Ed Ranks Ten More Random Articles on Wikipedia

Remember when I did this? Well yeah, I'm sort of out of ideas now and I might as well just do it again. The possibilities are endless because the random button is so much fun!

10. Hematospermia - Oh, fucking gross. Blood-filled semen gets its own Wikipedia entry? And it has a picture uploaded? A picture that isn't Metallica's Load album cover?

9. Denver, West Virginia - Who knew that there was a Denver in West Virginia? I wonder if there is anything fun to do there. Hahahaha, of course not. There is nothing fun to do anywhere in West Virginia.

8. Bobby Kinnear - OOOH! Greg Kinnear's father? Nope. An Aboriginal sprinter who won the Stawell Gift in 1883. What's a "Stawell gift," you ask! I don't care. Look it up yourself if it's so important. Do I have to do everything for you?

The German Institute has a picture. Big deal.

7. German Institute for Literature - I read a book here. It told me that goose-stepping morons like yourself should try reading books instead of burning them.

6. American Society of Association Executives - Too boring to even read. This honestly just sounds like the name of a front for a swingers organization so that rich, white-collar, Caucasian businessmen can make it sound like they're going to some important association meeting when instead their copulating with their co-workers wives. This doesn't actually deserve to be #6, but the random re-interpretation of the article that I just made up in my head makes it jump up some spots because, as noted in the mission statement of Ed Ranks Everything, this website is meaningless, irrational and arbitrary.

5. Yahya Atan - A Malaysian field hockey player who played in the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Fun, right? Here is another fun fact for you - "Yahya" is the Arabic version of the name "John." You learned something. Go eat some cookies as a reward. And speaking of Johns...

4. John Molyneux (academic) - There are apparently so many famous John Molyneuxes out there that they need a disambiguation page. This one is a "British Trotskyist," whatever that means. Just watch out for ice axes when you visit Mexico, Yahya Moly.

3. Achrestogrammus - An extinct prehistoric fish. Sounds delicious. We need to invent time machines so that we can fry this thing. Unless maybe we already do invent time machines in the future and that's the reason they're extinct in the past.

2. Dresden Howard - An Ohio Statesman from the 19th century. I'd say boring, but then again he also aided in the Underground Railroad and helped slaves flee to find protection in the North. So not boring. You're awesome, Mr. Howard. RIP.

Jazz. The second most American thing after firing a gun inside
of one of those McDonald's that's inside of a Walmart.

1. Sonny Red - American jazz alto saxophonist associated with the "hard bop" style. He unfortunately fell into obscurity late in his career. Not to be confused with the capo in NYC's Bonanno crime family with a very similar nickname. This one totally wins because being a jazz saxophonist is like a billion times better than all these other lame things the random button came up with this time.

Ed Ranks the Greek Pantheon

The Greeks have a lot of gods, but I'm just talking about the major "Twelve Olympians," aka Dodekatheon, with this list. This technically leaves out a few important gods like Hades, but maybe Hades should have lived on Olympus if he wanted to matter. You'll quickly notice that this list of twelve Olympians contains thirteen gods though. That's because the magic number of twelve was pretty solid throughout Greek history, but different sources had different lists. In the majority of sources, eleven of the twelve are consistent - with only Hestia and Dionysus swapping out.

13. Hestia - Speaking of Hestia, there is a reason why she was frequently left off the list of twelve. She's boring. Who cares about Hestia? She's the goddess of the hearth and represents domestic and home life. She's also supposedly a virginal goddess, which means she has no interesting stories because all the best Greek mythological stories are about crazy sex and violence. I really can't think of any interesting stories involving Hestia at all. People burned chunks of food as a sacrifice to her. That's about it.

A typical day - Hephaestus watching
his wife sleep with someone else.

12. Hephaestus - The god of blacksmiths, fires, volcanoes and stuff like that - which sounds cool. But he's also supposed to be ugly, "lame" (disabled), and deformed, which really sucks for him.  In most legends, he's married to the beautiful and sexual Aphrodite - which I guess is supposed to be ironic or something. But even that's not a high point for him, since she's always cheating on him by banging Ares and others. Poor cuckold Hephaestus.

11. Demeter - Demeter was mainly the goddess of agriculture, which I suppose would have been pretty important in ancient Greece. Sometimes she's also given some attributes as a "law giver" too, which makes no sense. Unless the Greeks somehow foresaw the amazing sway of agricultural lobbyists. Still, not too many interesting stories in mythology about her - she's mainly just a supporting character in the stories of her daughter, Persephone, getting kidnapped and sent to the underworld to live with Hades.

10. Hermes - The god of expensive leather handbags and sandals with wings on them, Hermes is supposed to be the young, fast messenger and emissary of the gods. Big deal. He runs fast and delivers messages. Sometimes he's also portrayed as a trickster, I guess because he's young and brash. But mainly if he shows up in some Greek legend it's just to deliver exposition from the gods as a messenger. Hermes was essentially invented as a convenient and lazy plot device so that mortals could get updates from gods.

9. Hera - Poor Hera, almost always depicted as some sort of villainess. She's depicted as vengeful, jealous, tantrum-throwing bitch who is always trying to harm humans. Which is pretty messed up because she's also the goddess of marriage and wife of Zeus, who is constantly transforming himself into animals and shit to cheat on her with humans. And she's supposed to be the bad one? She's literally the embodiment and personification of the idea of marriage, and yet she's cheated on constantly by an asshole husband. The fuck?! You know why she's jealous and why she's angry? Because her dick husband is always traveling to earth to put his cock into anything with a pulse. And the vengefulness to humans? Yeah, she's generally pretty mean to the women who Zeus sleeps with. Most of the time her ill will to these mortal girls is unfair, given that their "relationships" with Zeus almost always fit a textbook definition of rape victim.

8. Apollo - Generally sun gods are more important than Apollo. Sun gods are usually a chief god, right? Like Amun-Ra. Apollo seems more "meh" to me. He doesn't even get to always be sun god because the Greeks also have the Titan Helios. Apollo is also depicted as a music and poetry god, which seems like a fairly steep demotion from controlling the sun. As if to make up for it, they also dumped a lot of other crap on him like being the god of healing, truth, prophesy, plague (despite the fact that he's a god of healing), colonists, shepherds, flocks, and sometimes archery (which is more his sister's thing). Given his role in everything, he does feature in a lot of stories - so he's got that going for him.

Naked killing machine

7. Artemis - Artemis is pretty badass. Usually Apollo's twin sister, she's the goddess of the hunt and wild animals - so she always goes around with her bow and arrow shooting things. Is it just me - or is it strange to be both the goddess of wild animals as well as the goddess of killing wild animals? Does she prance around the woods with her animal best friends until she gets hungry and then shoots and kills one of them? Why do all the deer continue to hang out with her if she's always killing them? Anyway, she's in a load of stories in mythology and features prominently in the Trojan War and stories about Adonis, Orion, Callisto, Atalanta, etc.

6. Zeus - I'm ranking Zeus this low because he's kind of just a boring, over-powered rapist who constantly throws thunderbolts at things. The "allfather" and chief of the gods is obviously in a crapload of stories - but he's honestly not that interesting. He's horny and he controls the weather. Big deal. I'm sure there is an X-Men porn parody where Storm is exactly the same.

5. Ares - God of war, yesssssssssss! Usually depicted going around on a chariot and slaughtering people, Ares has sons named Phobos (Fear) and Deimos (Terror). How awesome is that? He's also got a number of consorts and children because he had game like his father, Zeus. The only downside to Ares is the number of stories about him is somewhat limited, although he does have a substantial role in the Iliad.

Not creepy at all. Hang out with this booze dude!

4. Dionysus - For one of the two gods who is sometimes completely left out of the "big twelve," Dionysus is pretty awesome. I can totally see why people would swap boring-ass Hestia for this awesome god of wine, drunkenness, revelry, ritual madness, orgiastic parties, and "unrestrained consumption." Who wouldn't like this guy? He was originally depicted as older and bearded, but over time came to be depicted as a younger figure. Probably after the Greeks invented the concept of frat bros.

3.  Aphrodite - Goddess of love, desire, beauty, pleasure, and making the sexy time. Sometimes she's a daughter of Zeus and sometimes she's just the result of the foamy residue from Uranus's genitals being cut off and thrown into the sea (gross). Aphrodite is one of the most memorable and interesting goddesses and probably the most commonly depicted one in art. She plays a role in the Trojan War (especially kicking it off with the Judgment of Paris), and is important in the myths of Adonis, Eros, Psyche, and others. Married to gross-ass Hephaestus as part of a plan made by Zeus to ensure that the gods didn't all go to war to win her - it didn't really work as she had affairs with everyone and especially Ares. You'd think Aphrodite's natural soul mate would be Dionysus - but I guess not. Still, they did hook up and the result was Priapus - who is depicted as exactly you'd think the child of the gods of drunkenness and sex should be depicted.

2. Poseidon - Poseidon (which all cool people pronounce as "Paw-say-dawn" rather than "Poe-sigh-dun") is so much more cool than Zeus. Commonly just thought of as a water god, Poseidon is so much more. The actual meaning and etymology of his name is debatable, although one good theory holds that it's from posis ("lord", "master" or "husband") and dâwon (water), which would make him the lord/master/husband of the waters. But more important than his name itself is his epithet - Enosichthon, which has origins going back to Linear B text from the 15th Century BC. And that epitheth means "Earth Shaker," since Poseidon is also the god of Earthquakes. He's also a god of horses, for some odd reason. This dude is usually depicted holding his trident and ready to kill some stupid mofos. In surviving Linear B text, his name appears more commonly than Zeus's, since it makes a lot more sense that a water god who could offer safe passage to a seafaring culture of island-dwellers would be more important than his lame ass brother who just sat on Olympus thinking of ways to have sex. He's a key figure in both the Trojan War as well as Trojan War Part II: Odysseus's Electric Boogaloo, less commonly known as The Odyssey. He's also an important co-founder of Athens in mythology, associated with Atlantis (which makes sense), and probably even got more game than Zeus. All the sea-related gods, creatures and demi-gods? Yeah, pretty much hid kids. Poseidon's list of consorts and offspring is long as hell. He even banged Medusa - which probably led to some sort of hilarious mid-coitus pun about, "you're damn right it's hard as a stone!"

Originator of the "I can't even" pose.

1. Athena - While Ares is the god of war, he's really more like the god of "brutal, savage, run into battle while screaming like an idiot and cutting heads off" war. Athena was more of the tactician. She planned out battle strategies and gamed her enemy. She only fought for just causes and never fought without a purpose. Athena is Sun Tzu while Ares is, uh, Donald Rumsfeld. While Ares sided with the Trojans in the Trojan War - Athena sided with the Greeks. So she's an actual winner because we all know how that one ended. And she's more than just a war god - she's most famously the goddess of wisdom. Pretty crazy that the same Greek culture that made Hera a fussy bitch villainess for being cheated on would also personify wisdom itself as a female. The city of Athens is obviously named after her and she's mentioned as the founder of it (Poseidon and her had a rivalry and she won... she always won!). The most common story of her birth is that she just emerged from Zeus's head like some sort of Xenomorph, already fully primed and cladded in armor. She also has that awesome robot owl that does her bidding. Or maybe that's just from the 80's and not actually ancient mythology - but whatever.

Ed Ranks Aerosmith Albums

This does not include greatest hits or live albums, of which Aerosmith has a huge number. In fact, they have five live albums and twelve greatest hits or other compilation albums. Meaning they have more of those albums than they actually have normal albums. Geez. 

Like a brown tree snake in Guam you're
legally required to burn this album on sight.

15. Rock in a Hard Place (1982) - Oh ironic album name! This is the only Aerosmith album not to feature Joe Perry. That's right, an Aerosmith album without Joe Perry. Which is barely an Aerosmith album at all. Brad Whitford wasn't technically "in" Aerosmith either during this album, as he left while it was being recorded (although his guitar is featured). A total of zero songs from this album get any radio play, ever. It's just awful. I don't remember what content of the VH1 "Behind the Music" episode of Aerosmith was, but I assume that 1982 must be the part of the episode with the cryptic sad music talking about how this point was the lowest of the low.

14. Night in the Ruts (1979) - 1979 wasn't much better for Aerosmith than 1982 was. During the making of this album is when Joe Perry left, although he still appears on most of it. This is the beginning of Aerosmith spiraling out of control on drugs with rampant in-fighting and deadlines from Columbia Records that they couldn't make - causing them to rush out some garbage to stay relevant. Lost cause though, by 1979 Aerosmith clearly no longer was relevant.

13. Done with Mirrors (1985) - Some people probably rank this album higher as it was a "comeback" album after their fall in the late 70's and the first half of the 80's. Perry and Whitford returned to the band. But if your album sucks and has no memorable songs - is it really a comeback? No. How many times have you heard "Sheila" played on the radio since 1985? Zero. This album came out in the height of the music video era and MTV but none of the songs ever got a video. It would take until the next year --1986-- for a little group from Hollis, Queens to save Aerosmith's asses from obscurity and bring them back for real.

12. Music from Another Dimension! (2012) - Aerosmith are the comeback kids! From the late 70's until the mid 80's they were as antiquated and meaningless to popular music as a tights-wearing lute player or a kid in Menudo after his balls drop. But it all changed in the latter half of the 80's where hit after hit and album after album came for Aerosmith. That lasted well over a decade but finally in the 2000's they began struggling again. Without a single album of new, original material since 2001 - Aerosmith tried yet another comeback in 2012 with this album. As before, it followed a period of drug addition (at least with Steven Tyler) and in-fighting. Surely they could do another comeback though, right? Nah. The best they did is have some moderate radio play for "Legendary Child" song, but that lasted like a week. Nothing memorable at all here and probably just a final sign that they should hang it all up.

11. Honkin' on Bobo (2004) - Although, I just noted that Aerosmith hadn't had an album of new, original material since 2001, in 2004 they did have this album where they covered old blues standards. For a rock band that always deeply inspired by the blues - this should have been a lot better. But Aerosmith should have known better than to try to cross genres. At heart, they are a rock band that is a little bluesey - NOT an actual blues band.

10. Just Push Play (2001) - "Jaded" was okay (or maybe I'm just saying that because Mila Kunis was in the music video) and "Just Push Play" was veering Aerosmith dangerously away from rock and well into "pop."  Also recall that 2001 was the same year that Aerosmith did the Super Bowl with Britney Spears and 'N SYNC. Aerosmith wasn't the only rock band of this era doing this. This album came just a year after U2 released "Beautiful Day." After the whole 1990s alt/grunge thing was starting to die out at the turn of the millennium - a lot of rock musicians didn't know what to do with themselves. This was the beginning of the end for Aersomith. Or at least so it appears now. Who knows. They said the same thing back in the 70's.

An album cover that couldn't possibly offend anyone.

9. Nine Lives (1997) - The rebirth of Aerosmith through the 80's and 90's happened when they dropped from Colombia music and signed with Geffen.  During that era, Aerosmith was bigger than they ever were before. But come the mid-90's, Aerosmith attempted to try to recapture their 70's era magic in a bottle again and re-signed with Colombia. I honestly like a handful of the songs on this album, but it's just not as good as any of their earliest Colombia albums or a single one of the Geffen albums (excluding Done with Mirrors). Both "Pink" and "Falling in Love (Is Hard on the Knees)" hit #1 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock charts - but the former was an worrisome harbinger of the overly pop direction that they were heading in.

8. Draw the Line (1977) - There are some mixed feelings about this one out there. While Rolling Stone called it "a truly horrendous record," Kerrang! once called it the 37th greatest "Metal" album ever (which honestly makes me question how Kerrang! defines metal). The general consensus is that it's got some okay rock songs on it, but Aerosmith was truly in decline by this time. Why? Drugs, obviously. I mean the name of the album is clearly a reference to doing cocaine. The titular song on the album is the best song and the only one which really passes from "okay" into "great." The forgettable (and concept album-ey) "Kings and Queens" was the only other song on the album that was released as a single, and it charted poorly.

7.  Rocks (1976) - "Back in the Saddle" and "Lost Child" are legendary and solid damn hits. "Nobody's Fault" is probably one of Aerosmith's heaviest songs (which I suppose could confuse Kerrang! into calling them metal) and is well-beloved by many even though it doesn't get much radio play. "Home Tonight" was a power ballad single that nobody remembers or cares about. There are really no bad songs on the album, but none of the others are that memorable either.

6. Get Your Wings (1974) - "Train Kept A-Rollin", "Seasons of Wither", "Same Ol' Song and Dance." Three great songs, all from Aerosmith's second album. But other than those not too much unless you'd want to play in heavy rotation unless you really like being inundated with the innuendo and puns contained within "Lord of the Thighs" and "Pandora's Box." Which, on second thought, of course you would. This is Aerosmith we're talking about. That's kind of Steven Tyler's thing. Who else can make the word "sassafras" sound so sexual? And the best thing about Steven Tyler innuendo is it's the least subtle innuendo of all time.

Everything in this picture is a fine tattoo choice.

5. Permanent Vacation (1987) - 1986's comeback thanks to Run-D.M.C.would have been meaningless if Aerosmith didn't keep the momentum going with a killer album. Fortunately for them, Permanent Vacation was that killer album. "Dude (Looks Like A Lady)", "Rag Doll", and "Angel" are the mega-hits you'll be most familiar with. Aerosmith was back and eleventy billion times bigger than they ever were in the 70's. "Hangman Jury" was a single that never became as big, but still has an amazing old school blues refrain, and the eponymous "Permanent Vacation" is a good jam too.

4. Aerosmith (1973) - Hey, there would be no Aerosmith without their first album. And while "Dream On" is really the only song that the majority of people have heard of from this album, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that "Mama Kin" is one of the most legendary and influential songs in rock history. "Good evening people, welcome to the show" is the first line of "Make It," the first Aerosmith song on the first Aerosmith album, is an excellent intro to the band. Until their Honkin' On Bobo cover album, this really was Aerosmith's most bluesey record with songs written by Tyler and Perry that sounded like old blues standards, even though they weren't (well, except for "Walking the Dog"). 

3. Pump (1989) - ALL KILLER, NO FILLER! It's hard to believe that "Janie's Got a Gun" never made it to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 (it only made it to #9), or even the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart (it came in #2). "Love In An Elevator", "What It Takes", and "The Other Side" did track #1 on the Rock charts though. I love "F.I.N.E.", even though it was never really a huge hit (it did chart though). There are so many hits on this album you'd think it must have ratted on Raymond Patriarca. It's a freakin' hit machine. In 1989, Aerosmith could do no wrong.

This was super edgy in 1993.

2. Get a Grip (1993) - I know having Aerosmith's biggest three Geffen albums rank above Rocks and Get Your Wings will be offensive to those who hold the 70's classic rock-era Aerosmith in regard above all else. Whatever, forget those people. I was born in the early 80's and without Get a Grip I would probably never care enough about Aerosmith to rank anything about them. This album ensured they stuck around as a 90's band and weren't sucked down the drain with the hair metal movement. In 1993 and 1994 I played my Get a Grip cassette tape (yes, that's right... I said cassette tape) so much that I'm sure I warped the ribbon and by the end the songs didn't play at the right speed anymore. "Livin' on the Edge" is still my favorite Aerosmith song. But even I got tired of hearing "Cryin'" on the radio and seeing it on MTV every 20 minutes. It was a great song, but I got so damn done with it. "Amazing", "Eat the Rich", "Fever", and "Crazy" were also all Top 10 hits on the Rock charts. Honestly the only negative thing I have to say about this album is it has a couple of filler songs and also "Walk on Down." Nobody wants to hear you sing, Joe Perry. Even your own mom probably just wants to hear Tyler.

1. Toys in the Attic (1975) - Obviously the album that brought us "Sweet Emotion", "Walk this Way" and "Big Ten Inch" is the best album. This is the album that made Aerosmith into the Aerosmith we all know. It's still their most commercially successful album, having sold eight million copies. There are no bad songs on this album at all and after 40 years it's still amazingly listenable. And Steven Tyler can deny it all he wants, but nobody will ever believe his lies that he's saying "Cept for" rather than "Suck on" his big ten inch. He was doing so much heroin - how would he even know what he said?

Ed Ranks Movies You Don't Need to Own (Because they're Always on TV)

There are some films out there that whenever you see them on TV you're like, "Wow, I can't believe I don't own this! I should buy it!" But then you realize that you have cable TV and that that movie is pretty much on at least once a week somewhere anyway. These are those movies. Chances are if you're bored you can flip through the channels and find any one of these.

Quick note: I'm discounting Holiday movies. Sure, when It's a Wonderful Life and A Christmas Story are on it might seem like you're stuck in an endless loop like Sisyphus pushing that boulder up the hill - but there is an end to the loop. The loop starts on Thanksgiving and ends on Christmas.  I'm talking about the films that you can really see any time of the year.

Another note: These aren't ranked by how good the movie is. They're ranked by how often I feel they're on TV. As you'll see from the list, there are quite a number of average to terrible movies which get run all the time for no particular reason.

15. The Usual Suspects - Great twist ending, right? Which makes it really good the first time you watch it. Beyond that, I'm not sure you need to watch it 100 times. The powers that be behind cable disagree with that sentiment. I guess they assume one new person might be seeing it every time.

14. Ferris Bueller's Day Off - These seems like a fun 80's film you should have a copy of on the DVD rack somewhere, right? Wrong. You don't. If you feel like you've watched it enough that you must have a copy that you can't find - don't be distressed. You never owned it. It's just on TV that much.

Not the movie you want to see.
The movie you need to see.

13. The Dark Knight - Other than the whole annoying "he wanted to get caught!!!!!!!" plot device (groan), this is a great film and still the best Batman film. I have an old copy of it on my DVD/Blu Ray shelf - but why? Do you know how often I take it out of the box? Never. And yet I still see it three times a year.
12. The Avengers - Same as the above. Comic book movies are  a thing now and these are the two biggest comic book movies. Whenever a new Marvel sequel is coming out (two or three times a year), you can rest assure that there will be some Marvel movie marathons on the TV and you'll get to see The Avengers and all those other films (Iron Man, Thor, etc) a bajillion times. 

11. National Treasure II: Book of Secrets - I didn't say that this list was about "good" movies. Horrible movies can be run all the time too. Why specifically National Treasure II rather than the first National Treasure? It's ALWAYS the worse sequel with President Bruce Greenwood being kidnapped at Mount Vernon, the Mimi Statue of Liberty in Paris, the secret book in the Library of Congress, and the terrible British accent in the Buckingham Palace scene. Why do I know so much about this terrible film? Why don't I just turn the channel when this train wreck is on? I'll tell you why - because if I change the channel it will probably just be on the next channel anyway.

10. The Green Mile - Nothing like a cheery supernatural story about a death row corrections officer being involved in the execution of an innocent man during the Great Depression to brighten the day. It's the feel-good movie of the year so no wonder they run it all the time.

There was a time we thought Borders
was an invincible cash giant. Ha.

9. You've Got Mail - I could have easily written "Sleepless in Seattle" here instead. Basically the same film. Same actors. Kinda the same love story. Same endless broadcast like those loops on the airplane screens.

8. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy - Nerds all own the DVDs to these films even though they don't need to. 

7. Mrs. Doubtfire - Variety magazine said this was the most played movie on TV a few years ago. I'm not sure that's still true, but it is on all the time. I'm sure Aerosmith gets more residuals for "Dude Looks Like a Lady" from this film than they do from Permanent Vacation. Pierce Brosnan wishes his James Bond movies could still get TV play like his douchey Stu character gets TV play in this film. Although in fairness I guess that horrible Die Another Day film is on all the time with that gawdawful ice windsurfing and invisible car stuff.

6. U.S. Marshals - This one is a complete mystery to me like National Treasure II. U.S. Marshals is just a quasi-memorable sequel to the much better The Fugitive, minus Harrison Ford. It continues the story of Tommy Lee Jones and adds on Wesley Snipes and  Robert Downey Jr. (in his hilariously alcoholic era of life). Why the hell does this come on ALL THE TIME? It's literally on the TV now as I'm writing this.

5. Jurassic Park - This movie, uhhhhhhh, finds a way. A way to always be on. Deservedly so. Its computer graphics from 1993 still hold up better than these all CG movies that come out today. Plus, that big dino poop scene, haha! The awful Jurassic Park III also seems to be on all the time too, for no particular reason. 

Pictured: The film's villain.

4. Gladiator - I am probably the only human being on earth who cheers for Joaquin Phoenix every time this film comes on. Which is frequently. Every single time I hope that maybe this time is the time that Commodus will get his sweet, well-deserved victory. Alas, he gets stabbed in the throat like a bitch every time and his body just gets left there on the coliseum floor. What a bunch of bitch-ass traitors all his citizens are. Are we supposed to believe they'll now be free and happy with him gone? Not so much. The death of Commodus was immediately followed by the Year of Five Emperors, an insanely destabilizing period of civil war in Roman history. Thanks for that, Maximus... you asshole.

3. The Hunt for Red October - This is an amazing film and everybody is in it. There are the people you immediately remember: Sean Connery, Alec Baldwin, James Earl Jones, Sam Neill, and Tim Curry. But then you keep watching and you're like, "Holy shit! That Commander guy is Scott Glenn, I forgot that. WHOA FUCK! Is that Stellan Fucking Skarsgård?! How did I not remember that he wa--ooooooh WHAT THE HELL, Principal Rooney from Ferris Bueller's Day Off?! Senator Fred Thompson?! And the Black guy from Law and Order: Criminal Intent whose name I don't remember right now too?! The boss guy from Spooks/MI5?!" Yes, all of those people are in this. This film probably should be on all the time. And by the way, the Black guy's name is Courtney B. Vance, since you brought it up. 

2. A Few Good Men - I had a co-worker who could recite the entire Jack Nicholson Col. Jessup outburst at the end of the film. I'm not just saying he could recite the "You Can't Handle the Truth!" bit that everyone can recite. I mean the WHOLE thing. All of it. It goes on for like two minutes. He can do the "Son, we live in a world that has walls" part. He can do the "You want me on that wall, you need me on that wall" part. He can do the "I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide" part. Front to end. At first I thought my co-worker was just some type of savant and huge movie quote fan. Actually, he probably is. But the truth is that I just watched that video and my wife was mouthing along to the vast majority of the lines too. A lot of people can probably recite this thing. They run this film so much I can see how it got imprinted into all of their brains. You don't have to click that link to watch the video though. Just click through your remote. It's probably on.

No witty caption. Just a good film.

1. The Shawshank Redemption - It's an amazing film. Maybe the greatest film of all time. I'm sure that can be argued, but that's not the point of this ranking. But does anyone actually own a copy of this film? Usually people do own copies of great films. I've never even THOUGHT about buying a copy though. Right now there is a channel, probably with "Turner" in the name somewhere, that is running it. TNT probably should just rename itself "Shawshank Network." The Wall Street Journal wrote an article a few years ago about how much this airs on TV. The answer is a lot. I've probably seen Andy Dufresne crawl out that sewage pipe, the warden tear the poster off the wall, Brooks hang himself, and Red find the money under the tree a thousand times. Every single one of those thousand times it was on basic cable.

Ed Ranks the Potential Causes of Death of Cyrus the Great

Cyrus the Great's flag, the Shahbaz (royal falcon)

Cyrus II of Persia, aka "the Great" was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire and one of the baddest mofos to ever live. If you're American it's likely you know very little about him because the "world history" taught in school is generally just "White people history." Even when it's not, for the last 40 years America hasn't had the best relationship with Iran and therefore historic Persian figures aren't exactly a focus. Cyrus created the largest empire that had ever existed (up to his time, it's since been surpassed a number of times and only clocks in at #19).

You can learn all about the awesome things he did when he lived, but this list is not about that. It's about how he died. Needless to say, historical records in circa 530BC weren't the most accurate. So there are a number of different accounts about how he died. Here are the top five historical accounts of how Cyrus II died, ranked by how awesome the story is (not by how plausible it is, which would be boring - although I will give my opinion on plausibility).

5. Died at home peacefully as an old man

Story by: Xenophon of Athens, Athenian "gentleman-soldier" and student of Socrates

The Story: If anyone should be able to tell a great story about the amazing Cyrus the Great, it should be Xenophon, who wrote the Cyropaedia, a biography of Cyrus. In it he explains that Cyrus lived  to be an old man. While he was in his palace back in Persia sleeping, he had a vision from the gods telling him he would soon join them. So he started making sacrifices, performed all the necessary rites, summoned his children and magistrates to give epic speeches to about the nature of life, gave instructions for his burial, and readied all sorts of other things to be in order. His last words began with him saying that they were his last words and he told everyone to be good to their friends, punish their enemies, and then bid everyone farewell. Pretty damn boring.

Plausibility: 1/10. I just don't see Cyrus living to be an old man. Maybe the concept of living to be an old man is a 5/10 plausibility by itself - but all this garbage about him philosophizing about his own death and having his last words be about him dying makes me think that Xenophon was probably a worse writer than Stephenie Meyer.

4. Killed by wife

Story by: Michael the Syrian, a 12th Century AD Syriac Patriarch of Antioch

The Story: Michael the Syrian dedicates one single line in his famous Chronicle to Cyrus, simply stating that Cyrus was killed by his wife, a woman named "Tomyris." Not much, but at least it's more interesting than dying as an old man.

Plausibility: 1/10. Ever play the game "Telephone?" Michael the Syrian's account of Cyrus is clearly the result of a game of telephone that lasted well over a thousand years. His account is obviously derivative of a longer and better version of the story told by Herodotus (more on that version below). Usually when you re-tell a story over and over it gets more awesome. In this case the opposite happened, and everything cool about the original version was stripped away.

3. Shot by archers

Story by: Berossus, 3rd Century BC Babylonian writer and priest

The Story: This version of the story isn't that long, as Berossus never spent a great deal of time talking about Cyrus. In his simple retelling of the story, Cyrus met his death while warring against Dahae (a confederation of three tribes – the Parni, Xanthii and Pissuri – living in what is modern Turkmenistan) archers northwest of the headwaters of the river Syr Darya.

Plausibility: 7/10.  Sure, sounds completely plausible that a militaristic ruler who leads battles himself would get killed in battle by archers. But the lack of any detail or specifics beyond this doesn't overwhelm me with evidence.

2. Mortally wounded by javelin in rebellion

Story by: Ctesias the Cnidian, 5th century BC Greek physician and historian who lived in the palace of Persian king Artaxerxes II

The Story: The exact text of Ctesias's Persica is, unfortunately, lost to history but a general summary of what Persica contained can be discerned from fragments and quotations of it by other authors. Supposedly, Amoraeus, the leader of the Derbices (a small tribe located near the northern Iranian Plateau) led a rebellion against Cyrus and the Persians. Cyrus struck back at them, but the Derbices were allied with other forces including the Indians who brought with them war elephants that ambushed the Persians. Retreating, Cyrus fell from his horse and was mortally wounded by an Indian solider who put a javelin through his thigh. He was carried back to his camp where he addresses his men and gave some speeches, pretty similar to the boring speeches cited by Xenophon (and probably Xenophon's source).

Plausibility: 7/10. Ctesias's account is the longest and most detailed. It's also one of the earliest accounts, and it comes from a person who actually lived in Persia. Still, not everyone is sold on the historic reliability of Ctesias. Greek satirist and rhetorician Lucian blasted Ctesias as an unreliable liar. Still, the story doesn't ring as completely unbelievable, although perhaps embellished.

1. Killed in the most fierce battle in all history by the forces of the woman he once tried to marry, but who rejected him, so he declared war on her and laid a sneaky ass trick to get her best general (who also happened to be her son) so drunk that he committed suicide. Also, she decapitated his corpse and force-fed human blood to his severed head.

Story by: Herodotus, the "Father of History"

Probably not the worst way to die.

The Story: Yeah, the title of this one is almost long enough to explain the whole thing already - but let me provide a bit more detail.  According to Herodotus, Cyrus wanted to acquire the territory of the Massagetae (a large Eastern Iranian nomadic confederation ranging east of the Caspian sea in land that is now parts of modern Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan). Rather than go to war, he figured that he'd instead propose a marriage alliance to their ruler, Tomyris.  Tomyris wanted none of that and rejected the offer. Cyrus then figured he'd have to take Massagetae the old fashioned way with war and readied one of the largest forces in all history for an invasion. Tomyris then apparently tried to set up a planned battle very formally so they could have an honorable war, but Cyrus was aware that the Massagetae people were unfamiliar with alcohol. He therefore purposefully lost the battle by sending in his shittiest soldiers to get massacred, simply so that the Massagetae army (led by general Spargapises, the son of Tomyris) would capture their wine and drink it. And Cyrus's plan worked! The Massagetae won, captured the spoils of war and were like, "Hey, what's this red liquid here we just stole from the Persians? Better drink it!" They all then got super drunk and then the REAL Persian army swooped in and defeated the Massagetae, capturing Spargapises.  Spargapises was so ashamed with his drunkenness losing the battle that he then killed himself after the Persians released him. Tomyris then swore bloody vengeance and led the next battle herself in a huge and epic brawl--the biggest ever, supposedly--that ended with Cyrus's death. Afterwards, Tomyris herself decapitated him and shoved his severed head into a wineskin filled with human blood while shouting, "I warned you that I would quench your thirst for blood, and so I shall!"

Plausibility: 2/10. No way is this story all true. But hopefully at least some tiny part of it is. Herodotus has been called, since Cicero, the "Father of History." But he's also called the "Father of Lies." He often just made shit up. This one is too good to not be entirely made up. Even Herodotus sort of calls bullshit on himself when recounting the story, by admitting that it was only one version of the story that was told to him by a "reliable source," but who also admitted that nobody was actually there to see the aftermath. The only thing that the Herodotus tale has going for it is that it's (like Ctesias) one of the earliest versions of the story, as Cyrus died c. 530 BC and Herodotus lived c. 484–c. 425 BC, a mere hundred years later.  But you can obviously tell I don't care how plausible this version of the story is, as the only reason I even did this ranking was to tell this story.

Ed Ranks Hardboiled Private Detectives - Part 2

The fun continues with the top five private dicks. Which is also the exact words from a text that Anthony Weiner just sent to an underage girl.

5.  Lew Archer
Author: Ross Macdonald

A Southern California private detective in the Marlowe-mold (some could say a copycat), Lew Archer would wind up appearing in 18 novels and 9 short stories between 1949 and 1976. Some try to point out some differences between the two - including the fact that Archer mainly worked the suburbs rather than downtown Los Angeles, and that Archer stories are less about Archer himself and more about using Archer as a "lens to see other characters," whatever that means.  Anyway, I won't hold it against Archer that he's somewhat of a repeat of Marlowe, given that Marlowe is completely awesome. I mean Rick Deckard and any rough-around-the-edges private dick made after 1939 is a Marlowe copycat too.  Archer's background and personal life are rarely mentioned in the stories, and a lot of the stories often take on elements of philosophy and Greek tragedy as themes. This happened more-so as the novels went on - with Macdonald slowly leaving the hardboiled genre to explore themes with more psychological depth, interladen with poetic imagery. Which I guess is fine, so long as Archer remains a sleep-deprived alcoholic constantly tormented by the tragic world around him.

From the Same Author: Archer is Macdonald's most notable character, although maybe you can find an early obscure short story or two about a detective named Joe Rogers, who is usually just re-written by editors in anthologies to be Lew Archer.

4. J.J. "Jake" Gittes
Screenwriter: Robert Towne

"So wait m'am. Is she your sister or daughter?"

The only entry on this list with a purely film origin rather than coming from a novel, it's actually this character that caused me to finally accept that I should rank characters that come from a later period. Created in Robert Towne's screenplay for the 1974 film Chinatown, Jake Gittes is as hardboiled as you can get - a down and dirty private detective who gets involved in a web of affairs, false identities, murder, deceit, incest, thugs and political intrigue. So many things in Chinatown are checklist hardboiled detective items (take up a case for a client only learn they are an imposter, have sex with the femme fatale, gunfights, a bittersweet end) that it would be impossible not to rank Gittes on this list. Every quality that a great noir film detective has is shared by Gittes in this story - with the benefit of coming after the end of the Hayes Act, which had restricted a number of the noir films from being too violent or touching upon "indecent" themes. That last point is crucial, as Chinatown is actually a better film for coming out when it did rather than in the highly censored 1940s. Plus Chinatown's cynicism about politics and behind-the-scenes wheel-dealing on water rights is something strengthened in its immediate post-Watergate time of creation, despite being a 1939 period piece.

From the Same Author: Robert Towne would very much like for you to pretend The Two Jakes never happened. Towne is also a famous Hollywood script doctor, and had an uncredited role in rewriting parts of the script to The Godfather.

3.  Mike Hammer 
Author: Mickey Spillane

Mike Hammer almost feels like he's a post-hardboiled era callback looking to the earlier detectives for inspiration, in the way that Deckard and Gittes are inspired by the original era of hardboiled detectives. But then you look into it and remember that Mickey Spillane lived 88 years, started writing at a young age, and his first Mike Hammer story is actually from the 1940s - putting his creation well within the era that Chandler and Macdonald were popping out their stuff. I guess I only think of Mike Hammer as being latter because I can only think of Mike Hammer being Stacy Keach. The Mike Hammer novels were criticized for being excessively violent, derogatory to women, and presenting black-and-white moral situations lacking nuance. You know who else wasn't a huge fan of Mike Hammer? Carroll John Daly, creator of Race Williams, who believed that Hammer was more than slightly inspired by the archtype he created. Daly said of Mickey Spillane, "I'm broke, and this guy gets rich writing about my detective."

From the Same Author: Tiger Mann, another character by Spillane, is sort of like Hammer but also sort of a spy and/or hitman paid by an insane radical right-wing organization which wants to kill dirty commies. This really shouldn't be that surprising since Ayn Rand was a fan of his work. 

2. Sam Spade
Author: Dashiell Hammett

Look, matey, I know a dead parrot when I see one.

Now we're really in the big league of hardboiled dicks (which sounds like some kind of gross English food). Sam Spade - the legendary brainchild of Dashiell Hammett and main character of the 1930 novel The Maltese Falcon and three other short stories that followed. Hammett had been writing detective stories for years, but mixed it up to create a hard, shifty, detached detective who combines keen detective skills with a willingness and physical capability to deal with any rough situation involving rough people. Race Williams was "hard" before Sam Spade was created, but Sam Spade also had actual detecting skills and a personality. It was the perfect balance of characters to create the archetype that others would copy. The novel was an instant hit and was adapted for film. You know that one with Humphrey Bogart, right? That's actually the THIRD adaption of The Maltese Falcon, with two other versions in the 30's predating it. But in the end, the 1941 adaption with Bogart would cement its legacy for all time and also turn the volume up to 11 on Spade's sarcastic nature. And that sardonic world view was just what hardboiled detectives needed. Bogart was the perfect casting for a hardboiled detective. Any hardboiled detective. As I'll soon confirm...

From the Same Author: Before Spade, Hammet had a number of stories with "The Continental Op," an unnamed detective (e.g. Red Harvest). He also had detective adventures with the husband and wife team of Nick and Nora Charles (e.g. The Thin Man).

1. Philip Marlowe
Author:  Raymond Chandler

Oh hey look, it's Bogart again!

So, Philip Marlowe is the best. He just is. He's a hard-drinking, wise-cracking badass who occasionally winds up having to punch his way out of situations or place bullets inside of people. That being said, he also has an introspective side which we can see since we're able to get in his head. He's contemplative, philosophical and is frequently back in his office playing chess problems. And while he can punch his way out of situations when needed, he often also finds himself getting knocked out or drugged when he goes that route - thus he usually tries to solve crimes by detecting and stuff. He always runs into femme fetales in his office, coming to him with problems and flirting with him. But unlike other private dicks who immediately bang all the seedy ladies that come to him - Marlowe doesn't actually sleep with anyone until the later novels. He might like what he sees as he sips his bourbon and talks to a seedy lady with a problem, but he always keeps his wits about him and never gets fooled by their games. Unlike other characters who are undeveloped, Marlowe has a detailed backstory that's revealed including a past life in the D.A.'s office (which he was fired from, for subordination... of course). Marlowe hits all the character notes just right and perfectly balances the serious with the funny, the cynicism with a real desire for justice, and the physical with the cerebral. When it came time to cast him in the film adaption of The Big Sleep, they obviously chose Humphrey Bogart.

From the Same Author: Chandler was a prolific short story writer and appeared in all of the pulp magazines that the others mentioned here did. Some of his early works featured characters named Carmady and John Dalmas that are basically Marlowe, and are sometimes rewritten to be Marlowe when republished. 

Ed Ranks Hardboiled Private Detectives - Part 1

'Bout to solve some crime, yo!

The progenitors of Film Noir: these are those cynical, whiskey-drinking, chain-smoking, fedora-wearing private dicks who are always running into pretty dames with a dangerous side. Although they externally show a hardness and lack of emotion, you know on the inside these are psychologically damaged.  They tend to do things like smoke, appear in black-and-white, drink black coffee (okay, maybe with bourbon added), narrate their adventures in first person, and create piles of dead bodies all over the place. But they're the only ones who can get the job done since the regular cops are too lazy and stupid.

It's often said they originated in pulp fiction (the genre of supposedly "low brow" and salacious stories printed on cheap pulp paper magazines rather than on glossy paper... not the movie named after the same magazines) but in some ways they're not that different from Sherlock Holmes. Just replace the opiates and smarmy deductions with whiskey and a jaded worldview about the broken and corrupt criminal justice system that causes more criminality and corruption than it solves.

First off, honorable mention to author James Hadley Chase, one of the most prolific detective and thriller authors of all time. Alas, he couldn't stick with one character long enough to build up any momentum with one of them in particular. His private dicks include Vic Malloy, Bart Anderson, Dave Fenner, Floyd Jackson, Nelson Ryan, and Dirk Wallace. He couldn't stick with one pen name, as he was also credited at times as James L. Docherty, Raymond Marshall, R. Raymond, and Ambrose Grant.  Want to guess which one of those was his birth name? None of them, of course. His birth name was René Lodge Brabazon Raymond. Hence he goes unranked for confusing the hell out of me.

Let's work our way through the first half of the top 10...

10. Perry Mason 
Author: Erle Stanley Gardner

I know you think my list has already gone off the rails with my first pick, but please allow me to explain. "Perry Fucking Mason?!" You're probably asking. "Hardboiled? Hardboiled like alcoholic, womanizing, gun-toting private eye? He's not even a private eye, he's a defense attorney, Ed you moron!" Well, yes... but also sort of no. First off, you're probably thinking only of Perry Mason the TV show starring Raymond "I whitewashed Japanese fiction long before Scarlett Johansson" Burr. But Perry Mason isn't just the TV show, as the character goes back to a 1933 novel - near the birth of the hardboiled era. And while he never reaches the level of hedonism and self-destruction that the most renowned hardboiled detectives do - the original novelized Perry Mason was no angel. He manufactures and tampers with evidence, and also manipulates witnesses. Which makes him sound like a legit defense attorney. There's that point again though - he's a defense attorney and not a private detective. Well, think of it like this - Perry Mason is not a police detective and yet he's constantly solving crimes. Regular defense attorneys file motions and do court nonsense. But Mason is always gallivanting off on hunches to find the real criminals himself, as his clients are (almost) always innocent. A typical Perry Mason story features an innocent person coming to Mason for help because dumb cops have the wrong person and ends with non-policeman (e.g. private) Mason solving the whole thing (e.g. detective-ing). That's largely the structure of a private dick novel - only with the addition of a court room for atmosphere. Mason's author, Gardner, was also one of the most famous writers in the pulp magazines like Black Mask in which the hardboiled detectives first emerged. Look, I'm not saying Perry Mason is an amazing or a typical hardboiled detective - that's why he's at the bottom here at #10.  I'm just saying open your mind and you'll maybe, sort-of, kinda agree with me. Or not, I won't lose any sleep over it. You can just pretend I put Spenser in this place instead. Spenser was pretty good and we all miss Robert Urich.

From the Same Author: Gardner also wrote about Ken Corning, a crusading lawyer and crime sleuth (obviously the archetype for Mason), as well as Cool and Lam, a private detective firm run by a fat widow named Bertha Cool and an anti-hardboiled detective named Donald Lam who is always getting beat up.

9. Rick Deckard
Author: Philip K. Dick

Stylish A.F.

Yeah, so now we have a sci-fi character right after a defense lawyer, so you're really thinking I might have never actually read a hardboiled fiction novel, huh?  Initially I was thinking I would keep my list concentrated only on the "classic" hardboiled fiction - since later characters like Deckard are really more homages to hardboiled detectives. But then I said, "forget that nonsense," because an homage to a hardboiled detective IS a hardboiled detective. Deckard is more hardboiled in the film interpretation of his character (Blade Runner) than he is in Dick's original novel (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?). The original version of the film features the film-noir style narration to make the connection clear (as if being a blood-thirsty, morally crushed, alcoholic private dick wasn't enough). I don't feel like I need to explain this much further. If you haven't seen Blade Runner, go see it before the sequel ruins its legacy. 

From the Same Author: Uhh, Dick isn't the typical author I was thinking of when I created this section, as I was mainly thinking of using it to show off that some of the most prolific hardboiled writers also had similar characters. But if I had to throw something up here, I suppose A Scanner Darkly is also about a detective. That's all I got. Not really hardboiled but he does lots of drugs, which is close, right?

8. Race Williams 
Author: Carroll John Daly

There would be no hardboiled detectives without Carrol John Daly's Race Williams. Race Williams is the daddy of all these other guys. Race Willaims debuted in the 1933 story Knights of the Open Palm, which featured him as a gruff, acerbic-talking, wise-cracking, shoot first, ask questions later private eye. Oh, and the "Knights" being referred to here are the Klu Klux Klan - who Race Williams fights and beats the shit out of in order to save a boy who witnesses them commit a murder. It's easy to see why a sassy, KKK-fighting private eye would inspire so many copycats. In his heyday Daly was ranked as the top hardboiled writer, above even Dashiell Hammett. There is some criticism that Race Williams didn't actually do much "detecting" in his stories, and instead just stumbled his way into solving crimes with a combination of luck and punching people. Which sort of makes Race Williams the inspiration for Batman too, if you think about it.

From the Same Author: While Race Williams might be the first of Daly's detectives to have a continuing series, he's not really the first hardboiled private eye. That honor does to another character created by Daly, "Three-Gun Terry" Mack, who debuted a month earlier.  Daly also had detectives named Satan Hall (yep, Satan!) and Vee Brown.  Want to know the difference in personalities between all these characters? Eh, there really isn't any.

7. Bill Crane 
Author: Jonathan Latimer

Latimer was a Chicago newspaper journalist who wrote about crime and met with people like Al Capone. He segued from non-fiction to fiction with the creation of his William Crane character.  Bill Crane was, at the time of his 1935 debut in Headed For a Hearse, by no means original. He didn't seem too different from the nameless hard drinking "Continental Op" character created by Hammett (more on him later).  But what Latimer added into the scenario that was a bit different is what is often called a "screwball comedy" addition to the stories. Hey, who doesn't love screwball comedy? The connection between hardboiled detectives and screwball comedies was cemented after Crane, as when the two genres moved to film - screwball comedies and noir films shared many traits. The king of screwball comedy directors, Howard Hawks, was even the director of the film adaption of The Big Sleep, which is as noir-ey and hardboiled as you can get.

From the Same Author: Latimer had another detective named Karl Craven, a St. Louis-based dick whose stories included sex, perversion, blackmail and violence. All good stuff! Latimer also went on to write in the Perry Mason TV show, which I'm casually noting here to continue  justifying my #10.

6. Archie Goodwin 
Author:  Rex Stout

Gonna get all up in dat blue.

This one I need to justify a little as well. No, Rex Stout is NOT a hardboiled writer. And his character Archie Goodwin isn't even the main character of his novels - only the primary supporting character to detective Nero Wolfe (and the narrator, in the way that Watson is in Sherlock Holmes novels). Nero Wolfe stories are definitely not hardboiled at all - they're more traditional mystery stories about a master "armchair" detective like the aforementioned Holmes who is so brilliant that he can solve a case without leaving his office. But in a way, by making Wolfe a kind of fat and lazy detective who didn't even need to leave his office to solve a crime - Stout was poking fun at the classic detective stories by taking the example to the extreme. In that same sense, Stout was also poking fun at the hardboiled stories and writers with Archie Goodwin - a young, handsome, brash, physical, crude private dick who works for Wolfe and does all the legwork. Legwork that often involves fistwork and making out with femme fatales. Honestly, Archie Goodwin is a deconstruction of a hardboiled detective. It's easy to deconstruct things years later, but Stout wrote his first Nero Wolfe story in 1934. That means Stout was deconstructing the emerging hardboiled genre live as it was happening. Which is all kinds of brilliant.

From the Same Author: Stout's detective fiction is pretty much centered around Wolfe and Goodwin, however he did create a female detective named Dol Bonner. She got one novel of her own, and then got spun into the Nero Wolfe continuity as an occasional supporting character. That sucks, but having a female private eye in the 1930s is still somewhat progressive.

So yeah, that's Part 1 of 2. Come back next time for the top 5.