Statistical Complaint

First, I have some stats. Then, I have a complaint.

These stats are for all you superfans out there who love unpublished books with zero credibility. Recently, my book's word count surpassed the great George Orwell's Animal Farm, knowledge gained courtesy of Amazon.com. (I usually don't "shout out" to big corporations, but I had a lot of fun learning how many words were in various classics. I usually don't "shout out" either, as my street cred is statistically lagging.) The quality of my story is yet to compare to Georgie boy's, but my book could still become more famous if the right number of assassins use it for justification.

In any case, some more fun stats on my still-in-production book:

• Most used word: Flabbergast.
• Least used word, of words used at least once: Sexahol.
• Word that starts and ends each chapter: Culmination.
• Most referenced animal: Komodo dragon.
• Most hated animal: Box elder beetles.
• Most sensual scene: Scene 34.
• Least sensual scene: The vomiting one.
• Most alluded to prime minister: Benjamin Disraeli.
• Least alluded to prime minister, including prime ministers not mentioned: Margaret Thatcher (all other prime ministers of historically recognized nation-states are mentioned).
• Most popular character: The dyslexic nun.
• Least popular character: The myopic lama.
• Most confused words: Lama and llama.
• Most hardcore sex scene: Scene 1.

And now, a complaint.

Brokeback Mountain is starting to really upset me, and not because of anything sexual, as you will discover in Scene 1. My reasoning is twofold, sixfold less than the path to nirvana:

1. The film bored me, personally. I enjoyed the nature shots, but nothing else. Given my stoneheartedness, I don't care for most love stories, and this was no exception. I didn't find the characters particularly intriguing. I didn't care about the family stories on the side. And most of all, I hated the plot aging so many years. Film is already a short-form media, and putting make-up on young actors disturbs me. Perhaps the fact that a young actor with old man's make-up raped my grandma biases me unfairly, but I don't really think it does, considering that young man was me. I got paid union scale.

2. The makers of the film are whiny as H. Why do they care so much that their movie lost? The Oscar ceremony is supposed to be entertainment, maybe made more fun if you win, but otherwise primarily for the purpose of public discourse. It's not supposed to be the Baby Express. Saying that you were the "Best Film" is merely a subjective statement, and let us look at who the selectors of these tarnished truths are. Sarah Jessica Parker admitted on Conan she didn't even watch the whole movie. Some of the Academy nominated Mystic River a couple of years ago, a movie for which I hold everlasting hatred (I saw it in a Czech theater where I only had to pay 4 bucks, but I expect a full 10 back). And of course, the Oscar voters probably overlap with the Emmy voters, and all I have to say to that is "Everybody Loves Raymond beat Arrested Development."

Why do I bring this all up now? Because the creators of Brokeback Mountain, in their whining, are only asserting for me more and more how boring the movie was. The author of the story must be a simpleton, for why else would she write the academy to deride "opponent" Crash as being Trash? Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Maybe the garbage pun works, maybe it doesn't. And even if Crash is trash, why would you care what the Academy who voted for it thinks? Your boring-arse story has gotten enough exposure to make it as successful as it can be. Next time, do a story on the sheep. Maybe I'll like that one.

To avoid the shouts of hypocrisy at my window, I do have to reveal that I once found myself in a similar predicament as the Brokeback author. In high school, my suburban pop trio Suburban Flava - consisting of myself, Arun Antonyraj, and Charley Gorzynski - were embarassingly trumped in a lip-synch contest by a group of future frat boys who performed that "Ain't Nothing But Mammals" song and humped the stage. True, we lip-synched to a song with no words, but I still openly complained about the fact that we weren't even awarded creativity points for my farm produce juggling, Arun's jig, or Charley's cord-untangling. In fact, I still complain to this day, but with a noted difference:

Then I was somewhat serious. Now I completely jest. Then I was in high school. Now I am mature.

Poopy.