Reason #31 China Will Rule the 21st Century- American Popular Music

Pre-Post NOTE: I would like to offer my humblest (not saying too much i guess) apologies to the former crews of Reading Rainbow and Wishbone. I left both shows out of my pantheon of great educational entertainment and that was inexcusable. My bad.

Post-Pre-Post NOTE: How awesome is LeVar Burton? He created/hosted Reading Rainbow. He was Geordi La Forge on Stark Trek:The Next Generation but that was preceded by an even more epic role voicing Kwame (Earth) on Captain Planet. And, of course, who could forget his portrayal of Toby Kunta Kinte in Roots? Oh, slavery. Good times. Just kidding, three thirty black friends. Anyway...

It looks like we have ourselves another post. And another non-sports post, at that. I'm posting regularly while minorities are outnumbering good ol' white folk at the water park? Well played, Mayans, well played. The end of the world certainly draws near. My favorite part of this video is the talking missiles. I don't know why. My second favorite part is the French accent while the Japanese flag in the background of the Chinese portion of the clip rounds out my top three. The American educational system, for the win! While the academic performance of America's children (below average) is certainly reason to worry, this post will be addressing an issue far more dire. It is a disease that seeps into the brain of every child, tween, teenager and even the occasional college student (here's looking at you, kid). It's an airborne virus that spreads rapidly and children are at a much greater risk than adults. That makes it pretty much exactly like the swine flu...except unlike H1N1, the B52 is actually quite dangerous. It is the virus of dumb pop music.

Haven't heard of the B52? I guess I'll take a moment to fill you in. The B52 is named after the New Wave rock group that emerged from Georgia in the late 1970s and unleashed the full-fledged virus upon the world with "Rock Lobster." Bow Wow Wow and Wham! kept the virus alive in the 1980s with a cover of "I Want Candy" and "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go," respectively, but this was merely a precursor to the 1990s when things really escalated quickly.

I remember like it was yesterday. Hanson and Ricky Martin. The Spice Girls. Sisqo and Crazytown. Every boy and every girl! Shake your bon bon, shake your bon bon. People of the world! Let me see that thongggg. Slam me to the left! Cause you're my butterfly, sugar, baby. Shake it to the right! Life in plastic...it's fantastic. Spice up your life! Mmm bop. (Don't lie. You were singing along with Aqua. And probably Hanson, too. I'll stop here for everyone's sake). Hanson (profoundly) sings "In an Mmm bop they're gone." I would like to respectfully disagree with Isaac, Tyler and Zac. I could say that these songs will leave my head tomorrow but that's simply not true...they will be with me For. Ev. Er. And that's the whole point of this post (I knew we'd get there eventually). How many catchy melodies rattle through your head? How many dumb choruses float around inside that brain of yours? Why do you still know every word of "All-Star" by Smashmouth? Because you had a contest with your sister over who could memorize the song first? Well, that's just dumb (but I won so take that Casey). Kids really should play outside more.

NOTE: Nice Dane Cook cameo at the beginning of the "All-Star" video (it's from the movie Mystery Men). He hadn't yet learned that the key to comedy is a lot of yelling and spastic body movements. What's that now? That's not the key to comedy?? But Dane Cook is a massively successful stand-up comic! That has to be the key. Very odd. I guess it's a good thing we have Family Guy to explain things.

You may think that pop music could sink no lower than Hanson but kids these days have it no better. I don't know if Darwin had this exact scenario in mind while he was studying his finches, coming to his conclusions about the survival of the fittest and suffering from severe headaches (it's true and for those of you not paying attention I am implying I am the next Darwin) but pop music continually evolves in order to thrive consistently. The beats get catchier and the songs get dumber. Jeremiah is offering birthday sex. Fergie really likes to spell things. Soulja Boy had to go and compound the problem by creating a dance to complement his ridiculous song. And it was a dance so simple that even white people could (almost) pull it off. Soulja Boy, I only have one thing to tell you...you're a jerk. And we haven't even gotten to Miley Cyrus yet...maybe we should just move on again...

After extensive research (one Google search and some brief Wikipedia browsing), I have determined that China doesn't have the same problem. After all, this is the nation of Yo Yo Ma! There are some notable exceptions but basic love songs make up a lot of China's popular music (C-pop for short). Oddly enough, Chinese rap is abbreviated to C-rap. I didn't know Soulja Boy had created his own genre (ohhhhhhhh). Anyway, Jay Chou appears to be the artist that makes all the girls go wild (which gives him something in common with the Jonas Brothers that way) but he appears reasonable enough. It appears that Chinese children can only rely on American music to slowly erode all semblance of intelligence thought from their minds. And while certain Western fashions (cough democracy cough) are all the rage among the general public in China, we all know who the importer is in this relationship. In the end, it appears that America (and maybe England, too) is consigned to receive a steady stream of dumb pop songs that can only end in one thing. Insanity.

Full Disclosure- My favorite song that has recently been on the radio prominently features the lines "Don't trust a ho, never trust a ho." "Party in the U.S.A." comes in a close second. Just kidding. But seriously...

Reason #47 China Will Rule the 21st Century- The Olympics

I'm a big supporter of these United States of America. I may not own an American flag, serve in the military or speak with a Southern accent, but I think the U.S.A. is a great place to live. I mean, come on, in America we like our starlets young (and underage...in chronological order...1, 2, 3) and our phenoms even younger (in order from most to least justified 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 763, TBD). Personally, I think Latarian will do more hood rat stuff with his friends than anyone in history. Watch out, Tiger. Anyway, the United States is a place where we like our burgers colossal and devote entire shows to gluttony. We like our wrestling fake and our national past time faker (in no particular order 1, 2, 3). And we like our cars big and our stars bigger. I use the term 'star' loosely.

Because of all of these inherent truths, and maybe those mentioned in the Declaration of Independence as well, the United States was the leading global power over the course of the 20th century. For those keeping score at home we recorded an 11th round KO of Russia/USSR when it became obvious in the 1990s that the Soviet Union had been in the process of a massive internal collapse for a number of years. I happen to think the deciding blow was delivered around...1980 or so (fewest goosebumps to most 3, 2, 1). So while it's true that the U.S.A. has left Russia in the dust thus far in the 21st century, a new nation has emerged to challenge America for global supremacy. That nation is China. And while I love America, all signs point to another Chinese Revolution (hopefully with less Mao and more Yao this time). And in recognition of the impending ascension of the Chinese, I have decided to introduce the first ongoing (meaning there will be at least two of these) segment to this blog. It will be totally subjective, non-scientific and (probably) offensive. So without further ado...(see title of post).

The Greeks established the Ancient Olympic Games nearly three thousand years ago in 776 B.C. These games originated before the Romans went nuts on the rest of Europe...and some of Asia...and most of northern Africa...so at this time the Greeks had the freedom to lay the foundation for Western civilization and...do some other stuff, too. And the Greeks established a precedent that holds true three thousand years later, that the superpowers around the world win the most Olympic medals. The United States won the most medals in the four Olympics following World War I (the Olympics before WWI were dominated by host countries due to the greater difficulty in traveling in the early 20th century) but Germany easily won the most medals in the 1936 Berlin games (the exclusion of Jesse Owens from the master race probably rates behind the invasion of Russia but ahead of facial hair choices and the decision to fight Jesus on Hitler's list of mistakes). America came back from WWII atop the medal charts but the USSR slowly closed the gap before accumulating the most medals in 1972. We would regain the medal lead after the conclusion of the Cold War (excluding the Soviet-boycotted 1980 Los Angeles games) and looked like a good bet to maintain our position for the foreseeable future. Throughout this period the medal tables have fairly accurately reflected influence and power in the real world, as Japan and various European countries consistently rounded out the top ten of the medal charts. It was not until 1992 that a new nation emerged with a significant medal total. Enter China, stage right. Far right. (Far East). Get it? Theatre and geography?! Let this blog take its' rightful place alongside Bill Nye, Magic School Bus and Sesame Street in the pantheon of educational entertainment.

NOTE: Dear God, Kobe. You may speak fluent Italian but your European influences clearly do not extend to Pavarotti.

Let's get onto the bad news. China has already overtaken the U.S.A. in the medal count for the Paralympic (not Special Olympics) games. And it's not close. I know. Devastating. Since being introduced during the 1960 Olympics in Rome, the United States had dominated every Paralympic Games from 1964 through 1996, finishing with the most medals every year during that stretch. But our reign came to an end in 2000 during the Sydney games. Australia captured forty more total medals (27 more golds) and we finished third in the medal count (fifth in golds). And that was just a precursor to 2004 and 2008. We managed a combined 187 medals (63 golds) during the past two games while China accumulated 352 medals (152 gold). These numbers are overwhelming but I'm here to rationalize that seemingly damning difference away. It's a simple fact that you cannot put too much stock into disabled games that allowed a fully-abled Spanish basketball team into the competition. My biggest problem with this? The Spanish only won the final 87-63! They had to be the worst collection of ringers since the "Homer at the Bat" episode of The Simpsons, in which eight of the nine MLB guest stars miss the championship softball game completely due to various, hilarious reasons (one of best episodes ever). Now that I've completely lost my train of thought let's just move onto the good news...

We had more total medals than China in 2008 despite the Beijing location (host countries see sizable jumps in their medal counts). Back to the bad news...

China had 51 gold medals in Beijing. That is fifteen golds more than the United States and that total alone would have been good for third in the medal table (Great Britain had the fourth most medals with 47). America only bested the Chinese by ten total medals despite the top five American athletes taking home 27 medals (no Chinese athlete had more than three). Take away Michael Phelps, his bong and his Olympian behavior and China vs. U.S.A. is a virtual dead heat. Further take away Shawn Johnson's substantial thighs and China takes the top spot. It seems only a matter of time before China's athletic factories (1, 2, 3) churn out comparable superstars.

China has shown dramatic improvement over the past fifteen years and that upward trend is unlikely to change. The Chinese government will force the best Chinese athletes into laborious training regimens and won't tolerate non-participation from medal hopefuls. The current structure established in the sports of gymnastics, weightlifting and badminton/table tennis will soon extend to swimming, basketball, judo and who knows what else. The Chinese will be able to imitate the former U.S.S.R. because of a massive population and similar government involvement, structure and funding. We may retain the number one position in the overall medal count in the 2012 London games (not on American soil but at least everyone speaks English...or something resembling English), it will be a long, long time before we capture the most golds at the Summer Olympic. Look for the Chinese to wrest away the overall medal tally in 2016 (at the latest) in Rio de Janeiro and not relinquish that top spot for quite a while. With Olympic domination on the horizon, can world domination be too far behind? I think not. Narf!

Coming up next time...Reason #31 China Will Rule the 21st Century- American Popular Music...