A Letter

Dear Movie Writers,

As an individual who feels the pressure of a certain amount of social responsibility, I feel that I must inform you of a fact that has been percolating in my mind for some time now.

Guys getting kicked in the balls isn't really that funny anymore.

For the past half-century, and even before that, scrotal impact has been a mainstay of the slapstick comedy form of movies. That, in itself, is acceptable. Where throwaway gags and shallow puns abound, men being kicked, punched, or otherwise struck between their legs are sure to fit completely in place.

My conscience, however, takes issue with the spread of testicular crushings into any and all other genres. It seems as though it's become almost a requirement for any movie that even remotely is intended to be funny to have someone's nuts bashed in at some point, coupled with a long and drawn-out reaction from the victim.

It's really not that humorous anymore.

Granted, the fact that the mechanics and setup of the male anatomy make it possible to completely incapacitate a victim with a swift kick to the groin is interesting in and of itself, but put into the larger context of a scene in a movie, does not always have comedic value.

Finally, the strange contortions that the sequence of events in a scene sometimes has to go through in order to facilitate the genitalial crunching of some hapless bystander often give a movie more strange turns than the driving routes Tom Cruise plans out to avoid the media seeing his new baby.

I felt that it was my responsibility to tell you this, in hopes that you may think of some new ways to infuse humor into a scene.

Thank you,

Nirav Sanghani

"Cut Short"

I was just shown an article in the Houston Press today by Todd Spivak, an article that resides online. You can read it here. It's the full story of Pavlos Karnezis's explusion and later readmittance to Hightower High School, along with the way that certain people complicated the situation almost beyond repair. Read it and spread it around, please.

Still Funny

This is still funny, every time I read it:

A woman has a close male friend. This means that he is probably interested in her, which is why he hangs around so much. She sees him strictly as a friend. This always starts out with, you're a great guy, but I don't like you in that way. This is roughly the equivalent for the guy of going to a job interview and the company saying, You have a great resume, you have all the qualifications we are looking for, but we're not going to hire you. We will, however, use your resume as the basis for comparison for all other applicants. But, we're going to hire somebody who is far less qualified and is probably an alcoholic. And if he doesn't work out, we'll hire somebody else, but still not you. In fact, we will never hire you. But we will call you from time to time to complain about the person that we hired.

I'm Back!

And probably not much better than ever. Germany, however, was amazingly awesome. I can't wait to go back. The FIFA World Cup was awesome. Bonn was awesome. The Deep Purple concert I went to there was awesome. It was all awesome. And hilarious. Something about going on a trip with Andrew Kulha makes it inherently funny.
Want proof? Here are some bona fide quotes from the trip:

-"How long do you get for a dollar?"
-"Four minutes."

-"We need someone on top of her!"

-"I feel like I've got the whole world in my pants."

-"Okay, so you get her from behind, and I'll take a picture."

Of course, it was only fun until someone got hurt. Then it was hilarious. Here's the list of people who had to go to the doctor. Interestingly enough, it alternated between Germans and Americans.

Erwin - broken collarbone
Marc - broken finger
Nirav - damaged knee
Marcus - allergies
Alex - ear problems
Felix - allergies
Kyle - bronchitis

Now I can't forget the fact that when you've got thirty teenagers stuck together for three weeks, hormones are bound to flare up in all of their awkward flirting glory. During our collective time together in Houston and Bonn, there were no fewer than twenty attempted hookups. I think only about four succeeded. Suckers.

Thanks, by the way, for everyone who came to my graduation party. It was a ton of fun. Of course, I'm starting to think that graduation parties are mainly for parents. Guests come, congratulate the graduate, and then naturally turn to the parents: "Not bad!".
Even so, my party was pretty lucrative for me too. I made more money from my party than I've made in my entire life combined. I'm thinking I should graduate more often - maybe go for a victory lap at Hightower.

Just kidding. Ain't no way I'm going back there. That ship has sailed...or perhaps "sunk" might be more appropriate.

Finally, my sister is going to New York City to be a middle school science teacher for the next two years. Here is the link to the blog that she's keeping of her experiences. The link is also going to the right hand side of my page, underneath the archives section. Enjoy!

Von Deutschland

In English, the title is ´From Germany´.

So that, my friends, is that. High school´s over, and I now am in the middle of a foreign country, having the time of my life. Or I would be, if my meniscus wasn´t damaged. Yes, that´s right, for the first time in my life, I have a major injury. Aside from that, there´s way too much that we´ve done and seen to relate it all here, so I´ll just let this post finish here.

My English has degenerated here. And this keyboard is hard to type on (the y and z keys are switched, among other things).

Auf Wiedersehen!