Rochelle, Rochelle!

I've always loved the fake movie names from Seinfeld - hell, I'm surprised nobody has strung together a series of vignettes with each one based on one of the fake movie names. So I was pleased to see a Seinfeld movie quiz.

Though I'm disappointed Art Vandelay's book Venetian Blinds can't somehow be mentioned.

Boss: Who do you read?
George: I like Mike Lupica.
Boss: Mike Lupica?
George: He's a sports writer for the daily news. I find him very insightful...
Boss: No, no, no. I mean authors.
George: Lot of good ones. I don't even want to mention anyone because I'm afraid I'm going to leave somebody out.
Boss: Name a couple.
George: Who do I like? I, like, uh, Art, Vandelay.
Boss: Art Vandelay?
George: He's an obscure writer. Beatnik, from the village.
Boss: What has he written?
George: Venetian Blinds.

Kamikaze

One of the kazillons of funny things the late, great Al McGuire said was “The only mystery in life is why the kamikaze pilots wore helmets."

Today, the folks over at Mental Floss apparently have the answer. Interesting.

More Xmastime kamikaze brilliance HERE.

ps - forgetting Al McGuire on the Xmastime Hall of Fame list is unforgivable. 

D'oh

Very interesting succinct look inside the writing of an episode of The Simpsons.

My 3 favorite lines ever:

Moe telling Flanders "we ain't got no shelter-inis" in Bart's Comet.

Bart having his heart broken for the first time and imagining the kick ripping his heart out and drop-kicking it into a trash can, "you won't be needing THIS anymore."

Barney lying wasted on a bar stool saying "oh no, my heart stopped...............okay, there it goes."

Hey - I just realized the last two were from the same episode!  Trippy.

Sigh.

On the train home from work today I saw a woman who was the perfect amalgamation of every girl I've ever been in love with. Damn.

Gee. Shocker.

The Pentagon report on lifting DADT came in today and whaddya know, no one actually serving in the military gives two shits if anyone's gay:

More than nine out of 10 troops said their unit's ability to work with someone they thought was gay or lesbian was very good, good, or neither good nor bad.

This of course means more work for John "Shithead" McCain, who will hafta furrow his brow and claim to be waiting on yet another report to study before "making a decision." All that of course is shit-ese for "waiting til someone comes up with bullshit numbers and lies to tell me what I want to hear."

Maybe local Brownie Troop 341, John? Hey, maybe they have a problem with fags serving!

Major League Baseball Hall of Fame Voting

The complete ballot, via the AP: Roberto Alomar, Carlos Baerga, Jeff Bagwell, Harold Baines, Bert Blyleven, Bret Boone, Kevin Brown, John Franco, Juan Gonzalez, Marquis Grissom, Lenny Harris, Bobby Higginson, Charles Johnson, Barry Larkin, Al Leiter, Edgar Martinez, Tino Martinez, Don Mattingly, Fred McGriff, Mark McGwire, Raul Mondesi, Jack Morris, Dale Murphy, John Olerud, Rafael Palmeiro, Dave Parker, Tim Raines, Kirk Rueter, Benito Santiago, Lee Smith, B.J. Surhoff, Alan Trammell, Larry Walker.

Blech. I'd say the only one who could be seen as a "real" Hall of Famer would be Roberto Alomar, but he's mostly remembered now for spitting in an umpire's face, so that won't help him. Maybe Larkin/Trammell for purely length of service/sentimental reasons, but they don't REALLY deserve to be in.

Hey look - I'm gonna reference myself!!!

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Hall of My Ass

I see that in a few minutes MLB will announced this year's Hall of Fame class. Which of course means that for the last week we've been assaulted with Goose Gossage crying and whining to get in. I'm sorry, but if after 14 years the writers haven't voted you in, maybe you don't deserve it. The whole thing is such nonsense; I just read that a few years ago Gossage had 100 fewer votes than Jim Rice, and then all of a sudden last year he had 68 MORE than Rice. During which time, if I'm correct, neither one of these men were, you know...playing baseball. So this bullshit is really up to the whims and moods of the writers et al?

One thing that's been lost is that it's the Hall of FAME, not the Hall of Let's Have Baseball Experts Analyze Your Career for The Next Decade. IE your performace should transcend the sport itself, your name should be somewhat universal. I think the test of whether or not you should be voted in should be decided by none other than Sistatime herself. Each year they should read the names of the nominees to my sister, and if she has even remotely heard of your name, you're in. Otherwise, tough doodoo.

America.

In one photo.

Personally, I was pretty tickled by this one before I even saw that it was a drive-thru. Wow.

The Worlds 100 Best Global Thinkers

List HERE.  

Hey, I know as fans you're pissed, but personally I feel no shame in coming in 101st. I'm honored, in fact.

Six Animals...

...that just don't give a fuck.

I was gonna link to this just because of the title itself, but the bit on the mongoose is killing me:

The mongoose isn't fighting snakes for food, or for territory, or for survival -- it's fighting snakes because fuck snakes. That's seriously the reason why: Occasionally you will see a mongoose eating the meat from a defeated snake, but as a general rule, they prefer to avoid it. Yet they still actively seek out and hunt snakes, oftentimes ones larger than themselves. Some species of mongoose have even been known to fight king cobras, a snake so badass it literally eats other, lesser snakes for breakfast. The iconography of the king cobra inundates our culture, and from Commander to Kai, it is always used to intimidate. The hood, the hypnotic weaving, the forked tongue -- every visual aspect of the king cobra screams rotten death and fear.

And then along comes this doofy hillbilly weasel, which proceeds to murder the shit out of the living embodiment of terror just because there's nothing better to do that day.

"Doofy hillbilly weasel"!!  dying!!  :)

I'm Getting Old.

I just took a bite of my chicken salad sandwich and actually said to myself "Well, this is delightful!"

Sigh.

Myths and Dumb People: Two of My Favorite Things

One of my favorite lies Congressmen like to tell is that they're "listening to the people," as I mentioned HERE.

Which is why it's great that Congress is wasting it's time preparing to lock horns in some "Showdown of the Century!!" over an issue that the American people, the Chiefs, and the military itself doesn't really give two shits about. You know, since carrying on arguments that don't actually exist in a world that practices reason and civility is much more pressing than, say, extending unemployment benefits.

Which is another of my favorite lies, this fetish-as-meme venerating of job creators, like this brain-dead fuckwad:

BARNICLE: What about the fact that unemployment benefits pumped into the economy are an immediate benefit to the economy? Immediate…
SHADEGG: No, they’re not! Unemployed people hire people? Really? I didn’t know that.
BARNICLE: Unemployed people spend money Congressman, ’cause they have no money.
SHADEGG: Aha! So your answer is it’s the spending of money that drives the economy and I don’t think that’s right. It’s the creation of jobs that drives the economy…Actually, the truth is the unemployed will spend as little of that money as they possibly can. Job creators create jobs.

So this idiot thinks that the sanctity of having a job is more important to the economy than using the money you've made from that job to spend on things. Yes, of course. After an 8-hour workday I suppose we all turn an OFF switch that powers us down so we stay dormant until the work bell clangs again the next day. Nobody of course takes that money and spends it; we're too busy being patted on the back by God for being such a noble working people.

Joe Scarborough

Is about to find himself Palin Scorched Earth.

But Scarborough writes that prospect is completely unfounded and faults Palin for comparing her resume, which now includes starring in a TLC reality show, to that of Ronald Reagan, the onetime Hollywood actor. Scarborough also isn't pleased Palin painted President George H.W. Bush and wife Barbara in a recent interview as out-of-touch "blue bloods."

"Perhaps her anger was understandable," a sarcastic Scarborough says. "After all, these disconnected "blue bloods" had nothing in their backgrounds that could ever make them understand "real America" like a former governor from Alaska who quit in the middle of her first term and then got rich.

"I suppose Palin's harsh dismissal of this great man is more understandable after one reads her biography and realizes that, like Bush, she accomplished a great deal in her early 20s. Who wouldn't agree that finishing third in the Miss Alaska beauty contest is every bit as treacherous as risking your life in military combat?" continued Scarborough, in reference to the elder Bush's tenure as combat pilot in World War II.

Adios, Joe. Was nice knowing you. I look forward to the effigy of Minka or Mika or whatever the name of that hot piece is that sits next to you swinging from a tree outside your office with a YOU ARE FUCKING WARNED note attached to it's chest with a dagger.

My favorite:

Palin has yet to respond to the comments.

I'm "guessing" we'll be greeted with a blistering 9000-word rant from Facebook by 3pm today.

Kids in Philly Was 10 Years Ago, Today? It's Still Great. The Best Album of My Lifetime.

Crazy Heart

The REAL weary kind...

Regrets. I've Had a Few.

I'll never forgive Bruce for leaving Take 'Em as They Come off of The River. To this day, my biggest "fuck you!" to The Boss is to put a great cover of the song on Xmastime.

My Wake

A few years ago I wrote HERE;

On a side note, the hospital I was born in burned down to the ground (as opposed to somewhere else, I guess) and is now a strip mall. The first business that went up in it’s place, being an anchor to the future businesses on the land upon which the sun first shone on me? Kentucky Fried Chicken. I was not displeased to learn of this years later when construction on the restaurant began - “Seems right,” I remember thinking. Who knows what turn my life would’ve taken if a Whole Foods had popped up there? I don’t even wanna think about it. The Colonel taking over my birth spot seems as a-propos as us taking over for the Indians, but with less griping and bitching. Sorry, I’m being told I meant to say “Native Indians.”

My college administration building also burned down after I graduated, strangely enough. So for all I know, there is no record out there that I 1) was born 2) graduated college. For all I know the car that I lost my virginity in has since been doused with gasoline, set afire and shoved off a cliff. Which it might have, for sanitary reasons (sorry baby!) I don’t know what this “burning of my past” is trying to tell me. All that’s left I guess is my childhood home and St. Timothy’s; a coupla well-placed fires and the dissolution of the Beebo’s fruit pie company and my pre-1990’s life will be completely gone. Eighteen years, erased forever. How sad…I loved those little pies. 

And just now I find out that the chapter of my fraternity has been removed from my University. Charter revoked. I don't know why, and I don't really care.

But it does add another layer to the "Xmastime was never here" theme I seem to be cultivating.

I have no home, no family. If a fire broke out, the only things I would care about saving would be my Telecaster and my Peter Leroy book. I can be gone in the breath of an air, and no one would even notice. It's hard to even imagine a man less tethered to Earth than myself. I'm seriously starting to wonder if I'm some sort of experiment, some sort of riddle to see how far one man can live outside the norms of society while still seeming to be a part of it.

Christ, the week after I finally move, can I expect 100 Metro to burn to the ground? Wtf?

Lonely. I guess that's where I'm from.

Hey, It's Either Funnel a Shit-ton of Money Towards People Who Actually Need It, or a Fucking Three-Bean Casserole. We All Grieve Differently.

And I Won't Be Back 'til Monday

Last week I posted about the amazing video on The Today Show, and the song got me thinking gee, what's the greatest "I'm goin out tonight and it's gonna be awesome!!!" song? And, until I write the inevitable hit Washing My Ballz Cause Ya Never Know, this has gotta be it, no?

No Ga-News Is Good Ga-News With Garry.....Ga-New!

It's going around today that April 11, 1954 was the slowest news day of the last century:

Every day something of significance occurs, but nothing remarkable had happened on the said day in 1954, according to experts who inserted over 300 million important events of the century into a computer search programme to calculate. 

But what's even more remarkable to me is this:

Earlier, April 30, 1930 had been dubbed as the dullest day of the 20th century after a BBC Radio announcer at the 6.30pm bulletin declared: "There is no news". 

Wow! Can we even imagine this these days? I mean, we've spent most of today being deluged with articles inciting us to panic because documents were leaked that may portray diplomats as not being 100% sweet 100% of the time. Christ, we're the country that almost shut down because we thought some kid was taking a ride in a fucking balloon. And yet on that night, the BBC had the balls to say "hey, nothing of real importance happened, carry on." Astounding. It's like what I said earlier - sure it's the media's job to make information available, but someone has to be able to say what ACTUALLY is of importance and what's not (but of course, again, we get what we ask for: shallow, shriek-inducing fear mixed in with red carpet pics of Kim Kardashian's ass.)

This makes me think of the non flame-inducing celebrity mag I dream of publishing:

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Magazine Idea

I think I'd like to start a rival magazine for US Weekly. Anti-US Weekly, actually. Covers would scream things like this:

BRAD AND ANGELINA ARE JUST FINE, NOT FIGHTING. SEEM HAPPY IN THEIR MARRIAGE.

TOM & KATIE ARE TWO EQUALS IN A SECURE, REAL MARRIAGE.

PLASTIC SURGERY? I DO NOT KNOW, DESPITE THESE WEIRDLY-ANGLED, UNFLATTERING PHOTOS. I WOULD NEED TO SEE MEDICAL RECORDS.

JENNIFER DID NOT SPEND LAST NIGHT CRYING, DRUNK-TEXTING BRAD.

IS LINDSAY ON THE EDGE? I HAVE NO IDEA, I DO NOT KNOW HER PERSONALLY.

Holy Shit du Jour

Gaylord Perry popped up in the Uecker interview re: how much shit he took from his teammates after giving up a home run to Uecker ("Uecker can't pick up a ball, much less hit one out of the park"), so I Wikipedia'd him for no real reason, but saw this:

Like most pitchers, Perry was not renowned for his hitting ability, and in his sophomore season of 1963, his manager Alvin Dark is said to have joked, "They'll put a man on the moon before he hits a home run." There are other variants on the story, but either way, on July 20, 1969, just an hour after the Apollo 11 spacecraft carrying Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon, Perry hit the first home run of his career. 

If it ain't true, I don't wanna know. Incredible.

ps - according to BaseballReference.com, it is true. Box score HERE.

Uecker!!!!!!

Go HERE for the Bob Uecker interview on Bob Costas; I'm watching it for the second time and laughing out loud. My new favorite is him worrying that his hitting a home run off Sandy Koufax would keep Koufax out of the Hall of Fame. Awesome.

Our Little Sniff Is Growing Up!

Sniffy has FINALLY said something that even she recognizes as beyond stupid and shameful, as she's removed this post from her Twitter feed:

Inexplicable: I recently won in court to stop my book "America by Heart" from being leaked,but US Govt can't stop Wikileaks' treasonous act?

Of course as anyone with a computer knows, her book WAS leaked. But since she's the Sniff that keeps on giving, she replaces this dumbass tweet with a Facebook post apparently designed to make sure we really get that she does not even remotely understand that Wikileaks is not a part of the US government and was not "yet another!" failing of Obama.

But, credit where credit's due - she seems to have accepted that her staff couldn't figure out a way to pin her stupidity on the cruelty of the lamestream media  the tweet was stupid and took responsibility.

Thanksgiving Week at Brothatime!!'s

- On the bus ride down during the night, the light above me didn't work. I was about to ask the 300 year-old woman next to me if she'd mind switching so I could read my book, but I saw that she was pulling out a book herself so I said fuck it, I'll let the old bag read. Of course within 3 seconds she was dead asleep, her book lit up gloriously while my eyeballs fell out of my head and rolled down the aisle after trying to strain to read in the fucking dark.

- I had Thanksgiving dinner with a table full of Harvard graduates, whom I of course immediately dragged down to my own cesspool level by starting a discussion about the Kadashian sisters that lasted the entire meal.

- I found myself in a serious conversation with two other men about how much money Miley Cyrus is worth.

- I guess we're not disgusted enough by green bean casserole, since apparently something called "creamed onions" has been invented. Fucking hell.

- A hot French woman almost half my age who's been in the country for a month was so charmed by me that she asked for my phone number for when she visits NYC on New Year's Eve. I guess after all this time I have finally found my demographic when it comes to chicks: ones that can't understand what the fuck I'm saying. I told her she can give Thanksgiving to the French since they gave us French fries and, I must say, my  age-old "la nuit, tous les chats sont gris" STILL kills after all these years. Maybe she thought my saying "at night, all the cats are gray" was a clever, classy way of saying "hey, all pussy is pink on the inside"? Ah, those French.  A wily, horny people.

- I am now king of the little girl set since I revealed to a bunch of them I'm a writer for the Hannah Montana Show. They fell for it hook, line and sinker. Why the fuck do I waste my good lies on little girls and not women I'm trying to bang? What the fuck?

- I had P-Dawg's stuffing for every meal but one, and I'm miffed about the one I didn't have any.

- I slayed Paddy Mac with my killer Yogi and Boo-Boo impressions. "Yogi, you said you were going to make special brownies...but these are clearly just brownies." If you don't think that one's making an appearance when I'm squiring my young French lady about the town, you're out of your goddam mind. "Baby, you said you were going to give me a blowjob...but you are clearly just holding my dick in your hand while blathering away at me about something."

- Found a book that had ten different fart buttons you could push. It was like a Whoopie Cushion, but obviously classier. I'm still kicking myself I didn't buy it. What the fuck was I thinking?

- Found out there's another person out there who had the same dream as I once did of filling an El Camino up with water and driving cross-country. Funny - when you hear it out loud and from somebody else, it doesn't really sound like the THE coolest thing in the world.

- On the bus ride back, the bus wasn't even half-filled yet when the fucking Ugandan Giant decided to sit next to me. Wtf? I know I've lost a few pounds recently, but I'm still PRETTY sure that if you took .0003 seconds to look you'd find someone else smaller than me to sit next to. Fucking hell.

Life. I'm Crushing It.

I got a new mattress today. Does that make me amazing, you ask?  In a word: yes.

Wiki Wiki Wiki (Shut Up!)

This morning on tv (cough) I was asked my thoughts on Wikileaks, and my answer was that when Bill Kristol is the voice of reason, we're in deep shit.

Anybody for whom anything in these things has any real importance already knows this shit. But of course the media's gotta wind us up like schoolgirls when a mouse walks into the room, so Average Citizen Joe is supposed to be furiously combing through the pages of the docs and formulating strategies for any and all doomsday scenarios these things could bring. Well, until the next Wikileaks dump, of course.

Anybody remember the last one? Of course not. And you won't remember shit that's in this one the second "Wikileaks Docs!! Panic!!" gets replaced in the headlines by "We can see Paris' pussy getting out of a limo!!!"

Okay, Colonel - Now You're Just Trying Too Hard.

The Olden Days

Dick Cheney is bragging that he cast the deciding vote for the Bush Tax Cuts.

The surprise here isn't that Dick Cheney was either incredibly stupid enough or flat-out didn't give a shit about fucking over most of the country and sending the economy into the oblivion we're still suffering from. Nor is it a surprise that apparently Dick Cheney is either STILL stupid enough to believe these tax cuts were a good thing or simply doesn't give a shit despite watching the economy go down the shitter.

But seriously - can anybody here remember a time when a bill could receive a 50-50 vote with a tie-breaker and then actually be enacted? Really? When was this, the middle ages? It didn't need 90 votes? Wtf?

Eff You, God!

Comedians for ages now have poked athletes re: "why do they thank God when good things happen to them on the field, but don't blame him when they fuck up?"

Finally - this loser shows some honesty (although in my eyes he goes soft on the big guy at the end.) 

Buffalo Bills Wideout Stevie Johnson, after dropping a potentially game-winning touchdown pass:

I PRAISE YOU 24/7!!!!!! AND THIS HOW YOU DO ME!!!!! YOU EXPECT ME TO LEARN FROM THIS??? HOW???!!! ILL NEVER FORGET THIS!! EVER!!! THX THO...Sun Nov 28 22:12:33 via Twitter for iPadStevie Johnson
StevieJohnson13

Xmastime Emergency TV Alert!!!

If you have the MLB Network turn to it right now - Xmastime Hall of Famer Bob Uecker on the Bob Costas show for an hour!!!!!  Brand new!!

Repeats again at 4!!

God, I love The Ueck.

Snifflaska, Part XLII

FrumForum watches the greatest tv show ever so you don't have to.

This one catches my eye:

Update at 9:59pm
To wrap up the episode, Palin and Track decide to bond. Palin tries to make conversation and notes that this whole episode was just a regular Palin family 4th of July. (Salmon stew has always been on the menu in the Palin household!) Track doesn’t express agreement, and seems not to have gotten the memo that he is supposed to play along and seem as enthusiastic about the show as his mom is.

I noticed this while watching too, which brings up a more important point: is Palin even dumber than we actrually think?

TLC has basically laid out this tv series to give Sniffy free reign to control how the world sees her and her family, and yet in the editing room she didn't notice that when she made this remark to her son he looked like she had just cut one. Preening oblivion, awkwardly stuffed-in political lines and enabled self-centeredness are one thing, but again we see what should be most glaring about Sniffy: baseline incompetence.

Xmastime TV Debut Wrap-up

Nailed it.

Xmastime TV Alert

I will be appearing on The David Magee Show via phone at 11:05 this morning. The American Life Network, channel 153 here in Brooklyn.

Set your vcrs!  :)

will prolly be wondering if my high school girlfriend still has my letter jacket.

I STILL Have No Shame.

This is awesome.

Tonight Thank God It's Them Instead of You

Bob Geldof is right here; I've always wondered about the line's mean-spiritedness, but if that line doesn't make you ashamed, then I don't know what will.



2010, first hearing: inside some toy store in Old Town, DC, November 27. Christ, what a great song.

1) Little Drummer Boy
2) Do They Know It's Christmas
3) Fairytale of New York

I Can't Promise You Life Everlasting, But I Can Promise you Life Right Now

Thinking about Outlaw Pete earlier, it's occurred to me that there's exactly one path Pete coulda taken. Once he slimed his way outta jail, is there any doubt he'd have become a testifying-preacher-in-a-white-tent, snake oil salesman-meets-James Brown soul-saving motherfucker; totally winning over the masses and making a ton of dough while ripping everyone off? Of course!

I AM SAVED!

Enuff With the Fucking Meaningless Titles Already.

REM is releasing a new album soon, and has seen it fit to let everybody know what the titles of the songs are....even though nobody's heard the fucking songs themselves, making the titles, therein, worthless. Thanks, pricks!

How does Xmastime feel about that?  The same as he did HERE.  Fucking tits on a bull. Or within a hundred feet of me.

This is a strange crossing of streams at this moment, as I see I used Bruce "The Boss" Springsteen's Working On a Dream as my last example of this asinine practice, and as it turns out Brothatime! loves album opener Outlaw Pete and used it as my alarm clock each morning this past week while I was in Leesburg   :)

My first thoughts on the song at the time?

OUTLAW PETE
- opening music bit is awesome
- kinda Bruce by the numbers Outlaw Americana Western nonsense
- am i dreaming, or is the melody I Was Made for Loving You by KISS?
- choruses are awful
- interesting idea undone by shit, rote lyrics
- hmm. luckily, it seems to be a bout 8 minutes long. not just a "piss break," but a "does-anyone-have-a-magazine?" break.
MORE HERE....

Also, I see it made the set list for the show Op and Kdawggy went to this year, and what was the report on Outlaw Pete? Hmm:

8:41pm Outlaw Pete. "piss break."

8:46pm Op is under the impression that if animals could play guitar, the best would be an octopus. hmm. 

Skool's Out Forever

I've reposted my post on a college education becoming more worthless the more expensive it gets HERE so many times I'm almost embarrassed to do it again, but then Bruce "The Boss" Springsteen doesn't get ashamed when he has to roll out Born to Run night after night, so.

And earlier this week The Wonk Room HERE echoed my point:

...at the same time that America’s educational attainment has been falling, the cost of higher education has been consistently rising.

Included in their incredibly depressing post is a link to Bill Clinton's piece on "higher education institutions pricing themselves into America's decline."

And now HERE we find another level of Educational Suckahs: The MFA/Writer's Workshop student:

MFA programs themselves are so lax and laissez-faire as to have a shockingly small impact on students' work—especially shocking if you're the student and paying $80,000 for the privilege. Staffed by writer-professors preoccupied with their own work or their failure to produce any; freed from pedagogical urgency by the tenuousness of the link between fiction writing and employment; and populated by ever younger, often immediately postcollegiate students, MFA programs today serve less as hotbeds of fierce stylistic inculcation, or finishing schools for almost-ready writers (in the way of, say, Iowa in the '70s), and more as an ingenious partial solution to an eminent American problem: how to extend our already protracted adolescence past 22 and toward 30, in order to cope with an oversupplied labor market.

A further look shows us that the MFA/Writer's workshop ("There were 79 degree-granting programs in creative writing in 1975; today, there are 854!") holding pattern has actually spawned it's own industry to create "writers," aka  teachers/public speakers who put out a book on university presses that nobody ever reads, but gives them the cred to go on speaking tours/giving workshops about writing, thanks to their networking with other workshop friends throughout the country.  Meanwhile, the other "school," ie New York City, finds the writer having to try to actually write a book for his or her livelihood.

The NYC writer has to earn money by writing (or else consider herself a failure in her own terms), which gives her a certain enlarged dignity and ambition. It also imposes certain strictures. First off, as already mentioned, it demands that the writer write novels.

Second, and perhaps most important, to be an NYC writer means to submit to an unconscious yet powerful pressure toward readability.

On one hand, it's admirable that "those who can't do, teach" have carved out an entire industry for themselves, thanks to being able to wildly overpay for an education under pretenses that nobody seems to take seriously, including the professors. On the other hand, it feels like masturbation. On the other hand, I love masturbating, and if I could be paid for it I'd prolly be the richest motherfucker on the planet. So.

Dang.

The great Leslie Nielson has died.

The baseball scene in Naked Gun is the single greatest extended comedic scene in film history. Here's some of it; thing goes on for 20 minutes with nary a second that ain't funny.

Snifflaska, Part IV

Let me be the first to pat Sniffy Wiffy on the back for having the restraint to hold out on choking up on-camera about her retarded kid. She waited 146 minutes into the season, and I don't know how many takes she needed, but she nailed it.

But isn't it enough with the fucking fish? Christ, another fucking round of pounding and battering on the ol' tuna boat - what the fuck am I watching, The Best of John Holmes? Move the fuck on already - aren't there some moose these people can Indian leg-wrestle?

Losing My Religion (Too Late)

I just now started watching the entire Tony Blair/Christopher Hitchens debate on "Religion is a Force for Good in the World," and at 14 minutes in I'm still thinking the exact same thing: surely I'm not the first person to wonder why this wasn't billed as The Blair Hitch Project, right?

Good Grief

6 Ways Charles Shultz Really Was Charlie Brown.

Most of the list could pretty much apply to any of us unlovable losers, except of course for this one:

6. They Died Within Two Hours of One Another

Perhaps one of the saddest things Charlie Brown has in common with his creator is their deaths. Schulz knew he was becoming sick in the late nineties and announced his retirement in December of 1999 and requested that the publishers discontinue the series after his death. He continued to produce enough Sunday strips to last through mid-February, and on Saturday, February 12, 2000, he passed away. Only two hours later, the final Peanuts strip was printed.

Recommended Xmastime reading.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

This jerkoff Congressman from Missouri tried to explain Thanksgiving as the Pilgrims hurling off the tyrannical shackles of European socialism and inventing capitalism. Of course, I can't help but think wouldn't that mean they would've simply bought the turkey et al from the Indians and then sold it back to them for twice as much? An interesting take, for sure. Thinkprogress paries:

The real reason the Pilgrims came to the New World was to flee religious persecution. Thanksgiving is based around remembrance of the tale of how, in 1621, Native Americans helped the Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony survive harsh conditions by sharing their food with them. In other words, Thanksgiving is a parable about how people should take care of each other and not just look out for themselves.

But who's to say? Were you there? How do we KNOW that in the harsh, deadly times of that period the Pilgrims didn't hunker down in separate corners and create corporations to give tax breaks to and let the loser, non-bootstrap-pulling-up Pilgrims (aka "the LA Clippers of the New World) fucking freeze and starve to death? Who knows?

It's hard to say which is more likely: Akin is so fucking stupid that he genuinely doesn't know the story of Thanksgiving, or he's counting on his constituents to be. Ah well. Six fucking idiots in one hand, half a dozen in the other, right?

START

This guy HERE on the Republicans hemming and hawing about START, which should be a relative non-issue:

The Republicans’ desire to meddle with, or even abort, the Start accord surprised even some cynics. Officials of previous Republican administrations support the deal. Valuable in itself, it is critical to cementing improved relations with Russia. If Mr Obama cannot rely on Congress to back such agreements, his capacity to negotiate abroad is destroyed.

You can't claim 'RACISM!" on everything, but this seems like a good opportunity to wonder if for all our patting ourselves on the back re: America was finally ready for a black president, it never occurred to anybody that maybe Congress wasn't ready for one.

Album I Wore the Fuck Out While Living in Oxford, MS

BREAKING NEWS: Americans Hate "Real America" and Freedom, Love the Terrorists.

from DR:

After setting a TLC ratings record last week, Sarah Palin's reality show plummeted for its second episode.
 
Sarah Palin's Alaska fell 40% on Sunday night to 3 million viewers.

Not many were in the key adult demo either. Only 885,000 viewers were ages 18-49, dropping 44% from last week.

In fact, the median age of the show is 57 -- that's 15 years older than TLC's average.

Way to go, America. You have one job to do, and you're fucking it up. Now we've pissed Bitchzilla off, and woe be unto us who shall incur her wrath. I'm hiding under my fucking bed.

 We're all the lamestream media now  :(

Overreactions Make a Bloggah Wannah Hollah

Yglesias HERE points out the obvious about the airport security over-reaction.

(Sexy Side note: is there a link between the over-parenting of our children as discussed earlier and the over-protecting of the country?)

Terrorists don't have anything personal against our airlines, it just seems to be the easiest way to kill a bunch of people and scare the hell out of us. But once that becomes too much of a pain in the ass, they'll simply move on to trains, buses, the Meadowlands (fingers crossed!) or whatever. They're not gonna go "dammit, they got the airports locked up, game over guys. Hail Jesus!" And it doesn't even matter how MANY people are killed - if ONE person is killed today and it's declared to have been done by a terrorist, can you imagine the collective fucking girlie-shriekfest freakout we'll have? We'd draw the Mr. Burns-inspired glass dome over the whole country and shiver ourselves to sleep. Of course, more people will be killed by guns today, but not only do we not give two shits, we have whole organizations that work hard every day demanding we have the right to be shot today.

Also, it's not like terrorism began on the morning of September 11, 2001. We had a pretty nice system of thwarting attempts without shitting our pants. But while we can live with people getting killed by drunk drivers and shooting each other, we can't seem to accept the fact that hey, sometimes one gets through. That's life. I mean, LITERALLY, that's life - out of the billions of sperms I'll blast into some young lady tonight, MAYBE one breaks through and hits her in the whatever the hell it is down there and creates a life.

There's a certain parallell there, no?

Oh, I'M sorry...did I just blow your mind?

Your Kids Will Be Pussies

Post HERE wonders if the current generation of kids is hyper-parented/over-protected. I'm not a parent (that I know of, heh heh heh) but I've had a front-row seat for several years now, and I'd say the answer is certainly 'YES.' In capital letters.

But that's probably the way it's always been, each generation softer than the previous one. For all the freedom/neglect of the '70's kids, our grandparents were probably still calling our parents pussies. "You're smothering the bastards!" And their parents said the same of them, and on and on. Try reading a novel or short story set in Victorian England - any time there's more than one child in the story, take it to the bank that one is going to die, and will be buried/forgotten by lunch. How the shit goes. Mostly I remember when I was a kid, there was nothing more thrilling than our parents being outta the house for a coupla hours:

I’ve noticed this has become even more prevalent in the present generation, kids wanna be around their parents all the time. What the fuck is this? I had a woman in my office a few years ago, and she had two kids. One 13 years old, one 12. EVERY day, like clockwork, at about 3:30 the phone would ring and it’d be these two idiots, calling their mom and sniveling “when you coming home? We’re booooooooored, come home!!!” They actually wanted her to quit her job so she’d be at home all day for them!! Is this the saddest thing you’ve ever heard in your life? “Gee, I’m bored. Hey, you know what would liven things up? Hanging out with a coupla 100 year olds…maybe they can give me some more lessons on right vs. wrong! Yaaaaaaaaaaay!!!” All my brother and I wanted when we were kids were for our parents to get the fuck outta the house. Which I would think was fairly normal. And when you’re a kid, one hour equaled approximately 4 days in adult time - nowadays if you tell me I have one hour to do anything, I just say “aw, fuck it” and sit in a chair waiting for the hour to be up. Probably thinking about Valerie Malone at the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest. Or the generalized binomial theorem. But back then, if it was 4pm and your parents were coming back at 5pm you had plenty of time to build three forts, set up a pretend newspaper complete with printing press and editor and do a complete re-enactment of Star Wars, word for word. Mostly, you were just thrilled the adults were outta the house. We had an agreement with our parents when my brother and I were kids: they’d let us go out on our own all day long, and we wouldn’t tell them how close we had come to getting ourselves killed. Clean, simple, everyone was happy. Unlike today’s generation of pussies...READ MORE

We're Together!! Finally! I'm So Happy!

Get used to things going off in your face, baby!!

"The Guys." Chillaxin', Hanging Out. No Biggie for Us. "Whatevs."

A Date With the Fonz

Can the Happy Days episode A Date With the Fonz possibly have anything more to give? First we get my favorite scene of all time that doesn't involve Ralph Malph*, with the Fonz taking Richie to the grocery store to hit on chicks (skip ahead in the clip to 3:40.) And then we get introduced to Laverne & Shirley (after seeing Fonzie's "little black book" which is roughly the size of a Trapper Keeper.)



To see the hysterical Laverne & Shirley scenes click HERE.

AND, as if that wasn't enough, the episode also provides one of the best "bloopers" of all time, when Fonzie slobbers all over Mrs. C while nobody notices for a bit (the one where all the dudes run to him when he snaps his fingers is pretty awesome too.) 





* this reminds me of the best Seinfeld scene that doesn't have George in it

Speaking of Lennon in the NYC

I'm not one for memorabilia; I scoff whenever someone pays like $15k for Huey Lewis' Foreman Grill or some shit.  Like adults playing video games or dudes putting other dudes' penises into each others' assholes, I consider that whole field pretty gay. But one artifact I can agree might be THE most important in rock history and worth having might be the Double Fantasy album John Lennon signed for Mark David Chapman a coupla hours before Chapman thanked him by killing him.

An album that John Lennon autographed for his killer just hours before he was gunned down outside his New York City apartment building went on sale Monday for a whopping $850,000.

 John!  That's him!  Don't sign that shit; run away dammit!!!!

The Price You Pay

Last week I remarked about the new airport security and how it might finally be the over-reaching security measure we take that starts to affect "us" and not just anonymous brown people we don't see or give a shit about HERE, and this guy HERE agrees with me:

As long as it's just Muslims being tortured and foreigners being detained indefinitely, the price we pay to feel secure seems all too abstract. The TSA's new passenger-screening measures just happen to fall on the political and economic elites who can make their complaints heard. It's not happening to those scary Arabs anymore. It's happening to "us."

Heeeeeeey...I just found this!

Let's Make This Happen, Motherscratchers!

It seems to me that some richdaddy fat-cat Londoner would snatch me up since I'm looking to move there anyway and set me up to have a blog re: big dumb hick from America lands in London. Shit writes itself, no? Can you imagine my 5000-word post on the first time some dude asks me for a fag? I mean, camon! 

Tell your rich friends in London I'm available.

Xmastime TV Alert

PBS Channel 13
9pm

Sorry, Rocket 88

I always thought it was Golden Earring's Twilight Zone, but it looks like That's Alright Mama by Arthur Crudup has officially been declared the first-ever rock 'n roll song:

He gives Crudup the nod because "That's All Right Mama" was the first song to contain all of the elements that he says are associated with rock and roll:

• It's music that draws heavily from blues and country in a hit form that's often danceable.
• There should be hints of jazz, gospel or folk influence.
• There should also be some technology influence.

"It's a lot to ask of one song," he said. "Few fit the bill."

On a side note, GodiHateyourArthurCrudup crooned Elvis' version of this to his mother at his own reception, only hours after I had hooked up with a 96 year-old woman (Wedding B). Sweet.

Mike Lupica Takes a Day Off From Being the Worst Writer in the World.

You know that I think Mike Lupica is a fucking retard, so it pains me to say I agree with him re: if Bush can be president, so can Sniffy:

Barbara Bush, wife of George H.W. Bush and mother of George W., says this to Larry King on Monday night about Sarah Palin:

"I think she's very happy in Alaska and I hope she stays there."

Does she mean the way her son should have stayed in Texas?

Bush was the one-term governor of Texas who became President because his last name was Bush, because he was the affable son of a great American, because people liked him. Palin didn't even last a full term as governor of Alaska, quitting to become rich and famous and a darling of the media on the right.

He also nails Sniffy's phantom war with the press:

It is why you nearly fall down laughing when you hear Palin portraying herself as some victim of the media...She certainly can't be talking about all the big, loud media guys in this country who get so tongue-tied and star-struck around her it's as if they're trying to ask her to the prom. Her book will go to No. 1 and beat Bush. She has her own television show, produced by Mark Burnett, huge reality TV guy. Her fans try to fix "Dancing with the Stars" for her kid. She is Rupert Murdoch's current queen of all media. And her own best dance moves - about whether or not to run for President - are analyzed constantly.

Palin hates the media? It would be like Derek Jeter announcing he hates baseball.

And, just when I'm already feeling miserable enough about making it all the way through one of Lupica's relentlessly unreadable "articles," he gets it right again re: Bush's resurgence in popularity thanks to getting up in front of a tv camera and not eating a puppy:

All he had to do to make eight train-wreck years as President go away was go on a two-week book tour....All Bush had to do was be funny and self-deprecating, talk about how people were surprised he could "write a book, much less read one," and his approval ratings were right back where they used to be.

It had nothing to do with the book, by the way. Bush merely had to present himself as the good ol' boy people thought they were electing when he came out of Texas. Just like that, he found out he didn't even need to rewrite history. Everybody else was doing it for him...Suddenly the dead and wounded of Iraq weren't supposed to matter. Or imaginary weapons of mass destruction. Or Katrina, or torture, or the economy holding as well on his watch as the levees of New Orleans.

He just had to yuk it up with Jay Leno.. In that moment, the old W was back and better than ever, more popular than the guy, Obama, who won by running against him more than he did John McCain.

If it was this easy for him, don't bet against Sarah Palin. Who knows? If they can figure out a way to stuff the ballot box for her the way they are for her kid on the dancing show, she might win in a landslide.

The Beatlez

The Beatles' effect on "urban" music isn't something I can really say I'm an expert on, but this guy seems to be:

A Skillz, "Beatles Minimix." Adam Mills (a.k.a. A Skillz) is taking over the U.K. one house party at a time, marrying his seemingly endless catalogue of influences with a riotous funky-breaks flavor. His latest effort was produced for BBC Radio 1xtra to celebrate the Beatles's influence on urban music, and despite its rather stunted seven-minute length, it still somehow manages to pack the same staggering punch of its sprawling hour-long bretheren. Almost all of the Fab Four's classics are revisited, coupled with deft hip-hop samples (see Jurassic 5's flute loop over "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" @ 0:40) and some dancefloor-friendly remixes from Skillz (see his pulsating take on "Come Together" @ 6:32, or his "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" medley @ 3:12 onward). For Beatles fans, or for anyone with a funky bone in their body, it's time to jump on the A Skillz bandwagon. 

I'll Still Love You Baby

My girlfriend in 9 1/2 hours has kicked off a rather dubious contest over at Sully:

Which prompts the thought of a contest: what is the worst pop song designed to reflect a profound moral conscience, a political cause, or a general form of celebrity-as-intellectual-activist? I.e. the smuggest, most pretentious pop song in history? We haven't had a contest in a while, so let's call this one "Shut Up And Sing." For the thing to work, we need you to provide a Youtube of the song - either music video or live performance. Group "We Are The World" efforts are not eligible.

While I love her tv show, I do not claim to listen to her music for even a split second.

But the idea of a 17 year-old girl in this day and age earnestly singing about serious shit is beyond absurd anyway.  Sing about tickle fights with your girls or how many dudes wanna sniff your hamper; leave the heavy stuff for a certain working class hero from New Jersey whom I will not name even though I have met him (don't even start with that shit - you KNOW I'm not spilling the the deets.)

The opposite, of course, is here.

That Awful Day in Dallas.

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Alls I Want is a Freaking Paper, People

Ladies. For the love of Christ. HAVE YOUR FUCKING MONEY READY AT THE COUNTER!!!! Whenever I'm in line to buy anything, I frantically have my money counted out and in my hand, ready to present to the guy before the word "cents" has left his lips. I always assume that if I take more than .0004 seconds to produce payment, the line of people behind me will not even try to hide their loud, exasperated sighs or uttered curse words. Or, maybe some guy comes in from the back and chops my head off, I don’t know. But chicks, chicks are always slightly surprised that the cashier, at the end of said transaction, expects actual money from them. No matter how long they've been in line, they have not even considered getting the money ready. "$16.81" the cashier will say, then there's a slight pause, then the girl will say "oh!" and THEN start digging thru her purse. Christ. AND, to make matters worse, she'll spend another 5 minutes digging around for a penny/nickel whatever to make the change "easier." "$16.81?" oh, hold on, I've got a penny...." and the search begins, so that instead of getting 19 cents back and letting the rest of us actually get on with our fucking lives, we've gotta sit through her frantic search for a penny so that she can get 2 dimes back. Guys don’t do that. We'll throw whatever bills we got up there; whatever change we get back, we get back. But we ain't standing there for 20 minutes rifling through a weeks worth of receipts from Vera Cruz and parking tickets trying to find change, holding up the line. Christ. Drives me crazy, maybe even more so than how everytime I wanna quickly pop in to grab a paper, there's only one other guy ahead of me....but it's the construction guy buying 75 coffees for the crew. "That’s 40 with sugar, 30 with milk, blaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh..." I've got my 2 quarters hovering above the counter, desperately trying to catch the cashier's eye so I can drop them and get back to becoming a better citizen/saving lives on the outside, but my man won't turn around, he's slowly making a million coffees for this one dude while blood actually starts pumping out of my ears. Fucking A. See also: lone cashier who patiently attends to the old lady who wants him to walk her through her 50 fucking lotto scratch tickets while the rest of us in line join AARP.

Hmm. A Bit Dubious.

Justin Bieber after winning some award made up by and for people who like giving each other awards last night:

"This means the world to me," said Bieber after winning breakthrough artist. "I come from the smallest town in the world, of like 30,000 people; I never thought this was possible."

Hmm. I feel like if we scoured the Earth hard enough we MIGHT find a smaller town than that. On the Moon, if nowhere else.

Never Forget.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

This Day in Dallas

45 years ago today, JFK was shot and killed in Dallas. In the spirit of taking lemons and making lemonade, let's all remember that as tragic as that was and still is, it did eventually lead to the best Photoshopping job ever. Enjoy.

More Crazy Heart Review

To me, its like Mickey O'Rourke in The Wrestler - the movie itself is just okay, but Jeff Bridges is crazy phenomenal. Every physical move he makes is perfect, at every moment.

And the number of clichés Bridges had to act through and still have an air of authenticity or freshness is pretty staggering.


But there are at least two clichés of the genre I'm glad they skipped. The first is the ol' "begrudgingly takes the stage to play the old hits" you find most has-beens acting like in flicks like this. Bad Blake seems very comfortable knowing that the old hits he has to play every night are the very reason he has what he has and is who he is; hell, he even seems to ENJOY playing them onstage (though the booze might help with that part.)

Also, when we first hear about his protegé Tommy Sweet we of course picture an asshole, unappreciative diva who could give a fuck about Bad Blake now that he's leapfrogged his mentor on to riches and success bad can't imagine being a part of. And maybe there is more to the story than we know (I'm sure the break-up wasn't pretty), but Sweet is effusive in telling anyone who will listen that Bad Blake taught him everything he knows, and he goes out of his way to make sure Blake's songs are put on his records.

Also - there's no way I'm passing over that chick in the blue dress with teef coming outta the damn screen to get up in Maggie Gyllenhaal's granny drawers. Camon.

The Wonder Years

I just realized that I am now older than the narrator of The Wonder Years was when he was "looking back with wonder!" on his youth.  Kevin Arnold was born in 1956, meaning that in 1988 he was only 32. I am older than 32. Fucking hell. There's depressing, and then there's that.

Also, I was watching last night's episode, Summer's Song. Winnie's gone to Maine for the summer, and Kevin's all sad because she just wrote him a letter and TA-DA! she has a boyfriend. "Chip." Chip the asshole. Of course, within minutes Kevin stumbles upon a hot little blonde minx on the beach, and heeeeeeey, here we have her - Kevin's first post-Winnie love interest! Wow!  Who is this angel, you ask? Any man my age would be quite impressed with any lovely lady who could peel Kevin away from that kung-fu death grip Winnie had on Kevin's heart, so I looked her up on IMDB to see what else this amazing specimen of the female race worked on, and here's a small sampling of titles from her post-Wonder Years work:

Cheating Housewives 6
Diary of a Horny Housewife
How I Did A MILF
Milf Bone 4
Supertail and the Evil Wang
Suck It Dry 6

Hmm, Well, that's disappointing. Wtf - did Wayne feel bad for Kevin, and hook him up with a pro that summer?

Oh yeah, one more thing - guess who was one of Tiger Wood's "holes," as it turns out?

Sigh. I need a shower.

24 More Hours!

You can't stop time, baby!!!

Snifflaska, Cont.

My favorite line from tonight's episode of Sniff Your Enthusiasm is when Sniffy, Todd and Bristol are skeet-shooting, which Lil' Sniffs has never done before. So she's shooting without hitting a single one. Miss, miss, miss. All of a sudden Sniffy shouts out "oooh, close!"

What?

Okay, I get it, she's just trying to be encouraging, help the kid out. Very nice.

Otherwise, are you really fucking telling me that you can see a fucking bullet that's about an inch long and traveling almost 1500mph? Really?  Cause I'll be honest - if that's true, you have my vote. Hell, maybe you fucking CAN see Russia from not only your house, but the fucking White House.


"AND I gotta fucking hula hoop???!!"

Snifflaska, Cont.

I gotta give those Palin girls some credit. They're fucking crazy as hell.  This time Sniffy takes Bristol out on a commercial halibut fishing boat (you know, just like any other day), and the captain tells Bristol her job: when they pull a halibut up and it's flopping around on the floor of the boat, she has to take her billy club and whack it the head so it'll stop flopping and they can slit it's throat. I don't think it's chauvinistic to suppose that most young women would be repulsed at the mere thought of doing such a thing and would refuse. Hell, I don't think I'd do it.

But Lil Sniffs? Christ, her eyes roll into the back of her head as she orgasms with glee; I'm surprised she didn't dive off the boat and start bashing the motherfuckers under water so she wouldn't hafta wait 60 seconds to get her club on.

The Palin chicks are who we need to send over to, say, North Korea to scare Krazy Jong-il. They can just hang out in his bathroom and scare the shit out of him when he goes in it. 

"So...Mr. Chink...I understand we have a problem?"  (puts her cigarette out on Willow's forehead, who stares at Jong-Il while smacking her palm with a wooden bat; behind Jong-il Piper locks the door.)

These girls are our country's version of Janice fucking Avery.

I'm Such a Girl.

I caught myself watching A Walton Thanksgiving Reunion right now, and since I'm such a fucking pussy my waterworks are working double-time since not only is it the Waltons as filmed for tv in 1993, but it's set on the weekend JFK got shot in 1963, so there's some strange double-folding of sentiment making me act like a little girl. Grrrr. I'm too sentimental. Even when it comes to shows I don't fucking watch, I get all fucking choked up at the finales. Probably a good reason I never became a teacher - I'd prolly spend 24 hours a day boo-hooing into old yearbooks "oh, the Class of '02 - THAT was a special class BWWWWAAAAAAAHHHH!!!"

Fucking christ.

Anyway, I had no idea the tv series was based on a 1963 film, Spencer's Mountain. I also had no idea Earl Hamner, Jr is still alive. That, for some reason, is amazing to me.

Sigh. Also depressing: 1993 was 17 years ago.  Christ, Im a quivering mess of pathetic - look away!!!

I'll Be Honest

I dig this song, from Forgetting Sarah Marshall. So far in my life, A Taste for Love is the first rock opera I've ever wanted to see actually happen.

Nov 21. The Grinch. Arrrrrrgh.

I've given up even bothering to scream and bitch about how early the holiday specials come on; at this point I'm grateful A Charlie Brown Christmas comes on after the 4th of July.

But I will reiterate: that dog from the Grinch is a funny motherfucker.

Do Dogs Know When They're Funny?

Dying Laffin.

It's been bugging me all day what the little kid in the front of this movie poster reminds me of.

And now it's finally dawned on me: Chubbles! Ha!

Bunch more of her HERE.

Umbrage Knows No Age in New Jersey.

Goals. I Have Them.

I've always liked being in a car when it's pitch black dark out. And I even like movie scenes inside cars at night. In my queue now is to write an entire movie that takes place in a moving car at night.

Everything You Wanted to Know About

Live Aid.

Although it doesn't seem to go out of it's way to explain why Rick Springfield was introduced by Joe Piscopo.

31 Hours Away!

Question.

Is a regular segment of the new reality show Rock Stars Wives one in which whenever a husband comes back from a tour he has to see if he can pick out which one is his wife?

This is Somewhat Interesting..

Turns out Al-Qaida knows how to stretch a dollar:

The editors of a special edition of the Yemeni-based group's English on-line magazine, Inspire, boast that what they call Operation Hemorrhage was cheap, and easy, using common items that together with shipping, cost only $4,200 to carry out.

"It is such a good bargain for us to spread fear amongst the enemy and keep him on his toes in exchange of a few months of work and a few thousand bucks," AQAP said in its online Inspire magazine, released on militant websites. 

Shouldn't all those faux-deficit hawks think maybe this is the group that should be controlling our government spending?

BOING!

Crazy Heart Movie Review

15 minutes in and I feel like it's the most depressing movie I've ever seen. But the genius is casting Maggie Gyllwhatthefuckever as his much younger love interest that saves his life. She's JUST young and okay-looking enough to rankle you a bit, but not good looking enough to make you really roll your eyes with incredulity. I mean, it's not like they got Tiffani Amber-Theissen for the role.


Side Note: I have my doubts that someone who's been on the road for 40 years can whip up a batch of biscuits. Seems implausible.

Warning: Not as Sexy as You Might Think

Little boy strip-searched in front of his father.

This is prolly as good a time as any to say the terrorists have officially won, no?

The Genius of Rand Paul

I was already impressed with Rand Paul when it became clear that for at least the last five years he's acted as an opthamologist without AMA Board certification - I mean for fuck's sake, if I need eye surgery and Jesus himself comes in and says "this guy's the best!" I'm still nervous; meanwhile, Rand Paul is convincing people to let him cut into their eyeballs with an "oh, I'm sure my certification is in the mail!" wave? Really?

Also, turns out he went to Duke Medical School without actually bothering to actually graduate from Baylor University.

Christ, maybe we should send Paul over to solve this whole Middle East nonsense. I mean, some tea-bagging faux-deficit hawk who wishes Civil Rights could be repealed is fucking worthless...but if you can convince people to let you operate on their eyeballs without actual board certification and with fewer undergraduate degrees than me? I'll be honest: we could use you. Pick out a uniform number, son.

The Reissue Box Set

There are exceptions - for instance, I could make a case that the outtakes from The River could make a better album than The River itself. But the phenomenon of the "album box set reissue" is a funny one, as in, is there any other thing in the world you could be sold by the following marketing: "hey, you liked the original? Great! Now pay twice as much for the stuff we deemed wasn't worth putting on the original. Thanks!"? 

It can have some great moments, but by definition the thing seems odd, no? Is that what *NEW, IMPROVED!* dishwasher detergent is about - "okay, now that you bought our original shit, we're gonna charge you twice as much now that we've put in the stuff we didn't think should go in the first time?"

Life, eh? A box of fucking crackers.

I Thought Coke Made You Skinny?

Detachable Moi

I've always wondered what the hell it even meant whenever I'd read a book around the turn of the century and a dude was always looking to buy a new collar, like HERE. Always cracked me up - like when you ready Woody Allen and spend half the story thinking "what the fuck does blocking a hat mean?"

I've also wondered why nobody else seemed to ever wonder about this, until now:  readers over at Sully talk about the detachable collar making sense back in the Industrial Age. Nice.



UPDATE: I just realized that the date of the Xmastime link above was...EXACTLY 3 YEARS AGO TODAY!!! (shiver)  

My scary prescience brings me no joy.

Tonight

My knee has blown up for the first time in a while, which sucks cause it's Saturday night, which means I can't hit the town and do what I was put on this groovy Earth to do. So tonight, just this once, I am taking a night off and, just like everybody else right now, I'm leaning back listening to my credo below and imagining what I'd normally do doing right now in Manhanny: spinning like a Tazmanian Devil from club to club, leading the league in fist-pumping and droppin' Dom on the floor while pinging off one almost-nekked party girl into another like a horny pinball that don't even bother with h8ers.

The island is sad tonight, my friends. But hang in there, beautiful people - I go back to being The Whirling Dervish of Clubbing at this time, next week. For tonight, please, sit back in your chairs and fist-pump along with me to that magic sound of LIFE.