If you don’t live in India or follow the Bollywood (or Hindi) movie scene, the name Rajinikanth probably doesn’t ring a bell.  But much like Ron Burgundy, this 60 year-old actor is kind of a big deal.  After leaving his job as a Bangalore bus conductor in 1973, Rajinikanth (whose real name is Shivaji Gaekwad) moved to the capital city of Chennai to pursue a career in films.  A couple of years later, he made his acting debut in a Tamil cinema production titled Apoorva Raagangal. Although he experienced moderate success, R-K didn’t become a certifiable star until around 1978, when directors started caste-ing him for the lead role in numerous projects.  Over the next ten years, he would appear in almost 80 movies (here’s his lengthy filmmography if you don’t trust my math), and soon became the highest paid Indian film star – a title which he still holds.  His popularity has not been confined to India, however, as the actor has been involved with several productions in other countries as well (including a 1988 American action/comedy titled Bloodstone).  When he was not acting, Rajinikanth also made a name for himself as a screenwriter, producer, philanthropist and successful playback singer.  What is a playback singer?  Well, I’m glad you asked, because this is actually the job that brought R-K’s illustrious career to my attention.  Milli Vanilli were essentially exposed as playback singers back in 1989; but in certain countries, actors like Rajinikanth are hired to record videos where they lip-synch songs from a movie’s soundtrack.  After watching him in the following two videos, I am really hoping this trend catches on in the U.S. film industry at some point in the future.

The title of this song translates to “Style” in English, and as you can see, R-K is not lacking in that department:

Rajinikanth channels Antonio Banderas, Neo, and Michael Jackson in the video for “Athiradee”:

Apparently this surreal “wildlife” video has been uploaded onto YouTube for a couple of years now, and was the main topic of discussion on several different websites when it first came out.  Yet somehow today was the first time I had ever seen, or heard anything about it.  The description attached claims this is actual footage that was filmed in Russia some time ago, but my brain just can comprehend the possibility that it is really real.  If by some chance this isn’t fake (I’m currently setting those odds at 10 million to one), I think some sports organizations should take full advantage of the possibilities.  If this isn’t a sure-fire way to increase the popularity of the NHL, I don’t know what is (the fights might get a little out of hand though).  If by some chance a trainer could also teach them how to figure skate, ski, luge, or handle a stone & a broom, I don’t think I would be the only one counting down the days until the next Winter Olympic Games:

To commemorate the life of an Italian explorer who inadvertently discovered the Americas (he believed he had found India) and brought slavery, war, and destruction to the inhabitants of the “New World”, let’s take a look at some other stuff that’s not important:

I don’t want to sound like one of those “back in my day” jerk offs, but it seems like the South American Sesame Street is quite a bit different from the U.S. version that I grew up watching (Via Afrojacks)

With the rise of online dating services like eHarmony and Ashley Madison (whose motto is “Life is short. Have an affair”), there is no reason for singles to drive to an agency, and record ridiculously cheesy dating videos filled with exaggerations and half-truths anymore.  Luckily, a few dating agencies from the 80′s & 90′s managed to preserve bios from some of their most eligible bachelors (by using something called VHS) – and chose to ignore something as insignificant as confidentiality.

Links

 The Huffington Post takes a look back at the “10 Creepiest, Unintentionally-Sexual Ads of All Time”.

The accordion is probably one of the most uncool instruments on the planet (with the ukulele not far behind), but this accordion wunderkind may change all that.

The people at Regretful Morning take a look at some of the most insane drinking games from around the world.

A community office kitchen can bring out he worst in some people, and the best in others – 25 Passive Aggressive Office Kitchen Notes.

I’m happy to say that my favorite outlet for Russian current events (MosNews) has apparently paid their web host enough Rubles to get their site back up.  From what I can tell, they haven’t had enough time to add any new stories since their hiatus, but luckily there are plenty of stories from the recent past to fill the void.  Here are a few things that caught my eye as I browsed through their archives.

DIY ends in dismemberment in St. Petersburg

Police are calling the death of a St. Petersburg resident an accident, after he was found at home with his legs cut off, Regions.ru reports…The 40-year-old man apparently dismembered himself with an electric saw while he was remodeling his apartment. The cause of death was attributed to loss of blood, police say. 

This sounds like both a terrible way to die, and an over-the-top way of handling home remodeling – I think this guy may have watched too much Tool Time with Tim “The Toolman” Taylor.

Russian girl in intensive care after restoring virginity 6 times

A Russian woman ended up in intensive care after restoring her virginity for the sixth time…The woman, identified as Natalia K., got married at 24.  Her husband was not the girl’s first sexual partner, Life.ru writes.  When the husband confessed he was upset about her losing her virginity before the wedding and with another man, Natalia decided to make things up for him.  To celebrate their first year together as a married couple, she went to a plastic surgery clinic and had a hymenoplasty operation…The husband was so delighted with the present, that a year later Natalia wanted to give that joy to him again…And the next year, and the year after that.

The sixth time the woman came for revirgination surgery, the doctors warned her it posed dangers for her health.  Nevertheless, Natalia signed a waiver of all claims and had the surgery done.  But the doctors’ fears turned out to be justified. The woman’s weakened immune system failed to fight an unspecified minor infection she caught after the surgery, and landed her in intensive care.

Even if it was somehow possible, I seriously doubt any male would go under the knife to become revirginated – Who in their right mind would want to relive the most awkward minute of their lives?

And just to show that not everything in the East Bloc is gloom and doom, here’s a story about how young Russians celebrate graduating school – complete with illustrations.

Young Russians celebrate last day of school

On June 23 all Moscow school-leavers get dressed up to officially say goodbye to childhood.  At school, in the first and ceremonial part of the celebrations, teachers hand out high-school diplomas and say some nice words about their students.  After that the school-leavers go out to party with their classmates.  Traditionally, on this day Russian girls wear old-fashioned Soviet style school uniforms: short brown dresses with white aprons, white socks and big white bows. Later they change into evening dresses.

Moscow authorities prohibit selling alcohol on graduation day in any of the city’s shops, but school-leavers still manage to get drunk on the wild mix of champagne and vodka.  After that, they walk around the city, bathing in fountains, vomiting in the streets, taking pictures of each other and generally enjoying themselves. 

Well he’s really a “pastor”, but Kerney Thomas is definitely filled with the holy spirit…or maybe he’s just full of a whole lot of spirits.  I kept expecting to see a flock of crows begin to circle his head, or maybe Howard Dean jumping out of the background to add some accompaniment:

(Video via Unreasonable Faith)

It’s time to take another look into some of Russia’s wild and crazy news stories from the past couple of weeks, courtesy of MosNews:

Russian “coolant glutton” dies trying to break record

After drinking 300 grams of anti-freezing liquid and chasing it down with coca-cola, Dmitry Butakov from the central Russian town of Lipetsk had only time to give a few interviews to dozens of Russian and foreign journalists specially invited to witness the unique occasion, before feeling sick.

Butakov claimed to possess supernatural abilities, boasting to be able to start his “lunch” with a glass of acetone, take a ball of mercury as a main course and chase it down with a bottle of cooling fluid – all with a close-up TV camera aimed at him…Even medical experts had to admit that his body possessed unusual abilities.  One day, after swallowing some dissolvent and chasing it down with toadstools in front of journalists, he offered to have his blood tested. A lethal dose of poison was indeed found in his bloodstream but did not seem to have penetrated his system and had left his cells unaffected, toxicologists confirmed.

It turned out, however, that no human body, even as phenomenal as his, could digest such a huge amount of toxic material… Eventually, after a number of dangerous experiments, he died.

Latvian firm accepts souls as guarantee for credits

A financial company in Latvia is offering residents loans secured by nothing but their immortal soul.

Riga-based firm, named Kontora, does not require credit history record or proof of employment. It grants loans of 50 to 500 Latvian lats ($100 to $1,000) to any adult after he or she signs a very short agreement.

According to the agreement, the only security required of the borrower is their immortal soul, which they are asked to confirm as their previously unmortgaged property…The loan is subject to one percent per day in interest until full repayment…The period of full repayment is 90 days, and in case the borrower fails to return the money, the creditor gets full possession of his soul.

Honorable Mention:

53 year-old Siberian woman beats 200 kg bear barehanded.

World’s strongest vagina breaks own record lifting 14 kilos.

What do you get when you mix basketball, football, and trampolines?  It’s called slamball…and even though I don’t usually get into gimmicky, bastardized sports (see the XFL), these guys are like the Harlem Globetrotters on HGH.

Video courtesy of Atom.com (via my homeboy MemphiSon):

Michael Jackson is still dead, at least for now anyways.  Whereas his 11 year old daughter, Paris, apparently is real and normal looking – judging by the gratuitous photos of her shedding tears, like a hairy Parisian does a Speedo.  The whole public funeral seemed extremely weird to me however, even in Michael Jackson terms.

First, who has a funeral where attendance is determined by not only your relationship to the deceased, but also by your ability to use the refresh button on Ticketmaster.com?  I even heard there were fools selling their tickets on Stubhub.com.  No matter how much you liked a guy you had never met, why would you try to get behind-the-bench seats at his funeral?  He’ll probably be pickled anyway, and go on at least one last world tour; so just hold your dead flowers and horses, and go to the nearest Amtrack station to camp out.  I imagine it’ll be like a Phish show for morbid, non-hallucinatin’, three dogs or less folks who didn’t quite make it out of mortuary school.

On that note, do you think the morticians had to embalm him, or did all that Diprivan do the trick?  I’m not a doctor - but I sleep with one not as much as I’d like.  So my sources tell me you could knock out a sumo wrestler, and the scoliosis-ridden horse he rode in on, with a milligram of that stuff.  Famous people have worser (yeah, I made up a word…deal with it) subscription drug problems than the rest of us peons, because candy man doctors hand out that shit like Xanax Pez dispensers.  Seriously, who in the hell gives MJ (a guy that has undergone the knife more than Julius Caesar) a prescription for an intravenous anesthetic to be used at his home-abusing leisure, under the guise that it treats insomnia?

I also heard something about the designer who made the suit that MJ wore for his final curtain call.  How would you like that to be your claim to fame?  I don’t know if they took his casket down the red carpet, or if the pallbearers were questioned by Ryan Seacrest about what he was wearing inside the box, but someone is running with it.  I guess they’ll get all the dead celebrity business now. Cue advertising campaign: ”This Fall, new from Armani, the Non-Responsive Collection. When it’s your time to go to heaven, you want to look good walking through those pearly gates. If you’re going to hell, you want to look hot. Armani…it’s to die for.”

Then people like Magic Johnson (the basketball player - not the album, song, or porno title), Brooke Shields, and Jermaine Jackson turned MJ’s funeral into a freaking episode of Where Are They Now? on VH1.  I mean hell, I think the only person missing was Screech from Saved By the Bell.  Brooke Shields ain’t been cool in years; whereas nothing used to come between her and her Calvins, something has been coming between her and a hit T.V. show.  Jermaine Jackson ain’t been cool since everyone realized he wasn’t Michael.  Kobe Bryant was there too, but he only got in because he has a stall in the funeral locker room. Word is, he was allotted 15 tickets to give out to family and friends.

With all this being said, I am sure a hell of a lot more people disagree with me, rather than agree with me.  Maybe they’re right, maybe this is the proper way for a celebrity to go out – especially someone who had enough plastic surgery to require “Made in Taiwan” to be tattooed on his back.  I guess The Staples center was appropriate too, because staples were probably the only thing holding him together for the last few years.

I want to assure everyone that this site is not turning into a blog about movie trailers first and foremost.  But given yesterday’s discussion about cultures, and the speculation that Russians may be the most disturbed, just think of this as Japan’s rebuttal.  A little while back I profiled the film Big Man Japan; and at the time, I thought it was the most bizarre, surreal film preview I would ever see.  That notion was obliterated yesterday when I came across a trailer for RoboGeisha.  While watching this, keep count of how many things in the trailer you have:  1) Never imagined, 2) Never seen, and 3) Only seen after ingesting massive amounts of hallucinogens.  Note:  Several things may fit into more than one category. 

Thanks to Afrojacks for another great find…