I once heard a story… “Whatever blooms from the Baobab is given back to the earth, because the mighty tree never forgets its roots.” Like the mighty Baobab, McDonald’s and I will not be moved.

You’re not going to believe this, but the statement above is a direct quotation from the official McDonald’s website. First of all, it makes no sense. The tree gives back to the earth, and the speaker “will not be moved.” I don’t really get the analogy. And I really don’t get how McDonald’s factors into it. Does McDonald’s give back to the earth? Is McDonald’s impossible to move? Here’s my best shot: McDonald’s gives the speaker the strength of a mighty tree. But it’s certainly a confusing way to put it, not to mention a silly thing to say. Not only that, McDonald’s is equating itself with one of the most sacred trees in African folklore, known as “the tree of life.” That seems sort of disrespectful to the culture they’re pandering to, and gloriously ironic given how unhealthy McDonald’s food is and the high rate of obesity among African-Americans.

So basically, it’s not the best two sentences of marketing copy ever written. But the Baobab quote is merely the gateway to something even stranger: 365black.com, McDonald’s special website for black people. I promise you this is real.

If you’re like me, you will stare at this for a while, and then click on “What is 365Black?” The site explains:

At McDonald’s, we believe that African-American culture and achievement should be celebrated 365 days a year — not just during Black History Month. That’s the idea behind 365Black.com.

Okay, so it’s a website about black history? No. Not at all.

It’s a place where you can learn more about education, employment, career advancement and entrepreneurship opportunities…

Of course, all those scholarships and jobs they’re talking about are available to everyone, not just African-Americans. I don’t see how posting a link to the general McDonald’s employment page is celebrating African-American culture. But there’s one more thing…

…and meet real people whose lives have been touched by McDonald’s.

Every month, 365Black posts testimonials from African-Americans with some association to McDonald’s (everyone from regular old employees to Monopoly contest winners). Last year, they did as many as five profiles a month–in 2009 they’ve averaged only one, and they flaked out on March entirely.

The site also has a “What’s Happening” page, which is where they seem to hide the stuff that’s most relevent to the idea of “celebrating African-American culture.” For instance, McDonald’s is sponsoring a Gospel tour, with free admission. That’s great, as are the scholarships and career opportunities. What I’m sniping at here is the questionable marketing decisions, from the name of the site on down. From the “What is 365Black?” page:

Like the unique African Baobab tree, which nourishes its community with its leaves and fruit, McDonald’s has branched out to the African-American community nourishing it with valuable programs and opportunities.

Is it just me, or is this pretty damn condescending? It’s also poorly written and missing a comma after “African-American community.”

But that isn’t the only minority they’re condescending to.

Say “konichiwa” to myinspirasian.com, which may be the single worst website title on the entire internet. First of all, Asians hate being lumped together as Asians, so that’s a great start. On the home page, watch past the McCafe commercial to see an ad with a man karate-chopping next to a Big Mac, which is surrounded with rays uncomfortably reminiscent of the Japanese imperial flag. The first link on the menu bar goes to a page celebrating Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, which was last month. This page teaches you to say non-stereotypical Asian phrases like “Check out my new cell phone” and “Let’s go do some karaoke.” This one says that the “Family Pavillion Tent” will be showing up at various Chinatown street festivals, which sounds exciting until you see the photo gallery. McDonald’s, if those are the only six photos you have, just forget it.

Finally, there’s meencanta.com.

On this site, you can see some futbol tips from Mexican soccer star Missael Espinoza. At least I assumed he was a star. But looking at his Wikipedia page, he doesn’t seem that great–in his only World Cup appearance, he rode the bench the whole time and didn’t play a single minute. Plus, he’s been retired for five years. MeEncanta also has info on the Fiestatour, a mobile exhibit of Latin artist memerobelia (Gloria Estefan, not Frida Kahlo). And the site offers a good section on getting into college, with info on special scholarships.

My favorite part of this site is the “Latin Pride” section. There’s a colorful “Mi Lado Latino” graphic, and buttons to click that say “Sticker,” “T-shirt,” and “Poster.” But when you click on the “Sticker” graphic, all you get is the image and instructions to print it out on adhesive paper. Clicking on “T-shirt” shows you the image with instructions to print it on transfer paper. And the “Poster” link just downloads a really big image. Presumably, you have to bring it to Kinko’s to actually get a poster made. There’s something pretty mind-blowing about the fact that McDonald’s doesn’t care enough to actually produce its own “Latin Pride” t-shirts. They haven’t even heard of CafePress, apparently.

Here’s something to consider. On 365Black, the benefits of working at McDonald’s are touted in a giant slider on the front page. On MeEncanta, the page is dominated a McCafe ad, and “employment opportunities” is a little button at the bottom. On MyInspirAsian, you won’t find the word “job” or “employment” anywhere on the front page. You do, however, see a picture of a “designer and artist” in wire-rim glasses and a sweater.

I guess a basic question is, does it make sense to create these standalone mini-sites for particular ethnicities? Burger King isn’t doing it. Wendys isn’t doing it. So either McDonald’s is smarter than its competitors, or dumber. Or more experimental.

But let’s play devil’s advocate and say McDonald’s in onto something. After all, isn’t the future of the web about narrowcasting and creating microcommunities? If you’re a giant company with a diverse audience, why not create a bunch of different landing pads? Is this really much different than Disney creating one site for children who want web games, and another site for adults who want vacation planning tools?

But even if you think the concept of ethnic sites has merit, surely these three aren’t the best they can do. On the other hand, I did learn to say “Text me” in Indian.

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In scientific publications, most of the articles are original research. There are also review articles–overviews of the work that’s been done on a particular problem, for the benefit of those in the field who want to keep up.

This is a review article on the Tommy Westphall Hypothesis. I’m not introducing any brilliant new observations of my own. But if you’ve never heard of Tommy, and you like Overthinking™ stuff, let me get you up to speed.

Dr. Donald Westphall was one of the main characters on the 1980′s NBC medical show St. Elsewhere. Tommy was his autistic son. The final episode aired May 25, 1989. In the last scene, Donald Westphall returns home, and based on his clothes and conversation, it’s clear he’s a construction worker, not a doctor. Donald looks at Tommy and says, “I don’t even know if he can hear me, because he sits there, all day long, in his own world, staring at that toy. What’s he thinking about?” The toy is a snow globe containing the hospital the series was set at.

The ending’s a bit ambiguous, but the most common interpretation is the entire show was just a figment of Tommy’s imagination. In other words, it was all a dream.

First of all, I have nothing but pity for the poor fans of St. Elsewhere. I’ve watched a lot of series finales in my day, and never have I said to myself, “I really hope it turns out everything I spend the last six years watching was a dream.” Can you imagine what the fans of Lost would do if the last episode ends like this? There would be riots.

All these people are not only fictional, but fictional within the fiction. If this hurts your brain, now would be an excellent time to bail out.

Anyway, the characters of St. Elsewhere are apparently in Tommy’s mind. The trouble is, St. Elsewhere doesn’t exist in a vacuum. For instance, there was one episode of the show where the doctors go out for a drink at a bar called Cheers. And yes, it was that Cheers, complete with Rhea Perlman telling them off. But if characters from St. Elsewhere and Cheers interacted, then that means the two shows share the same universe. And if St. Elsewhere is in Tommy’s mind, then so is Cheers.

But if you accept that Cheers is all part of Tommy’s dreamworld, then of course Frasier is as well. And in one episode of Frasier, Daphne is complaining about a “Caroline in the City” comic strip, which means Caroline in the City is all a dream too.

Stick with me now.

On one episode of Caroline, Caroline’s friend Annie runs into Chandler Bing in a video store. Chandler is, of course, one of the Friends. Phoebe’s sister, Ursula, is a character on Mad About You. On one episode of that show, Paul is doing a documentary on the history of television, and he wants Alan Brady to do the narration. Alan Brady was the star of the fictional Alan Brady Show, within The Dick Van Dyke Show. And that destabilizes a whole pocket of classic TV, sucking The Brady Bunch, Batman, and The Addams Family into Tommy’s mind.

This is the Tommy Westphall Hypothesis: St. Elsewhere and any show that can be shown to share a fictional universe with  St. Elsewhere are all daydreams. It’s hard to say who originated this idea, but there’s a good chance it was Dwayne McDuffie. He’s a comic book/TV writer, and in 2002 he explained the Hypothesis very well in an issue of Slush Factory, a magazine primarily about comics (I can’t find the article at the Slush Factory site, but you can read it here). McDuffie presents the Hypothesis as his own, and since I can’t find any pre-2002 mentions of it, I’m prepared to tip my hat to him. (Actually, I’d tip my hat to him in any case for his writing on the Cartoon Network’s Justice League.)

In the article, McDuffie invites readers to send him more crossovers:

All of these would help me prove my Grand Unification Theory, which posits: “The last five minutes of St. Elsewhere is the only television show, ever. Everything else is a daydream.”

Are they really Cylons? Only Tommy knows for sure. (See upper-left quadrant of chart, attached to Angel.)

Seven years later, not every show has been tied to Tommy, but the rabbit hole goes pretty deep. Behold this. It’s a fairly epic chart put together by “Crossoverman,” showing all 282 shows currently linked to St. Elsewhere. If there was a Nobel Prize for charts, this would get my vote. But to understand it, you’ll have to consult the key, which explains exactly why these shows are linked. For instance, if you look at the chart and see the big box at the top center, you’ll notice The X-Files and Homicide: Life on the Street are linked. Now go to the key and search for “X-Files”: you’ll find that Detective Munch once questioned the Lone Gunmen.

Even if you don’t put any stock in the Westphall Hypothesis, perusing the chart is definitely a lot of fun. I am in awe of Crossoverman’s work. That’s not to say, however, that I agree with every single link. As the blog Yesterday’s Salad pointed out, some links are stronger than others. For example, there was an episode of the tween soap Degrassi Junior High in which a “Dr. Donald Westphall” is paged in a hospital scene. The character never shows up – it’s just a name over an intercom. Does this prove that Degrassi and St. Elsewhere share the same universe?

Examining the chart myself, I was at first excited to see Lost on there. After all, it would be cool to be able to say, “I know what’s really going on in Lost.” But when I checked out how it’s linked into the chart, I was disappointed. Both Diagnosis Murder and Lost feature an “Oceanic Airlines.” That’s it. Personally, I think “Oceanic” is a pretty generic airline name, and hardly proof the two shows coexist.

So you can nitpick exactly how many shows are in play here. But even if you insist that only a real crossover of fictional characters should tie a show to the Westphallverse, that still leaves you with a pretty big web. And I’ve got to admit, it disturbs me. I really don’t want The Office to be just a figment of Tommy’s imagination. But of course, The Office isn’t real. It’s 100% made up, and I know this. And yet, the idea that it might be not only fake but doubly fake is unsettling. And it’s unsettling that it’s unsettling. If anyone knows a good German word for “a wearying level of reflexivity,” pass it along.

Professor Weatherson, putting his PhD to good use. (That wasn't meant to be sarcastic - seriously, read the article.)

Luckily for me, there are plenty of good ways to poke holes in the theory. In fact, Brian Weatherson, an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers, wrote an admirably Overthought article back in 2004 called Six Objections to the Westphall Hypothesis. Some of these are pretty weak (#4 is basically: The writers of Cheers clearly didn’t intend for their show to be set in Tommy’s dream, so we should give them a break and assume it’s not.) But some are pretty compelling. For instance, just because we dream about something doesn’t necessarily mean it exists only in a dream.

I could have a dream where I’m catching Pedro Martinez as he strikes out 22 Yankees to clinch the ALCS. Again, that wouldn’t mean Pedro Martinez, or the New York Yankees, or the American League are not real.

Basically what this means is, maybe we can build a firewall around St. Elsewhere and save other shows from the gaping maw of Tommy’s fantasy. For instance, let’s say that Tommy had once visited the Cheers bar (unlikely, since he’s a kid, but you never know). In that case, he could have imagined his pretend St. Elsewhere doctors visiting a real place and meeting a real waitress. This seems to be the most common argument against the theory that I’ve read on the internet.

But there’s a simpler reason the Tommy Westphall Hypothesis just has to be wrong: there is no way an autistic boy who spends all day at home staring at a snow globe would be able to imagine even one TV series worth of stories. How could Tommy think up police procedurals, courtroom dramas, or high school melodramas?

Chuck Norris is very, very real. Case closed.

On the other hand, autistic people often have amazing powers of memorization. Maybe Tommy spends his days not staring at the snow globe (as his dad thinks) but rather memorizing every page in an encyclopedia, thus learning enough crime scene jargon to dream up CSI.

On the other other hand, do we really believe that Tommy – not just a child, but an autistic child – has the emotional maturity to imagine 208 shows worth of friendships, rivalries, and sexual relationships? In fact, it’s not even plausible to believe Tommy dreamed up St. Elsewhere. How would he know so much about medicine, if his dad really is a construction worker?

And so we circle back to my very first point: this is a lame ending to a TV show. Not only is it unsatisfying, it just doesn’t make sense. Tommy couldn’t have dreamed up 137 episodes of this show. And if he didn’t dream up St. Elsewhere, than I definitely think Heroes is safe.

Incidentally, the actor who played Tommy has a website you should really take a look at.

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Why my surprise? Find out after the jump.

I mostly associate A. O. Scott with this article in which he examines why critics (including himself) so often diverge from the popular taste as determined by the box office. In reference to the second Pirates of the Carribean movie and The Da Vinci Code, Scott laments:

For the second time this summer, then, my colleagues and I must face a frequently — and not always politely — asked question: What is wrong with you people?

Rambo should fit nicely with this pattern: poor reviews (30% on Rotten Tomatoes, 5.6/10 on IMDB), big box office numbers (second only to Back to the Future at the box office in 1985), even four Razzie awards. Yet Scott finds room for Rambo in his Critic’s Choice series among the likes of Do the Right Thing, Hudsucker Proxy, and Chariots of Fire.

Scott not only defends his admiration of the film; he also delivers some sound overthinking:

Rambo has been a central figure in American foreign policy debates for more than twenty years.  There are a couple of movies about him, but they’ve really been overshadowed by all the arguments about what this figure represents…

I strongly recommend Rambo…It’s done in what you could almost call a “classical style.”

I would appear that, at least in this case, Scott is also one of “you people” who celebrate the big, dumb action movie.  Except that he’s a movie critic, and he can celebrate these movies through proclamations of their profundity without too much risk to his credibility.  (Sounds familiar?  I suppose that’s not limited to the realm of movie critics.)

Speaking of profundity, the retrospective video is worth watching for some classic scenes from the movie:

• Gun vs Bow & Arrow.  Guess which one wins?
• Run Away! (from the slo-mo bomb dropped by a helicopter)
• “Mission…Accomplished” (Oh, if he only knew how accomplished the mission would be twenty years later. Then he’d be really pissed.)

For more Rambo, and more profundity, check out this series of posts by Fenzel from the early days of the blog.  Why let A. O. Scott have all the fun?

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Has the whole world gone topsy-turvy?

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Charlize doesn't know, either.

Amanpour, Christiane (kris-tə-YAN ä-MÄN-pür)
Auel, Jean (OUL)
Baum, L. Frank (BOM)
Blanchett, Cate (KĀT BLAN-chət)
Buscemi, Steve (boo-SHEM-ē)
Clowes, Daniel (KLŌZ)
Coelho, Paulo (POU-lō KOO-ĀL-yoo)
Derrida, Jacques (zhäk dâr-ē-DÄ)
Fiennes, Ralph (RĀF FĪNZ)
Foer, Jonathan Safran (FÔR)
Fraser, Brendan (FRĀZ-ər)
Hedaya, Dan (hə-DĀ-yə)
Herge (ÂR-JĀ)
Inhofe, James M. (IN-hof)
Krugman, Paul (KROOG-mən)
LaBeouf, Shia (SHĪ lə-BOOF)
Lazenby, George (LĀZ-ən-bē)
Leto, Jared (LET-ō)
Limbaugh, Rush (LIM-bô)
Loggia, Robert (LŌZH-yə)
Lohan, Lindsay (LŌ-ən)
Milosevic, Slobodan (slō-BŌ-dän mē-LŌ-she-vich)
Rand, Ayn (ĪN)
Rhys-Davies, John (RĒS-DĀV-is)
Rushdie, Salman (SÄL-mən RÜSH-dē)
Silverstone, Alicia (ə-LĒ-sē-ə)
Stevens, Sufjan (SOOF-yan)
Stevenson, Adlai (AD-lā)
Takei, George (tä-KĀ)
Theron, Charlize (shär-LĒZ THER-ən)
Xiaoping, Deng (DUNG-SHYOU-PING)
Yeoh, Michelle (YŌ)
Yun-Fat, Chow (YOON-FÄT)
Zagat, Tim (zə-GAT)
Zeta-Jones, Catherine (ZĒT-ə)

The government says so.

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So when they both publish nearly identical posts, the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

This one hit Kos at 10:35 am, Pacific Time.

And this one hit Red State at 11:00 am, time zone unclear.

Now, there’s a possibility that DailyKos ripped off RedState. If that RedState post went up at 11:00 Eastern, that meant it was only 8:00 in California. Plenty of time for a Kos blogger to create their own word clouds and have them up by 10:35 Pacific.

But one of our many mottos here at Overthinking It is that “The simple answer blows.” So let me be the first to propose that the blogosphere, our nation’s cherished Fifth Estate, is in the pocket of Big Cloud.

This saddens me. I am so saddened, my sadness can only be expressed via Word Cloud:

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Apparently I was not the only person who thought this.  Check it out:

And

Yeah.

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“Art,” says Leonard Bernstein, ” … revives and readapts time and space, and the measure of its success is the extent to which it makes you an inhabitant of that world—the extent to which it invites you in and lets you breathe its strange, special air.”  So yeah.  For lack of a better word, I’d say this qualifies.

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Our movie was selected for Best of Providence and won the Audience Award at the Best of Providence showing as well as the “Best Rhose Island movie” for its references and jokes about Providence and the area, which they like to encourage.

To keep you honest, every team in the city gets the same prop, character and line of dialog, and each team picks a genre out of a hat. For us, it was:

Character — A hairdresser named Monty Chaney

Line — “If you see him again, tell me.”

Prop — A pear

Our genre — Horror

Enjoy!

Don’t know what the 48 hour film project is and want to find out? Already know what it is and want to talk about it? Just want to bash my movie? DO SO . . . after the jump –

If you’ve never heard of a 48 hour film project, here’s the bottom line — balls-to-the wall teams get together for one weekend per city per year and each make a movie of 4-7 minutes in length in 48 hours. That means all the writing, all the shooting, all the editing, all the effects, everything, between 7 PM on Friday and 7 PM on Sunday. It’s awesome — and it’s thriving and growing across the country.

Now, the thing about 48 hour films is they rarely turn out the way you intend them to, and just getting them made is often a huge logistical accomplishment. I had a variety of roles in this one (I produced, which basically meant I had to shop for costumes and get a lot of the paperwork together — liability waivers, etc., I acted, and I did a little writing, although not as much as in past features.)

I know this movie is far from perfect, and we’d all make some changes to it if we had more time. But I think it’s fun, and it’s definitely in the spirit of the project. It delivered what the audience wanted, which was good.

I’d love to see some discussion in the topics from people — have you done a 48 hour film project? Looking at our movie, can you see things we did right/wrong (be merciless; I can take it, and I know there are lots)?

Do you have any questions about doing these movies? Do you want to get involved?

I know a fair number of OTI’s readers are movie buffs, and this is a great way to get involved in filmmaking if you’ve felt you’ve always wanted to do it. I’ll also be glad to answer any questions anybody has.

Thanks for reading and thanks for watching!

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I’m a two-blog man now.

As some of you know, I write and produce Hotnewz.tv, the best darn news show for college kids on the web. We recently started a blog where we talk about some of our favorite segments. After the jump is something I wrote for it, on the enigma that is Andrew WK.

Cross-posted from the Hotnewz Blog:

There was a time when I thought Andrew WK made dumb frat boy music. Dumb frat boy music for frat boys who found Smashmouth too complex. And I wasn’t the only one.

But the funny thing is, serious musicians love the guy. Artists as different as Sightings and Lee “Scratch” Perry wanted him to produce for them. The Yale magazine Volume recently profiled him alongside minimalist composer Phillip Glass. And here he is performing with indie darlings Vampire Weekend. So basically, Pitchfork hates him, but bands that Pitchfork loves love him.

Andrew WK does make dumb frat boy music, but only in the way Jackson Pollack paints something a five-year-old could make. As his four-hour lecture at NYU makes clear, Andrew has a Philosophy, and simple, irresistible party music plays a role in it.

I don’t claim to understand exactly who this person named Andrew WK is, but I believe that above all, he wants us to be happy. Don’t believe me? Go here, start the video, and skip to about three minutes in, when he really gets cooking. You will be happier, I promise.

Watch “Andrew WK: Philosopher of Partying” from Hotnewz.tv

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