UnHOAXED: The Alaska Pipeline of Michigan

Given the intimidating girth of my intellect, you might doubt the feasibility of my submitting to an academic lecture. After all, you might reason, the last thing I need is to fill my brain (our planet's most valuable natural resource, renewable or otherwise) with the poorly considered drivel of lesser minds and mouths. Furthermore, you might think that my brain must be nearing its physical capacity for information storage. Surely a few more nuggets of knowledge will cause my brain matter to explode into vapor, instantly raising the IQs of anyone lucky enough to inhale the residue. Well, if that's what you're thinking, you have a lot to learn, my simple-minded friend.

On the first point, you underestimate my passion for unhoaxing the ridiculous notions of so-called experts. Exposing the falsehoods of snake oil salesmen gets my rocks off faster than looking at myself in one of the many mirrors in my house. On the second point, my brain is not bound by any natural law. Like the universe, it began with the explosion of all matter from a single point. Unlike the universe, my brain will never collapse back onto itself, destroying everything inside it.

And so it was that I recently found myself attending a lecture on the pathetic economic condition of the state of Michigan. The speaker rattled off a familiar list of factors allegedly contributing to Michigan's crappiness: the shrinkage and near collapse of the American automotive sector; the exodus of college-educated workers to more prosperous cities than Detroit; and the state's substantial divestment in K-12 education, a dreary indicator of things to come. As I listened, I started thinking about how brilliant I am. I pondered that reality for the rest of the lecture. After the speaker concluded, people began filing out of the building, but I remained immobile, entranced by my own intellectual prowess. I didn't move, sleep, eat, defacate, or even blink for weeks. I was terrified by the awesome powers of my own mind. It was truly a humbling experience; an intimate encounter with greatness.

Weeks later, I remembered what I had heard at the lecture. So many convenient explanations for Michigan's meteoric rise to the top of the world's shitlist. That's when it hit me: when everyone agrees, something is wrong, because some people are idiots, and idiots rarely get things right. I started wondering what really lies at the heart of Michigan's struggles. Who benefits from the smoke screen created by conventional theories about jobs, industries, and macroeconomic shifts that were decades in the making? Once I tell you, you'll kick yourself for being such a moron. Who is really to blame for Michigan's woes?

Tim Allen, the only real economic engine Michigan has ever known. (Sorry, Henry Ford.) Before you laugh at me -- which I do NOT recommend -- consider this: Tim Allen's hilarious sitcom "Home Improvement" was set in Detroit. The series ran from 1991 until 1999, when Detroit was widely regarded as the Paris of the Midwest. I remember it well, since I remember everything well. The streets were paved with gold, money grew on special trees (called "money trees" informally, though the scientific term was considerably more complex), and Detroiters were the envy of the world.

"Home Improvement" beamed visions of this utopia to every man, woman, child, and neer-do-well with a television set. Detroit became synonymous with the American dream: a house full of gay sons, Pamela Anderson's boobs slapping you in the face every time you turn around at work, and neighborly Wilson just over the fence solving all your problems (except the problem of wanting to see his face and never being able to!). Tragically, like Leonardo DiCaprio's prized beach depicted in the movie "The Beach," Detroit's perfection could not survive the curiosity of outsiders. Also like Leonardo DiCaprio in "The Beach," many of Detroit's residents turned to hallucinogenic video game fantasies to escape reality once they realized their good fortune would not last.

By 2000, "Home Improvement" had come to an end, and Detroit's luck had run out. American scientists discovered that SUVs caused a lethal combination of cancer, AIDS, and ebola. Japanese automaker Toyota began promising seventy-two virgins to everyone who bought a Prius. As domestic automakers struggled, Michigan's unemployment rate skyrocketed, and anxious residents looted major cities in their state, stripping gold from the streets and harvesting the prized money trees to make toilet paper. The proverbial well ran dry, and Tim Allen slithered back into his mansion like a snake, content to live the rest of his life on his "Home Improvement" earnings. Or so it seemed to the short-sighted pundits who are not me.

I saw the bigger picture. I recognized that as Tim Allen goes, so goes Michigan. Every time he makes a movie, he injects enough money into the Michigan economy to sustain entire cities for decades. In 2004, he starred in "Christmas With The Kranks," a hilarious holiday romp boasting a 5% approval rating on RottenTomatoes.com. That summer, the Detroit Pistons won their first NBA Championship in 14 years. What's the connection, you ask? I knew you would need me to connect the dots. Tim Allen gave the Pistons hope. Tim Allen is synonymous with Detroit. When the world sees him lighting up the silver screen with his dashing good looks and his Midwest charm, they say to themselves, "Whatever happened to that city on a hill, that bastion of hope, civility, and riches? Flint, Michigan!" Then they think of Detroit, which lives on in the dreams of ordinary Americans who yearn for a better place to call home, a better place to pretend that things will get better, as long as global warming kicks in and makes Michigan a tropical oasis.

And so this story ends on an optimistic note, since Tim Allen is certainly not done producing high-quality entertainment. Next year promises the release of "Toy Story 3." 2011's "Wild Hogs 2: Bachelor Ride" is sure to sell out theaters nationwide and breathe new life into a state still yearning for a handout from its biggest stars. We may have spilled the seeds to the money tree, but we've learned our lesson, and we have our eyes on a bigger prize now. Bring us your seed, Tim Allen. We won't waste a drop.

The Intellectual Trio: An Introduction

Lately, there have been some rumblings about the e-campfires about who and what the Intellectual Trio actually is and are not. We would, accordingly, like to take this opportunity to introduce myself. First, let me put some rumors to bed, with the lights down low, bullet-point style.

• Second of all, we were not the final catalyst for the falling of the Berlin Wall, as far as you know.


• Yes, we are a trio, so naturally, we consist of four separate yet equal voices, minds and, sometimes, sexual organs.


• Yes, we invented time, timekeeping, time travel, Time magazine, and pop-funk 80's sensation, The Time. We are not responsible for the herb and erstwhile aphrodisiac, thyme.

The Intellectual Trio is basically the most critical thinker, supreme arbiter, and, above all, brilliant Intellectual in the game today. If you want to imagine King Solomon without diabetes, Leonardo di Vinci with diabetes, and Albert Einstein with a luscious mustache and monocle, all combined in Prometheus' body (with additional musculature and sexual puissance), presto! The Intellectual Trio.

Our mission is, like all good and decent ones, a simple quest: to spread amongst the world a gospel of Truth and Intellectualism. This may surprise you as you sit in front of your computing machine, but the world has many problems. While the Onion might report the news, and Stephen Colbert comments on the news, we are here to solve the news, once and for all. Our ratiocination is in peak form, our intellectual gonads fully matured, and we are not messing around. And, if you care about anything, you shouldn't either.

There was a time when all one need do to spread intellectiveness was learn how to read and not stick you head in various animals. Surely, there were the Deceivers, out to promote democracy, religion, science and a host of other social and unintellectual ills. For epochs, those yokels were identifiable by their fat faces and soft brains (we know this, because we were there. Duh). How long is an epoch? Only the Trio knows for sure. Now, the enemy isn't so easy to spot. It could be you. The only way to know is to relinquish yourself to be bathed in our effervescent and zealous urine of discernment and holy wisdom and help us fight the battle of Intellectuality.

This is the only place on the Internet that will make you more intellectual. In summation, you're welcome.

Profiles in Intellectualism: Hines Ward

Excepting basket-ball, sports are a charming pastime for the Intellectual mind. And despite the incongruity of the name, American-style football is a particularly beloved spectacle. Full of rich and colorful uniforms and characters alike, football has become one of the most popular sports in the country (and, indeed, the Milky Way). And while many of these massive humans, justly rewarded with diamonds and facial hair, have “spoken their mind” over the years against injustice and homosexual witch-huntery, few men (and men alone, for women are appropriately barred from such a manly contest of wearing spandex capri pants and hugging each other to the ground) have spoken with the eloquence of Hines Ward.

Though Hines Ward plays in Heinz Field (talk about home-field advantage!), he has no connection to the Heinz family fortune... yet. But given some statements this week, we can safely conclude that he essentially called teammate and Pittsburgh Steeler quarterback Ben Roethlisberger a sissy-pants. Roethlisberger was concussed in a contest the week prior. Doctors foolishly noted post-concussive symptoms and disallowed the evil young quarterback from playing in the following meet. But Hines Ward saw right through that.

Ward remarked, “You either play and jeopardize your future, or you sit out and worry about the big picture.” In this case, the big picture is surely the Autotriopic Documentary, whose movie rights are currently available. Suffice it to say, Ward and the rest of the Steelers lost the game without their surely dizzy quarterback, putting their chances at gaining entrance to the play-offs slightly lower. The whole mess is clearly Roethlisberger's fault, who has sustained four head injuries in his short professional career, and certainly should be used to it by now.

Ward went on to explain how he can pass judgment on the very quarterback whose sinister and weak play has led the both of them to two Super Bowl titles over the past four years. Mr. Ward has claimed that when he was hurt, he lied to his doctors so that they may clear him to play – despite his injuries! Here at the Intellectuarium, we can do little but shake our heads – in excitement! Long have we waited for someone as Intellectual as us (well, almost); one who has the ability to take the phrase “mind over matter”, and put it to good use! For someone to hoodwink their own physical state using nothing more than his giant Intellective processes, well, you may color us Impressed (actually, a shade of Light Impressed).

Hines Ward has long engendered a reputation by sports writers as a “gamer”, a receiver who blocks when it is appropriate to block, and so forth. This is no small feat, as sports writers and commentators, fickle though they can be, are some of the wisest in the land. For a physical specimen like Hines Ward to push around another human being of equal or lesser size fifteen to twenty times for five to ten seconds at a time requires unimaginable grit and “love of the game”. I can scarcely imagine what a tongue-humping Ward will get from the sports scribes now that he has tricked his body into a non-injurious state.

As for Roethlisberger, I believe it is clear now that he only has one option: indiscriminately murder all of the doctors on staff for the Pittsburgh Steelers and replace them with a bunch of highly paid stooges with little integrity - the sort of yes men a personage of import a quarterback ought to have. See, the quarterback is the king of the fiefdom that is a football team, and if Roethlisberger isn't prepared to put his meaningless future health at risk for the glory at hand, well, the peasants are rising. And it isn't as if there isn't a potential dictator waiting in the wings. A quick look at the roster reveals one such player with tyrant-quarterback experience in college: Hines Ward!

It is clear now that Hines Ward is plotting a vicious coup on the despotic Roethlisberger and his ineffective court of doctors and medicine men. Well, he has the Trio's full endorsement. After all, this isn't politics or warfare, it's football. And football is the most important thing of all. Besides the Intellectual Trio, of course.

The New York Times had a surprising intellectative take on the Ward saga:

But Ward was stuck in the same refrain, about how he had lied to doctors and played with concussions, and survived. Again, Ward insisted, he was not questioning anybody’s toughness, not judging another man. Here was Ward, wrestling with concussions, debating no one except himself.

Wrestling medical conditions? Debating no one except himself? Intellectual moves any day of the month! Huzzah, Mr. Ward!

Intellectual "Up-to-Date": Hines Ward has since "apologized" to Mr. Ben Roethlisberger, claiming he did not "have all of the information." Sure, Mr. Ward. This reminds us of the old adage: keep your friends close, and your enemies full of apologies - and, after a while, gut them and take their empire. Well played, indeed.

Have an Intellectual worthy of a Profile? E-Mail us, theintellectualtrio@gmail.com: festina lente!