs were not the sweater meat of an evil man.

In a cruel twist of fate (really, it’s neither) it turns out that the presumption that both these things were fake, was itself, fake.

The fictitious Klingon proverb was actually a fictitious French proverb from the novel Dangerous Liaisons. It makes more sense coming from the French, since all dishes are best served cold when you are on the move from constant surrendering. Also, far better to serve someone a tepid Coq au Vin than to engage them on the field of eventual-withdrawal-after-some-moderate-shooting.

Apparently, Montalban’s chest was Montalban’s chest. The prominent and malevolent man-bosom was, according to director Nicholas Meyer, the result of regular exercise. This is in strict contrast to the amazing technology designed to keep William Shatner from overacting, becoming ungirdled and having his hairpiece fly off at the same time. This scientific wizardry would later be modified into high-impact airbags to protect the Mars Rovers from the brutal collision of landing.

Trivia; In 1983 while filming an episode of TJ Hooker, Heather Locklear had the last of her talent knocked to the floor and shattered thanks to Shatner’s hairpiece.

Trivia #2; No one noticed.

This, of course, leads me to the topic of the Arab Street, and the generally widening crisis in the Middle East.

Really, it does.

First of all, I hate the term ‘Arab Street’. It’s insulting to Arabs and typically what most people mean when they write or say it is the ‘Muslim Street’. How ‘Muslim Street’ is more offensive than Arab Street eludes me; certainly, I think if we started calling American opinion polls the ‘Christian Herd’ there would be some blow back.

Also, in this case, the Arab Street is in India.

Since the world-shift that happened after 9/11, we have been treated to various and numerous analyses of the Arab Street, and how this amalgam represents the mood of the Muslim world. Usually, and repeatedly, ‘The Street’ is made up of angry Arab persons cheering when something has exploded or when burning people in effigy. Apparently the ‘Arab Living Room’, where reasonable people sit around and worry about their world doesn’t make for very good copy.

Maybe I’m being naïve again, let’s not forget that I used to think that Skittles came from actual rainbows, but it honestly never occurred to me that portions of the Arab Street were about as real as the production of Sesame Street.

Allow me to introduce you to Rage Boy.

Chronicled at SnappedShot.com and by perennial grump Christopher Hitchens at Slate.com, Rage Boy is an actor. Not unlike Montalban playing the madman Khan Noonien Singh, Rage Boy will drop into a mask of twisted and vile hatred at the drop of a hat. He’s pretty good too – he looks more upset than a goat on the seventh day of having his scrotum bound up in elastics. According to my count, Rage Boy has also done this at least 14 times. (Be a grump, I mean…I’m not speculating about his scrotum.)

I’ll now quote Hitchens without permission and hopefully get sued (the right lawsuit can make you famous…);

“I have actually seen some of these demonstrations/…/and all I would do if I were a news editor is ask my camera team to take several steps back from the shot. We could then see a few dozen gesticulating men/…/Around them, a two-deep encirclement of camera crews. When the lights are turned off, the little gang disperses/…/you may have noticed that the camera is always steady and in close-up on the flames, which it wouldn’t be if there was a big, surging mob involved.”

Personally, I’m unimpressed with a choreographed riot. It makes about as much sense as wild and uncontrolled revision of the federal tax code. Although I’m told that Alan Greenspan, in a fit of wild animal passion, once sprained his wrist because of demand-pull inflation.

I don’t even know what that means…

To my knowledge I agree with nothing espoused by Islamic extremists, but I always gave them credit for having a certain, spontaneous joie de vivre when it came to showing us the face of unmitigated fury.

Being a veteran of the interweb tubes, I’ve seen some pornography (note to my wife: always by accident) and we all know that these people are putting us on. No one would enjoy doing *that* for so many people on a hay bale. Further, despite wearing the proper hat, none of those women are really nurses.

Is Rage Boy faking it? Is his beard a cheap implant from the San Fernando Valley?

When directing Montalban, Nicholas Meyer advised him to have his character speak quietly for most of his lines. This way, when he erupted into a rage, the effect would be exponentially greater.

Good advice.

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