Sparky’s People - Component #2

AHOY THAR SHIPMATES! Yeah, I figured starting off like a pirate would be a good omen. It’s Sparky’s People and this is the third edition (or component – as I idiotically like to call them.) I talked about Samuel L. Jacksoganmn, Snoop Dogg, Malcolm X and Michael Jordan in the last column – and the first one is also around on the forums (probably on the first page of the O2 RCC – it covers such stars as Jimi Hendrix and 2pac.) In this issue, I’ll cover more people. Read on and enjoy…

Martin Luther King:

I couldn’t really not mention this man. He revolutionised the world, and was undoubtedly one of the most popular people in the world during his time. Martin Luther King fought for equal rights and had an incredibly large following. The fact is that he fought and fought and never gave up. ‘I HAVE A DREAM…’ is still heard/seen on TV constantly, and his impact was worldwide. A very special black activist indeed. I think the main thing that most people think of when they hear the name Martin Luther King is how he changed the lives of black people. Born in January 1929, he graduated from high school aged 15, and ended up getting a BA degree and a BD, and then a doctorate and a degree. He married and had four children.

He started to strive to get better rights for black people, joining various organizations over the years. In 1957 he was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization formed to provide new leadership for the now burgeoning civil rights movement. Over the next decade, he spoke over 2500 times and travelled millions of miles. He was awarded 5 degrees and wrote 5 books. Still, he was assaulted four times and arrested almost two dozen times, if not more. Many white people continued to be – basically – a bunch of pricks towards him, but his impact continued to grow, as people of all creeds and races took notice. He was awarded ‘Man of the Year’ and the Nobel Peace Prize – giving the money towards the movement efforts.

King was murdered in 1968, but the impact he made was almost unmatched, even today, watching his speeches brings a chill to your spine and the continuous battle he led almost brings a tear to the eye. He remains one of the most beloved figures in history, and for revolutionising the world – he’s one of Sparky’s people.

Mohammed Ali:

Called by many the greatest boxer ever to live, Mohammed Ali is as much of a sporting legend as anyone else. Ali basically dominated the sport when he was in it and became incredibly popular and memorable. He has been given numerous awards for his work, and was an awesome boxer. ‘Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee,’ have become household words, and you’d have to travel a long way to talk to people that don’t know who he is.

In his time as a boxer, he barely ever lost and became a 3 time world champion. He famously refused to go to war, and was devoutly religious. His life has been made into numerous films, including the recent ALI with Will Smith starring in it, which was interesting, but not as good as I was expecting. Still, having now seen an Ali fight I can testify to his greatness. He used to train in weighted down boots, so that when in normal ones he could move quicker. Claiming to be the perfect human specimen, Mohammed Ali is one of Sparky’s people (is me saying that starting to piss you off yet?!)

Arnold Schwarzenegger:

Ali may have claimed he was a perfect body – but the undisputed champion of that would have to be Arnold Schwarzenegger. Physically, there has never been a better human being, with Samson being a definite close contender. Arnie started out in the bodybuilding industry, basically winning everything, claiming seven Mr. Olympia titles, 5 Mr. Universes and the Mr. World title (the records have since been broken, but without him in the field its become much easier to win.) Schwarzenegger had a 5 year break between his last 2 Mr. Olympia titles, and basically was the God of the bodybuilding world – plus he never touched drugs once, which basically puts him a million miles ahead of everyone else. After making some money (he had headed to America broke, with nothing but dreams, and was frequently attacked as a youngster (he fought them all off - despite them outnumbering him a dozen to one, with weapons)) he used his new found wealth to buy land around the world and basically got super-rich off that. Using his high IQ (probably around 160, but he is REALLY clever) had given him the best use of his money – and he decided that he had proven everything to the bodybuilding world and should move into acting. After a few uninspired roles (Hercules in New York, Scavenger Hunt, Stay Hungry, The Long Goodbye and the bodybuilding movie Pumping Iron) he starred in Conan the Barbarian. With long hair and the perfect body, Arnie build himself up for the role, training for fighting and becoming an accomplished sword-fighter. He embodied what Conan was about and brought an awesome quality to the movie, which was a big success and launched his career. Conan the Destroyer followed, which was not as good, but still enjoyable.

1984 saw Arnie become the biggest star in the world, as he starred in James Cameron’s The Terminator. With a body that now resembled a wall, and overall built like a brick shit house, Arnie became the Terminator. He was PERFECT in the role and the movie was an insane success, being voted inside the Top 100 for the UK. From 1984 onwards Arnold basically became the God of movies for the decade, making oodles of cash and becoming the most popular man in the world. The words ‘I’ll be back!’ became household, and his movies were action-packed and incredibly enjoyable. Red Sonja, Raw Deal and Red Heat were all enjoyable affairs, but the peak of the action movies, in my opinion, came with Commando. I was watching the movie a few weeks back, and my goodness it kicks ass. Arnie turns into an army that would destroy basically every other film character in history.

The film starts off with Arnie proving how he’s a great father – but basically its all fake (the chances of it being a hidden underlying theme in the movie are much better than the chances that it was simply horrible acting from Ah-nuld) – then his daughter gets kidnapped and Arnie destroys everyone who’s attacking his house. This includes a scene where Arnie is beaten and battered, and is surrounded by 5 men with machine guns. Still, he jumps forward and beats the shit out of him, only getting beaten when more attack, and knock him out. When he comes to, he talks around and ends up on a plane, where he punches a black dude and kills him, before dropping about 200ft off the plane and walking away fine – proving he’s one tough motherfucker (I’m doubting there was a stunt man involved, too.)

He then finds a bad guy at a store, and beats the shit out of a bunch of cops, ripping a phone booth out, military pressing it and launching it on the floor. He then beats up dome more cops, swings across the whole mall ala Tarzan, and kicks the shit out of more cops. Then he rips a seat out of a car (having previously proven his strength by carrying a tree around with one arm) and chases after the bad guy. The car crashes and Ahnuld just jumps out, despite the car being destroyed (tough as nails) and pulls the bad guy’s car down, before dangling him off a cliff with one hand, telling him he lied when he said he’d kill him last and dropping him. Then he steals the car and takes the woman he’s with along with him. He then rips apart a motel and beats the shit out of those inside. His bitch and he make their way down to the city, where he smashes into a weaponry store using some massive automobile. He piles up a shit load of weapons, which looking fucking cool, before the cops chase him.

His woman then shoots the wrong way with a rocket launcher (dumb bitch) and then turns it around and blows up the police car he’s in – AHNULD smashes his way out, and he and his woman get down to the docks, where AH-NULD kills someone by smashing their head into some wood, and they launch all the weapons they previously had into an air boat (she knows how to fly) and they make their way to the island where Arnie’s betraying old friend (who was responsible for the death of Arnie’s mates) and Schwarzenegger’s daughter are. The military tell them to fuck off, so Arnold flies in low, jumps off the boat and sets himself up. Good god he looks bad ass now, in one of the all time coolest movie scenes, he puts on army gear and war paint, before strapping himself up with an inhuman amount of weapons. Bombs, grenades, knives, guns and pretty much everything else are strapped to him and he goes off to kick ass. He blows up two massive buildings (probably containing a ton of people, but they aren’t included in the death count) which is impressive, and then destroys an army by himself, despite being outnumbered 60 to 1, and being inside a shed which gets destroyed. He then kills a few more people and the brains behind the operation (they get Arnie’s girl so that he assassinates the president of a country) and the bad guys find out Arnie’s daughter has escaped.

The bad guy runs after her like a creeping paedophile – walking as if he’s trying to consume a large boner and something else inside his pants (I’m checking this and I think I meant conceal) – but instead finds Arnold Schwarzenegger (or rather John Matrix) – and promptly the two beat the shit into each other. Arnie gets the upper hand and kills his opponent, despit having dropped 200+feet, crashed a car, been attacked by thugs, the army and the cops, got blown up, got stabbed and crashed a car down a bank without breaks (that’s another great bit at the start. They cut his break cables and drive down the hill, Arnie just chucks the car down the cliff and jumps in, swerving round the trees (making Colin McRae look shit) and fighting them off some more) – and also despite the fact that the other guy is armed. In true rock hard fashion Arnie electrocutes him and beats him to death. He kills about 80-100 people on screen in the movie, and when the army arrive (his bitch phoned them up), he tells the officer that there’s just bodies – and seeing as he blew up 3 or 4 barracks, he’s basically killed the better half of a thousand men. He didn’t want to return to the army and tells the guy ‘NO CHANCE’ as he rides off with his daughter and bitch, as the awesomnest movie theme ever kicks in ‘ We Fight For Love’ by Power Station, with incredible guitar playing, an awesome lyrics and the Commando slogans ‘SOMEWHERE. SOMEHOW. SOMEONE.’ (IS GONNA PAY.) So yeah, Commando kicks ass - RATING: 95/100 .

He then whooped ass in the Running Man (where he basically beat the shit out of everyone and everything, including Jesse Ventura) and was rather humorous in Twins alongside Danny DeVito. 1987 saw the absolutely INSANELY GOOD Predator - A movie that kicks more ass than is physically explainable. Basically the Predator kills off Arnie’s rock hard team, and then Arnie destroys the 10 foot tall behemoth, and survives a nuclear explosion, after he and his group blow the shit into the jungle (one scene with Jesse Ventura (another Arnie/Ventura film) where they all blow apart the jungle is particularly memorable) and try to fight off the Predator. The 1990s brought a few not-awesome Arnie-comedies and a few poor action movies, but he soon found his way back into his stride. T-2, Total Recall and Kindergarten Cop were all very good, with Christmas in Conneticut, True Lies, Dave, Last Action Hero, Last Pary, Junior and Jingle all the Way followed, and were enjoyable and sometimes good, but not as awesome as some of his other endeavours. Batman and Robin was a bit disappointing, but Eraser saw a return to form, and End of Days, Collateral Damage and a few uncredited parts, TV movies, TV shows and a load of appearances as himself followed. A few new movies are in production, but Arnie’s been working on other stuff instead.

Setting up an incredibly successful franchise in restaurants and merchandise, marrying a Kennedy and achieving everything else he wanted to do. His dreams as a kid were to go to America, marry a Kennedy and be an actor. He achieved them all, and as one of the richest men in the world (he got 30 million for Collateral Damage) – and the star of the upcoming Terminator 3 (and 4 – which don’t have Linda Hamilton or Edward Furlong or Cameron directing …. I still think they’ll rock) – he's also a fiercely popular Republican and is running for mayor - hoping to become President of the USA one day. The constitution says that you have to be born in America for it to happen, but Arnie may been hoping to change the constitution itself. I wouldn't put it past him, because there is NOTHING that he can't do. He is the fucking man. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the most financially successful and most famous actor and bodybuilder alive or dead, a very clever and very rich man – the perfect human specimen is one of SVD’s people (slight change, eh?)

Mahatma Gandhi:

I was going to write about another movie star, but Arnie’s piece ran a little long, so I’ll move onto a shorter piece on Gandhi. The man named Gandhi was really Ben Kingsley…… wait, that was the film (which holds the record for the most extras ever used, and is something I haven’t seen.) He was a man that wasn’t religious at all…. Wait, wrong person. The devoutly religious, bald-head geeza that was Stone Cold Ste…… err, Mahatma Gandhi (there we go) basically captured a whole nation, and a lot more people too (worst sentence structure ever.) He promoted passive resistance – or mainly non-violent resistance and spread the word of good morals, ethics and his religion. Basically, he kicked some ass in making people do good shit – another non-Christian that I still like as a religious figure. I won’t rip off a biography, because to be honest I don’t know a whole lot about the man (the director David…. Err, Richard Attenborough won an Oscar cried when he accepted it (and so he should, mofo worked his ass of for years for that, he rules) and basically Gandhi was a good bloke. On Celebrity Death Match he was placed against Genghis Khan and Austin revealed that their profiles/characteristics had been swapped over, which left Gandhi beating the shit into the hardest man in history (look for him soon.) So yeah, for being a nice guy who I can write a paragraph about, Gandhi is a Sparky person (WOW! Another different end!)

Well, there ye go. Another 4 of Sparky’s People for you to enjoy. I’ll be back next time, ranting about how much various other people rule, and why. It isn’t easy to become one of Sparky’s People, but if you think someone should definitely be on the list, then post it here, or contact me in another way (see below.)

For now, thanks for reading, and leave feedback, good or bad. Cheers. Oh, and if you haven’t already, go and check out all my other RCC pieces. They all rule. Thanks!

AOLIM: Sparky Van Dam

E-mail: splitleggedmoonsault@hotmail.com send me the sickest stuff you can find and I’ll maybe mention you – how awesome is that?!

Sparky Van Dam