Like many of you, I started off 2012 with a new year’s resolution to work out.  And, hopefully unlike many of you, two weeks into the new year … I’ve yet to do a single push-up. (sigh)

“Where to find a little workout inspiration?,” I wondered. “Ah, yes, Rocky IV.”  Watching it for the 5,849,948th time, I am compelled to share with you my thoughts on… the greatest film ever made.  Yes, that is not mere opinion but fact.  Rate it on a sheer entertainment, emotions-evoking, never-goes-stale standard and surely you’ll agree.

To be fair, “Rocky IV” is not an overly political film, nor was it intended to be.  But it nonetheless encapsulates several key conservative points, so much so that it was, and still is, slammed by leftist critics as right-wing propaganda.  Behold, the top 10 conservative lessons of “Rocky IV”:

1) Communism… (let me be succinct and find the right word here…) sucks.

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Not much more can be said about the culturally ruinous effects of Lady Gaga.  Never before has a “controversial” public persona been so contrived, derivative, and over-calculated.  Every single move the woman makes is designed for one thing and one thing only:  attention.  Gaga (born Stefani Germanotta) is, quite literally, an Internet troll.  She employs the same sort of shock-mongering that stars of yesteryear (Madonna, Michael Jackson) peddled to print and television, but her schtick is all about dominating new media:  blogs, social networking, and celeb gossip websites.  With multimillion dollar marketing firms behind her, she’s been extraordinarily successful, but there’s still hope.  We can weather this cultural storm, but it will take courage and diligence.  Anyone who’s spent any time on the Internet knows there’s only one way to stop a troll:  starve it.

Given that this is Big Hollywood, I doubt I need to encourage anyone to stop patronizing Lady Gaga.  But there is a rising pop star that could eclipse Germanotta’s celebrity with your support.  If you have daughters, buy them a copy of The Archandroid as soon as you can.  The album’s artist, Janelle Monae, is a genuine musical talent and an exemplary role model for young women.

The Archandroid is absolutely verdant, bursting with ideas and energy, hopping from genre to genre effortlessly.  It tells the story of a robot named Cindi Mayweather who breaks the law by loving a human man and discovers her destiny as the savior of her fellow droids.  It’s at once classic and contemporary, familiar and uncharted musical territory.  Like most ambitious records, it drags in places and missteps one or two times too many, but it establishes Ms. Monae as a confident and passionate artist with the potential to someday be counted amongst the ranks of soul music legends like Nina Simone or James Brown.  (more…)

It used to take decades and even centuries of cultural transmission by storytelling, theater, ballad, and a general diffusion of knowledge by processes unknown to bring myth and legend into being.  That may be another way of saying that people once had brains, and then came television, Video’s killing of the Radio Star, and the genteel cultural virtues obtained through 24/7 media immersion.

People once heard, told, acted out and retold these tales, taking active roles in creating visions of life and its possibilities in imaginative ways, instead of flopping on couches with a Monster Burger in one hand and a Bucket o’ Suds in the other, passively awaiting the predetermined outcome of one steroid-based extravaganza or another. This says something disturbing about the contrast between ancient and modern civilizations and the ways the perception of reality can either be generated by humans or imprinted upon them, unless you’re the CEO of an international fast food conglomerate or a viewer engaging in a fierce wind-breaking competition during a broadcast’s inevitable male-enhancement advertisements or rain delays.  (more…)