| Mr T's Be Somebody... |
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Way back before Random Rant was so much as a twinkle in my eye, I heard tale of a remarkable piece of television, the very notion of which both thrilled and delighted me to the point of physical arousal. At the time hunting around on the internet brought up little information about the masterpiece, and so I was left doubting its very existence, putting it down to little more than rumour and speculation. Until recently, when an anonymous tip-off was given to Random Rant - an anonymous tip-off which pointed the way to an auction on eBay where someone was selling knock-off DVD copies of a very special TV show. Yes, it's the moment the world has been waiting for. It's the article I was born to write. It's the internet's most astonishingly in-depth review of...  We've looked at some crazy Mr. T stuff together my friends - the duck springs immediately to mind - but nothing you have read on this site or probably any other will have prepared you for the journey into madness we are about to embark on. Nothing. You want Mr. T dressed as a genie for no reason whatsoever? You got it. You want to hear the heavyweight former A-Team star rapping? Or commentating on the weirdest fashion show in history? Or singing a heartfelt and emotional song about his mum which cunningly rhymes the word "mother" with the word "mother" several times? It's all here folks, and a whole lot more, including a video download of the insanely catchy theme tune as sung by T himself! I warn you though, watch the clip and you'll be humming the tune for fucking weeks. Even now I can't get it's up tempo, inspiring message out of my head. Damn you Mr. T! But before we tackle the DVD itself, let's set the scene... Back at the height of his stardom (we're firmly in the 80's here) Mr. T was probably the most famous person in the whole world, if not the entire cosmos. As well as his starring roles in the A-Team and Rocky III he had his own comic, cartoon series, breakfast cereal, and all kinds of other crazy shit. You name it, T had it. In almost everything he did, Mr. T projected one message - work hard, drink your milk, stay in school, and you'll be a success! Well, apart from in Rocky III when the message he projected was more along the lines of "I'm going to punch you in the face until you suffer brain damage or die", but nine times out of ten his message was a positive one. Inspired by this, some TV exec must've woken up one morning and thought "I know, we'll make an inspirational television programme in which Mr. T teaches kids how to be the very best they can be!". Which is why we now have "Be Somebody or Be Somebody's Fool!" - an inspirational television programme in which Mr. T teaches kids how to be the very best they can be! But enough of the history lesson, let's crack on with the review. As mentioned, the show opens with the upbeat theme song, accompanied by a selection of clips from the forty-five minute freakshow you are about to witness. I strongly urge you to download the video clip of this, if only to see the way Mr. T sings "reach out", complete with relevant hand gesture and pained facial expression. Don't worry if you miss it the first time, he does it like fifty times in the course of the song, in varying degrees of close-up. Or, at least, I would urge you to download the video clip had I not removed it due to it costing me an absolute fortune in bandwidth. I've already had to upgrade my hosting package this month and mere moments ago I got an automated e-mail telling me I was about to once again go over my bandwidth allowance. Well no more. The madness ends here. It's during this montage of clips taken from the programme (which you can't see any more) that we see a brief shot of Mr. T dressed as a genie talking to a girl on a beach. At no point does this feature in the actual show. I've hunted for it, it ain't in there. We can only dare imagine what delights the deleted "genie scene" contained. Maybe it's just me, but the lyrics (written, I hasten to add, by a gentleman by the name of Ice-T...) make no sense whatsoever. Let's take the very first verse as an example: Now everybody's got the time to play,I'm sorry, what? We're a matter of seconds into the thing and already it's cryptic to say the least. There's plenty more where that came from throughout the video, too. In fact I'd go as to far as to say that 85% of everything Mr T says in this thing is utter gibberish. I could go on for a dozen more paragraphs about the brilliance of the intro theme, but that's what the video clip's there for (okay, so it isn't any more, but I'll put it back one day). If a picture says a thousand words then a four minute video clip of Mr. T rapping speaks fucking volumes. From the musical number we're whisked to a private audience with T, who stands reading hesitantly from what appears to be a script he's never seen before whose words move at irregular speeds across a below camera autocue. In another stroke of random weirdness Mr. T opens this section by saying "Hey you - you with the teeth - come here!". How many buck-toothed youngster cried themselves to sleep after watching this show shall forever remain a mystery, but I'm guessing there were a few. In his introduction, Mr. T tells us that if you ain't somebody, then you gonna be somebody's fool. And as we all know, there's nothing Mr. T pities more than your common or garden fool. I used the video clip of this for the Random Rant Easter Message, so if you've seen that there's little point watching it again. Anyway, you can't, due to the bandwidth issue mentioned above. Shame really, because if it was here you could watch Mr. T at the end and see the exact point the words "nod and smile" scroll by on the autocue. You could check out the relief on his face when that segment was over, because it was clearly a nerve-wracking sequence. T couldn't have looked more panicked if Colonel Decker was standing just off camera with a couple of MP's and an M16 assault rifle. Intro over we launch into the programme proper - a series of 14 "lessons" which clearly and concisely show us - the "nobodies" - how to at last become "somebodies". I'm not going to go through each of the sections in detail or we'd be staring a fifteen thousand word review in the face. Instead I'll list the sections and give a brief idea what happens in them, pausing to reflect in more depth on the more...ahem...interesting sections. For "reflect in more depth on" read "laugh at". For "interesting sections" read "idiotic crazy shit". Section 1: Shyness When I saw this section I was mildly alarmed. It wasn't funny, just a bit irritating. The story of this section (and yes, they all have stories) is about a little girl making an "advert for shyness" (?) but she keeps screwing it up by talking too quietly and staring at her shoes. The director is not pleased with this one little bit. Incidentally, the director is the biggest asshole I've ever seen in my life. Seriously, this guy thinks he's Stanley Kubrick or something they way he bitches about the girl's performance. She's fucking nine man, go easy! Anyway, he keeps screaming at her and calling her useless and stuff until she finally snaps and shouts back at him. He immediately buckles, says sorry, and she continues with the advert in a confident way. Blah, blah, blah. It wasn't until I watched it the second time that I realised the director doesn't ease off because some nine-year-old bitch is back-chatting him, it's because just as she starts her rant, Mr. T - who has been watching from the sidelines - gives him a stare that says "I'm going to rip your lungs out through your eyes". Hell, I'd back down to a nine-year-old girl if she had a 400 pound gorilla with a mohawk eyeballing me too. I bet the director slapped shit out of her soon as T wasn't around. So as I say, I was a little disappointed by this first section. Aside from an angry glare, Mr. T contributed absolutely nothing to it. I was concerned that the reality of "Be Somebody or Be Somebody's Fool" might not be as funny as the concept implied. How wrong I was. The craftsmen behind the video know exactly what they're doing. Start off with a song, cram in the slow bits, then build steadily to a grand finale. We're safe in their hands. Trust me, people. Section 2: Roots Here we learn some interesting things about Mr. T's family history, because that's what this section is about. As T says, "How can you know where you're going if you don't know where you been?". Well, I'd have thought figuring out where you are now and where your ultimate destination is would be a good as any place to start, but who am I to quibble with the wisdom of the big man? This section takes place with T standing next to a big tree (symbolism, see? Genius) and talking to a group of about twenty kids. It's here we discover why two very important elements of Mr. T's unique look came about - namely the hairstyle and the $40k of jewellery hanging round his neck. The hairstyle apparently came from his ancestors in the Mandinga Tribe, who all had their hair the same way. Whoa! There's a concept I find a little hard to believe. Christ, I'm struggling to even imagine it. An entire African tribe with the hairstyle of Mr. T. Imagine getting lost in the jungle and stumbling upon that village. Even if they didn't eat you or stick your head on a spike your life would never be the same again. Oh, and he wears the jewellery because later his ancestors came over to America as slaves. I know, didn't make any sense to me either. What's he doing, rubbing it in? The whole thing quickly degenerates into a sing song, though Mr. T himself doesn't contribute much other than the odd hand-clap and enthusiastic bit of pointing. We do get a few alarming close-ups of some quirkily attractive teenage girls as they belt out a few lines, but what these lines are I have no idea. I'm not even sure they're in English. Maybe they're singing in the language of the Mandinga Tribe to honour Mr T. I'm not sure. Whatever the reason, their mouths are moving, sound is coming out, but what those sounds represent is beyond my comprehension. Section 3: Frustration This is the first in a series of short comedy skits featuring Mr. T trying and failing to play the cello. I'm not going to list every one as it comes up, but suffice to say 1) His bumbling attempts lead to a series of hilarious misadventures, and 2) He eventually plays the cello successfully. That's about the size of it. And man Mr. T looks weird in a tuxedo. Section 4: Anger It's picnic day in the park, and Mr. T is joined by his already familiar group of pre-teen and teenage friends at a table laid out with a feast fit for a King. Unfortunately, while attempting to kill a fly, he manages to smash everything on the table into a million pieces, prompting him to lecture the kids on anger management. Yeah, they weren't the ones who just shattered a plate with their big bear fist, Mr. T, let's be honest. In amongst genuinely terrifying the young actors on screen with him, T fluffs around half his lines in this scene. It shows the commitment and professionalism of the director that he simply could not be arsed to shoot it again. Mind you, after seeing Mr. T punch shit out of a potato salad I doubt I'd fancy telling him he'd fucked up his dialogue either. The segment ends with T teaching the kids that anger should be channeled, and that by focusing our rage and hatred we can get the results we want. Is it just me or does that sound suspiciously like the Emperor's speech to Luke in Return of the Jedi when he's trying to corrupt him to the Dark Side? I listened to T's lecture half expecting him to bark "now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battle station!" at the stunned, frightened children surrounding him, but he never did. I don't know if I was relieved or disappointed. This is the last of the "so-so" sections of the DVD. The fourth segment, like many of those before it, is at best okay. It's passably funny, but you have to kind of be looking for it to be funny before it is. Remember what I said earlier about the people who made this starting slow and building though? Well after this we turn it up a notch. From here on in it's solid gold. Section 5: Styling I kid you not. Mr. T brings us a fairly lengthy guide to how to style yourself. Surely that's the equivalent of taking flying lessons from a door? The two things are entirely alien to each other. T begins the section with the profound: "Everyone has to wear clothes". If the people watching this needed that fact pointed out to them, then I could have told them at the start that they were never in a million years going to be somebody, and saved them the bother. Still, the way Mr. T says it it's like he's bestowing upon you the secret of eternal life. Like he's expecting us to go "what? Shit, really? Everyone you say??" He goes on to ask if Calvin Klein wears clothes with your name on it. No, but then does Mr. T eat breakfast cereal with my face on it? No, so best not go casting stones in that particular direction, methinks. What happens next is so hypnotically horrifying I ended up watching it four times. Mr. T provides commentary on what is undoubtedly the worst fashion show of all time. I mean it, I've seen some shocking outfits in my time, but these little numbers are in a league of their own. It's like someone invented a machine that could somehow take everything that happened in the whole of the 1980's and condense it all down into clothing form. That's how 80's these clothes are. They're not just 80's, they're 80's! But don't take my word for it, let this choice quote from Mr. T show you what I mean: "And here's Marta, our subway sweetheart, taking the A Train to fashion in this graffiti inspired creation. With her mustard socks and her ketchup sash, she's a real hot dog!"We are then treated to what feels like an hour of Marta dancing, ketchup sash flowing and flapping about like there's no tomorrow. But Marta isn't the worst dressed person in this segment, and for once nor is Mr. T. The worst is probably Athena, "with her English Bowler hat and her Japanese kimono". That's a look that should never have been. By the end it's quite apparent why Calvin Klein doesn't wear clothes with any of these peoples' names on. It's because all their clothes are shit.  Athena hits us with both barrels of her 80's dance moves Section 6: Peer Pressure How many times have you been out walking with a group of friends along a pier, only to find a bin full of fags and lager? Never? Unlucky, because it happens, and this section is the documentary evidence that proves it. That's what happens to some kids in this, arguably the most sinister section of the video. They're out walking, minding their own business, when one of them spots a couple of cigarette dog ends on top of a bin. Upon closer examination he also finds several more packets of cigarettes and half a dozen unopened cans of Budweiser. What a stroke of luck! One little fat kid - let's call him Timmy - doesn't instantly become a nicotine crazed alcoholic as the rest of his friends do, and instead sits on a bench in a sulk while they indulge themselves in an orgy of smoking and drinking. I mean it, this whole bit is like some kind of bad acid trip, all fisheye lens close-ups of chicks laughing with smoke coming out of their nostrils and stuff. It's heavy going. Not as heavy going as that bit in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when they go along the river of chocolate, but pretty damn close. Anyway, fueled by the heady taste of sin, Timmy's friends start trying to pester him into joining them, but he's having none of it, despite the fact they get pretty damned forceful. At one point they're actually trying to cram fags in his mouth while pouring beer up his nose. Honestly. It's horrible. They get so scarily insistent at one point I was worried they were going to rape the poor guy. Rather than step in and tell them to leave the kid alone, Mr. T elects to stand a short distance away trying to convey the message "Don't do it, Timmy, smoking gives you lung cancer and no-one likes a pisshead" using just his facial expressions. It's like watching him having an epileptic fit. His face goes all the way from "mild concern" to "Christ, they're going to rape him" and back again about four times. But despite Mr. T's best efforts (well, maybe not his best) Timmy looks like he's about to give in. Who could blame him? He lasted a whole lot longer than I would have done in the same circumstances. But no, all is not lost, for who is that standing just ten feet along the pier? Why it's...  Bet you never thought you'd see the day Bobby Brown was advising someone to abstain from cigarettes and alcohol. Oh if only he'd used the same lines on Whitney things could have been so different. Because that's why New Edition have appeared out of thin air - to lecture us via the gift of music and dance on not giving in to peer pressure. This they do by singing "peer pressure...peer pressure" over and over and over and over and over again until the time comes when you inevitably stab a pen into your own groin in the empty hope the hot searing pain can somehow distract you from them singing the same fucking lyrics on some Hellish perpetual loop. Still, it seems to work because by the time the second chorus comes around (composed almost entirely of the words "peer" and "pressure" I feel I should point out) the kids have seen the error of their ways and stand with their heads hung low in shame. They have gorged themselves - however briefly - on evil, and now they must repent, even though at no point did any of them actually light any of the ciggies. The way Budweiser is so prominent on screen throughout this section makes me think maybe they paid for some kind of product placement deal. Bet they were delighted to find the drinking of their product being portrayed in a light previously saved for heroin addiction.  "Jesus guys, okay, but at least light the fucking thing first will you?" Section 7: Recouping An important part of being somebody, it seems, is not looking like a total asshole. So this section tries to make out, but this is in stark contrast to the evidence we've seen thus far. This part of the video shows a chipper young scamp strolling down the street, before inexplicably falling over. It's like he's been tripped up by that mental bloke on the train that teaches Patrick Swayze how to touch things in Ghost or something - he just lands square on his arse for no reason. Naturally - as your or I would were an eight year old to fall over in front of us - everyone on the street starts pointing and laughing. Literally everyone. Grown men and women guffawing like it's the funniest thing they've ever seen in their lives. So how could that kid have stopped himself looking like an utter dick and prevented everyone from laughing at him until tears ran down their bloated red faces? Simple: By turning his fall into a breakdance move. And that's it. That's the advice. If you fall over, perform a sub-standard backspin as if it was your full intention to land on your arse in the street simply because you fancied a bit of a dance. Yeah, people are going to look at you in a whole better light then. Well, the people in this video do, because those folks who'd laughed at the kid before now gaze upon him with awe and wonder like he's the second coming of Christ or something. I have my suspicions that Mr. T was somewhere just off camera dishing out that look again. I'm not sure if the breakdancing advice is good for getting out of any awkward situation, or just specifically for falling over. I can't see how it'd help if you were caught in bed with your wife's mother or something, for example, but then I suppose it couldn't make the situation that much worse either. Still, this could have been made clearer. There is also bit at the end of this segment when we see Mr. T with no trousers on, but for the life of me I can't remember why. Section 8: Creating Jesus, we're only on section eight?! Let's hurry this up a bit... This section teaches us that we can "create with our bodies". Or, in other words "breakdance". There sure is a lot of breakdancing involved in being somebody, and that's pretty much all this section is - some kids breakdancing and trying to teach Mr. T how to do the same, resulting in him twitching and spasming like he's been struck down with Parkinson's Disease. Breakdancing is one of those things that if done properly you can look at it and go "that's quite impressive", but in the same way you could say the same thing about someone on the TV gameshow "You Bet!" being able to name from memory alone the killer in any given episode of Columbo. It's impressive in its own way, but it's not something likely to have the ladies falling at your feet. Maybe some of the guys, but never the ladies. Section 9: Treat Your Mother Right This is arguably my favourite part of the whole DVD, not least because it's our second big opportunity to hear Mr. T sing. Or rap. Or whatever the Hell he's doing. The segment opens with a horrible little child exchanging insults with a grotesque ginger-haired fat woman who really should know better at her age. They're giving each other a right slagging, until the fat dame launches into a "Yeah? Well yo' momma is so--" before Mr. T lunges into shot and stops her. "Don't be bringing no-one's momma into this," T scowls, "because when you put down one mother you put down mothers all over the world!" Well, you don't really, when you think about it, but again I'm not going to argue with the man who killed Burgess Meredith just by looking at him in Rocky III. Ironically, the actress who plays the fat bird is the real life mother of the young boy in the scene! Actually she isn't, I just made that up, but she's more than old enough to be. Who knows, maybe she is? That's something for you to find out. I'll expect a full report on my desk by Monday. I wish I could summon the motivation to capture a clip of Mr. T's performance here, but it's almost midnight and the end of this review still seems so, so far away. Instead I'll tell you that the lyrics include the line: "Mother, there is no other, like Mother, so treat her right" repeated almost as many times as New Edition chimed their fucking "peer pressure" at us, and that T looks like he's just singing the first thing that comes into his head all the way through. Seriously, his facial expression suggests he's either wondering if he's left the bath running or he's making the song up as he goes along, and since at this point T probably had people specifically paid to run his baths for him, my money is on option two. Actually, since it has taken me until the next day to finish this review, click here for an MP3 of the song plus the heated exchange from the intro. Don't say I'm not good to you people. Section 10: Workout Being on a fitness kick of my own at the minute I paid particular attention to this segment. I mean who knows more about working out than Mr. T, right? There were bound to be some useful bits of advice in here for me. The scene opens with some kids sitting around snacking on assorted junk food. Well, I say snacking, but one chubby little cherub is literally cramming handfuls of popcorn into the gaping hole in his red puffy face like if he stopped eating his whole family will die. Who should happen upon the group but Mr. T, and he ain't impressed. The kids, for their part, react as if the guy their Dads all told them never to talk to has just latched onto the group, and all look suitably uncomfortable and alarmed by T's arrival. T spends a few moments pitying the young fools, telling them that they are going to end up fat and bloated and that they need to ditch the junk food and get in shape. I'm sure I wasn't the only one to notice T firing a pointed look in Fat Kid's direction at this point. Fat Kid protests that he's going to start getting in shape as soon as the new gym opens up (yeah, keep telling yourself that, tubby) at which point you can actually see the veins bulging on T's forehead as he fights back the urge to scream "quit yo' jibba jabba, sucka!" in reply. Instead he tells the group that they don't need no fancy gyms, and that they can do their workout using things they have around them. To demonstrate T lifts up a fucking enormous boombox that's sitting next to the group and proceeds to lift it like a dumbbell. He passes it down the line for the kids to try. All succeed in lifting it a few times in a similar way to T. All except Fat Kid, who literally can't lift the thing a centimetre off the ground. Next up Mr. T takes one of the bags of popcorn, balances it on his head, then starts doing squats. Mr. T does squats a whole lot in this video, usually at the most inappropriate of times. I've avoided mentioning the instances of squatting thus far because I didn't quite know how to fit them in in a way which made any sort of sense whatsoever. But then I suppose very little about Be Somebody or Be Somebody's Fool makes any sort of sense whatsoever, so I probably worried needlessly. Anyway, after he's done a few squats, T passes the popcorn on to the first kid for him to try. I'm not quite sure how balancing a small bag of popcorn gives any kind of advantage over normal squats, but I guess it must do. I'll have to remember to bring a back of Butterkist with me on my next trip to the gym. I just hope no-one asks too many questions. I'd hate to have to blurt out "because Mr. T told me to!" in front of a group of total strangers. The popcorn reaches Fat Kid again, who manages to fall square on his lardy ass before he's even managed a single squat. Man, is this kid ever going to be somebody?! T realises they need some help to get in shape, so he clunks the hefty play button of the boombox, hoists it on his shoulder and leads the kiddiwinks off into an exercise montage set to some insipid 80's electro-pop. You know how in dozens of 80's films there's a montage sequence where someone starts out being really rubbish at something, then gradually gets better and better until they have whatever they're trying to do nailed down perfectly? Well that's exactly the same as this sequence, only Fat Kid consistently fails at everything he attempts to do and doesn't improve one fucking iota. I mean it, he is unable to climb a rope, he falls over doing more squats, he comes flying off the end of a chute and lands yet again on his arse, he falls off a swing and lands painfully on the ground - whatever he tries his hand at Fat Kid fucks it up. What message was Mr. T trying to convey here? No matter how how hard they try, fat kids will always be somebody's fool? As inspirational messages go, it's not the most uplifting I've heard. At the end of the scene, having come last in a race by an enormous margin, Fat Kid runs screaming into the sea! Really. I'm not sure if he's just going for a fully clothed swim of if he's committing suicide following the shame and humiliation he's just endured at the hands of Mr. T. Even if he was just going for a swim though, you can be reasonably confident he drowned. Section 11: I Am Somebody I probably should have mentioned before now that as the title of each segment appears on screen, it is spoken aloud by Mr. T. For some reason though, when the words "I Am Somebody" come into view, the T voiceover barks "Rapping!". It makes no sense, but then as mentioned before that hardly sets it apart from the rest of the show. This segment opens with a few kids sat around on yet another street, this one made up to look like the least authentic ghetto on the face of the Earth. One girl - who looks like her Daddy is probably the Senator for Florida - turns to the camera and tells us in her best "street" voice: "Rapping is like street poetry. It lets you express your feelings inside, or the way you are! It's like ya signature, ya outfit! Or the way you move!"Ohhh-kay. Mr. T then strolls us and hits us with a "Rap is a way of saying Knock, Knock!". "Who's there?" ask the kids, already anticipating the upcoming hilarity. "It's me," T replies, "so open up and listen to what I gotta say!" What? That's it? That's his joke? That's just a stretched out version of the "Knock Knock/Who's There?/Me" joke my two year old son finds hilarious. I can forgive it of one so young, but coming from the world's toughest bouncer it just feels like it lacks a certain something. And yes, you've guessed it, Mr. T goes on to express his feelings inside by giving us a blast of his own particular brand of street poetry. Simply transcribing it doesn't do it justice, so click here for an MP3 of the entire scene, including Mr. T in full rapping mode. It's pretty heavy going though, I warn you, even touching on everyone being killed by an atomic bomb and shit. This being somebody isn't the walk in the park you might at first think. Also you will never again hear anyone sound as insane as T does when doing this rap. I give you my solemn promise on that. Section 12: Friendship A quickie segment which consists solely of Mr. T dressed as a teacher reading the dictionary definition of "friend", deciding he doesn't like it, and coming out with his own. A friend, according to T, is someone who'll suck the poison out of your big toe after you've been bitten by a snake. Personally I can't think of any friends I'd do that for. Sure I'd call them an ambulance and hold their hand until it came, but suck the poison out of their toe? I think not. Actually it reminds me of the time a Religious Studies teacher told my class that a true friend was someone who would gladly lick the pus from your sores. Whoa there! Why the Hell would a friend do that? It's not like licking the pus from someone's sores is going to benefit them in any way. If anything it'd likely lead to an increased risk of further infection. No wonder the guy got sacked and then went to Thailand to buy a wife. The Religious Studies teacher, I mean - not Mr. T. Section 13: Mr T's Tale Remember when I said earlier that from section 4 onwards it was solid gold? I lied. This section is absolute guff. Essentially it consists of Mr. T fumbling and stammering his way through a story about a guy and a girl from opposing gangs (one of which is called The Mighty Midgets which made me laugh for hours) who fall in love, but are kept apart by their warring friends and family. Yes, Mr. T attempts to take credit for Romeo & Juliet, but inevitably forgets the entire story and ends up just telling the gathered children to go read the original book in the library. And that - apart from a line about how reading can be such fun which feels like it was crowbarred into the script five seconds before the scene was shot - is that. Section 14: Daydreaming Finally, we're at the last segment. Thank sweet sweet baby Jesus. Apparently in stark contrast to what every teach I ever had wrote on my report cards, daydreaming is a key component of being somebody. This is demonstrated here by a pre-teen girl playing in a little league baseball game while imagining she's batting in the World Series. She manages to construct a lengthy, intensely detailed fantasy about her performance in the biggest event in baseball - complete with TV commentary and slow motion sequences - in the time it takes the pitcher to line up his throw. Either that girl's mind works insanely fast or that pitcher needs to ease up on the preparation. Personally I'd have thought she should be putting the majority of her concentration into the real life events unfolding before her, but "Coach T" seems to be perfectly happy for her to be off in LaLa Land while the entire game rests on her shoulders. This he demonstrates by blowing a really big bubble with his bubble gum, which eventually pops all over his beard. The bubble blowing is actually quite unsettling, in that it's done in a lingering, slow motion close up and has nothing to do with the scene whatsoever. It feels like it should be in a David Lynch film and loaded with weighty significance, but after watching it half a dozen times I've come to the conclusion that it's actually just Mr. T blowing a fucking enormous bubble. Nothing more, nothing less. "Daydreaming - if you can see it, then you can be it!" Mr. T tells us, and sure enough the girl manages to best her previous miserable effort by actually connecting bat with ball, even if she does only manage to hit it about a foot and a half. So there we have it. We've journeyed a long way together today, my friends. We have learned much, and I hope we're all now well on our way to being somebodies. Okay, some of the advice was ropey in parts, and some of it was entirely nonsensical, but it's obvious when you watch this show that Mr. T firmly believes each and every word he says, even those which aren't strictly speaking part of the English - or any other - language, and that's good enough for me. For those who didn't grab them at the time and can't be bothered hunting back through the article to find the links, the downloads are available using the links below. I've had to kill the video downloads I had available for the minute as they were costing me a fortune in bandwidth. Baz@rr Like Mother (MP3) |
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