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The Machine Is Bleeding to Death: How to turn the Super Bowl into a twisted Cronenbergian nightmare
02.01.2014
10:23 am
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Mom about to get crushed yet again
‘Mom,’ about to get crushed yet again
 
One of the lovely things about video games is that, with enough ingenuity and determination, you can sometimes transform a game into something more personal and unexpected. For the 2013-2014 NFL season, Jon Bois at SBNation, in his “Breaking Madden” series, has been demonstrating the bewildering variety of forms that the popular NFL simulation Madden NFL 25 can take, by bending—nay breaking—“rules, injury settings, all manner of player ratings, player dimensions, and anything else the game’s developers have made available to us.” On Wednesday he released his special Seahawks-Broncos Super Bowl ultra-mod—and it’s a corker with surprisingly emotional resonance. (Denver fans may want to stop reading about now…..)

A wonderful aspect of a highly refined NFL sim of this type is the ability for the player to intervene. Want to create a Barry Sanders clone that looks just like you and bears your name to boot? Have at it! That’s exactly the type of shit EA Sports, producer of Madden NFL 25, wants you to do—it creates unique user satisfactions, and that translates into brand loyalty and towering revenues for EA Sports.

In essence what Bois is doing resembles something that Morpheus says to Neo in The Matrix: “It has the same basic rules, rules like gravity. What you must learn is that these rules are no different that the rules of a computer system. Some of them can be bent. Others can be broken. Understand?” Bois is hammering, hard, on the “rules” of an NFL game by maxing out various variables, such as the size and talent of the players, fatigue factors, and so forth. In one game Bois managed to induce 30 fumbles in a single half. In another, he equipped the Patriots with a team full of Tom Bradys and then engineered a situation whereby “Touchdown Tom” (Brady’s new nickname) could come back from a 74-0 halftime deficit.

For Super Bowl XLVIII, Bois’ goal was to generate a “Super Rout” in which one side scored one thousand points in a single game. With the appropriate caveats (as you will see, he wasn’t able to bring the game to completion), he succeeded in doing that. But along the way, Madden NFL 25 generated something far more poignant than a mere ultra-lopsided machina football game.

Bois’ idea was to create a Seahawks team full of massive, athletically gifted super-behemoths and make the Broncos a squad of puny weaklings. (Worry not, Broncos fans: Bois’ reasons for choosing the Seahawks to be the winning team were scrupulously fair; it just happened to work out that way.) Bois invited readers to submit personal names for all of the players on the two teams (with a real-life charity component), which is why the Broncos’ QB ended up being called “Mom.”
 
Madden NFL 25
 
To get the whole picture of what happened, I heartily recommend reading Bois’ piece; it’s crammed with animated graphics, and they really paint a picture. I also recommend watching Bois’ video preview linked below, if you’re having trouble following what’s going on or why it matters, it’s very helpful.

As expected, Bois’ Seahawks dominated every play to a phenomenal degree. Before the first quarter was even over, the Seahawks were winning 366 to zero. Every Broncos play was resulting in a fumble, and every Seahawks play was resulting in a touchdown. The Broncos were outmatched to an extent that would never be imaginable in real life.

But weird things were happening along the way. An inordinate number of the Seahawks kickoffs were striking the hind quarters of the Broncos return personnel—in other words, bouncing off their asses. Beyond that, after a while Madden NFL ceased being able to tally the score accurately. At one point the score was both 255-0 and 266-0 according to different displays, and Bois says neither score was actually the correct one at that juncture. Even weirder, the Broncos players stopped trying (!), which is more or less what you’d expect to happen in real life but not in a computer simulation. At one point Madden NFL 25 called a false start penalty even though Bois had turned off penalties for the game. There’s a reason Bois titled his writeup “The Machine Is Bleeding to Death.”
 
Broncos-Seahawks hybrid
 
Broncos-Seahawks hybrid
 
The magnificent ending to all of this occurred just before the end of the first quarter. Bois called for a replay of that weird shouldn’t-have-been penalty, and instead of a replay the system produced, perched alone on the 50-yard line, a single hybrid fetus player in the center of the field. It was vaguely equine-looking. You can see it above. The ... “player” was wearing both Seahawks and Broncos gear at the same time, and didn’t have the four limbs one expects from a humanoid figure. Madden NFL 25 had coughed up a creature out of any number of David Cronenberg movies, and the experiment’s facile similarities to Videodrome were only part of the eerie, weird beauty Bois had managed to wring out of the game.

At that point, interpreting the odd football fetus-creature as something akin to Madden NFL 25 crying “uncle,” Bois invoked the mercy rule and stopped the game.

Speaking for myself, Bois’ article was the only bit of pre-Super Bowl commentary that induced a surprising reaction in me; I enjoyed the hell out of it. And I’m putting down $50 on a 366-0 Seahawks victory at Vegas…...
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Brazilian drag queen recreates Madonna’s entire Super Bowl show and it’s amazing

Posted by Martin Schneider
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02.01.2014
10:23 am
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Bill Murray and Christopher Guest cover Super Bowl X, 1976
01.23.2014
03:12 pm
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The pithiest comment ever made about the Super Bowl came from a player who was famous for not talking to reporters—Cowboys’ running back Duane Thomas, who said in the early 1970s, “If the Super Bowl is the ultimate game, how come there is another one next year?” As of last Sunday, the matchup for Super Bowl XLVIII, to be held, bizarrely, in frosty East Rutherford, New Jersey, is set: it will be the Denver Broncos against the Seattle Seahawks. It’s been widely noticed that the home states of the two teams are the ones that have pursued marijuana legalization the farthest, so we appreciate the positive advertisement of the general salubriousness of reefer.

Thirty-eight years ago, the film collective TVTV sent noted sports fan Bill Murray and noted deadpan satirist Christopher Guest down to Miami, Florida, to cover Super Bowl X, between the Dallas Cowboys and the Pittsburgh Steelers, in order to help with a loose, impressionistic documentary about all the hoopla. In an article about the documentary posted by Deadspin a year ago, TVTV honcho Allen Rucker explained why the collectives’ techniques were so ground-breaking:
 

In 1976, no videomakers had ever walked into a pro football locker room and hung out with the players. No videomakers had ever invited the players to drop by their own hangout—in TVTV’s case, a rented mansion that could communally house 30 or 40 counterculture types making the program. No videomakers had ever had the idea of giving a player his own portable video unit for a night to go back to the off-limits player dormitory and shoot whatever he wanted.

 
Amusingly, according to Rucker, Newsweek had labeled those very “counterculture types” a bunch of “braless, blue-jeaned video freaks.” Mercy me!!

Given all the emphasis on the shaggy, guerrilla tactics of the TVTV crew, the resulting documentary is surprisingly gentle, which certainly constitutes a strength. In honored vérité style (Fred Wiseman was still very big back then), there’s no commentary at all; the doc is a loosely connected series of clips on various themes, including “Steeler Wives,” “Sports Facts” (that one is, subversively, about the players’ union), “Fans,” “Super Sunday,” and so on. To its credit, TVTV’s approach was not to lecture but to soak all the craziness in.
 
Bill Murray and Christopher Guest
 
Murray and Guest were on hand to ... er, “commentate” a curious game of touch football, billed as “Super Bowl IX 1/2,” involving a passel of former greats, including Sonny Jurgensen, Johnny Unitas, and Paul Hornung. Compared to their current statures, Murray and Guest were essentially unknown in 1976. Murray’s debut on SNL came a year later, almost to the day (January 15, 1977), whereas Guest, known at that time primarily as a National Lampoon writer and actor, would have to wait until 1984’s This is Spinal Tap for his big boost in exposure. If you want maximum Bill Murray, you’re going to want to watch Part 2 of the four videos. The interface between the counterculture and establishment culture may be most evident in that section: Murray’s innocent question to Phyllis George about which player she’d like to date induces an exasperated response about “sexist questions”: in other words, she doesn’t entirely realize that Murray is basically joking and that the stakes aren’t all that. Hilariously, Murray gets Pat Summerall, who was well on his way to becoming an axiom of CBS’ football coverage for a generation, to say, “I think there’s too much damn television, don’t you?”

The vaguely workers-oriented stance of the doc is its most interesting aspect—not just Colts owner Robert Irsay’s inane antics in which he likens the head of the players’ association to a babbling monkey but also the comments of Aleta Bleier, wife of Steeler’s halfback Rocky, on the physical and economic sacrifices the players make: “It’s a hell of a big business! Who’s gonna make all that money, the players, or—does Dan Rooney [president of the Steelers] deserve to make $5 million or does your husband [Becky Clack, wife of Jim Clack] deserve to make $30,000 instead of $18,000?” Right at that moment in baseball, the players were securing their fair share of the income, a process that would occur somewhat later for pro football players. Today all the athletes make plenty of money, and the moral force of Aleta’s argument is not something you’d be as likely to encounter today.

Oh yeah—the Steelers won that one, 21-17.
 

 

 
More after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Martin Schneider
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01.23.2014
03:12 pm
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Brazilian drag queen recreates Madonna’s entire Super Bowl show and it’s amazing

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Drag superstar Alexia Twister recreates Madonna’s entire Super Bowl spectacle in Brazilian gay club Victoria Haus - a rather amazing feat considering this show was probably produced with less money than the cost of Cee Lo’s dressing room deli tray.
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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02.22.2012
04:24 am
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AMERICA - MIA HATES YOU!!! (according to Pitchfork)

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It’s been brought to my attention by Collapse Board’s Wallace Wylie that Pitchfork have dedicated an entire page to calling MIA an asshole because she apparently told the American public to fuck off during Madonna’s Super Bowl performance last night. In case you hadn’t heard, MIA did indeed raise her middle finger during Madonna’s overblown performance of “Give Me All Your Luvin’,” on which the rapper makes a guest appearance. To see the incident, scroll down to the bottom of this post. 

Here’s an extract from the offending Pitchfork article:

What’s extra annoying about last night’s event is that M.I.A. doesn’t need these cheap ploys to up her visibility, even when the stage design and costuming is best described as “GoldenPalace.com.” After all, she released her first great single in years just last Thursday, and its music video had already racked up more than 3 million YouTube views even before the Super Bowl send-up. Following the rep-shattering press surrounding 2010’s /\/\/\Y/\, it wouldn’t be the worst idea to draw as much focus as possible back to her music. [So why run this story?]

Instead, in the few bars Madonna was kind enough to grant her during the biggest television event of the year, M.I.A.‘s message to America was simply, “Fuck you.” Well, in M.I.A.‘s own words, the little people will never win, but they can fuck shit up. Success might be the best revenge, but apparently, being an asshole is forever.

Seriously Pitchfork, GET A FUCKING GRIP.

As I stated in my last post about her, I am an MIA skeptic. I have found her performances and music to be underwhelming in the past, though I have really warmed to her latest video “Bad Girls.” The same goes for last night’s performance at the Super Bowl - it ain’t no great shakes, though she does look great. But if you take this much offense at last night’s throw-away hand gesture—which I honestly might not have noticed if it hadn’t been pointed out to me—then you seriously need your head examined. Yes, seriously. Just look at the clip below, and then tell us how offended you are on a scale of one to ten.

What I find truly bizarre about this reactionary Pitchfork piece is the level of personal affront the writer has taken at MIA’s (actually rather tame) gesture. According to this article MIA is not just flipping the bird at a camera or a camera person, she is not just flipping the bird as a routine hand gesture that countless MC regularly use, she’s not flipping the bird to accentuate her line about “not giving a shit” - no, MIA is flipping the bird to show her disgust at every single person in the United States of America. AMERICA, MIA HATES YOU!!! And especially those who may have tuned in to the Super Bowl to see her!! Yes, this makes perfect sense.

With that in mind I’m really, REALLY looking forward to seeing Pitchfork calling out Kanye West, Jay-Z, Eminem, Lil Wayne, Fred Durst, Jonathan Davis and countless other rappers and rockers who have raised their middle finger on national television at some point in the past and will do so again in the future. Because THEY must hate America and everyone watching them at that moment TOO, right?

Unfortunately, this will never happen. As other writers have pointed out in the past, Pitchfork has a legacy of sexism to its tarnished name, which explains the hyperbolic over-reaction to a common hand gesture in this news piece. Had this been done by a man it would surely be lauded as “punk,” yet when MIA flips the bird during a televised game where grown men BEAT THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF EACH OTHER, she’s an asshole who hates every single person watching her at that very moment. Living and dead. I mean seriously, how is anyone watching American Football going to cope with the mental scars that seeing a raised middle finger can bring?!?

That’s leaving aside the fact that MIA is a brown woman, and not even from America itself. Unlike Madonna of course, who can remain completely blameless during this entire farrago, and who was “kind enough” to grant MIA exposure on her tune. As opposed to hiring MIA in the hope that some of her credibility will rub off on a very lukewarm track. Or even—get this—simply being a female performer who wants to work with another female performer

What is also “extra annoying” is that Pitchfork has, in the past, given critical support to acts who condone the most brutal of violence against women and who have been deemed somehow edgy and confrontational because of it. Presumably because rape, sexism and homophobia is “punk” as opposed to “a cheap ploy to gain visibility.” I await with glee the moment when Pitchfork tells Tyler the Creator/Eminem/Lil Wayne to drop their bird-flipping schtick and draw our focus solely back to the music.

Again though, I doubt this will ever happen.

Pitchfork, with this news piece you have placed yourselves firmly (and finally) on the side of the fucking establishment.

Rock on, bros.

MIA HATES AMERICA!!! AND HERE IS THE PROOF:
 

Posted by Niall O'Conghaile
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02.06.2012
03:31 pm
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Leadbelly at the Super Bowl but nobody notices
02.06.2011
04:08 am
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In all the hype surrounding Volkwagen’s Super Bowl commercial airing later today and featuring Jon Spencer’s Negritic take on the song “Black Betty,” there is no mention of Leadbelly. It’s as if “Black Betty” never existed prior to Ram Jam’s hit version of the song—the 1977 recording the press keeps referring to when discussing the Volkswagen commercial.

In my opinion, Volkswagen would have made a better (and hipper) impression had they opted to use Leadbelly’s original recording of the tune. But maybe using a Black bluesman singing a traditional Negro work song called “Black Betty” in a commercial featuring a black automobile and black insects might have struck some folks as being a bit racist. Better to go with the white guy. Or change the name of the car to the Volkswagen Boll Weevil.
 

 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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02.06.2011
04:08 am
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