Trillionaire

It's probably somewhat arguable, but John D. "Ballsweat" Rockefeller is generally seen as the nation's first billionaire. Who will be our first trillionaire? And if it's me, will my high school girlfriend finally decide it's time to stop "seeing other people"? - XMASTIME

I think I have the answer (to the first part, that is): whoever comes up with a way to keep goddam ear buds from having to take about 20 fucking minutes to fucking untangle if god forbid they go more than three fucking seconds not inserted into your ears. For fuck's sake, man.

Whaaaaaaaaaaa?

THIS POST HERE claims to list "12 Songs About Trying to Predict the Future" and yet doesn't include In the Year 2525. Wtf? This is like listing "the 12 biggest dicks in porn history" and leaving off John Holmes, when the fact is you'd think that bringing to mind John Holmes' dick would be what brought about the list in the first place.

Oh, but I'M the asshole here, right??!?!?!  Grr.

I HATE YOU PEOPLE!!!

It's almost 10pm and it's only NOW I find out it's National Cleavage Day???  Wtf?

Sigh.

Anyway, here's my life in breasts.

March 2, 1985: Danielle _______ lifts up her shirt, lifts up her bra, and showed us her titties on the back of the bus. Therein I saw my first naked tit up close. Got a nice squeeze in what would become a daily ritual. And yes, she turned out to be a slut in high school (but hot!)

October 11, 1987: slapped by my friend Kristie after grabbing her titty in the hallway. First titty lesson learnt; was worth it.

February 2, 1988: Lora ________ every day for a week while we watched some series of films in English class let me feel her up the whole time. Learned another lesson: was told “you shouldn’t ask, just do it” to the question of “can I go inside your bra?” Later applied that same answer when asking myself "bareback in the shitter?

April 15, 1989: after a young lifetime of being terrified by clumsy dudes in movies/tv and hearing horror stories et al re: getting a girl's bra off, was relieved to see that my first girlfriend had a bra that easily opened from the front. Lil hook, open. Could yell at it and it would open. Unfortunately, she had no titties in the first place. A Pyrrhic victory, at best. Slip into the hen house, no hens.

June 10, 1992: hooked up with a lunatic hot chick while visiting my brother at college. First but not the last time I uttered the phrase "yeah well, he ain't here, now is he?" Next morning she woke up to find I had hidden her clothes so I could see her naked longer. “Where are my clothes?” “Gosh, I dunno” (looking bewildered.) Broads - I should write a manual!!!

February 15, 1993: first hookup with college girlfriend, who had huge tits. Her bras were such contraptions, such textile engineering miracles that I never even bothered learning how to unhook this thing for two years. I’d watch a back-to-back of “Who’s the Boss” while I waited for her to disengage. Took a goddam Color Guard to put one of those things away.

January 24, 2002: girl I was madly in love with at the time decided to get fake titties. I'm sorry, "breast augmentation." Not only did she not reciprocate my feelings, but, just to make sure that I understood clearly that she didn't view me as a person with a penis, and since I was her closest! bestest! girlfriend, she asked me to be the one to take a Polaroid to send to the doctor doing the surgery. So...I had to stand there and snap pictures of the fruit I ached to taste, all to get her bigger tits to attract...other men. Christ. Why didn't I just bring in other dudes and fluff them for her too? No dignity, table for one please.

April 4, 2002: finally got up in them fake titties. Loved every second of 'em.

Plimpton!

There are two long-form Sports Illustrated articles I remember most from my youth. One was my 1983 introduction to Hoosier Hysteria, WHICH I'VE STILL NEVER FOUND!!!!, and the other was Sidd Finch, which came out 27 years ago today. I'm pretty sure I fell for it; in my defense it's still one of the greatest hoaxes of all time. Plus, I'm an idiot.

Good News!

Any man my age of discernible taste holds a special place in his heart for the sitcom Get a Life, which lasted for about 8 minutes two decades ago and has been nowhere to be found until...soon!   :)

The episode in which he has to go through initiation to join a gang is still one of the greatest episodes in sitcom history.

Quel Surprise du Jour

If I had 100 years to guess, I'm pretty sure I still wouldn't have come up with "Sleepy Floyd" as the answer to the question "who holds the playoffs record for most points in one quarter (29) and half (39)?" Wow.

Me. I'm Really Happening.

For some reason there's almost nothing I find funnier than whenever someone is walking towards me with at least two dogs on leashes; as we're passing each other I solemnly nod my head at them and say "Fellas." I crack up for the next coupla blocks.

So Close, Yet So Fucked.

EEEEEVery day Harry would check his lotto numbers from the night before and try to match them with his and see what he did wrong. “Okay, they have a 12, I chose 14...okay...22, I said 28...” I’m like Harry, it doesn’t matter, it’s completely random! But he insisted he was figuring it all out. - XMASTIME

Maybe Harry was right. Too bad for this fucker.

Celebs du Jour

Here's 25 Celebrities and their favorite Beatles songs. No I Want to Hold Your Hand, no A Day in the Life...only two of their choices match my own Top 10. I'm not saying this means they're idiots, I'm saying it means they're fucking retards who wouldn't know a great song if it walked up and bit them on the ass.

Brad Pitt: Come Together and While My Guitar Gently Weeps. Since we pretty boys hafta stick together I've always liked Brad Pitt, even though Moneyball was grossly overrated, but he gets dinged here. First of all for not having the sack to make a final decision on a song, and secondly for one of them to be Come Together, the shittiest, most overrated Beatles song that is for some reason  considered a "classic."

Joe Perry: Tomorrow Never Knows. A stunningly innovative, culture-changing song of which my love for it now needs to be questioned since it's championed by this fucking jerkoff.

Taylor Swift. Here Comes the Sun. Great song, almost single-handedly saves Abbey Road, and she's spot-on re: how uplifting it is, especially coming out of the middle 8. Great. I now share an opinion on Beatles songs with a 12 year-old girl and a guy who's so stupid he hasn't minded being in Aerosmith for like 60 years. Fuuuuuuuuuck.

James Taylor. Penny Lane. A great song, and shoulda been on Pepper along with Strawberry Fields, which woulda made it the greatest album of all time without any debate. I give James Talor credit for getting up in Carly Simon's horse-teef guts ("and on the 8th day, God made a woman who could eat corn on the cob through a chain-link fence solely for Xmastime..."), but I dismiss his music, which my then 95 year-old grandmother once referred to as "pussy cracker shit." Ironically, we have The Beatles to blame for unleashing this particular monster of sleep-rock on us. Thanks, guys!

Julie Taymor: Something. Like Here Comes the Sun, a great song from The Dark Horse that along with the Golden Slumbers melody are the only things worth a crap on Abbey Road. Also, I have no idea who Julie Taymor is despite the fact that this is a list of celebrities and I work for a celebrity magazine.

Keith Urban: She's Leaving Home. Sgt. Pepper superslice, I've mentioned it HERE. Although I shudder to think how shitty his "music" must be, I have no beef with Keith Urban; having to fuck Nicole Kidman is punishment enough.

Joe Walsh. No song listed. Perfectly fitting for a member of the Eagles, maybe the most blah, nothing band ever. One time Op mentioned to me that Tequila Sunrise is a better song than Paradise by the Dashboard Light.  Of course I rolled my eyes at the very notion of such a thing, to which he insisted "No, I mean it, th-" which I cut off with a "BUP-bup-bup bup!", waving an index finger in his face like a metronome needle.  He kept talking: "I'm telling-" "AAAAAAH, bup-bup-bup-bup...(now slowing down, along with my finger so as to wind his idiocy down, along with lowering my eyebrows which had started at the top of my head and were now nearing their normal position)...bup......bup.................bup...............................................bup."  And with that Op knew to shut up, that he's an idiot and I was right, so he curled up with a sleeve of Snackwells and cried like a baby.

Evan Rachel Wood: Happiness is a Warm Gun. Kind of an inside baseball pick, which she further exacerbates by name-dropping Fool on the Hill and Blue Jay Way. Hey Rachel, we get it, you know The Beatles deep cuts...which on planet Earth at least, don't really exist:

Jimmy Fallon: what's your favorite obscure Beatles song?
Ringo Starr: (incredulous) obscure Beatles song?

Kris Allen: While My Guitar Gently Weeps. Xmastime superslice, made my White Album as a single album list, along with Happiness is a Warm Gun. I have no idea who Kris Allen is, but I admire his deep, thoughtful critique of the song: "There's just something about it." Thank you, Kris. The world needs more rich, famous, young people without a single thought in their heads.

Tom Araya: Revolution. Looking at his photo, I'm guessing by the long hair, grayed goatee, tattoos, and black t-shirt with a skull on it that Mr. Araya is in a heavy metal band. Reading what he says about the song I'm guessing that band is Slayer, since he says "It's so Slayer!" Congratulations Slayer, it only took you 31 years to be compared to The Beatles. That you had to be the one to finally do it only makes you a member of rock and roll's proud, noble "do it yourself" work ethic.

Kenneth Brannagh: For No One. An Xmastime superslice. McCartney sat down at a piano and played it in Give My Regards to Broad Street, which was basically two hours of Macca standing around looking surprised. Which, actually, is just how he looks all the time. How much does it suck if you're a magician and Paul McCartney's your audience?

Michael Caine: Hey Jude. I've blathered on many, many times how great Hey Jude is. McCartney famously wrote the song to comfort Julian Lennon during his parents' divorce, originally singing "Hey Jules." According to it's Wiki page:

Ringo Starr almost missed his drum cue. He left for a toilet break—unnoticed by the other Beatles—and the band started recording. In 1994, McCartney said, "Ringo walked out to go to the toilet and I hadn't noticed. The toilet was only a few yards from his drum booth, but he'd gone past my back and I still thought he was in his drum booth. I started what was the actual take, and 'Hey Jude' goes on for hours before the drums come in and while I was doing it I suddenly felt Ringo tiptoeing past my back rather quickly, trying to get to his drums. And just as he got to his drums, boom boom boom, his timing was absolutely impeccable."

So the next time you hear a song written by Paul McCartney about a 5 year-old boy, know that it began with Ringo Starr's dick in his hand. Hmm.

Jude Law: Across the Universe. Another Xmastime superslice. Of the obvious pick Hey Jude, Law says how lucky he is that the song that shares his name is a great song and not a sucky one. As someone who shares his own name with the hit It's Xmastime, Now Gimme Dat Ass!!, I concur.

Jonathon Demme: In My Life. One of my many, MANY funeral slices.

Jamie Foxx: Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. Rocking superslice. How great was Foxx' riff on In Living Color as the old man named Cornbread with Duke, the dead dog? I went through a spell about 10 years ago during which I tried to get the nickname "Cornbread" tagged on me, but it didn't stick. I'm not saying I hate "Clownshoe Dick", but I really liked "Cornbread." Although how's this for irony: I don't even LIKE cornbread!! I prefer spoonbread! Me, huh? An enigma wrapped in a riddle wrapped in juuuuuuuuuuuust tight enough for her pleasure Toughskins. Sigh.

Peter Frampton: Norwegian Wood. Meh. Good song. Rubber Soul, while still an A-, is my second least-favorite Beatles album, which is something Beatles fans have a problem with. Maybe if they knew that I also kick puppies (well, the colored ones) they'd get a little sense of perspective and would stop whining about the whole "oooh no, Xmastime doesn't love Rubber Soul as much as we do!!" thing. Grow up, people.

Ryan Gosling: Here, There, and Everywhere. Meh. Never loved this one. Seems to be merely an "ohmygod, look how astoundingly melodic Paul McCartney is!" thing. Though I do give Rosling props for taking on the role of slow, white cornerback in Remember the Titans only 17 years after Tom Cruise had cemented himself as the Marlon Brando of the character in All the Right Moves. Gutsy.

Mark Hoppus: She's Leaving Home. Interesting this one has popped up twice on the list. Not as interesting as the fact that we can figure out how to have seedless fruit and yet we're stumped on how to stop Kim Kardashian from being on tv 24/7, but still interesting.

Norah Jones: Long, Long, Long. Lotta George songs on this list; a bit like a bunch of dudes picking Khloe Kardashian over Kim &; Kourtney. Oooh, a Kardashian joke! How do I do it?!?!? But seriously, she's hideous; I'd rather fuck George Harrison. And hell, he's been dead for over ten years.

B.B. King: Help! That's a superslice. When I was living in Oxford we went to BB King's restaurant in Memphis, and when I looked at the menu I saw a section titled "Samitches." While I'm sure I'd used that for "sandwiches" in conversation before, I'd never actually seen it in print and got a tremendous kick out of it, repeatedly laughing about it as the pitchers of what I'm sure was crappy Michalob Lite kept coming and coming. Finally the band goes onstage, and the front man shouts out "What d'yall want?" The response was supposed to be "the blues!", but before everyone could shout that I yelled "samitches!", which cracked up the old, fat black ladies a few tables away. "Get that white boy over here!" they yelled, and I spent the next two hours eating and drinking all I could for free, with everything I said totally cracking them up. It was awesome.

John Legend: I Want You (She's So Heavy.) This might be my least favorite Beatle song of all time, so it's official: John Legend is a fucking idiot.

Demi Lovato: Yesterday. I feel bad for Yesterday because it's a great song, but nobody can stand hearing it anymore since it's been played to death by the time you're like three years old. That's right - I don't feel bad for orphans, or kids with cancer,I feel sorry for an astoundingly popular song that was written almost 50 years ago. Also, it  rather ironically offers one of rock's greatest "fuck you" moments, via:

Iris Caldwell remembered an interesting incident in connection with the song. She had broken up with Paul in March 1963 after a silly argument over her dogs and, when he later called up to speak to Iris, her mother told Paul that her daughter didn't want to speak to him because he had no feelings. Two and a half years later, on Sunday August 1, 1965, Paul was scheduled to sing 'Yesterday' on a live television programme, Blackpool Night Out. During that week, he phoned Mrs Caldwell and said: "You know that you said that I had no feelings? Watch the telly on Sunday and then tell me that I've got no feelings."

Zing! Fuck you, Iris! See that tv performance HERE. As for Ms. Lovato, what kind of parents name their kid after the coke-addicted suicidal slut from St. Elmo's Fire? Thanks mom! "Me too, mom!" her brother O.J. added.

Yo-Yo Ma: Michelle. I like that part of it's in French, which I can lord over you and feel good about myself because as you know I'm incredibly well-versed in the language, and that they say the word "tits" over and over; other than that, meh. And who named this fucker, George Costanza? (Any girl who gets that bit wins 7 minutes in heaven with me! Unless you're ugly, but that goes without saying.)

Emily Mortimer: In My Life and Here There, and Everywhere. MAKE A FUCKING DECISION!! Jesus. Also: who the fuck is this person?

Questions. I Have Them.

Are the 1994 Arkansas Razorbacks the only instance of the NCAA champion coming from the state of the sitting President? I guess you could say Dubya with the 2004 Connecticut team, but he always had to pretend he was from Texas to fool stupid people into voting for him, so. Interesting.

Also interesting: dry ice.  I mean, what the fuck?

UPDATE: from Sean of Tilting Suds
 1966 - Texas Western won it all with LBJ in the White House 

Goals. I Have Them.

I wanna weasel my way into one of those sit-arounds in which old friends of a dead celebrity mourn his passing and celebrate his life with personal memories that's filmed for a documentary and completely overtake the entire thing with my wailing/crying hysterics. If any other person manages to get in as much as five words during the entire thing, I'll be disappointed.

Have fun sitting in your mom's basement dusting Cheetos dust off your t-shirt while I'm bettering my life, chumps!

Life Changes

I have never stuck with my favorite Friends girl for very long; I've gone from Monica to Rachel back to Monica to Phoebe to swearing off Monica forever to Rachel to Phoebe to Rachel to Phoebe for a good two years then back to Rachel before letting Monica back into my faux boudoir back to Rachel to Phoebe to Rachel to Phoebe to Rachel's Mom to Rachel to Rachel's Mom to Phoebe and now I think I'm gonna make a serious, adult effort to stick with Rachel from here on out. Time to grow up, goddammit.

Why Yes, I Am About to Become Better Than You

If anyone calls for me, tell them I'm down at my club.

Every Fucking Time

I’ve noticed the more plastic grocery bags I have in my hand as I’m walking up to my door, the higher the odds that my keys are not in the pocket nearest my free hand.

Fuuuuuuuck.

Bye Olbermann. Until, You KNow, the Next Time.

Keith Olbermann is like criticism - even if you agree with him, he's hard to take. Ugh. - XMASTIME

Olbermann has just been fired from some show nobody I have ever heard of watched for one second.  Of course, I'm sure before long he'll be back on television again. Fucking christ. The Rich Kotite of tv punditry.

Xmastime Plot Holes in Movies He Loves, Vol 1

My Cousin Vinny

The opening scene has the the two guys arguing over whether to buy a can of beans costing 31 cents or one costing 32 cents, eventually settling on the 31 cent can because it was not only a penny cheaper, but also because it signaled that they would not fall prey to packaging. Then the Karate Kid grabs a can of tuna for the express purpose of neither pleasure nor flavor, but...protein. Protein! So the stage is set that they are your typically cash-strapped college kids - I mean, shopping for protein? College kids on the road?

AND YET.

A second later the Karate Kid is at the counter ordering an item totally absent of nutritional value while jacked up in price due to it's playful, colorful veneer: a "Slushee."  I mean, wtf?

My Cousin Vinny: J'ACCUSE!!!

Adrienne Rich

Michael Lund's Literary Criticism class was my favorite college class of all time for three reasons:

1) It introduced me to my favorite author, Eric Kraft
2) Although it was the highest level English class at the school, Dr. Lund never missed an opportunity to weave The Muppets into the narrative of whatever we were discussing
3) I was the only dude in a class with 22 girls.

In reviewing a paper I wrote comparing Adrienne Rich to Elaine Showalter and Joanna Smith (the mother from Growing Pains?!?!!), I wrote that Rich would wonder if we should attribute much of Showalter's success to her husband, who was then the head of the Governor's Office for Motion Pictures and Television Developments, whatever that is.

The only reason I bring this up is I had a line that read "Based on her recognizing the luck she herself had been born into, Rich would consider Showalter's success to be a product of being in the write place at the right time."

Dr. Lund wrote a note over write: "a pun?"

For a few moments just now I smugly wondered "hmm, DID i mean the typo as a pun?" and patted my 22 year-old self on the back, which within about 8 seconds devolved from that to "well, no, it was just an honest typo" to "did...did Dr. Lund feel so sorry for me he tried to give me an out, 'um, Xmas, you, ahhhh...surely you meant to do this, right?'"

Sigh. Not as bad as the prof who felt the need to spell out what the word colloquial meant, but still. 

Oh, For Fuck's Sake

Dear Bristol Palin:

As much fun as I have making fun of your mother, I really don't wanna make fun of you. Or any of her kids.  And I REALLY don't wanna make fun of YOUR kid, whateverthefuckhisnameis. So I ask you to please make such a thing even remotely possible for me and NOT post a picture on your blog in which you're JERKING YOUR GODDAM KID OFF!!!!

AAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

Paging Shirley Jackson

I’ve been noticing something recently. All my life, it’s always old people from “The Greatest Generation” that have hectored us young kids, pointing their wrinkled, bony fingers at us about no shortcuts!! Nothing is worth doing without hard work! Slow and steady, don’t cut corners!!

Yet every time I’m at a bodega, there’s 5 of these motherfuckers in line buying 10 lottery tickets each. Wtf? - XMASTIME

I got a Mega Millions ticket. At $640M (so far), what choice do I have? I try to avoid this generally, but about once a year I buy a ticket, rolling my eyes at my own stupidity, and yet by the time I've hit the sidewalk again I'm totaled convinced you know what, I honestly think I'm gonna win this. I mean, there's no reason I shouldn't right? By the time I got back to my loft I'd already decided what I'd buy, whom I'd give how much $$$ to, and whom I'd call up and say "fuck off!" to. Because I am the blogger who can no longer be embarrassed I don't mind telling you people that I honestly shook my head and said, out loud, "hey, I really like my numbers."

And I know that after they've announced the winning numbers and I'm staring at my own losing numbers I'll earnestly shake my head slowly, saying "What the...that shit's fucked up, man."

Sigh. I've turned into my old friend Harry:

EEEEEVery day Harry would check his lotto numbers from the night before, trying to match them with his own and see what he did wrong. “Okay, they have a 12, I chose 14...okay...22, I said 28...” I’m like Harry, it doesn’t matter, it’s completely random! But he insisted he was figuring it all out.

I will reiterate that is you do win, it should be the law that you hafta quit your job. Motherscratcher.

When Virginia Basketball Mattered (aka The Dark Ages)

Some people see March 30, 1981 as the day President Reagan got shot. I see it as the final game Jeff Lamp, Lee Raker and Terry Gates ever played for UVa, beating LSU in the last NCAA Final Four consolation game ever played, somewhat perversely becoming the last team ever to win it's final tourney game without winning the tournament.

Looking on it now, kinda surprised they haven't brought this game back, as I'd be another game to squeeze $$$$$ from tv. You got people sitting around waiting for the Monday night game, why not play the consolation game on Sunday?

Sick, II

I spent all night not being able to sleep, finding it hard to breathe because of my throat. My ears were on fire. Finally at about 7am I decided to pop some of the Aleve I had next to my bed. 20 minutes later I was like gee, why didn't I think of this 7 FUCKING HOURS AGO!?!?!?!!?!?

Sick

One reason I need to find the woman of my dreams and get married is  so I don't die completely alone, curled up under my bed in the dark, naked and crying into a tub of Country Crock  for when I'm sick. I'm sick right now, and sure if I wanted one of my friends to bring me something I need they would, but it's just not the same, is it? I remember when an old girlfriend (no, I mean old as in a long time ago not that she was old!) came to see me after I'd had my wisdom teeth pulled, and she spent hours entertaining me with sock puppets - on the fly, she invented an entire cast of characters and the world they lived in.

Oh, RIGHT - that was ME! I've NEVER had a woman dote on me while I was sick. Grrrr.

Sigh. Always a Sheldon. Never a Penny.

John Lennon Has Good Taste in Fast Food

Which we know from a day he popped up at a radio station in 1974:

Over an entertaining two hours, Lennon spun obscure rock ‘n’ roll records like “Watch Your Step” by Bobby Parker along with newer tunes like ELO’s “Showdown” (he endorsed the band by saying, “I call them Son of Beatles”). He talked about everything from hanging out with the Rolling Stones in the ‘60s and the infamous Beatles “Butcher sleeve” to his love of Burger King Whoppers and his ongoing immigration troubles (“I think there’s certainly room for an odd Lennon or two here”). Along the way, he did station IDs and some funny commercial spots.

Wow du Jour

Mitt Romney:

One of the things I have found in previous elections is that announcing my plans makes people want to vote against me!

I'll be honest - now I am curious re: whats he got up his sleeve if he becomes president. Punching kittens?

SULLIED!

And yes, THIS DOES make me better than you!

Well. It was only an email. The last one, about the blue shirt. And I didn't link to Xmastime, so...ah fuck it.

Schmidt!

Easily the best new sitcom character since Sheldon Cooper, gets some love HERE:

As Schmidt, Greenfield’s impeccable, preeningly over-confident delivery contains an element of realistic performativeness. Schmidt is the guy who says something he thinks is funny and looks around to see if anyone laughed; but he’s also the guy who says something inadvertently funny and has no clue. He is hyper-aware and yet oblivious, a good guy trying to be worse, one extremely anxious about his social standing and yet unconcerned about announcing he owns an Irish walking cape or seducing a girl by talking endlessly about cheese. He is insecure about all of the wrong things.

Points to the author for pointing out Schmidt is the anti-Apatow male. Ha!

The 60's

While we love seeing how much Mad Men has evolved, I would remind everybody that as of June 1, 1966, aka Don's 40th birthday, we were still two months away from Revolver!!!!!!  I mean, jesus.

NCAA FINALS

Also, isn't it ironic that sandwiched between the two greatest upsets in NCAA Final history was a championship game that featured both of the Goliaths that were upset, yet nobody remembers that game at all? Funny. -  XMASTIME

I just now realized that Kentucky and Louisville are meeting in the semifinal; I'd thought there was a chance for them to meet in the Final, which would be the most interesting Finals matchup since...well, two decades ago, when I last watched this shit. Now, to me, any Final will be anticlimactic.

It reminds me of the 1983 Louisville/Houston semi; which, as stunning a finish the Final provided, was WAY better than the Final.

I guess it's not the end of the world. Duke/UNLV 1991 was a semi-final. Duke/KY 1992 wasn't even in the Final Four. Even though Indiana won on a last-second shot in the 1987 Final, it's previous  win over UNLV was more exciting. And I still don't believe it even happened.

Aw, well. Way the shit rolls out I guess.  But while Louisville/KY might be the only game all year I'll have watched from start to finish, I doubt I'll watch a minute of the Final on Monday night.

Don Draper 3.0

Chuck Klosterman on Don Draper's bite being taken out by more and more people knowing his big secret:

That first reinvention no longer matters, because there's no longer any fear that he'll lose everything if his past is exposed. And that was what made Don Draper unstoppable — fear. He stoically lived in wordless fear, and that made him work harder (and better) than all those around him. But that period is over. The fear is gone. The unafraid person we now see might be the human he really is: Kind of lazy, distracted by cheap desires, and unable to reconcile the existential despair of excelling at a profession that's as unreal as the personality he occupied for most of his adult life. 

I for one was slightly surprised last night to find out his new wife knew. But that might be my own hangup, thinking of course Don Draper wouldn't REALLY take this little sex kitten seriously as  confidante. But then, maybe that's the whole point. That Don wouldn't, this Don does. I was also surprised that he was so "whatevs" when Peggy whiffed on Heinz, and like Klosterman did a "rut, Raggy?" (Scooby-Doo voice, NAILed it!) when he showed up late for work.

This is an interesting question:

Think about your most successful friend. Think about how you'd describe this friend to other people, and think about the elements of their personality you'd use to define their character.

Imagine my embarrassment when, after a few moments considering who my most successful friend was, I landed on ME - I actually giggled out loud "of COURSE it's you, silly goose!!"  Like Dick Cheney picking himself for vice-president! I mean let's be for reals - I've met Gordon Ramsay and you didn't, so.

Tebow

Ross Douthat on Tim Tebow:

Why is Tim Tebow such a fascinating and polarizing figure? Not just because he claims to be religious; that claim is commonplace among football stars and ordinary Americans alike. Rather, it’s because his conduct — kind, charitable, chaste, guileless — seems to actually vindicate his claim to be in possession of a life-altering truth. Nothing discredits religion quite like the gap that often yawns between what believers profess and how they live. With Tebow, that gap seems so narrow as to be invisible. He fascinates, in part, because he behaves — at least in public, and at least for now — the way one would expect more Christians to behave if their faith were really true.

Over the last decade or so it's become automatic to assume that the insistence upon how much someone goes on tv claiming to be a Christian is in inverse proportion to how they actually ACT as Christians, be it politicians "I love Jesus, I'm the greatest Christian in the world and oh by the way only rich people should have healthcare and why the fuck are we not bombing more countries already?" or athletes thanking God whenever they score a td and then make fun of Tebow before going home and being assholes. I'm sure with the crazy 24/7 media hounding him, eventually Tebow will be caught saying or doing something stupid that allows us to knock him off his pedestal and pat ourselves on the backs "he's no better than us!", but in the meantime it's impossible not to think this guy really believes what he says. I have no problem at all believing that as I type this, Tebow is working the phones trying to save 6 more orphans before he goes to bed, or whatever it is that good, productive people do in a working society. I've always been a Tebow guy, I'd take him on my team in a heartbeat, and I like that his God-Squadiness serves to balance out my own atheism. Only one of us can be right, but there's also only one of us doing anything worth a damn to help out anyone else, so.

(I also like Douthat painting him as the anti-Lebron. Ha! Eff you, Bron Bron!!!!) 

Worlds Colliding

Like everyone I've seen Pulp Fiction 9000 times, but I only today noticed this line from Uma Thurman on her would-be character from a sitcom she was in a pilot for:

"And she knew a zillion old jokes her grandfather, an old vaudevillian, taught her. If we woulda got picked up, they woulda worked in a gimmick where every episode I woulda told a joke."

Which I assume is a knowing wink from Tarantino on Travolta's old show, as I mentioned here only recently.

Favorite Bit Character du Jour

Kev from Shameless. Every time that dude walks onscreen I smile.

Today's Inconsequential Player on NCAA Title Teams

Meet Chris Gettelfinger, from the 1978 Kentucky team that beat Duke for the NCAA title. In four years Chris played in 36 games and scored ta-da!...28 points. His best season was his junior year when he tore up the SEC with an even dozen points; then he evidently decided to take his foot off the gas his senior year by lowering that total to 8.  "Hey, it's a young man's game, let's the kids have some of the glory!" he probably said, before playing Russell Crowe's whacky British roommate in A Beautiful Mind.

I'm Just Saying.

I think people would be a lot more impressed with me if they knew that when I'm just hanging around the house I always have a black three-piece suit on.

March 26, 1979

Bird/Magic has reached its Jesus Year.

More than 35 percent of all TV sets turned on that night were tuned to Magic and Bird. It was like a Christmas present in March, and it’s something that could never happen today. We’d know everything about an undefeated team featuring any player as talented as Bird. A 6-foot-9 white kid from small-town Indiana who had driven a garbage truck and who had run from Bob Knight during a freshman year spent briefly at Indiana? Are you kidding?

"OH MY GOD, How White Are These People?" du Jour

Not quite the Holy Grail of this, but close.

Xmastime Declareth

Anytime Neil Degrasse Tyson goes on tv, it should be against the law to not watch.

Close Enough.

The other day I mused thusly:

Bruce is playing Tampa tonight. I wonder if he opened with 41 Shots.

Now the word is in:

Following the Apollo Medley and the "world's oldest living crowd-surfer," Bruce and the band began "American Skin (41 Shots)." The performance was offered without comment, but it was patently obvious that the killing of Travyon Martin was the impetus for the song's appearance, with this show the band's only visit to Florida during the first leg of the tour. In a show full of peaks, "American Skin" was the standout performance, starting as a slow burn before exploding with a Nils Lofgren guitar solo and ending with the band building behind Bruce repeating the "you can get killed just for living in your" lyric.

Also, is it even possible to write anything gayer than "I mused thusly"? Magic 7-ball says "HELL NO, QUEER"

Things I've Noticed, by Xmastime

I noticed that the only time Betty Draper was even remotely likable last season was when she was on the phone, finding out Sally had tickets to see The Beatles.

JESUS...is there NOTHING The Beatles cannot save???!!!

Progress. We've Done It.

Since the day I was born not only have seismic shifts in technology exploded exponentially, but things that we can even DREAM about have changed so much they're unrecognizable to the dreams of 12 year-old me.  Coming from a world of the landline, record player and Sears catalog, of course there's no way I could've imagined that one day we'd all be walking around yakking on phones the size of our palms that also included every song ever recorded, all while jerking off to mother/daughter Asian bukkake porn. Not only did these things not exist, but I couldn't have IMAGINED them existing. Of COURSE back then I couldn't have imagined a world wherein we'd watch tv shows when and where we wanted to; nor could I have dreamed it possible we could look up our own life history on something called "Facebook."

HOWEVER.

No matter how different a world today is compared to the one that I knew as a kid, there is a single question that would be beyond laughable to a 12 year-old me, one question that, no matter what dystopia/science fiction set of possibilities you presented to me in 1984, would be met with a look of "are you fucking kidding me?", and that question would be:

Why are there so few dunks in women's basketball?

HAHAHAHAHAAHAHA!  1984 mind, blown!!!!!!!

Today in Xmastime History

Kids in Philly release party!!!!!!!!!!!!

State du Moi, Updated

As I once did with a photo, I feel like I am waiting for that one email that will change my life. - XMASTIME

Looks like the Onion is on to my sorry ass.

The Funniest Big Bang Theory Characters, In Order

Sheldon: When do you evacuate your bowels?
Leonard: When I have to.
Sheldon: When you have to? I'm sorry, I don't rent to hippies.

Sheldon (duh - may be in the top 5 sitcom characters of all time pantheon, behind only Archie, George, and Alex P. Keaton. Favorite quote HERE.)
Howard (five-tool player)
Amy Farrah Fowler (can she just fucking roofee Penny already?)
Howard's mother (never seen onscreen, always on the shitter)
Sheldon's mother (aka Jackie from Roseanne, Jesus freak)
Bernadette (hysterical when she morphs into Howard's mother)
Raj
Penny
Leonard (aka David from Roseanne. Rarely funny.)
Darlene from Roseanne (too fugly to be funny)

Turn On the News

Just like the way I've fought against people trying to make The Beatles John, I've always fought to make sure people realize that Husker Du wasn't just Bob Mould. Dude was lucky to be in a band with Grant Hart. Period. - XMASTIME

You people already know I Ioves me some Grant Hart, and now I see the guy who made the Replacements movie Color Me Obsessed is now making a movie about ta-da!...Grant Hart!

With Grant Hart as the only interview subject, EVERY EVERYTHING will tell the story of his life, from his beginnings, through his days in Hüsker Dü, and up to the present.  In this feature-length documentary you'll learn his influences, his obsessions, his loves, his passions, his art, his music, and everything in between, leaving no stone unturned.  For the first time ever, you'll hear everything about Grant Hart as told by Grant Hart -- the good, the bad, and the ugly.  Think of it as a rock 'n' roll FOG OF WAR!

Hmm. I read Fog of War. Hopefully this is more melodic.

Will he look to complete the mid-80s Twin Cities sacred trifecta by making the next one about Soul Asylum?

(cue RTHUR, YES ladies, THAT RRTHUR: "eeeewww, Soul Aslym sucks! They sold out! And the Stones are better than The BEatles, cause Im retarded!!!!!")

Top Ten Grant Hart Superslices:
Terms of Psychic Warfare
Old Empire
Turn on the News
Pink Turns to Blue
Books about UFOs
Keep Hanging On
Sorry Somehow
Green Eyes
Flexible Flyer
Last Days of Pompeii

In Case You Were Worried I Had a Pair of Testicles...

...I just realized I'm watching a show on PBS about the life of Millie Benson, aka Carolyn Keene, the woman who wrote most of the earliest Nancy Drew books.

Sigh. QUITE a life I'm putting together over here.

Trayvon Martin

Bruce is playing Tampa tonight. I wonder if he opened with 41 Shots.

Network Pitch

The four Bronté children who lived past age 11 included Emily, who wrote Wuthering Heights, Charlotte, who wrote Jane Eyre, and Anne, who was the overshadowed Ted Kennedy of the family while writing Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall before dying at 29.

AND.

The lone dude: Branwell, who toiled in his sisters' shadows as a "painter," and "causal worker" - needless to say if he was around today he'd be a "dj." Also needless to say, he drove himself to death via alcoholism, presumably due to a mix of his sister's crushing success and, worse, being called "Branwell."

Are you telling me you can't turn this into a sitcom?

The Bronté sisters' beaux come calling, oh oh, Branwell gets them mixed up! BOOM! Here comes the sangria!!!!! OH-OH, Jane Austen (artistic license here, of course) and Dickens show up and make fun of all of them for not being prolific and dying from doo-doo in the drinking water, BOOM!

I mean, the shit writes itself.

Homework

Here's 42 home recipes for famous foods, since of course you'd rather spend 4 hours making Chips Ahoy cookies than the 2 seconds it takes to buy them...yes, of COURSE I trust my homemade A-1 Sauce to the real thing!!!

Incredibly this list includes the once-Holy Grail of secrets, Kentucky Fried Chicken!!!, which they claim to be:

 1 frying chicken, cut into frying pieces
 1 1/2 cups flour
 1 Pkt. (dry) Good Seasons Italian Dressing (THE 11 herbs and spices!)
 1 Envelope Lipton (or other brand) Tomato Cup of Soup
 2 eggs, well beaten
 2/3 cup milk
 Vegetable oil to cover bottom of your skillet; about 1/2 inch deep.

 1. Combine eggs and milk. Set aside.
 2. Combine flour with the Italian dressing and soup mix.
 3. Dip chicken pieces in milk-egg mixture and roll them in the
 flour-seasoning mixture. Repeat procedure.
 4. Fry pieces over medium heat for 25 to 30 minutes, turning often.
 5. Remove from fire. Drain and serve.

Must say, I did not see the Tomato Soup coming (thatswhatshesaidOHMYGODitotallyjustmadethatup!!!)

Just When You Thought There Couldn't Possibly Be Another Reason to Think George Bush was a Shitty President...

...his decade spent unleashing a culture of war/torture et al might be responsible for a rise in what may be my least favorite genre in all of literature: dystopian.

Ugh. Thanks, AGAIN, Dubyanutz.

Here We Go Again

Apparently there's been a Twitter hoax claiming Paul McCartney is dead, similar to the infamous "Paul is Dead" rumors from over forty years ago. I don't wanna be a "things were better back in the olden days" guy, but I will say that getting a real rumor like that back in the late 60's was way more impressive - you not only had to put in the work to get the rumor going, but if you were on the receiving end it probably took a coupla days to find out the truth. Now it takes about 4 seconds to click a button to spread the rumor to millions, and about 2 seconds to find out if it's true or not.

Sigh. So, we can now add "creating a hoax that the bass player from The Beatles is dead" to the list of things my generation sucks at that already includes assassinations, racism-fueled violence, serial murderers, and pickpocketing. For fuck's sake, we're not even good at blackouts anymore. Is there no pride left in this world of ours? That makes me sad. See:  :(

Xmastime Regrets

I just stumbled upon Lars and the Real Girl, which I'd never seen before, and now I'm pissed. Why didn't I come up with this idea? Then I'd always have a hot girl who'd sit and happily listen to me blather on and on 24/7. Fucking hell.

So to sum up, as I'm approaching 40 years old, I wish I was 1) dating a blow-up doll and 2) a priest.

Sigh. Quite a fucking life I'm putting together here.

Gregg the Bounty Hunter

Gregg Williams is a god to fans of his teams, and I know how that works, but I had him pegged as an asshole years ago.

Rock n Roll

Here's an argument re: which of these five songs was the first rock 'n roll song?

I'll be honest - I thought the answer was The Strokes' Last Night, but it's not even on the list, so fuck me already.

TV or Not TV, That Is the Question.

Boy, watching tv has really changed, ain't it? Remember when you were a kid, and if you missed a special or a movie you had no idea if you'd ever get to see it again? "Well, that's that!" you pictured the tv execs saying after the movie was over as they loaded it into a cannon and shot it to Saturn. When I was in 8th grade my friend Ryan told me that he had "Rock n Roll High School" on VHS at his house - I hyperventilated for days, counting the seconds til I could get over to his house for a viewing. Of course I get there and...had been taped over. Devestated. My one chance ever to see my gods on film for 2 hours, gone forever.- XMASTIME

Dude HERE updates how watching tv has changed even in the four years since I wrote the above post. Whack.

Questions. I Have Them.

I moved to Brooklyn on January 1, 1998, and since then the Yankees have won 1,368 regular season games for a winning percentage of .603. They've been in the playoffs 13 out of those 14 seasons, won the AL East 11 of those years, won the pennant 6 times and the World Series 4 times.

Two seasons before I moved here the Baltimore Orioles, one of baseball's most storied franchises, won the AL East. They'd been to the playoffs in consecutive years, and were only 3 years from their own Cal Ripken Jr single-handedly saving baseball. Since the moment I planted my flag as a Yankees fan, the Orioles have won 990 games for a miserable .437 winning percentage. They've won less than 70 games 7 times, including the last 5 years, and have not once won 80 games in a single season since I've been here.

Now, as I said before, if Op gets eaten by a snake (God forbid!), I will make myself an O's fan out of loyalty to Big Bear. But right, upon thinking of the recent, horrible fortunes of the once-mighty Orioles, I can only think one thing:

Is it me?

You Don't Want My Fucking Problems.

A coupla nights ago I had my "fuck it, one last blowout before I get serious again about my diet" (destroyed minutes ago by a vending machine cheeseburger, thanks to Free Pizza Friday switching to Mr. Fucking Softee Friday at the office, grrrr), so I got a chicken empanada with cheese from a truck outside my building. Next thing I knew, the guy was foisting FIVE FUCKING EMPENADAS on me - chicken, pork, veggie, etc.  - totally free for my taking. As the truck is brand new to the neighborhood, he wanted me to sample his wares and become a regular customer as well as spread the word among my other hopefully overweight, fried food-addicted friends. So now I feel stuck - obviously he's expecting me to come back after all the freebies, but I can't, as I've knocked "deep fried street food" off my list of shit to eat. And since I'm not made of money I can't just buy one every day or so and then toss it. What the fuck? Could this have been a case of the worst timing in the world? Where was all this free shit when I couldn't give less of a fuck about losing weight (ie, the 90s/00s)? Now I know every time I walk outside my building the guy is eyeballing me and thinking I'm a fucking prick, just like anyone who leaves a bar right after a buyback (if those even exist anymore.)

FUUUUUUUCK!!!

State du Moi

I'm thinking about getting a haircut and a new pair of jeans this weekend.

Easy - don't start that "oh but Xmastime, you're evolving so quickly, leaving us all in your wake!" bullshit. I'm still me. I still put my pants on like anyone else: one leg at a time. Then I leave my hogballz out for all to enjoy. Then I croon How Much for that Dogie in the Window? before spinning in circles until I'm unconscious. I'm still me.

XMASTIME: A Status Update

For the life of me, I can't remember the last time I saw an episode of Hannah Montana. Wtf?

Previous HM love HERE.

Self Awareness

I know I'm a bit down in the dumps when I order a cheeseburger from McDonalds and don't even bother saying no ketchup.  "You get what you deserve, shithead." Sigh.

Oy Vey

Until I moved to NYC, a bagel to me meant a frozen Lender's bagel from the grocery store; I can still remember my shock in 1998 at Andrew's Deli on 5h Avenue in 1998 when I ordered a bagel and was handed an untoasted one.

ANYhoo, the Lender guy died today.

Okay, You've Suffered Long Enough

Blah Blah Blah, Wildly Waving My Hands in the Air While Shouting at the TV

There was a recent time when Republicans running for office ran away from George Bush. And yet today, the popular thing within the GOP the seems to be to double down on his greatest hits.

Bush got us into the two most unpopular wars of all time not made by George Lucas in the 1990s, Iraq and Afghanistan, which we're apparently STILL fucking around with. And yet if you're a "conservative" now you need to be chomping at the bit to bomb the fuck out of Iran, Syria, Pakistan, and anywhere else you can find a map that doesn't have the word REAGAN stamped on it.

Bush gave us the Bush Tax Cuts (insert Lou Gehrig's disease joke here) that, along with his two wars, helped destroy the economy; meanwhile one look at Paul Ryan or any other Republican's "ideas", and the main gist seems to be "you know, the original Bush tax cuts really hurt the economy and all, sure, but I feel like if we really focus on not only re-hashing them but making them even WORSE for 99% of Americans, we can REALLY drive this economy into the dirt and bury it once and for all! Also, I don't understand math!!"

On the other side of things, it's astonishing to think that ten years ago Bush had hopes of procuring the ever-growing Latino vote for the GOP. Now? Not only do they actively say "fuck you!" to Latinos (see Zona, Ari), but have decided to double down by also saying fuck you to women. Well done, geniuses.

But then, 50 million people in November will vote for whoever the GOP candidate is, so there ya go. As usual my hyperventilating is laughably useless, and I'd be better off posting old Garfield strips.

But I won't, cause I'm a ballbuster!

TV Vetter (Watching Horrible TV Shows So You Don't Have To)

BENT

He's a irresponsible slacker surfer in his thirties who lives at home with his dad and whose claim to fame is treating women like shit and having a gambling addiction, so OF COURSE she hires him to redo her kitchen while taking all of her strength to not bend over and present her scent to him despite being a very successful attorney and, you know, LOOKING LIKE AMANDA FUCKING PEETE!!!!

AAAAARRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!

HERE we go - minutes into meeting her he repeatedly berates her about what a joyless stick-in-the-mud she is, dropping sexual innuendo about every 4 seconds, and of course instead of firing him or telling him to get to work and shut the fuck up she "spars" with him with something I guess the writers think is "repartee." GEE, she's dating a doctor who's an uptight, responsible stick-in-the-mud whom our hero the irresponsible slacker king (ISK) makes fun of and tells her they're never gonna have sex, which she refutes but OH GEE BIG SHOCKER, they don't have sex. And oh yeah, much like many female attorneys, she seems to have all the time in the world to hang around her house in the middle of the day while ISK berates her. Of course! GEE, LET ME guess, will our girl come to realize "gee, he's right, I really need to loosen up!!!"?? If I was a genius I might guess that an upcoming scene has her ditching an important meeting with a client to go surfing with him, but gee, I just can't crack the calculus of this show!!!!!

This isn't a Sam & Diane/Dave & Maddie "will they or won't they?" thing, this is a "how long are they gonna make us suffer through horrible 'repartee' (again!) before they just shut the fuck up and do it already?" thing. For fuck's sake, do the "I hate you!" "Not as much as I hate you!" slap and then kiss scene alfuckingready. Christ.

And what are they gonna do when the job, which I would think would only be a few weeks, is over? LET ME GUESS - have him around permanently, which isn't even original a la Murphy Brown.

Another thing is I spent half the pilot thinking that ISK was a scruffied-up Dylan from Modern Family (he's not), which only served to remind me of a truly great show, which made Bent look, incredibly, even worse, much like when Futurama first came out and you thought "Gee, this looks like The Simpsons...now THAT'S  a great show...which I'd much rather be watching, as a matter of fact..."


REDEEMABLE QUALITIES: Inexplicably, the cast includes Leon from Curb Your Enthusiasm and Landry from Friday Night Lights; hopefully the writers will wise up and instead of spending so much time on the main turds will say fuck it, let's focus more on Leon/Landry, much in the same way Will and Grace the main characters were insufferable but Jack and whatever the mean woman's name was were pretty funny. It's not a great sign when any time your two lead characters walk onscreen there's an audible groan from the audience. Also, like everyone else on the planet I loves me some Jeffrey Tambor, but after two episodes I already feel like his over-the-topness is eye-rolling and exhausting.

THE ONE GOOD LINE: Some woman in ISK's Gambling Anonymous group saying the LA Clippers were her trigger.

I'll give this a few more tries, only to see if more time shifts to the rest of the cast. I'll keep you posted.

TV Vetter (Watching Horrible TV Shows So You Don't Have To)

BFF

This show is 22 minutes of what writers in tv land seem to think encompass all humans:

Men like chili! And walking around the house naked! And playing video games! And get annoyed with "lady stuff!" laying around the house!

Women are whacky!  And will upend their lives in a SECOND to move across country to curl up on the couch, watching Steel Magnolias over and over! And are so overwhelmed by their men ditching them they forget to wear bras and don't have clean underwear! Of course!

This show is so unfunny that after a few minutes I actually thought well, maybe it's not even a sitcom, but a drama. The guide told me otherwise. This thing is so shitty it took seven minutes in for the writers to say fuck it, let's plant a fat "sassy, oh no she di'nt!!" 9 year-old black girl on the stoop who somehow not only has a relationship with two white women in their thirties wherein they freely hurl insults to each other, but apparently did as far back as three eyars ago as a 6 year-old as well. Of course.


REDEEMABLE QUALITIES: None. Zero.

I will not be watching another episode of this, you're on your own.

LOL du Jour

The ratio of fake laughs to genuine LOLs on a daily basis is approximately 70,000 to 1, so I was pleasantly surprised to be caught off guard earlier today by the deli guy at Foodtown:

XMASTIME: Can you make me a sandwich, please?
DELI GUY: Poof! You're a sandwich.

Ha!

Watchable Picture du Jour (Baiting Filmvetter)

I'm not saying it's Citizen Kane or it breaks the record for movie greatness, but Celtic Pride deserves more than the 1 & 1/2 stars the guide on my tv gives it.

Previous love HERE.

Diet Update

I spent the holidays stuffing my face  ("the holidays" being from Thanksgiving til the first day of Spring, of course), so I've been dreading stepping back on the scale. Totally deporessed about what I'd see. Finally this morning I said fuck it and decided to get serious again, and it turns out that I've STILL lost weight since the holidays!  Merely by not eating like I was once able to means I'm still losing weight. I am now at my "lightest" in ten years, and only 8 pounds away from being my "lightest" since, I believe, college. I still have a long ways to go, but this is a little possitive boost I need to reach the next goal.

Jesus - HOW THE FUCK BIG WAS I?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!

Heeeeeeeeeeey, It's Franklin

3) August 16, 1995 – the day I moved to Oxford. How the fuck I stayed there for over 2 years is a mystery. I lived with Ryan in an apartment on Christman Drive; right next door to us were two typical Ole Miss frat fucks, but one interesting thing about them is that along with their two dogs, they had a pig. And, EXACTLY like that movie, the pig thought he was a dog, that he was “one of the guys.” Whenever I’d drive up the driveway, the 2 dogs would come tearing around the corner furiously to check out the action, and then….about 7 seconds later the pig would come chasing, belly swinging as he’d try to keep up, trying to look as angry as the dogs. “What the fuck’s up, guys!??!” Later in the evening I’d see them out in the yard trying to look like street toughs on a stoop, waiting for cars or people to come by to heckle, and you knew the pig was Horshack to the dogs’ Barbarino and Washington. Awesome. - XMASTIME

I am usually loathe to use the word "cute" because doing so insinuates I'm queer, but if I hafta do so I can think of no greater application than when referencing a pig who hangs out at a hardware store, and doesn't really like pigs:

Franklin, the pig who hangs out at Crest Hardware in Williamsburg. Crest is known for being more than just a place to buy lightbulbs and twine; every summer it runs a local arts show called Crest Fest. But Franklin is a relatively new addition, and people seem to love him. Franklin, who is neutered, has no pig friends (except on Facebook) and prefers the company of dogs that look like him.

Awesome. It's just down the street and I've been there many time, but I've never noticed a pig in clothes chillaxing there.  I think tomorrow I'll come up with an excuse to drop by, n'est-pas?

It's Official:

Albert Brooks is my favorite Tweeter who isn't a cobra thats escaped from the Bronx Zoo.

Happy Birfday Big Bear!!!!

It was six years ago tonight, almost to this very minute:

...which makes me think about when he was born, and the fact that it gave birth (sic) to what I still think was my greatest moment, yet got ZERO LAUGHS.

Minutes after he was born, his pop brought him out to meet us all. Blah blah blah. Then the two of them got on an elevator to go downstairs. For something, I have no idea what. There were maybe 10 of us, and we're all just kinda standing there watching them get on the elevator, and about 2 minutes later we're all still standing there, chatting or whatever, and the elevator door opens. And standing there is some kid, looks to be about 10 or 12. Everybody's just kinda standing there looking at him, and finally I say "Jesus christ...how the fuck long have we been standing here?"

ZERO LAUGHS!!! My greatest line ever, nuthin. ZERO!!!!

And yet every single time I buy beer or liquor, the clerk says "Have a good night" and, almost as an impulse at this point, I say "I will now." And it's a guaranteed laugh. If I've done that one 500 times, it's gotten 500 laughs.

Hmm. Life, eh? A big ol bag of nuts.

HAPPY BIRFDAY BIG BEAR!

So Fucking Sue Me.

Right now, at this moment, I feel like my hair is at it's exact perfect length. There, I said it. So fucking sue me.

Me. I'm Really Happening.

I just accidentally sprayed deodorant in my face.

Oh, For Fuck's Sake

I'm at a loss as to why everyone's squeamish about the Jets courting Peyton Manning because it might hurt Mark Sanchez' feelings. What the fuck? Now, as you know I hate the Jets with a passion bordering on the absurd, and personally I'd think Peyton would hafta be out of his mind to come play for an ass-clown like  Chris Christie  Rex Ryan.  But to think Sanchez will curl up into the fetal position and suck his thumb while clinging to his Hello Kitty blanket if the Jets flirt with Manning is insane.  First of all, how many fucking times do we hafta hear "hey, it's a business" during any of these dealings? Secondly, Mark Sanchez is a PROFESSIONAL ATHLETE. Professional athletes are pretty famous for having rather healthy egos. On top of that, he is a fucking NFL QUARTERBACK. NFL quarterbacks, last I checked, have rather healthy egos. Lastly, we're talking about a guy who was told by his college coach to not leave college because he wasn't ready for the NFL and he said fuck it, I'm going anyway.

If the Jets wanna go for Peyton Manning, they should go for Peyton Manning. As far as I can see, Mark Sanchez' feelings are the least of their problems. For fuck's sake.

Rushbo, Cont.

Interesting that Bill Maher, who famously got booted off a sponsored tv channel for his 9/11 comments and now has a show with no sponsors, says this in defense of Rush Limbaugh:

Similarly, Sully is miffed at people demanding sponsors pull their ads from Rush's show:

It's a free country, but I get queasy with boycotts to target disgusting but free speech....The right way to counter his speech, in my view, is with speech, not threats to his livelihood.

I don't understand any problem with sponsors pulling out of anybody's show. It's not Rush Limbaugh's "right" to get millions of dollars from corporations if they don't want to give them to him. Isn't this the "free market" that "conservatives" pretend to fetishize? As with Sarah Palin and Dr. Laura, free speech means freedom from government intervention, it doesn't mean freedom from economic consequences. Companies are as free to decide who whom they give their money to as you and I are to choose who we listen to on the radio.

As for "The right way to counter his speech, in my view, is with speech, not threats to his livelihood", using social media or a cell phone et al to denounce Limbaugh IS countering "with speech"; the results vis-a-vis his livelihood are up to the companies themselves.

All that said, it's hypocritical to pat ourselves on the back for finally standing up to Rush in 2012 after about 20 years of putting up with his shit, especially since once the fuss dies down the sponsors will quietly go back to funding him (how many of them claim to have "erroneously" bought ad time from him "without realizing it" in the first place? I mean, REALLY?) Do we really think his Sandra Fluke stuff is even in his Top 10, if we really looked?

Controversy Starting To Take Effect on Rush, Here He Is Pushing Himself Away from Shoney's Breakfast Buffet

Bird & Magic

But Bird and Magic were pure rivals. They were nearly the same height, turned pro the same year, and were so inflamed to beat each other that it pushed both of them to heights they might not have otherwise reached. Combined, they won eight NBA titles and six MVPs.

Having absolutely worn out the HBO OnDemand Magic & Larry doc (which I have begged everyone to watch over the years, whether or not they even like basketball) to the point of memorizing it, I'm excited to see The Announcement Sunday night on ESPN, about the 20 years since Magic announced his having HIV. Here's a great interview with them and Rick Reilly.

Magic: I was depressed all that one summer (of 1984, after his Lakers lost in the Finals to Bird's Celtics in seven games). I was miserable. I sat in the dark a lot. I mean, a lot. I only went outside the house to go to the gym. I felt it was my fault for making some bad mistakes that cost us that series.

Reilly: Where? Where did you sit in the dark?

Magic: Just in my living room, going over the game, going over every play. 'Cause that's what you do when you lose. You sit and think about it. And the headlines were calling me "Tragic Magic."

Bird (laughing): I wrote them headlines!

Magic: If you didn't, you found somebody who would've!

Bird (laughing): Man, I had a great summer!

Oh, Really - Watermelon? REALLY??!?!

Show Me That Smile Again (Oh, Show Me That Smile)

Kirk Cameron has been taking a lot of shit for saying something about gay people being unnatural or are a pile of turds or whatever, but what everybody's forgetting is that this is Kirk Cameron's wife.  I mean, gotdam - lookit them chompers! So please, people, a little respect.

More Bad News for Rush Limbaugh as He's Caught Miming Sandra Fluke Sucking the Biggest Penis in the World

"I Cannot Tell a Lie...McNuggets are Fucking AWESOME!!!"

And I'll say it once again: someone has to explain to me why McDonalds isn't running the country.  If all the money in the world suddenly disappeared from the universe, McDonalds would STILL increase their profits for the quarter.  Fucking a.  Hell, they're so great they almost got me a boyfriend once!!!! - XMASTIME

I've long mused about how most Chicken McNuggets are shaped like the United States, therein proving how patriotic McDonalds is (and that they should be running the country.) Now we find a woman who has found a McNugget that represents McDonalds looking to take their love of America to the next level: a McNugget shaped like the very father of this country:

Rebekah Speight of Dakota City sold the McNugget to raise money for a drive to raise $15,000 and send 50 children to summer church camp in Sioux City. She did not disclose who won the auction.

Ms Speight says her children didn't eat the chicken during a McDonald's visit three years ago. She was about to toss it, then spotted Washington's resemblance. Ms Speight stashed the McNugget in her freezer. 

God Bless America. And God Bless McDonalds.  Not necessarily in that order.


How McNuggets have become our own Middle East HERE.


And the solution to this problem HERE.


You're fucking welcome, Earth.

RIP du Jour

A coupla months ago I posted about stumbling upon a documentary on the Sherman Brothers, who wrote pretty much every Disney song you've heard, and today I see that Robert Sherman has died.

On a side note, he was Wendy Liebman’s father-in-law. Always had a thing for her. Plus, her 1996 stand-up special for HBO has to be the longest-running such special, no? Thing has been coming on every other day for 16 years. Lookit them chompers - nom nom nom!

Do All Great Presidents Like Women's Sports?

One of the more interesting things about The Sports Guy’s interview with President Obama, other than Obama  single-handedly taking credit for the White Sox winning in 2005, Jeremy Lin, Blake Griffin, and Neapolitan ice cream,  is how often he brings up girl’s sports; presumably because he has two daughters. Which I found interesting, since our last great president always seemed to be itching to get back to the residence to watch a girl’s college softball or volleyball game on ESPN 17 or whatever.

Of course, to be fair, Bush had his moments too.

Missed an American Tragedy

Presumably because I'm in the midst of an "everything that leads up to WI because of Downton Abbey" mania the rest of the world is too; here's a list of seven famous people that were supposed to be on the Titanic but missed it. One is Theodore Dreiser, who wrote an Xmastime superslice of superslices, An American Tragedy.


Interestingly enough, there were thousands of fucking nobodies that also missed it.

Drama

Vulture is running a “What’s the best drama of the last 25 years?” tournament. Why is Beverly Hills 90210 not on this list? My Final Four:

SOPRANOS vs. FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS

WEST WING vs. MAD MEN

Downton Abbey du Jour

Apparently today is the final day you can stream Season 2 online. Now we gotta wait ten months for Season 3, which makes me sad. See:  :(

10 THINGS I HOPE TO SEE IN SEASON 3:
- Branson has died an ugly, horrible death, leaving Sybil Xmastime single and "hornier than ever!."
- Cora's voice finally changes to an adult one. Hell, I'll even take "child" over "baby" voice.
- The writers finally go all-in with the "Edith is so pitiful she'll desperately accept any man who'll have her" trope and set her up with this lovely chap.
- Anna gives Bates the "now that you're in prison for life I think it's time we see other people" speech, Bates says something oh-so-Batesy like "thus it should be so" and immediately gets raped by the prison guards.
- Matthew and Mary have a sex tape "leaked," Mary blasts all the h8rs on her Twitter.
- Daisy accidentally invents the baby egg roll, makes billions of dollars and tells Mrs. Patmore "it's been real, fatty!" while peeling out in her souped-up Model T with flames painted on the side, immediately runs over William's creepy dad. "Beep beep!"
- Nobody explains it or even acknowledges it, but suddenly Steve Buschemi as Nucky Thompson is seen in the background, giving a pile of tommy guns to Thomas.
- Lord Grantham invests his entire fortune in the Chicago Cubs. "This team is gonna win a ton of World Series titles, ka--ching$$$$!"
- Sir Richard shows up outside Mary's window blaring In Your Eyes from his Victrola, Mary for a second is swayed by this until remembering oh yeah, Matthew is the dreamiest guy in the world and has a miracle spine that defies the laws of science.
- Lady Violet says something LOL funny every time the camera points to her, someone says "hey, you should do open mic night at The Chuckle Hut!", she does and bombs spectacularly and spends the rest of the series mumbling with absolutely no self-assurance.