This week, The Fifth Estate, CBC’s documentary program, showed a doc called Fight to the Death, dealing with Chris Benoit and death in the wrestling industry. The documentary was well made, dealt with difficult subject matter in a classy way, and delivered a severe kick straight into the sweaty gonads of Nancy Grace, Geraldo Rivera, Bill O’Reilly, and all the other hype-news, fact-less blowhards that seem so common on American television.

You can watch the doc when it re-airs tomorrow night, or just watch it online here if you want to watch it before reading this.

The documentary covers Benoit’s life, the changing landscape of the wrestling industry and the long-term effects life on the road has had on a number of wrestlers. It delivered a clear, sensible conclusion after careful consideration. The same could not be said about all news outlets.

When the story first broke last year, steroids were the easiest and, as my old journalism prof would have described it, the sexiest explanation. Blaming something like this on ‘roid rage is a really easy out, it requires no research, but sounds so good. “ROID RAGE. Goddamn that’s catchy!” And it was clear that the tabloid news shows did very little research.

Between angrily yelling speculation in a shrill, authoritative tone and assuming the guilt of accused rapists long before facts are clear, Nancy Grace enjoys gardening, macrame and witchcraft.

Nancy Grace speculated that Benoit might have been upset that he had gone from the prestigious Four Horsemen (a group of wrestlers in WCW, which hadn’t existed since 1999) all the way down to Monday Night Raw (the highest rated wrestling program ever on television, which Benoit hadn’t appeared on since 2005). The blank stare on Bret Hart’s face in response to this was the lone highlight of the show.

Geraldo Rivera is a spectacular douchebag by all standards of journalistic integrity. Within the mustache growing community, however, he has risen to the rank of “Grand Wizard, Level 12.”

Geraldo went one better and even talked about how the Atlanta police may have been looking at it as a triple or quadruple murder-suicide (a truly ridiculous statement unless Rivera himself discovered two bodies he hasn’t told anyone about, or that he considered Benoit to have murdered his wife and son twice). He also showed no knowledge whatsoever about steroids, describing them as a substitute to working out, as if using steroids and sitting around eating Cheetos for the next month would result in a Herculean physique.

Anyway, Fighting to the Death is a very effective sober second thought to the Benoit issue. With ‘roid rage having been dismissed, they dive into the Sport’s Legacy Institute’s investigation into Benoit and their investigation into concussions in sports. It’s fascinating reading that makes me fear for the family of Mick Foley.

It’s clear based on what the wrestlers who knew Benoit are saying in their interviews, they don’t believe the man they knew was capable of it. Jake Roberts sums his feelings up quite clearly, saying that when he dies, if God or the Devil tell him that Chris Benoit (the man he knew, before brain damage and dementia) did those horrible things, “I’ll call them a damn liar.”

Here are my minor factual nitpicks with the documentary-

-Chris Nowinski, a former wrestler who now works with the Sports Legacy Institute, did not wrestle under the name Chris Harvard in the WWE.
-The Junkyard Dog’s death was not believed to be a result of drug problems. JYD (real name Sylvester Ritter) fell asleep at the wheel on his way back from his daughter’s highschool graduation.
-The WWE has not outlawed chair shots to the head since Benoit’s death. For example, Chris Jericho drilled JBL with a chair at the Royal Rumble.

These are minor factual inconsistencies. If you compare that to the gross distortions of fact and outright ignorance shown by tabloid journalism programs in the aftermath of Benoit’s death, it’s ridiculous. It would be funny if it didn’t make me so sick.

These shows simply skimmed over the facts at the time and ran forwards with the easiest and most sensationalized version of the story they could concoct.

As a wrestling fan, this pisses me off. As a journalist, however, it turns my fucking stomach. Every story I write, I research as much as I can. My livelihood depends on presenting facts. Repeat, FACTS. To hell with my livelihood, my ability to look at myself in the mirror and not be disgusted at what I see depends on it. I wonder how long it’s been since Grace, Rivera, Hannity, Colmes or any of these jackals looked in a mirror.

Thanks, The Fifth Estate for providing responsible content. Thank you for broadcasting content I can be proud of. Thank you for making the decision of what channel I watch, and which one I disregard, a no-brainer.

(Sorry for the blurry, I couldn’t find this any bigger)

Godammit! So, I ordered the Royal Rumble tonight. It was a good time but it left a bad taste in my mouth. We got back a bit late from this strange African supper we had, so we missed the early matches. Here’s what I saw-

One title match was pretty lame with a really good finish to it. The other was a great match, but the ending was retarded and made Jeff Hardy look like a pussy (although that’s still probably better than the drug addict he’s looked like in past years). Also, Chris Jericho bladed (used a razor to make it look like his head had been busted open) like a champ.

The rumble match itself is always a treat. The weird thing with this rumble was how many people were in the ring at the same time. Usually, the rumble will have 5-8 guys in there for most of the event. There’ll be about 10 minutes where the ring fills up and no one gets eliminated, then someone like Kane comes in and tosses 6 people at once. That repeats until the end. This year, they just kept coming. There were times when there were at least 12 to 15 guys in there. It was pretty chaotic as a result, and made for interesting viewing.

The problem was the ending. I was hoping Shawn Michaels would win. I was expecting Triple H to win. I was pissed when John Cena returned 2 1/2 months early from injury and won the damn thing. I know I said Cena was wrestler of the year last week. That doesn’t change the fact that dude is frigging overexposed. I’m totally sick of watching John Cena being booked like a superman. I was thrilled that he was injured cause it would give him a chance to come back fresh after 6 months away. Instead, he’s still stale after 2 months.

This was the problem at the end of the Hogan era too. After a while, fans stopped believing anyone could beat Hogan and when they did, they also stopped caring. Where’s the drama? That’s what I think when Cena wins the Royal Rumble. That’s what I think when Cena beats 5 guys by himself in a handicap match. That’s what I think when Cena defies the odds, logic and medical science to win a match. He puts on good matches, but nothing looks like a challenge to him anymore. He barely broke a sweat tonight!

The only solution to all this that satisfies me is to turn Cena heel. Just have him start bragging incessantly about how great he is. Let all the guys who boo him now feel right about it. Unfortunately, little boys and teenage girls seem to buy way too much Cena merchandise for Vince to let that happen anytime soon.

Overall, I enjoyed the show, but man did that ending leave a bad taste in my mouth. I give this Royal Rumble 664,745 improper uses of the term “literally” (i.e. “He’s literally cleaning his clock!” “He literally took his head off with that one!”) out of a total possible 983,666.

So when they’re not just playing round the clock episodes of The OC (cause that show is totally about music, right?), Muchmusic has found a niche that I’m sure someone at the head office thinks is just great.

Basically, they’ve hired a bunch of Canadian comedians to critique music videos and the musicians and stars themselves. The programs they’re featured in are called “Video on Trial” and “Stars Gone Wild.” The format is simple enough. There’s clips of a music video or a recap of some bullshit a celebrity did, then we get the “witty” comments from the panel of braying donkeys.

Unfortunately, my first impression of the show wasn’t how stupid celebrities are, or how dumb music videos are these days (both of which are statements would make sense coming from me, but you already know that). My immediate reaction was “man, are Canadian stand-up comedians really this bad?”

My problem with this show: it’s not a bad idea, if the comedians were any good. But they’re not. The jokes they make are painfully bad, and delivered with a shit-hot “holier than them” attitude (as if Canadian stand-ups were the highest authority on everything) that just makes it worse. For example, on the one that was on in the background while I was doing a giant crossword today, the older, fatter chick made the comment that The Darkness was a band that was best viewed in darkness. Oh, I get it! British people are ugly! And you fit a pun in there to boot. That’s just darling.

I guess it was a Christmas Darkness video or something, cause one of them gets a double-necked guitar as a present. Then the stoner sounding dude makes a joke about how he was struggling to play a single-necked guitar, so a double-necked one is a crappy present. That doesn’t even make sense. I don’t like the Darkness, but I’ll admit they’re pretty goddamn good guitarists. How well can you play the guitar, stoner guy?

Don’t even get me started on the Indian chick who used to be on the also-shitty-but-in-a-much-funnier-way CBC kid’s quiz show Smartask. Back in 2004, we were sure she was a hermaphrodite. I’m not mentioning this as a witty put-down, it’s the truth. For some reason on that show, she always wore a big collar, or a scarf or something to cover her throat, we figured, to cover up her adam’s apple.

Basically, it all comes across like somebody at Muchmusic edited a bunch of Youtube “vloggers” (why do we hate the English language so much these days) into clips with music videos. Imagine the pitch:

Exec: “So, Dan, what’s you’re new show about?”
Dan the Douche: “OK, how’s this? Haven’t you always wanted to watch shitty music videos…”
Exec: (intruiged) “Go on…”
DTD: “And be able to listen to shitty commentary that is no better than the comments you and your friends made yourselves the first time you watched the video?”
Exec: “Can I give you a hug?”

Believe it or not, Stars Gone Wild is actually worse. This show features much of the same cast, but now they’re acting as a variety of wacky characters as they make their stupid comments. I tried to come up with a PG way to say this, but it’s impossible: this show is fucking unbearable. Jokes about Britney Spears being a piss-poor mother, Lindsay Lohan being a drug addict and Tara Reid just being a walking trainwreck have been driven into the ground so hard. It’s a dead horse! Why do you keep beating it?

Naturally, they can only stoop lower. The straw that broke the camel’s back, for me, was their variation on the theme that I saw today, Stars Gone Mild. On this one, they made fun of celebrities who didn’t make asses of themselves. They made fun of Mandy Moore, Hillary Duff and others for not being drug addicts and neglectful parents. I’m sure it’s all parody, or in good fun, or whatever, but it’s all emblematic of a larger problem: the cult of celebrity.

There is so much money wasted and so much effort put into making celebrities into being the new Olympian Gods. Why does anyone care anymore? We’ve already seen Britney Spears’ vagina several times now. After that, what else is there? Who gives a shit anymore? Why are there people out there completely obsessed with the latest moves of some rich turd who wouldn’t piss on them if they were on fire? What the fuck is wrong with us as a culture (the larger North American culture, not just Canada)? Are our own lives so devoid of meaning that we care that Paris Hilton went to a Starbucks?

I dream of a better world. I dream of a world where TMZ doesn’t exist and that Perez Hilton has a real job. I dream of a world where parents payed attention to their own goddamn kids and stopped watching Rick the Temp fellate his way through ET Canada interviews. I dream of a world where people’s lives had enough fulfillment for themselves that they didn’t need all this celebrity bullshit.

Don’t listen to music or watch TV shows/movies just because some star is in them, or because they’re marketed to your target demographic. Judge them on their own merits and watch what YOU want, not what the executives want you to watch.

Wow, the momentum carried me far on that one. Here’s the morals for the day-

-Celebrities are just like you or me, maybe slightly bigger assholes
-Blog/vlog style commentary on TV makes Hawkeye very mad
-Celebrity obsession only distract us from more important issues
-Pay attention to your goddamn kids
-It’s not a bad tree, it just needs a little love

Merry Christmas folks!

Not enough details went into the opening scene and I think you assume too much about the communication protocol - the ships could communicate with each other digitally, confirm idents, then a light may have flashed on the dashboard that said “state intentions now.” Heck, that’s even conceivable in this day and age.

And the droids milling about? Easily explainable. They’re obviously understaffed on the ship and droids do double duty as floor sweepers/mice catchers as well as generic guard duty. I’m sure they have a cargo hold filled with even more droids properly packaged as per your request.

And the C3PO thing! Don’t they say in Episode IV, “Wow, I didn’t think they made you guys anymore”? or maybe that was in the sand crawler… I forget where, but C3PO is an old machine. Easily 20-50 years.

And finally, I’ll refute your car analogy. Cars are evolving pretty rapidly with newer technologies, and cars are relatively new - roundabout 100 years old. Given that units like C3PO might have perfected a few hundred years ago, and design advances would merely be aesthetic - it’s entirely conceivable that a unit would remain visually the same over the course of a thousand years. Given galactic trading and whatnot, I could see products easily sustaining hundreds of years of distribution. Hell, Kryten lasted 3 million years before his replacement showed up.

Why is it that people can be so interested in what is foreign and strange?

I’m speaking in terms of foreign countries, in this instance. Why do us residents of Canada - or even residents of the US of A or even Australia - look outwards for their entertainment?

I’m interested in history, geography, and heck, even differing cultures. I don’t make it a hobby or anything, but when a friend of mine starts reading a detailed book on the history of North Korea, I’m interested. And that bugs me.

I can see inhabitants of smaller countries wanting to escape. In Portugal, culture and geography is largely the same throughout. Compared to Canada, I mean. You’d want to travel to Germany - England - Egypt - and see what there is to see. But here in Canada? They speak a foreign language on the opposite end of the country. In the north end of the country they speak yet another language. We have native indian reserves larger than some small countries!

Take Nunavut, for instance. The North West Territories was (and probably still is) the largest province in Canada. Due to some native land claims, the Government of Canada decided to cleave our largest province in twain, and give the Eastern bit to the Inuit - which named the province “Nunavut” in April of 1999. Sounds pretty generous of us, eh? Well did you know that if it were a country, Nunavut would rank 13th largest country in the world? Yeah, it’s pretty fuckin’ generous. It’s bigger than Mexico for Chrissakes.

And get this - I had no idea until just a few hours ago, but Canada wasn’t fully independant of the UK until 1982. EIGHTY-FUCKIN-TWO! Who knew?! Canada was named and given it’s own flag in 1867 - which makes us just a smidgen under 150 years old - but in terms of actual seperation from mommy and daddy? We aren’t even out of puberty yet!

I wonder what else awaits me in my own country. What other tidbits or facts are there to learn? What places or people will I be amazed with?

Oh god the heat

Surely everyone out there has a personal idea of what should be ‘right’ in the entertainment biz as far as their pricing schemes seem to go. The transition from Cassettes to digital discs, however - now that really pisses me off.

Buying 12 songs on a Cassette for $20, or buying a VHS Movie for $40 seemed almost justified. Not only are your paying for the entertainment, but you’re also paying for the physical moving parts of the product. The spinning wheels, the guy who watches the machine as the tape rolls up, the screws that hold them all together… a lot of mechanical effort went into them.

What really shocked me was when the digital disks came out, all those mechanical extras were eliminated - yet the prices stayed the same. CDs and DVDs don’t have screws or rolls of tape or complicated parts whatsoever. It’s just a bit of plastic pressed out of a single machine millions at a time with no human intervention.

Not only did the entertainment providers suddenly get a boost of millions per year due to reductions in manufacturing costs, it was about that time that legislation allowed artists to sell licenses for their work. That’s right, when you buy a movie, you’re not buying a copy of the movie itself. Your money is being spent on the right to play the movie from that disc, to your TV. The artist then helpfully supplies you with the disc to do so, but the disc is still the property of the artist.

It’s all a big pile of lame. Lame lame lame.