So Madonna wrongly adopted/ bought/ stole a child from Africa.
So Google is taking over the world.
So Bushie don’t know the Internets from the Intelligents
There’s not much we can do today about those things, except get smarter than they are.
Meghan and I watched NOVA the other night, I made her watch it. I am on the NOVA mailing list because the show is good, worthwhile and has NO commercials. About the only other shows I’ll suffer through are Law/ Order and Project Runway. Yea, jacked.
The NOVA show we watched was about Earth’s magnetic field and how it’s weakening significantly. This field is what protects us from the sun’s radiation by deflecting harmful solar winds away from the earth and toward the South and North poles. This is where aurora borealis comes from, and why it’s easier to see way up north or way down south.
So, it seems that not only is the field weakening quickly, but it’s about to completely reverse itself, which is something that happens every 300-700 thousand years. I guess we’re due for a switch. When this happens, compasses will no longer point north, but south. In between the switch, there will be no field at all, and we’ll feel the full strength of the sun’s radiation. This in-between time could last up to 3000 years. Yea, no shit we won’t be around any more, but does that mean we should not fully comprehend it?
Steven Weinberg said, “The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.” His point was that the human species is just one of billions of species of life on Earth. The Earth is just a typical planet near a star. And our big star is just one of a trillion stars in the galaxy. And our galaxy is just one of hundreds of billions of galaxies!
So what’s the point in understanding our place in all of this? I think it’s the most important point, and everything is pointless. And I think I don’t spend enough time working on it, and I spend too much time working on the wrong stuff. (I just got Splinter Cell-Double Agent, so I’ll let you know how it is.)
On a lighter note, I had a chance to see the new Burton Snowboards movie the other night at Kennedy School. “For Right or Wrong” was produced by Burton and Mandalay Entertainment and featured the stories of a group of riders who are in it for different reasons. But the fact is, they’re all in it for the money in the end, except maybe for Jake. I believe Jake loves snowboarding for real, and he may be the only untainted rider in the movie.
Everyone loves snowboarding for different reasons, and if you ask them, everyone can get real philosophical about it and tell you why they do it, “fo’ real”. But the bottom line is: Shaun, Keir, Jeremy, Dave, Terje, and Kelly all get paid a shitload of money to go snowboarding. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t ride as much (because they’d have to get a job) and they wouldn’t be so good at it. Shaun is pretty down to earth, believe it or not, but he’s got so many people up his ass, it’s impossible to do things for the right reasons. Jake has the ultimate freedom now, to do whatever the hell he wants in snowboarding AND surfing.
Told some Burton folks I was going to draft a comparo between the brand new Burton movie (which really isn’t about Burton itself) and the first, ever Burton movie, “Winter Waves”. All I have to say about that is that the characters in Winter Waves did not have the means to hire a gigantic Russian helicopter to take them to the deep shit, so they stole one. They did what had to be done to get to the goods, not for money, a video part or a gold medal. They stole a heli and jammed up there as a tight group of friends just to ride for fun. They took matters in their own hands and never criticized each other’s steez. Nor did they have a CAD machine to design the takeoffs and landings of their jumps. And I am sure the production budget for “Winter Waves” was a smidgeon less than the new Burton movie.
I am calling bullshit on a few things, because there’s not enough honesty behind the intentions of the things to respect. In, “For Right or Wrong”, Nicolas Mueller comes closest to the pure intentions of the boys in “Winter Waves”.
11 responses so far ↓
1 ctrain // Oct 28, 2006 at 12:14 am
I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I appreciate reading what is probably the only honest estimation of what that movie is all about. But it’s a movie right? Celluloid dreams… That’s why i always differentiate between movies and film. To me, movies are devoid of most belivability. I put most hollywood bullshit into the category of movies. Films, however, can have the power to make you not want to question intentions and purposes or call bullshit. In “Walk the Line”, (which i didn’t like all that much) there was a comment made to Johnny Cash, by his producer to be, when he first auditioned. The guy didn’t like what Johnny sang, and when Johnny asked what the problem was, he said, “you didn’t make me believe.” I’ve never seen “winter waves”, but i’ll be sure to put it on my list of films to find and see if I believe.
2 Vince LaVecchia // Oct 28, 2006 at 2:28 pm
Yea, I think there’s something lost in snowboarding today that’s just less believable. I guess it was always heading this way, I just did not recognize it while “inside”.
3 J. O'Shea // Oct 30, 2006 at 10:08 am
vin. c’mon. lying is very, very popular these days. it’s the current bedrock of politics and modern life.
everything is pointless.
we only have very basic cable right now, but we have four different channels of public television. i think it’s really the only channel that actually allows you to get more intellegent as you’re viewing it. all the others have the opposite effect. the american experiences, novas, and frontlines are truly great shows. there’s a new frontline about iraq and you see explosions and situations that troops have to deal with that you never see in the news. it makes it seem so much more terrifying and stressful.
i guess it’s hard to tell you not to be so bummed out about the state of snowboarding because i think about how long you’ve been doing it and how close you were to it at the beginnings. popular culture has a tendency to ruin many great things. snowboarding is where it’s at because it’s a very marketable activity. it’s also very popular because it’s one of the best activities that i’ve ever experienced. i’m going to try to ride as many more days as i can until i’m gone.
we pay athletes and entertainers however much money people are willing to give up. they wouldn’t get paid those amounts if it wasn’t feasible for those paying. i thought the experience of going to watch the blazers play was silly when you think about the fact that you could easily pay $100 to watch people playing (at a very medicore level) a sport and getting tens of thousands of dollars a minute. it doesn’t make much sense. i hope you didn’t buy a ticket for that burton movie. you just contributed to a rider’s new “whip.”
i do hope you consumed a pork sandwich and the tater tots.
i also hope you’re very well and enjoying life. sorry for the long post.
get yr azzz up to ski bowl for some night riding.
peace,
J
4 Vince LaVecchia // Oct 30, 2006 at 7:57 pm
Free pizza and beer at a free movie. That was a nice thing. Planning to ride this winter, will be interesting to re-learn.
5 Cris // Nov 1, 2006 at 12:14 pm
Suprising that you, of all people, would get even the least bit hung up on something like this.
Figured you, of all people, would have righted yourself with the “state of snowboarding today” versus your own riding.
Hoped that you, of all people, would have understood, if not accepted, as Justin points out, the difference between the athletes and the rest of the world.
You can’t get into the snowboard industry and expect to survive unless to separate your little part of snowboarding from Snowboarding™.
And you can’t get OUT of the snowboard industry and expect to get on with your life unless you do the same.
You took too much time off, and it’s making coming back in that much more jarring.
Even your example of Winter Waves is odd…relatively speaking there’s no difference between stealing a Russian helicopter and buying one. The fact of the matter is that you don’t need a helicopter, bought or stolen, to ride. These people are selling A dream…not THE dream, but one of many. You need to get back to the golf course and the sledding hill and the nose ropes and the porch jumps and the layback log slides on a Super 81.
Don’t believe what they say…sometimes you CAN go home again.
XOXOXO
Cris
6 Vince LaVecchia // Nov 1, 2006 at 2:05 pm
Damn, I been out-ed. Foot pain, here I come.
7 Vince LaVecchia // Nov 1, 2006 at 8:00 pm
takebacksnowboarding.com
8 J. O'Shea // Nov 2, 2006 at 12:23 pm
fuck pain.
get yr 3-straps and your super 81 all tuned up.
will the aurora borealis really start to be visible in massachusetts soon? that’s going to be awesome. thanks for letting me know.
9 LG // Nov 4, 2006 at 9:34 am
Nicolas Muller is the best thing to happen to “For Right or Wrong”
I could watch that guy ride and talk about snowboarding all day and still be stoked. “What is snowboarding? ….who cares?”
glad you liked the pizza and beer. good to see you again.
come to Baldface this March on the Frequency trip so we can shred.
10 g-lo // Nov 7, 2006 at 12:12 pm
Why should there be a surprise that a movie produced by a corporation encourages consumption and participation in consumer/provider relationships?
11 Vince LaVecchia // Nov 7, 2006 at 3:33 pm
That’s not the surprise. The surprise is that the participants are consistently duped into blindly buying into whatever mixed messaging the corporation spits out without question, criticism or understanding. My problem is not with excess consumption, but excess consumption without representation.
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