HOT, HOT, BABY

In our modern world of convenient impatience, you're telling me there is not yet an adequate appliance for freezing things quickly!?

The beautiful, awesome power of the microwave oven made American life that much better around the mid-century. Radiation-charged shrunken heads and the switch from TV dinners to microwaved Ramen in front of the computer mark its amazing life. It is astonishing. After all that, we can progress to a point in human evolution that we no longer have to spend long, rough hours over the fires of the Earth just for some sustenance and survival. We can just press buttons and consume.

Now, I want you to think about the opposite end of the spectrum. Is it completely unreasonable for me to demand speed when freezing things?

Freezing things is cool and I have the evidence to back up that pun:

Exhibit A: Arnold Schwarzenegger in Batman Forever. Batman may be Forever, but ice is pretty damn uncomfortable for attackers after a few minutes.

Exhibit B: Sam Jackson as Frozone in Disney's The Incredibles. Suck it, public transportation, I got my own way around New York City traffic.

Exhibit C: You can make icepops in your own damn freezer with whatever liquid you want! I use Smirnoff Ice.

Which brings me back to my question of why can't we freeze with ease? And now, I think I have the answer. It scares me to say it because I think I have stumbled on the biggest conspiracy of the new millennium. The very core of this thought could very well have me killed by sundown tonight, and here it is:

The iced coffee industry wants you to impatiently heat everything!

Forget freezing forever! They want you to burn everything and buy their cold, cold coffee! If we stay used to scalding hot coffee all year round, the iced coffee machine wins!

I took Microeconomics in high school and it's finally starting to sink in. Iced coffee is so damn pricey because there is a demand. Idiots, like myself, will buy something cold for a buck more when they could get it hot and wait up to three or four hours. Even then, coffee doesn't turn iced, it just turns lukewarm. So, we buy the ice. THE ICE! WE BUY ICE, just cause we're scared of what the iced coffee industry will do!

It is time to stand up, people! We need to develop the technology to say "NO MORE" to hotter-than-Katy Perry coffee. Stop paying outrageous prices for some liquids that taste delicious together; that's what rum and coke is for! Coffee beans are born equal and they should have the same opportunity to get to my lips as Katy Perry does. Yes, two Katy Perry references in one post. I'm wild with rebellion! BRING IT ON!

London Bridge Bit It, And So Do We

My name is Dan Scharch and I have a problem.

I am severely entertained by people falling down. I may have graduated from college with a healthy resume to sit on, but most of my brain power seems to reside in where to find my next fall fix. America's Funniest Home Videos has legitimately kept me alive and happy for 20 years. Failblog was a gift from Heaven.

But thankfully, every time summer rolls around I not only get to see bikinis and eat popsicles, ABC returns one of its most popular shows to the boob tube: Wipeout. My weeks are now consumed with surviving till Tuesday where I can get an evening dose of people bouncing on big red balls and giving off the Wilhelm Scream all the way to the water. It is pure joy.

Somehow we're wired to crack up at the moment of Grandpa biting it. Is it a cultural movement or is it brain chemistry? One way or the other, I think my insatiable craving for spills is reflected in my own. I've drunkenly stepped on a skateboard (don't remember), swallowed a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle sword going up my back-porch stairs (don't remember), and celebrated New Years by (drunkenly) launching myself off a trampoline (kinda remember).

We all fall down as the London Bridge song goes and it makes total sense. We all figuratively wipeout every once and a while. I think we're all just laughing to outwardly admit that, hey, it happens to the best of us.

It is much sweeter when someone asks for it, though.

Am I right, old people?

Castro? C'mon.

All Kinda Pills Give Us All Kinda Thrills

Does anyone else miss the drugs in music?

I can't remember ever seeing a band as high and mighty as this performance by Dr. Hook. While they may have been higher than a bunch of potheads sitting on Stonehedge in their time when drugs ran rampant, but I think we're sober now and we're boring.

Just today, reports are being passed around that Amy Winehouse has quit drinking and smoking because of her new filmmaker boyfriend. 50 Cent battled cocaine rumors even after he was caught on-tape, overseas, sniffing a table. We all know Fergie used to be a methhead and Eminem used to swallow pills and spit rhymes. Now Ke$ha is hot and just as boring because boys are her new drug and I'm sure she smells as bad as she sounds.

I'm not saying I need my musicians to be smashed. There is just this little part of my brain that longs for that excitement and revolution. Woodstock easily comes to mind as this beautiful cultural sphere, where bands were doing some amazing things and just floating with the flow. And there were more afterwards. Think Jefferson Airplane, Johnny Cash, the Sex Pistols, and, oh, I don't know, the Beatles.

It must have something to do with our lost of community. Instead of harboring around a scene like the punks or political ideology like the free-loving hippies, we circle around ourselves and our personal top 40. Drugs used to do one thing well: fuck shit up. They could bring our gears to a screeching, grinding halt and throw a monkey wrench in the other end. Communities sprouted on either end of the fence and tensions rose. Either you were groovy or square, hip or not. But finding others like you was harder, so you latched onto something that felt real.

Now we build our own castles in the sky, sober, and with earbuds jammed into our ears.

Oh, and Rolling Stone is now old and out-dated.

They do get out of tune, ya know?

The Answer to Hipsters

I've caught wind of an apparent and rampant Interweb craze straight out of post-apartheid South Africa. Die Antwoord, or "The Answer", is a hip-hop faction of Zef (translates mysteriously to "common", cause they are anything but) culture on the "next level", as they say. Made up of MC Ninja, Yo-Landi Vi$$er, and the mute DJ Hi-Tek, Die Antwoord recently performed at Coachella and are now signed with Interscope Records.

There is plenty more to discuss about the rap sensation (like Ninja's tattoos, Tsimfuckis, their child(?) or their future) but I can let Pitchfork do the footwork for me: Who the Hell are Die Antwoord?

Running in circles to determine authenticity, there are whispers of Ali G and performance art. Are they fo' real? Are they the "Williamsburg hipsters of South Africa" seems to be bubbling on the lips of the Blogosphere as far as I can tell, but what I think is much more frightening to the non-hipster crowd.

We don't need to hate hipsters. We mean even, gasp, need to embrace them.

Let's get it straight: We can all despise the trustfundarians, as the New York Times once called them, or those who live in the hip part of The City because their rich parents can fund them through their career ventures in all things media. We can shun those who act pretentious, like their shit don't stink, and those who generally stink, for some odd reason.

BUT why do we HATE the costume, the parties, the lifestyle, and the Fun? Hipsters dress like it is Halloween every day and they get away with it! Girls can wear their comfortable pajama shirts with neon leggings and guys can get away with rocking it like Burt Reynolds in a library. They have jobs where they can socialize day and night, and all the while celebrate the moment like we all wish we could.

They still seem pretty boss to me. Or, I mean, not boss, but you know what I mean. Right?

The fashion of previous generations keep dragging me back to this point. We've had cocaine, disco, big shoulder pads, bigger than big hair, baggy pants, and tribal tattoos. And we laugh plenty of it off as us "just being kids".

I want to look back at pictures of my youth and scream bloody murder. I'll smack my forehead, trying without success to recall what went through my head as a twenty-something, but, for most, I don't think they'll remember. But they just might miss it. Or worse, we could all just miss out. And be boring. And then die.

So when it comes down to tests of whether or not Die Antwoord or hipsters or you or me are "real", we will never know. Or do we already?