Living On the Edge of the World

Bruce Xmastime memory HERE:

I bought Born in the USA when it came out; I was 11 years old and this seemed to me to be the only real 'rock n roll' record out there that I knew about at the time. I can still remember playing it over and over - I loved the bombast of the title track, and I LOVED the single 'Dancing in the Dark', - still do to this day. The track that still gets me choked up, and I can still picture where I was sitting when I first heard it, is 'Bobby Jean', Bruce's farewell to his departed friend Steven Van Zandt. Man. Funeral slice of funeral slices. But for some reason, in a move that did not fit in my later musical personality at all, it never really occurred to me to get Bruce's other records. I wore the HELL outta Born in the USA (still have the cassette, too), but it never occurred to me to pick up anything else. Many, many years later my buddy Op gave me a mix tape of Bruce cuts (remember mix tapes?). I remember riding the Dog down to Charlottesville and I had it in my walkman, kinda listening, not really paying attention etc and then a song called 'Livin On the Edge of the World' came on. Blew, blew blew me away. And just like that, I was in love. After all those years, I was in. 

Yesterday GodIHateYourBand was saying that the song Living on the Edge by Aerosmith was a great song. "You gotta really listen to it!" he screeched. This, of course, makes him a giant fucking fag - or, worse, an Aerosmith fan.

But just thinking of the title of the song made me think of my slice of slices, Living on the Edge of the World, which later was surgically cut up and found itself into at least two songs that ended up on Nebraska. Enjoy.



and hell, for you Buddy Holly fans:

Right on Schedule

Just heard the first "____ days til pitchers & catchers!" of the year. Which makes me throw up (even if my girl Uma says it in my slice Beautiful Girls.)

But you knew that already, via HERE.

6) Guys: quit trying to win the “REAL Baseball Fan” award by acting all excited and announcing the days until pitchers and catchers begin their workouts together. Every fucking year I gotta hear “17 days till pitchers/catchers!!!” Really? Are you a pitcher on a major league baseball team? Are you a catcher? Are you going to said practices to watch? Are these exciting workouts being televised? Do even the very pitchers and catchers that show up give 2 shits about this event? No. Acting like a excitable kid about something this worthless will not get you laid, it will not inspire me to buy you a fucking beer. The season starts on April 2. Until then, the only time I wanna hear “pitchers & catchers” is at my neighborhood gay bar, thank you very much.

For fuck's sake.

UPDATE: Holy crap!!  The number the guy used tonight was 17!! Bruce Becks aid "17 days til pitchers and catchers"....THE EXACT NUMBER I USED IN THIS EXAMPLE FROM  4 YEARS AGO!!!!

I am freaking myself out, people.

Am I Dreaming...

...or was there never a definitive documentary made of the 1992 Dream Team? I mean, did no kid from UCLA with a video camera follow them around for two weeks, capturing the 3am poker games with Barkley/Jordan et al? What the fuck? I mean, the trash-talking must've been epic. Just getting everyone on a mic during those blowouts woulda been priceless, no?

Barkley:

On the goal of the '92 Olympic Dream Team when playing Panama in the Tournament of the Americas: "To get the Canal back."

Before the Dream Team's game against Angola in the 1992 Olympics: "All I know about Angola is Angola's in trouble."

Life Lessons by Xmastime

One of the few good things about getting older is that from time to time it occurs to you that you know what, maybe someone HASN'T come up with that idea already.

Blake "Making My Dick" Lively

I wouldn't know Blake Lively if she walked into my loft and hit me in the balls with a can of creamed corn. I have never seen whatever tv show she's on. And I've seen her 1000 times in InTouch, but she's never done anything for me, never stood out in any way. But for some reason, the entire time she was on SNL a few weeks ago, she was doing it for me. Fucking hot as balls.

Life, eh? A fucking box of crackers.

Blake's the one on the left

Pro Bowl

Earlier today I thought hey, I should watch the Pro Bowl and live-blog it. But then I thought oh, for fuck's sake, 9/11 was only 8 years ago - haven't I been through enough?

Jim Cramer

On The Chris Matthews show this morning, Jim Cramer vowed that the iPad will be "the biggest device in history." Which of course should be your cue to go out and buy as many shares of whatever is the exact opposite of the iPad as possible.

Another Cramer zinger HERE.

Political Savvy

There is a strangeness, to me, to the idea that we should shelve healthcare reform right now because we need to focus on jobs jobs jobs. Of course, it's always good to focus on making sure as many people are employed as possible. Like Kurt Cobain, that's a no-brainer.

But let's say that if the unemployment rate at this moment is 10%. And then magically, tomorrow it was lowered to 5%. That would, of course, be an amazing thing. But let's assume that most of those people newly employed have access through their jobs. How many of these people would therefore be added to the "I got mine, I ain't paying extra for nobody else's!" roster? Therein lowering public clamor for change. I know you get accused of kicking puppies if you say "from calamity comes opportunity," but what's the political savvy for getting shit like this done? Wouldn't it be when the most people possibly need it?

Sam & Dave

A coupla years ago my band had a residency at a local bar called The Charleston - home of the $1 slice, the $6 Bud, and the inexplicably biggest light show known to mankind. I should have known I sucked when the owner told me "My wife loves your sound!", she being  1) in front of a pizza oven 19 hours a day 2) 77 years old.

Anyways, for some reason one show came up and the other guys in my band were outta town, or something had come up, I don't remember what, so I got GodIHateYourHayday to jump in, and we played as a 2-piece. It was so bad that people started pretending their cell phones were ringing, and this was 2003, ie before most of them actually had cell phones.

Anyways, this duo was much better.

Obama Needs to Raise the Roof

James Fallows tries to tell us that Obama's calmness at the Georgetown/Duke game is some sort of studied approach to not pissing off voters from North Carolina. As if Obama is normally some excitable, screaming guy burning off nervous energy. I'm sure Fallows was partly tongue in cheek, but camon.

But that's how I watch games. And that's even if it's my favorite team playing. I don't mind other people going bananas, but I like to keep my cool. Number one, I guess for some reason I think if I get up and shout and scream and clap that, like if I ever get near a dance floor, everyone in the building will suddenly turn to watch me and think I look like an idiot. But mostly, I like to take the advice my high school football coach gave about how to act after you've scored a touchdown: "act like you've been there before." Amended eventually to, of course, "act like you've been there before, even though you haven't. In years. God, you guys are terrible. Please hurry up and graduate."

I fail to see why I should be surprised a 48 year-old man does not jump out of his seat screaming like a schoolgirl any time a 19 year-old kid representing a school he has no affiliation with has made a layup. For fuck's sake.

And don't even get me started re: dudes who shout at the tv during games. Aka "future shut-ins."

Tappahannock: Bang a Gong, Bring 'Em On

Last night I threw my hometown in the KSM Trial sweepstakes - I feel I would be remiss if I didn't sweeten the pot by volunteering to take any willing visitors on a "Xmastime's High School Makeout Spots Tour." Stops would include behind Sunnyside Grocery, behind the Hodge Podge, dirt road next to Ms. Ott's farm, and the office of an insurance company, among others. I'm sure I can be generous enough to throw in a "goodie bag" heh heh heh.

Pet Shop Boyz

I ain't heard this is about 20 eyars. And it remains a testament to the fact that one mark of a song being incredible is that even in the hands of a coupla cake boys from England, it still is awesome.

Warning

As I will not be drinking in February, this is my last night to get shizzled. I'm sure I'll go out with a blaze of drunken texts, offensive emails and histrionic posts here. Enjoy!!!

Can't See the Forest for the Idiots

Lost in the shuffle thanks to idiots waving around signs of socialism with Hitler mustaches and idiots like me frantically pointing out what idiots these idiots are, along with all of us being a lot more interested in whatever Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck is spewing at any given moment as opposed to actually peeping into what's really going on in the sausage-making business, is that it looks like this year's Congress has been tremendously productive (include historically huge, say it with me, tax cuts.) Ain't that something.

Winner

Miranda Bites

I Saw Her First, Boys

Makes Sense to Me

I Do

Whatever woman I marry will hafta be a very understanding one, since I will insist on being the one to walk down the aisle at our wedding, and I will do it as a step-by-step re-enactment of the climactic final scene of Flashdance, complete with slow opening and even a shower of water halfway through. Not a dry eye in the house!!

Headlines That Would Actually Be Newsworthy if One Word Was Changed

Louisa May Alcott

Having never read Little Women and presumably never will, I have no idea why I just watched the Louisa May Alcott joint on American Masters. But it was worth it if only to learn about her somewhat batshit "intellectual" father, the founder of the short-lived and aptly-named Fruitlands (social antidote to my main man Charles Guiteau's Oneida Community?) and whom, frustratingly enough, Louisa outlived by only 2 days.

But in looking at the photo on the right, I must say. Do something with that hair and lose 5 pounds, and I'd hit it.

Jolly Men

Via Sully, dude bemoaning the pussification of the American male:

Caleb Crain remembers the jolly fellows, "a certain type of American man—rowdy, boastful, hard drinking, and fond of games, brawls, and tricks—who could dependably be found in village taverns and on city streets"

"Remembers"? What the fuck, dude - we're still here!!!!!    :)

Xmastime is a Monster!

I see that BBC-A is running Hitchcock movies all day. Vertigo, Psycho, Rear Window etc etc.

GEE. Who could they POSSIBLY be trying to please here? Hmm. It's a mystery!!

I want your psycho/
Your vertigo stick/
Want you in my rear window/
Baby you’re sick/
I want your love

Salinger ctd.

Reading this New York Times piece on JD Salinger, I'm reminded that

1) the single greatest thing he ever did was not write the "sequel" that everybody foolishly longed for, perhaps in some quasi Todd Snyder kinda way.

2) it's a lot easier to be an eccentric recluse if you're rich as shit.

3) there are people that like writing, and there are people that like having written something.

The Pistol.

I'm guessing his 3,667 career points is an NCAA record that will never be broken, like Cy Young's 511 wins. There's no way a kid that good will stay in college that long. Might as well put that one on the board, dipped in cement. Ain't changing. It's pretty amazing to me that a record for scoring that was set in 1970 has not been broken yet. But I would bet the farm it ain't gettin broken again.

The Pistol

Of course, I can't watch The Pistol without linking to THIS, therein setting off the 'ol "Xmastime is a pussy cream puff" waterworks. Amazing.

EMERGENCY TV Alert!

Channel 98 in NYC, the TBN Channel. I have no idea what that channel, is, looks like a Jesus Channel, but right now they're showing The Pistol.

Super slice.

Headlines That Would Actually Be Newsworthy if One Word Was Changed

I Am Going to Die a Big Fat Fuck

 If I get a W for today, that would put me 6 games ahead of last year's fucking Yankees!!!!

I better get some mad pussy for all this.

Tim Tebow

I don't have too much to say about the whole Tebow commercial during the Super Bopwl hullabaloo other than;

1) I'm glad he's alive and I really, really hope the Cowboys get him in the draft
2) This gives me another eye to roll/eyebrow to raise the next time I hear about the "left-wing, crazed liberally biased!!!!!" media.

Also, can NFL teams sue mothers who had abortions, on the grounds that maybe that kid would've grown up to be a star for their team, therein robbing the team of millions in merchandise/tickets etc? Interesting. Or can pregnant mothers say "I'm gonna abort this kid unless the (insert NFL team) buy him"? Hmm.

Hey, I Like Partying Too

If it was so easy for a legitimate, regularly competitive third party to take hold in national politics, it probably would have already happened. That's not to say that at some point in the next coupla of decades it won't happen; perhaps in 50-100 years people will look back in wonder at our present two-party system. Of course, one party will have to be first one to break through. It will have to be one of sober, rational and high-minded seriousness. It will have to be interested in more than emotionally preaching to the choir. You'll forgive me for saying I don't think this will be that party.

Jobs

With unemployment around 10% these days, it's easy to feel gloomy about the lack of jobs out there. And everybody's got their knickers in a bunch about government spending, so it's pretty easy to scare folks out there about how much the government is gong to tax your great-great-great grandchildren back to the Stone Ages, aka the 1980s. Ironically though, if you're skilled at coming up with pictures and cutesy-wutesy ways of explaining what the money would look like of it was physically stacked in a room, this would seem to be a golden age for you.

"Hi, I'd like to apply for the job of 'describing to Americans how far the deficit would stretch if each dollar was a grain of sand.'"
"Okay. What's the answer?"
"Saturn."
"We can only pay you $140k/year."
"I'll take it."

Salinger Note

Some people might have had their feelings hurt by my Catcher in the Rye post earlier. Which I think is silly - I mean, it's not as I said only pussies read Salinger, or anything like that. Open up your minds, people!!!

Nomination

Now that KSM in the NYC ain't gonna happen, I think the best place to hold the trial would be to find a small town that is itching to show the world how much it loves America, all while blowing a bunch of out-of-town money into it's coffers. Obviously, I would like to nominate my own hometown of Tappahannock, VA. Not only would all the little bed & breakfast places gouge "NYC ferah-ners" out of their dough, but it'd be basically free advertising for what could then be ridiculously over-priced river properties that are part of a small town but only 90 minutes from DC. KA-CHING!!!! The football team as state champs could get some great press. And yeah, if my blocked extra point at Lancaster comes up okay, fine, whatever (I REFUSE TO LET THEM MAKE THIS ABOUT ME!!) Chris Brown can sing The Star-Spangled Banner to remind everybody that we're awesome, but we can also beat the fucking shit out of you.


And hell, the town has already been on the front lines of terrorism, getting a cameo in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11:

[Michael Moore is interviewing citizens from Tappahonnock, Virginia, population 2,016]
Michael Moore: Is there any terrorist target around here?
Tappahannock Woman: [Gesturing towards the restaurant behind her] We have a big spaghetti supper in here. 

I Need a Girlfriend

I really need to get  a girlfriend. Just so that eventually she will ask me the ol' "gee, what answer is she looking for?" question of "Oh Xmastime, will you still love me years from now when I'm old and fat, titties drooping down to my knees?" and I get to say "what are you, fucking nuts? HEEEEEEELLLLLL no!"

Late Night

I can only get myself so worked up in the whole Leno vs. Conan thing. For one, I'm not of the generation that is so loyal to a late-night host the way people were about Carson. But just as much, I think tv itself has changed these things a lot; simply from looking at the guide that's on the tv I can see which guests are on which show. I mean, as much as I say I like Conan more than Leno (and I do), if I flip to the guide and see that Teri Hatcher and Don Rickles are on Leno, then I'm flipping over to Leno. It's too easy; we don't hafta sit through the host and try to find out who's coming on. And all of this is to say nothing about the fact that these late-night joints have become 90% commercials for movie stars anyway. Why not save a billion dollars a year and simply have a show wherein celebrities come, sit down, and talk about their stupid movies they want us to go see? Bring a friend, bring their sister, talk themselves, whatever; it's the same shit anyways. Yes, I'm thrilled to hear about your new puppy, but we both know you're just there to show us how awesome you and your new movie are. And I'm there to see Kim Kardashian's titties, not watch Letterman "parry" with her. BOOM! Xmastime just saved millions!!  Can I take over NBC now?

TCITR

Like anyone who was a teenager, The Catcher in the Rye had a hold on me in my youth. And I still have a warm spot for it, and nothing stops it from being a really, really good book. But the older I get the less it means to me. I mean, I've never thought to myself "Gee, I wonder what Holden Caulfield would do in this situation" as I might with, say, Tom Joad. At the end of the day, Tom Joad is Paul Westerberg in 1984, and Holden Caulfield is your average Williamsburg hipster in a nouveau-rock art fusion no-bass-included Japanese haiku band: for all we know the last time we read of Tom walking away from Ma is followed by him getting his head bashed in for not being happy to work for 3 cents a day; Holden we're fairly certain will simply end up at another private school for fellow rich kids, and in a  few years he will look back on his melo-dramatic teen years and laugh. Both characters' stories have merit. But only one actually grows with you the more you experience actual life.

Yes. From Her Husband.

11211

Somethinig tells me that January 12, 2011 is going to be "the new 9/11 for hipster batshirt irony" day. CAN irony be concentrated enough and so powerful so as to shift the Earth off it's axis and hurl it out the fucking galaxy? We'll see.

Ooooh, and it's a Wednesday. How ironic.

Flowers.

The other day I pointed out the long-standing tradition of a mysterious stranger leaving flowers on Poe's grave to mark his birthday being broken HERE. And then just now on my favorite Yankees blog, I read this creepy story about Thurman Munson's locker:

Normally, no one went near Munson’s locker – not the maids when they vacuumed, not the clubbies when they were doing laundry, not the players when they were looking for somewhere to drop some fan mail or a box of bats. Everyone just stayed away from the shrine.

But sometime in the middle of the 2003 season, a bouquet of flowers appeared one day on the bench in the middle of Munson’s locker. No one knew where the flowers came from. The equipment managers asked around, but no one had any idea. For days, and then weeks, the flowers lay there even as the smell became overwhelming. No one wanted to go in and take them out. It just wasn’t done.

Finally, as the odor became noxious, the flowers were removed by an attendant who literally tip-toed into the locker and grabbed the rotting stems. “It was strange because they just were there one day, and no one admitted to putting them there,” one attendant told me for a story in the Daily News. “And we all knew we should throw them out, but it was like, ‘What do you do? Just go pick them up?’ No one wanted to do it.”

What the fuck? I knew they keep Munson's locker exactly as it was when he was killed, but I had no idea nobody was cleaning the dust off of it. What happened with it when they switched to the new stadium? And, just like with the Poe flowers, will anyone ever find out who did it? And how much more does this shit hit home when taken along with the fact that while I was at my check cashing place large, institutionalized bank wherein I keep my financial portfolio today, the pen I used had an exagerratedly large, goofy, over-sized red flower on the end of it? 


Like. Box of fucking crackers, eh?

30 in 30

I gotta win the lottery, so I can do shit like this. Dang.

Dancing in Some Horseteef

It seems like I can't swing my dick anywhere these days without it hitting a cover of Dancing in the Dark. Here's one by Mary Chapin-Carpenter.

Speaking of, here's a picture of an all-time Mrs. Xmastime Horseteef Hall of Famer, Lucinda Williams. Sigh. (swinging dick around) (oh gee, look what I hit. natch)

TV ALERT:

GREAT EXPECTATIONS
8pm, TCM

Well. THAT'S peculiar timing, no?

Well. Prolly cause Estella just died. But still.

Gee. The President's Not an Idiot. How Bout That.

This is pretty hilarious. I'm not sure who the Republicans thought they were going up against here. Maybe they've spent so much time by now merely screaming vague, fear-mongering rhetoric that they've forgotten that there actually ARE people who actually know what they're talking about, and that Obama, who I don't think anybody has ever accused of being stupid, might be one of them. Baffling at how they were "licking at their chops!"

In any event, this really makes me think of The Office when Michael Scott in talking about how good he is at improv says he'd love to go head to head with Robin Williams. Hmm.

People I Fucking Hate

Moi ICI:

People I Hate, Vol XXII

People who run out and buy the book to a movie that's being made so that later on when the movie's coming out they can say they read the book, all while pretending they had no idea it was being made into a movie. Grrrrrrrrr.

A distant second place is shitheads like me walking around with a book that actually has the movie on the cover. Christ.

No Booze for You!

I'm gonna see if I can go the entire February without drinking. It's the shortest month, which is nice, but there's the Super Bowl, the last which I sat through without pounding some pops probably being when Montana threw 183 touchdowns against Elway's hapless Broncos. And of course sitting through a record-breaking 199th consecutive Valentine's Day all alone will be odd without a handy bottle of hooch to dip my balls into while screaming "fucll all you bitches!!!"  But I do feel  like if I am going to accomplish anything at this particular time of my life, I can't do it while drinking; ie the "get shizzled one night, then spend two days recovering/crying and whining, then do it all over again." I mean, I know  it's hard to believe, but I actually have a few goals I'd like to accomplish right now. Rare for me, I know, but true.

The only hangup I have is I need a cool name for this - a friend of mine does this every October, and calls it "Sober October." But nothing rhymes with February. "Not drinking in February is so fucking gay it's scary"? Hmm. We'll see.

The Short Bus Hates Me

(scene: RRTHUR's car (YES leadies, THAT Rrthur.) Xmastime playfully bantering with the Short Bus, who is in the back seat. RRTHUR gets out of car to go in to grab dinner; all of a sudden Short Bus' tone goes from "playful" to "Mob boss.")

SHORT BUS: Okay Rats. You need to go home.
XMASTIME: What? We're clowning around! (trying to get a 'five')
SHORT BUS: No. Go home.
XMASTIME: But...but we're buddies, right?
SHORT BUS: No, we're not buddies.
XMASTIME: Really? Why not?
SHORT BUS: (a little TOO matter of fact, shrugs) I don't like you.
XMASTIME: But...we're friends!
SHORT BUS: Nope. I don't like you.
XMASTIME: Why? What do you mean?
SHORT BUS: I just don't like you.

(end scene)

This is what it's come to. A three year-old is gonna be what finally sends me to therapy. No dignity.

Stephen Fry

Over the past several weeks I've been digging on Stephen Fry in America, and tonight's episode has him going through the South (including a stop in Nashville at something I had no idea existed, a body farm.)

Fry being from London, his interacting with Southerners reminds me of what I wrote HERE  a few years ago about the surprising similarities between people from the South and people from, of all places,  England. Interesting.

Cookie Monster = Funny.

My Balls are Burning.

Which one of you hot, sexy bitches is fingerblasting to me right now?

A Riddle.

Earlier today for some reason I was thinking about the whole KSM in NYC thing, and I thuoght that the only real argument against having the trial downtown would be the sheer fucking up of business down there; I can remember when they wanted to film A Time to Kill in Oxford, but all the business on the Square went apeshit cause they'd hafta shut down for a few days, so they moved the filming to Canton.

Now it looks like they're moving the trial out of NYC, which makes sense via the business incovernience it will cause. It should should be done out in Bumfuck. But, of course, the people who live in Bumfuck ("Bumfucks") are the same people that like to sound tough and clamor for war and torture and kicking ass, but fall to pieces at the thought of any bad guys X-Men setting foot within 100 miles of them, so. A riddle.

"I'm getting too old for this shit."

Sigh. Memories.

One of my best friends in high school took it upon himself to write a single line on every page of my senior yearbook, a veritable list of memories. Here's some of them:

Getting slapped by ________ in the hall.

Getting slapped by ________ in World Geography.

Stephen King toasting you around the end for about 90 yards.

Twice.

Getting slapped by ________ in gym.

Farting with your back on the Dryden's floor.

You spending two years begging Coach to let us play with the cash registers instead of work in mechanical drawing class.

You spending two years begging Coach to let us look at yearbooks instead of work in mechanical drawing class.

Probability: science fair winner.

Gunning at the Chinn Dome.

That mystery girl from King William who kept calling you.

Kentucky Fried Chicken's 10-piece meal.

Super Paul and the hamburger incident. (Xmas note - sounds like a Paul Zindal novel)

You were right, we should've walked home from Lancaster after that game.

You somehow getting everybody to sign your disgusting shoes when they finally fell apart.

Running in the halls and singing American Pie

You making those stupid music rating charts in Study Hall.

That concoction we dared you to eat at Shoney's that for a second we thought had killed you.

Melvin spending the entire government class asking you "awwwwwwww, when you gonna git that pussy?"

You and Croc getting busted behind Sunnyside. Gee, you'd think your "I'm gonna go put the lawnmower away" alibi would be foolproof.

You trying to convince Mr. Saville you couldn't read in class because the air conditioning was broken.

Finally.

A site devoted to the fact that we love peepin them titties.

A New Record for Christmas Creep?

It's only January 28, and this shit's got my dick hard as a rock.

Fags.

from thingsthataredoingit.

shoulda submitted THIS ONE! (too artfully subtle?)

 

INteresting

That Oprah, in the ten minutes I've watched, has been 10x rougher on a late-night talk show host than a former governor who could conceivably become president of the country. Hmm.

Kicking It Up a Notch

Tramps Like Us, who apparently have won the "which Bruce tribute band does the guy that screwed Bruce over and was the reason Darkness on the Edge of Town was held up for three years like the most?" contest, are not satisfied with merely pretending they're another band and being completely devoid of any type of creativity, and are looking to ratchet up the patheticness by re-creating one of the greatest live shows of all time. Awesome.



UPDATE 3:28PM: oh, for fuck's sake.

Super Bowl

TNC mentions HERE the fact that if the Colts win, that will be the third Super Bowl in four years won by a black head coach. He doesn't mention what I did three years ago HERE, that we're still waiting for a black quarterback to win one since Doug Williams did 22 years ago (much to my Skins-hating chagrin.)

Hmm. Gee.

One of Tiger's whores has come out and said that Tiger's sexual fantasies are "not normal."

Umm...no shit, genius. The guy has fucked half the planet; I'm sure the only fantasies he could possibly have left would involve llamas and the planet Jupiter. I mean, the fact that we're being told this by a Playboy model he's banged the shit out of MIGHT be a clue to the fact that he's on a different level than the rest of us, whose fantasies mostly involve "her not calling the cops" or, even sadder, getting an exasperated handjob, like this sad fucker. For fuck's sake.

BJ Bear

I do not believe in God. And I see the Bible as mostly a collection of fairy tales. But, in flipping around right now, I see that there's a tv show that is taking a crack at changing my mind by having a talking bear explain shit to me. Interesting.

This is Pretty Crummy

I guess we won't be getting that follow-up masterpiece.

Holy Crap!

This pen is shaped just like a Saturn V rocket!  How cool is that shit?

Hey, Look. People More Successful Than Me. GRRRRRRReeat.

Xmastime buddy Kdawggy's company been called out for excellence in something called Advertising Age. Way to go, Kdawwgy!  :)

9. HUGE
A year after Interpublic bought a majority stake in digital agency Huge, possibly (probably?) named after Xmastime's sack, the e-commerce expert and maker of sleek, easy-to-navigate websites for JetBlue and Dirty Black Fuckpigs, Inc emerged as a slightly drunken, possibly illiterate partner for marketers building complicated web portals out of magical mystery and sliced almonds. In late 2009, Huge (heh heh heh) was tapped (heh heh heh) to handle visual design on Target's new e-commerce site, until it was pointed out that people who shop at Target cannot afford to buy computers. With a track record in content management and bolemic deulgé, whatever that means, for publishers like iVillage, CNN and the people that created those little things that when you shake it snows inside, we're betting Interpublic will see its Huge investment pay off as brands increasingly trade flashy microsites for TOPPS baseball cards. But then, what the fuck do we know?

Under-Rated Mrs. Xmastime Babe

Alexandra Wentworth. aka "Smoopie."

Wow. She's Good.

Tea-Baggin'

Apparently Wall Street has had enough of being incredibly oppressed, and staged it's own version of a Tea Party.

And so a rally was organized at lunchtime on the 23rd floor of 14 Wall Street, directly across the street from the New York Stock Exchange, in the cushy offices of John Thomas Financial, a three-year-old investment house. It was much more comfortable than, say, the street.

As Thomas Belesis, the 35-year-old chief executive of John Thomas who hatched the idea, put it, “It’s cold out.”

Since the rally was held on the firm’s 25,000-square-foot trading floor, where some 100 brokers had their desks, most of the attendees were basically working.

The fact that virtually all of the virtually all-male attendees wore suits and ties did make the gathering perhaps the best-dressed rally in history.

Awesome. "It's cold out"!!  Dying. These people may be full of shit, but, as we already know, they're smart enough to know that it's the idiots that they're screwing over that will happily do the heavy lifting for them. Cap doffed!

The Blame Game

Yesterday HERE I wrote about the hypocrisy of Republicans bitching about Obama "blaming" Bush for the mess he inherited, and just now Thinkprogress makes the exact same point from the same speech, as well as including Dubyanuts in the "blame game."

The problem isn't that people on the lefty are being petty or bitchy because Bush was awesome and has a ton of money and a big house and they're jealous because of his being right about everything, it's that so far every single "solution" these people come up with the solve the mess is the exact same thing that caused the mess in the first place. So whenever they cry out "tax cuts!  tax cuts!  tax cuts!!" an adult has to patiently explain to them (again) that we tried that, and it was a huge disaster. And you can either say WHICH president actually did that, or we can take your easily bruised feelings into account and pretend it happened because of a magical fairy, or we can even assign Bush some sort of code name, like "Caped Avenger," or "Tiny Dancer." Either way, any demands of a return to stupidity needs to be (repeatedly) pointed out as such.

Apparently, Reagan thought the same thing:

The only alternative being offered to this economic program is a return to the policies that gave us a trillion-dollar debt, runaway inflation, runaway interest rates and unemployment.

Shibboleth

 Trying to explain why Chris Matthews said somethign kinda stupid, TNC actually uses the word "sibboleth," a word I have never seen used except it's the title of a typically great West Wing episode which features both an all-time line

C.J. Cregg: They sent me two turkeys. The more photo-friendly of the two gets a Presidential pardon and a full life at a children's zoo. The runner-up gets eaten.
President Josiah Bartlet: If the Oscars were like that, I'd watch.

and one of those Charlie/Bartlet scenes that are made just to make faggoty cream puffs like me bawl like a baby (cause I'm a faggoty cream puff.)

Standing Up? Great. Incredibly, I Know Less about Women Than I Had Even Thought.

State of the Union Wrapup

I do not like the acronym SOTU. Cause glancing at it makes it look like STFU. Strange.

Also, am I still the only dude in the world that wants to bang Pelosi?

Why He's Probably the President of My Life

America must ALWAYS stand on the side of human dignity

SOTU

We were sent here to serve our citizens, not our ambitions.

I think that got buried.

State of the Union

I'm gonna be honest. I think he might be the first prez ever to say "I hated it." Damn.

State of the Union

Are there microphones on his hands? Boom, bam, bam!

I'm So Fucking Depressed

That I finally finished Great Expectations.  :(  I fought off finishing for a month, as with Crime and Punishment, but I'm fucking finally finished.  Five stars.

New Garfield

John McKay is Still the Best

I am fucking offended by THIS POST FROM TNC.

I'm sorry, but the first quote, from John McKay, is fucking GENIUS that would've taken a team of scriptwriters years to come up with, and the rest is just "gee, coach is pissed off!" shit that is neither original nor entertaining. Really, I fail to see how these even made it into the same reel as Robinson's quip. Fucking a. What a crock of shit.

When asked: Coach, how do you feel about your team's execution? John McKay (USC) replied: "I'm in favor of it."

"We didn't tackle well today but we made up for it by not blocking." - John McKay, USC

THAT shit is funny. Not this other nonsense.

Ronald Reagan

In watching the State of the Union tonight, one thing to remember is that "Conservatives" love to roll their eyes and scream outrage whenever Obama either claims that the current economic downturn was inherited from his predecessor, or that it MIGHT take longer than 12 months to completely dig ourselves out of the worst financial toilet since World War II. Of course those same "conservatives," who live and breathe nowadays to create airports to name after Ronald Reagan, would definitely NOT want you to remember what Ronald Reagan (their personal version of Twilight)  himself said in HIS first State of the Union, in 1982:

Our current problems are not the product of the recovery program that's only just now getting under way, as some would have you believe; they are the inheritance of decades of tax and tax, and spend and spend.

Second, because our economic problems are deeply rooted and will not respond to quick political fixes, we must stick to our carefully integrated plan for recovery. The budget in place when I took office had been projected as balanced. It turned out to have one of the biggest deficits in history.

Gee. Sounds like a lot of "blaming the last guy" and "give me a little time." Hmm. Interesting.

Gee. No Shit.

Shit I Want Obama to Address in Tomorrow Nights SOTU, Vol 6

"Pretzels. Say goodbye."

Heads Up

A la HERE

This week Earth and Mars are having a close encounter. On Jan. 27th, the Red Planet will be only 99 million kilometers away and look bigger through a telescope than at any time between 2008 and 2014. The planet's 14-arcsecond diameter will remain essentially unchanged for another week or so, setting the stage for some good observing.

Happy watching!  My relationship with Mars HERE.

Hmm.

I'm sorry, but this is too good to pass up in it's Tea-baggin' ironic dumbness.

Show me where I am reasonable for your welfare.
I don't owe you or anybody else a damn thing.
Did any of you do my homework in school? no
Did any of you stand a watch for me in the Navy? NO
Did any of you pay my colege loans? NO
Did any of you pay my house note? NO
Did any of you even offer to cut my grass? NO!
SO I don't owe you anything.

Via Facebook. My bold. Awesome. I hope for this guy's sake it was on purpose, and a joke on us.

Obama Girl

Now says the thrill is gone.

Gee. I really need to take this seriously, since there's no way that she's doing this to milk (pun!) another 15 minutes of fame. I mean, it's not as if her whole political thesis is based on "look at my tits, please make me famous!!"   ie, my ideal candidate.

Of course, if I do something to disrupt said milk she's completely fucked since she doesn't have heathcare ("I can't afford it"), but she's okay with that. What a complete fucking idiot strange, complicated, classy woman to look up to.

Hmm.

As funny as the whole O'Keefe "of the ACORN O'Keefes, of course" break-in has been, this is probably a pretty good question. And of course the answer is "completely freak the fuck out, shut down the highways and fly Bush/Cheney back to Washington while slaughtering the cast of True Lies." Awesome.

George VI

Last night on Charlie Rose Colin Firth was the guest; ie, I have no idea why I was really watching. He was blowing up his movie The Single Man, a movie I might wanna see simply for the fact that the set design was done by the Mad Men dudes, when he mentioned he had just wrapped a movie about King George VI. After a few minutes of research, I must say I'm shocked that there hasn't been a bigger production made (that I am aware of, which of course might speak more to my own ignorance and less to anything else) of the whole Edward VIII to George VI thing. I mean, what was more made for Hollywood than dude gives up his royal crown for the true love of a woman upon which an entire nation had turned its' nose up,  and is replaced by younger, in-the-shadows under-groomed brother not comfortable in the spotlight?? And yet it actually happened!! And, to make it even better, the dude that was thrust onto the throne to replace him was reluctant to assume the crown, complete with a "gee, isn't THIS handy if you're gunning for an Oscar" speech impediment!

Let us Wiki:

Thus Albert became king, a position he was reluctant to accept. The day before the abdication, he went to London to see his mother, Queen Mary. He wrote in his diary, "When I told her what had happened, I broke down and sobbed like a child." His speech impediment, and his embarrassment over it, together with his tendency to shyness, caused him to appear much less impressive than his older brother, Edward. Because of his stammer, Albert dreaded public speaking. After his closing speech at the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley on 31 October 1925, which was an ordeal for both him and the listeners, he began to see Lionel Logue, an Australian-born speech therapist. The Duke and Logue practiced breathing exercises, and the Duchess rehearsed with him patiently. As a result of the training, the Duke's opening address at Australia's Federal Parliament at Canberra in 1927 went successfully, and he was able to speak subsequently with only a slight hesitation. His journey by sea to Australia took him via Jamaica, where Albert played doubles tennis partnered with a black man, which was unusual at the time and taken locally as a display of equality between races.

I mean FUCK! How has all this NOT been repeated in Hollywood even more than the ol' "scrappy upstart triumphs over entitled douchebag" plot line!??!? And hell, the tennis thing even lends itself to Will Smith coming in and being the tennis savant with whom George VI ends racism!!! Wtf. Hollywood, come the fuck on already.

Two Years Ago Tomorrow

Sigh. Christ, we were funny together.

Beatin' Off (Not right Now, Though)

As he did yesterday, Andrew Sullivan questions the Catholic Church's bullshit on masturbating, claiming that it's natural for men to do it because they produce so much sperm, and it also is healthy since it may prevent prostate cancer. That may be true, I'm not a doctor or scientist, but I personally would guess that the reason is THIS.

SOTU Response

The other day I wondered HERE how Bob McConnell will top Bobby Jindal in his State of the Union response, and today Matt Yglesias notes that he of course has to be a complete hypocrite, but that also that these responses are pretty worthless in the first place.

When did these things even start? Let the president have his night, and shut the fuck up - hey, maybe at the next wedding you go to you should take the altar after the ceremony and demand that the bride and groom don't belong together, or that YOU love YOUR spouse more and are a better couple? Who gives a shit? Let him play dress-up, say some nice words and hope that people forget the shit asap. Which, if you don't say a bunch of stupid stuff afterwards, they will.

I mean, I'm a pretty big fan of Obama's but I couldn't tell you a single thing he said from last year's "Address to Congress" speech if you held a gun to my head. Meanwhile, I can picture Bobby the Frog coming out of the Usher House cobwebs clear as a bell, and still crack up at how he at that moment buried his national political hopes.

They should drop this whole "response" crap, show the opposition party at a Hooters or something. "Oh, the president's on? Sorry, tonight is BH 90210 marathon night - ooooh, I fucking HATE Ray!!!!!"

Things That Make Me Go "Hmmmm...I'm Drunk"

Verizon is apparently cutting a bunch of jobs. In looking at THIS ARTICLE, what I see is that over a two-year period, a large corparation saw a net profit of 20 cents a share as reason to lay 30,000 people off of their jobs. But then, I  1) know nothing about business  2) am well on my way to getting shitfaced.

But I really hope this isn't a case of what I worried about about a year ago, corporate death shark opportunism. I'm sure it's not.

Glory Douché

People are making a huge deal out of Paul Shirley's "fuck Haiti" rant. They bitched about it on The View, Sully posted it, it's everywhere. I'm not a Paul Shirley expert or fan, but all I can remember from the few times I've seen his columns is that he's an ex-basketball player that likes to write about shitty music from the '90s. This would be like Xmastime all of a sudden popping up all over the evening news because someone stumbled upon his ironically bitching at Obama and calling him a n---er. As in, you'd be giving my intellect way too much credit, but I'll sure be happy about the extra millions of hits the site gets every day. Ka-ching!!!!!!!!

Another way to remind ourselves to not take this guy seriously and give him any airtime is that according to Wikipedia he was in one of the stupidest, most offensive fucking movies of all time. Grrrrrr.

Cause Fuck 'em, That's Why

Few thigns are more annoying than when you call a man, say, "Mr. Andrews," and he says "hey, my father's Mr. Andrews, call me Jack!" 

From now on, I'm gonna do it different. "Hey hey hey young buck - my mother's Mr. Andrews, call me Sweetie!"

Cause fuck 'em, that's why.

Trippy

Some things make no sense time-perspective wise. For instance, I just flipped to Rushmore. A movie I instantly think oh, was a few years ago. But it came out in 1998. A dozen years ago. Was one of the first flicks I went to see when I came to NYC. I was only 26 (maybe 25.) A bunch of lifetimes ago, but seemingly yesterday. Shit's blowing my mind.

Anyway, here's a pic of the real thing.

ACORN Dude Gets Busted

Sully here is like a college football coach who, at the end of the day, puts his livelihood in the hands of kids. It is, to say the least, a bit of a gamble.

What's so surprising to me is finding out that, at the end of the day, the Republicans had so blindly put their faith in the hands of a 25 year-old kid; doubling down on his being able to somehow destroy the Democratic Party with a video camera and a coupla inspirational viewings of Borat. SURELY there must've been a scent of "this might end badly"? Just like I'm wary of bringing down Palin by committing to believing in the whims of a 19 year-old, my football coach analogy stays the same. A gamble, at best.

Sometimes...

...waiting ISN'T the hardest part. Sometimes it's after the wait that completely sucks.

Body Language is Very Important

The folks over at Thinkprogress point out the absurdity of Bill O'Reilly being miffed at not getting an interview with the Haiti telethon peeps despite the fact that he spent the telethon talking to "body language experts" about Sarah Palin's hot body HERE (also, these "body language expertts" always happen to be smoking hot. hmm.)

Of course, I have called out Bill-O on this body language nonsense before, including HERE and HERE. I also remember pointing out Hannity skipping some monumental speech a few years back to show film of sea lions doing sit-ups, but I can't find it, and I am presently 20 minutes into my first "hey, let's see if I can get shitfaced during the day" since me and Op got arrested outside the Bear Bar in November '99. Burp.

I'm Calling Bullshit, and Getting a $400 Haircut

Sully:

Quote For The Day
"I know I’m the people’s senator, but do I have to hang out with them?”- John Edwards, as reported by his flunky Andrew Young.

Okay, I feel like I have to step in and say something here. Yes, Edwards was my boy in the beginning; I'm sure Marley will gladly pop a hammy jumping up to remind you that I had starbursts in my eyes.

But in the new "well it must be true because a third source told some 7-11 clerk in a vacuum in Cleveland while a jet plane flew overhead" way of "reporting" as best exhibited in the absurdly loose Game Change, this "quote" is a BIT too "dead-on," isn't it? It fits a little TOO perfect into trying to find a way to frame Edwards as a faux-populist super-elitist, no? If you were trying to script framing Edwards this way, this would be the line you'd come up with. I mean, this would be like me "reporting" that someone once told me that George Bush said he was super excited to go see "Malcolm the Tenth." Come the fuck on.

Slice: Stiv!

SliceSlice! Aggravation Place

Sliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice!

SUPER-Slice!

Super SUPER SUPER Slice! The Slickee Boys!!!!!!!!

Slice: S'Cool Days

Slice: Indiana Wants Me

Slice: Take a Letter, Maria

Slice: Big City, Miss Ruth Ann

Super SUPER Slice! Sweet Cherry Wine

Super Slice

Funeral Slice

It's hard to explain how much Left in the Dark means to me. As a young buck I of course heard the Replacements mangle it on The Shit Hits the Fans, and DT and the Shakes covered it on their first LP a few years later. By the time I finally heard the original as a 19 year old, it already had some sanctified rare-air status that somehow was the annex of the four corners of punk, post-punk, bubblegum, and post-punk bubblegum. I knew the name of the song, and the name of the band, but, like everybody else, didn't really know or care about anything else about the band itself. Meanwhile, it seems as if every band that was around from 1980-1989 covered the song at least once (owed mostly probably to the Replacements.)

About 10 years ago THE GNAT, after spotting his name in some Wilco message board, hooked me up with Ken Draznik, the writer of the song, and like a star-struck fan I emailed him. And of course I told him how much I loved his band, what that song meant, about the inordinate number of musical doors those three minutes somehow opened to me, it was the first song I learned how to play blah blah blah. And, incredibly, he wrote me back. First of all, I was shocked to learn that, according to his email address,  he worked for Riddell Sports. I don't know what I thought; I guess I pictured that whoever had written such a (seemingly) famous song spent his time in pubs doing interviews with Kurt Loder and shagging chicks. Or whatever.

Anyway, not only did he email me, but he MAILED me cassette tapes of the Vertebrats catalog, PLUS demos he had been working on. We were email buddies for awhile...then I sent him a Happy Scene ep + a tape of MY demos, and the correspondence "mysteriously" stopped there. Hmm.

But that even seems right; it appears that once every coupla years the Vertebrats "reunite" to give the fans what they want. But as awesome as that is (mostly, letting people who came of age in the very early 80's a chance to relvie some memories), the fact is that long after Ken's gone, and the Vertebrats are gone, and 100 years from now, that fucking song will roll on. It is what's best about rock 'n roll: it's insistence that it's about you, by you, and for you. Martians will land here and walk into a bar, and someone will be doing a cover of Left in the Dark. Bank on it.

ps - for all my romanticism re: "theyre a mystery!!" here's their FACEBOOK page. hmm.

Shit I Want Obama to Address in Tomorrow Nights SOTU, Vol 5

"And Mr. Springsteen: at each show, you can either do Mary's Place OR Waiting on a Sunny Day, but not both. For fuck's sake, people have jobs to get to in the morning, wrap the shit up already. Actually, they probably don't, so they for damn sure don't need TWO 'isn't life a big ol' party???!!!' songs in the show. Play Darkness tracks, remind them how bad shit can really be, and leave the "party!" cuts to Jimmy fucking Buffet for chrissake."

I Just Noticed

Coach Reeves from The White Shadow has appeared in three of the shows on my FAVORITE TV SHOWS OF THE LAST DECADE list. Pretty impressive. Well. To me.

More Coach HERE and HERE.

And how the FUCK did I leave him, Salami AND Epstein off my "favorite white ballers" list?!?!?!?!! What am I, racist??!?!!

Three Things I Miss Having at My Constant Disposal as a Manny

1) Baby wipes
2) Baby powder
3) Milk

Hey, I like putting white stuff in or on my body. Sue me.