Mr. Burns Vs. Hr. Møller: battle for evil corporation owner supremacy (updated!)

In the spirit of tonight’s Royal Rumble I decided the hip-hop, the simpsons and wrestling blog would play host to its very own showdown. Regular readers may recall I’ve already covered the similarities shared by Springfield’s Mr. Burns and Howard Hughes of The Aviator fame. However, it has come to my attention that Mr. Burns has much more in common with another business-man much closer to home, none other than our very own Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller!

At first encounter, the former head of the Mærsk and AP Møller empire may seem as your average, although slightly upperclass, grampa. But make no mistake, when it comes to big business Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller can get down and dirty with the worst of them. But to make sure there aren’t any questions as to who has the upper hand, I decided to let Mr. Burns and Hr. Møller duke it out in an eight round fight for the title evil corporation owner supremacy, let’s go!

Round one: Name and Age

Mr. Burns:
Full name: Charles Montgomery Burns
Age: 104

Hr. Møller:
Full name: Arnold Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller
Age: 92

Winner – Mr. Burns
Not only does his name ring more evil, he’s also beat Møller by nearly a decade of evil corporation owner doings.

Round two: Catchphrases

Mr. Burns:
“Excellent!”
“Release the hounds!”

Hr. Møller:
“Rettidig omhu” (Accurate display of timely precision)
“Hvor har vi det godt, og hvor har vi fortjent det!” (How blessed we are, and how we deserve it)

Winner – Mr. Burns
One again our Springfield slugger is simply better at the bat than his Danish adversary. While Hr. Møller is able to combat “Excellent” with two just as self-absorbed catchpheases of his own, there’s nothing that says evil corporation owner as “Release the hounds!” does.

Round three: German affiliation

Mr. Burns:
Speaks fluent German and sold the Springfield Nuclear Powerplant to the Germans.

Hr. Møller:
The A.P. Møller company was one third owner of The Riffle Syndicate that sold arms to the Germans during World War II.

Winner – Hr. Møller
Finally the stretchy Scandinavian rolls into action. There’s simply no better way to make your company seem evil than supporting the losing team in a war, way to go!

Round four: Heir to the throne.

Mr. Burns:
Has illegitimate son Larry (voiced by Rodney Dangerfield), but doesn’t seem to want him as a successor. Once tried for Bart Simpson as would-be heir but again failed. Spends most of his time with a closet homosexual.

Hr. Møller:
Has three daughters, none of whom seemed interested in following in dad’s footsteps. Left Mærsk to be run by , proving this might be the end of the family dynasty.

Winner – Tie
Clearly none of our evil corporation owners have managed to provide an heir – they must not have been up on their duties, and at age 90+ it seems a little late.

Round five: Harassment of local community

Mr. Burns:
Once blocked out sunlight in Springfield in an attempt to cash in on rising electricity use.

Hr. Møller:
Tried to block website gangster-maersk on copyright infringement charges. Lost the case.

Winner – Mr. Burns
While both men surely do their share of underhanded business, Mr. Burns is just much more public with his intentions to harass.

Round six: Mythological connection

Mr. Burns:
May or may not be a vampire

Hr. Møller:
May or may not be a vampire

Winner – Tie

Round seven: Architectural landmarks

Mr. Burns:
Built The Monty Burns Casino, using his own money.

Hr. Møller:
Built the new Danish national opera, using his own money. Then wrote it off on his company’s taxes, overruled the renowned architect, and turned said opera building into the world’s largest toaster-oven.

Winner – Hr. Møller
Definately way more evil business corporation owner-like to use his love of grandscaled building as a tax-cut.

Round eight: Political ties

Mr. Burns:
Had Jimmy Carter and George Bush Sr. at his 90’s birthday. Is head of Springfield’s local Republican party.

Hr. Møller:
Sends threatening handwritten letters to the Danish prime minister whenever something rubs him the wrong way.

Winner – Hr. Møller
Another victory for the old Dane. Clearly it’s much more evil to not even be politically active and still have the entire political system dancing to the tune of your pied pipe.

So there we have it, Mr. Burns won on age, catchphrase and local harassment, while Hr. Møller won German affiliation, local harassment and architectural landmark. Heir to the throne and vampire rumours both ended in ties, bringing us to a grand total of 3-3 in the battle between Hr. Møller and Mr. Burns for evil corporation owner supremacy. Maybe we should have a rematch later on when either of the gentlemen displays his evilness yet again.

Until then, release the hounds!

*UPDATE*

Just when I thought it was all over, the tie can apparently be broken already:

Round nine – personal assistent

Mr. Burns:
Perfectionist closet homosexual, who follows his employer’s every wink.

Hr. Møller:
Perfectionist closet homosexual AND crossdresser, who follows his employer’s every wink.

Winner – Hr. Møller!!

Yes it took a final round for him to beat Springfield’s oldest son, but he did it. Hr. Møller is officially evil corporation owner supreme!

Jay-Z is Fraggle ROC?!

Who doesn’t know and love Gobo, Wembley and the other inhabitants down at Fraggle Rock, not to mention Sprocket, The Gorgs and…and…and, ah all those memories. Yet I had no idea there was a rappin’ Fraggle ’til Cam’ron of Dip Set was nice enough to point it out.

That’s right, all the Jiggaman talk about “The ROC” may actually have been about Fraggle Rock, as Killer Cam shares his discovery that Jay-Z resembles a Fraggle a great deal. He does this on the outro for the track “You Gotta Love It”, his first in a line of many future jabs at the Def Jam president. Apparently most of the beef stems from Cam taking Dame Dash’s side in the beef over Rocafella, but it could go all the way back to Jay-Z’s alledged stapping of Lance “Un” who was Cam’s boss at Untertainment at one point.

The song isn’t all that. There are a few fun lines about Jigga turning the big 4-0 a couple years back, (Freeway did it much better when he dissed Jaz-O with: “You’re like the bottle dropped in Menace (II Society) – fourty and broke.”) He also expands on the old-ass metaphor by making fun of Jay-Z wearing sandals in public. This woulda been way funnier had he fused with with Nas’ constant camel-disses to Jigga and called him “camel-toes.” Or maybe not.
While I love Cam and Dipset in generally (especially JR Writer!) I don’t see this beef going too many places. Jigga’s busy burning up guestappearences and being friends with Nas. Now if those two were to get at Cam, then we’d really be in business!

“Pussy so deep, a n!gga thought he found Fraggle Rock” – Ras Kass

Meanwhile in other hip-hop, the simpsons and wrestling related news, Diamond Dallas Page, former WCW champion and all round legendary wrestler is suing Jay-Z for using the ROC-diamond handsign. Diamond Dallas Page has used this sign in public for ages – see him doing it here (also refering to his finisher as the Diamond Cutter). I really don’t see how Jigga can win this battle. Though it is slightly ironic that a rapper would get suid for waving gangsigns!?

“Doing all sorts of twisted shit with they fingers” – Jay-Z

Storm P ressurects himself as urban rap-star

Now granted, hiphop has seen its Hurricane G, DJ Typhoon, hell even Kurtis Blow sounds kinda windy…but that the late Storm P. would come back as a rapper wasn’t really in the cards, was it?

For those unfamiliar with the moniker “Storm P.” it was the calling name of Robert Storm Petersen (1882-1948). The Danish satirist, inventor, actor etc. was known primarily for his work as the creator of daily comic-strips in newspapers and such. He was particular good at depicting the gabs between society classes and older readers of this blog (yeah, right!) may remember his Peter og Ping comic about a man and his pinguin. Even in the new milenium, his name is synonymous with drawings of crazy, complicated Wiley Coyote-styled abstract inventions. You can read more about him at the Storm P. Museum.

So what’s new? Well, this has actually been brewing slowly. First I see the name “Storm P” on a DJ Clue mixtape. Then I see the name again in a Source magazine ad for some Flavor Unit release and it’s starting to get creepy. Now I visit my local Blockbuster videooutlet and there the #¤%”#” is again, this time co-staring in a Queen Latifah flick, what the fluck!

With a little help from Google, it turns out Storm P is synonymous with Quran Pender. The rapper-slash-actor got his start with Queen La’s Flavor Unit (a New Jersey based hiphop company predating 50’s G-Unit with about 15 years). He was a part of their younger posse, geniusly titled “The Unit” and released an album with them. He also worked on music for the movie “Chicago”, and now he’s all up in “The Cookout” playing an NBA-cat at a picnic gone horribly wrong.

Apparently the movie went horribly wrong as well (read review here). But I, for one, am rooting for young Storm P. to do his thing until he reaches a status where he gets the attention of the Danish media. That way they can steal this mistaken identity story from me, much like they did the one about the Royal monogram and Funk Flex’s logo.

Mutha made ’em, mutha blog ’em!

Bumrush The Show – How to get on open mics 101

Originally this blog was intended mainly as an outlet for me to brag about my undertakings. Along the way I somehow forgot to go for the gusto, so this is the first in a line of posts about accomplishments in various fields I’ve reached over the years. The first entry is about my sharing microphones with famous rap-stars.

As you readers may or may not know, I’ve been rapping for a number of years here in Denmark, and freestyling for almost as many. Yet it wasn’t until I moved to Copenhagen, I found out how easy it is to get on stage during rapshows. You don’t need to put out an album, you don’t need promotion, god donut, you don’t even need to be booked. All you have to do is wave your hand and slamdance your ass to the stage as soon as the rapper shouts “Any MC’s in the house?!” I used to think it was kinda lame to represent, but now I actually feel it’s obligatory to step up if you can. It can really be quite a fresh touch on the show, I particularly remember Nappion from Aarhus rhyming with Mad Skillz, this Icelandic rapper really impressing at a Common Sense show, and recently this kid in front row doing a perfect Wu-verse with Method Man. Also, I can’t forget my girlfriend Mismarie serving competition at a memorable Bahamadia show. But hey, this was supposed to be about me! So here’s a list of rappers whose show I’ve bumrushed.

Tha Alkaholiks: My first attempt to get on stage and it sucked. By the time I got up there, it turned out it was a drinking contest and some chick had taken my place.

Erick Sermon: This was actually the most fun. 2 years ago Erick Sermon was booked for a show with legendary underground heroes Ultramagnetic MC’s and one hit wonders Fanny Pack. Naturally only Erick and the P (as in Pack, not Parrish) show up. So Erick does his show and it’s pretty good, especially “React”, “Music” and whatever EPMD material he did, but then he asks if there are any rappers in the house. The first dude on stage is actually Bukki from the legendary Danish funk-rap band U.R.D. Somehow Erick rejects this guy (woulda been great hearing him again) and instead chooses me. Little does he know, it’s my birthday, and yes I’ve been drinking Bacardi like it’s my…forget it. Anyways I do 8 bars where I manage to insult Sermon and rhyme: “I represent for the culture, everybody knows we only showed up to hear Ultra”. after that Erick quickly snatched the mic away and looked at me angrily with his slightly lazy green eyes.

Tim Dog: Happened at Rust I think this summer. Tim Dog’s show was hot, everybody sang along with “Fuck Compton” like they had wrote the shit, and when he asked for MC’s ain’t too many dared ‘step to him’ (if you know what I mean). So I get up and do a quick freestyle, and since it’s for Tim Dog I rap a little about his history and all. While you may think Tim Dog is this angry unfuckwithable character it turned out he was really humble and gave me applaus and shouted: “That was nice. My man came off the dome!” He also signed autographs as you may have read so that whole night was smooth. There’s a review of it here.

Funkdoobiest: This was during their show in Vega. Apparently Tomahawk Funk hasn’t been part of the show for ages, so it was down to Sun Doobie and DJ Ralph The Funky Mexican. Sun Doobie was great, he was real skinny but would do Hulk Hogan poses flexing his non-existing muscles between songs, and Ralph The Funky Mexican blended electro with DJ Ugerløse-type powerscratch at all chances. Fresh! Sad thing was they only had like a half hour show, so their hypeman tried to get people from the crowd to rhyme – and he got me. At that point Sun Doobie had left the stage, but I did manage to talk about Ralph’s haircut and other stuff…
A lot of other stuff as a matter of fact. I was drunk off of Hennessey at the time, and I think I kept going way past the intended timeslot. Still fun to have been rhyming with the Soul Assassins…Almost. Read review here.

Last Emperor: He actually invited me on stage. He didn’t have a DJ with him and he needed someone to pause and fast-forward his CD for the show. So while I didn’t get to rhyme with Emp, he rhymed about me, something to the effect of: “I got my man on the beat, and his name is Pete”. Yeah Emp! While that was great in itself we also played a mean game of table fussball making it a truly memorable experience.

So that’s the list of mics shared with greatness, and if you wanna follow suit it’s real easy:

First of all you have to be fairly close to the stage around 35 minutes into the show, ‘cause they’ll do the mic either then or after the encore.

Second, have a rhyme prepared if you don’t want to freestyle.

And third, make sure you’re drunk enough to not freeze up, but sober enough to remember a line or two.

Breaking news: Bart Simpson is a Scientologist!

Yeah that’s right, the radical, ‘don’t have a cow man’, ‘eye curumba’ El Barto is a member of L Ron Hubbard’s church of Scientology. This may not be news to the American readers (assuming there are any) but in oblivious little Denmark, this piece of information sure hasn’t been shared much. The deal is this, Nancy Cartwright, the voice of Bart Simpson (yes Bart is voiced by a 40-something woman, get over it) has been a member of Scientology for years. You can read an interview in which she comments on it here.

What’s kinda nuts about it, is that while The Simpsons has been Bible-bashing, Quaran-crashing and Tora-torching for ages, there have hardly been any mentions of Scientology. There was a show called “The Joy of Sect” where an L Ron Hubbard like character brainwashes America’s favorite dysfunctional family, but that’s about it. Unless you count dubious remarks like Reverend Love Joy calling the band Iron Butterfly >>I. Ron Butterfly, or Apu complaining: “Oh, who needs the infinite compassion of Genisha, when I have Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman staring at me with their dead eyes!”

One of the more subtle comments could be when Lisa and Bart are trying to explain to Side Show Bob he’s merely playing second fiddle in a greater scheme:

Bart: “You were just Barlow’s lackey.”
Lisa: “You were Ronny to his Nancy!”
Bart: “Sonny to his Cher!”
Lisa: “Ringo to his rest of the Beatles!”

Ronny to his Nancy is of course a reference to former presidential couple Ronald and Nancy Reagan, but it could also be an inside joke hinting at L:Ron(ny) Hubbard and Nancy Cartwright.

In any case, even though I’m all for the freedom to pick your own religion, hobby, sexual orientation and so forth, I find it just a little eerie that the selfproclaimed “devil in a red shirt”, Bart Simpson is somehow related to Tom Cruise, John Travolta and all the other Scientologists secretly lurking whilst staring at our society…with their dead eyes!