Normally, I am rarely at a loss for words.  Yet, it’s taken me awhile to process everything I’ve been feeling since I found out Peter Steele passed away on April 14, 2010.  I kept putting off writing something because I hadn’t quite mentally sorted through everything just yet.

On one hand, it feels strange to be so affected by the death of someone I had never met and never really knew. Particularly, since I have been (and still am, to a degree) affected by the deaths of people who I have known and loved.  However, you can not know someone and still understand where they are coming from. And at the same time, someone you never met can still impact your life in a myriad of ways. 

For me (and for a lot of other people, I’m sure), music has always been a big part of my life.  My father was a musician and he and my mother were in a band together.  Some of the strongest friendships I’ve forged have been because of a shared love of certain bands.  Other friends who I’ve bonded with through work or other ventures, I later find out that our musical tastes overlap.  Conversely, I’ve experienced times where I’ve disliked a certain band or artist because a total douchebag was a rabid fan.  (Admittedly, this is pretty unfair to a band or artist and it’s one of those “stupid kid things” you learn to move past later on and appreciate something regardless of who digs it.)

With that in mind, there’s a certain mindset that goes along with being a music fan.  There’s something about a particular artist that speaks to you as a person and resonates with you.  It’s cathartic and therapeutic at the same time to hear someone else say so many things that you’re thinking, only put so much more eloquently than you ever could. 

For this reason, Peter Steele’s music with Type O Negative had stuck with me over the years.  It was my friend Nicole who had gotten me into the band during my Freshman year of high school.  Back in 1994, I had only heard two of Type O’s albums: Bloody Kisses and The Origin of the Feces.  (I grew up in a relatively small city. In the years before the internet, it was pretty hard to track down anything that wasn’t radio rock at even the best of local record stores.  It wasn’t until years later that I heard Slow, Deep and Hard, which was essentially a non-”live” version of Origin of the Feces.) 

The albums were the polar opposite of one another, yet both really hit me in different ways.  Bloody Kisses was just so lush and beautiful… Like a soundtrack to an extended orgasm.  You had synthesizer that actually sounded cool, songs that went on forever intertwining intimacy and kink all in the same breath, and of course, Peter Steele’s throaty baritone presiding over the entire sonic ceremony. 

On the flipside, Origin of the Feces had me on the title alone.  Anything containing even the vaguest reference to poop was sheer brilliance to me.  (It still is. In the words of It’s Always Sunny’s Frank Reynolds: “Poop’s funny!”)  An EP, Feceswas as close to brevity that Type O got, but there was nothing orgasmic about it.  It was pure, raw anger – particularly anger born of rejection.  It spoke volumes to me about all of the angst, lust, and other teenage emotions toying with my hormones.  At the time, I was 14 and had never been in anything even remotely resembling a romantic relationship.  I was a dateless she-horndog who had failed miserably at trying to get guys in my grade to go to the mall with me — even after offering to Super Size their dinner on my dime.  The inevitable, soul-crushing rejection was only magnified by dudes flaunting their crushes on other girls in front of me. 

Although I hadn’t experienced the trauma of having had someone cheat on me at the time, I rewound “I Know You’re Fucking Someone Else” (more genteely referred to as “Unsuccessfully Coping With the Natural Beauty of Infidelity” on Slow, Deep, and Hard) repeatedly on that cassette tape.  Rejection was still rejection.  The feeling was still the same in spite of the circumstances behind it – like, if that dude you liked was holding hands with some other chick in the locker hall.

Even though there was one teeny-tiny phrase on the song where I thought Pete sounded a little sad that his ex was boning someone else, the rest of it was the most brutal verbal assault ever;  a brilliant example of how ugly love can be when it turns to hate.  It was like Peter Steele was some sort of Spirit of Vengeance that spoke for every person — dude or chick —that had ever been scorned as he spat out awesome explitive after explitive at the slut/whore/cunt who betrayed him. It was just 15 minutes of unadulterated rage that I could rewind until I got it out of my system…That is, until I moved onto the next logical emotion stemming from rejection: Self-loathing, which was rather succinctly covered on “Gravity” (yet another song and emotion I had become well-acquainted with).

Shortly after I discovered those albums, October Rust and Peter’s Playgirlpictoral were released around the same time.  I remember heading to the mall to purchase both.  I had a much harder time scoring a copy of Playgirl than I did October Rust, however.  Not being of legal age, I spackled on even more makeup than I usually wore to appear old enough to get my sticky little hands on that plastic-wrapped piece of the Unholy Grail.  I would not be denied. 

Now, it was more than just Peter Steele’s darkly elegant voice and treatises on love, hate, and everything in between keeping me company on those dateless high school nights.  I had some primo pornographic imagery to “spin records” to, as well. (Incidentally, I still saved that issue of Playgirl and it is a cherished part of the collection of relics from my past. You will have to pry it from my cold, dead hands when my time comes if you ever expect me to part with it!)

Remembering all of this, it makes me laugh and it makes me sad at the same time.   The world seems like an emptier place knowing Peter Steele has left it. With him, a piece of my youth and a small, yet important chunk of who I was and who I would become is gone.  It’s rather ironic, considering that Peter’s songs about dealing with death touched me even more than anything on Origin of Feces or Bloody Kisses. 

My two favorite Type O albums are World Coming Down and Life is Killing Me.  In 1999, I had started experiencing deaths of loved ones: my next-door-neighbor who was one of the coolest guys ever; a teacher/mentor who was particularly inspirational to my younger brother; my Grandma and my Great-Aunt.  I was in college at the time and in the early stages of a long-term relationship.  That angst I had felt about being “dateless” had evaporated since I had found someone, but it was an entirely different sort of anger and confusion that was making my world a much smaller place.  So many of the lyrics on World Coming Down mirrored what I felt, being affected by deaths of people I cared about.

In 2005, when my mother passed away, I couldn’t quite place a line that summed up how I felt, but retracing my steps, it was again Peter who gave voice to the overwhelming amount of pain I was feeling. Those lines from “Everything Dies” haunted me yet again when my father passed away late last year: “Still looking for someone who was around / Barely coping.” 

At those moments, there were times where I could barely get out words. Just sounds.  I remember standing in my apartment punching my refrigerator.  Sad, angry, and hardly able to act like anything resembling a human.  I remembered wanting to talk about what I was feeling and yes, desperately searching for the dwindling circle of people who still shared similar memories of people who were now missing from my life in an attempt to make them live again.

I’m not a person who shows a lot of emotion on the surface and hate for my emotions to burden others.  So much of what Peter wrote on “Todd’s Ship Gods” resonated with me, although it was my mother who had taught me not to make a public show of emotion and not my father.  (I guess there really is something to be said for the parent of the same gender influencing a big chunk of your personality.) I was grateful to know at least someone understood and had walked that path before.

Those lyrics made so much sense ten years ago, but when death came to take the two people who gave me life, those words took on an even more powerful meaning.  Peter wrote so many songs about his parents on World Coming Down and Life is Killing Me.  While I had understood what he was saying before and felt that fear in the back of my mind of eventually becoming an orphan (which is pretty damn painful at any age), I was grateful that somene else knew and could verbalize those things I was feeling when I couldn’t say them without tearing up and making an ass of myself.

One of the things I so admired about Peter Steele was how open and honest he was about even the most painful aspects of his life.  I had read a lot of his interviews through the years and was struck by how many facets of his magnetic persona he exhibited in each of them. No subject was taboo.  He spoke frankly about his alcoholism, drug addiction, stage fright, low self-esteem, and even mental illness.  Exposing his worst moments for fans and critics in print or on film, he did it with this surprising sense of humor, almost laughing it off like it was no big thing — even if it really was.  Peter’s demeanor was not unlike his lyrics.  His torment or anger weren’t purely one-dimensional.  They weren’t devoid of humor and it wasn’t just one single emotion that he clung to throughout a song.

In spite of his humor, it always struck me that he used that self-deprecating laughter to mask a very deep hurt about so many things.  In later years, it was plain to see that his mental anguish was beginning to take its toll physically.  Many times, watching or reading Peter’s interviews, I would find myself biting my lower lip and shaking my head, wishing I could give him a hug and say, “Dude… I wish I could make your pain go away.” A lot of fans felt so many of the things his music expressed, but I wonder if Peter felt them more, or on a bigger scale. I can’t even begin to express how much I admire his bravery to just lay out everything he was feeling in such a raw form and to be able to articulate in interviews all the pain that went into those lyrics.

Ironically, Peter’s death was attributed to heart failure.  A giant of a man who emptied out the contents of his even bigger heart and mind to so many; his heart just stopped working.  Even more ironic, it came after he had been sober for some time and was beginning to get his life together again. 

It’s selfish to want someone to be around forever, particularly if the quality of their life is nowhere near what it should be. My mother was only 54 when she passed from pancreatic cancer.  As brilliant and lively as she was when she was healthy, it gutted me to see her unable to live with that shit eating at her.  I still miss her, but I’m relieved she’s able to be alive again… Just on a different plane.  My father, on the other hand, passed at 75 from heart failure due to complications from emphysema.  It was quick and he didn’t suffer. As hilarious and fun of a man he was, he had known his share of pain with the death of a child and others close to him, in addition to never knowing his father. It was a relief to know that he didn’t suffer and that now he gets answers to all of the questions he carried through life.

In Peter’s case, his death at such a young age makes me sad. For someone who seemed to be in such a constant state of torment and self-flagellation, I wonder if he had ever known a moment of peace sans suffering.  I worry that he never had a moment of happiness where he felt loved or special — or if he was ever capable of believing that others believed in him. Even if he was given a brief moment of joy, I wonder how fleeting that was compared to his ever-present pain.   It just seems unfair that someone who gave so much of himself had so little left over.  I often wondered and worried about Peter in that respect. I hope that he now knows how much he meant and how he made an impact on the lives of so many in a very positive way.

On the bright side,  I truly believe there’s something better waiting for all of us on the other side.  I can’t prove it, but I believe that we finally earn the answers to all of the questions we harbored in life.  It’s the one thing that I take comfort in when it comes to dealing with the loss of people I love. That they get to finally relax, breathe, and understand every single thing that ever happened to them and what it meant in the much grander scheme of things.  I believe that Peter finally has this sort of peace and is with all of his loved ones who had gone before him.  I honestly believe that now he can understand all he didn’t here and is finally happy. I wish and believe that more than anything for Peter and for my own family on the other side.

That said, thank you, Peter, for all of the music and memories and for being an unseen, yet important force in my life. Your words and your voice helped guide me over some rough patches. As melodramatic as it seems right now, you will never know how much your words — and most especially, you — meant to me.  I wish I could have met you. Maybe someday, in a better, brighter place I will.  Thank you so much and sleep well, Beautiful Big Green Giant.

If you’re gonna gorge yourself, you may as well go the whole deep fried nine.

Having read about this artery clogging wonder, my friend Leila and I decided to make a pilgrimage to KFC to snap up one of these Double Down Meals.  She got hers with the Potato Wedges while I went the classic route with the unbeatable KFC Mashed Potatoes and Gravy.   Oh… And a Diet Pepsi.  (I’m a big fan of irony. Nothing goes better with grease and sodium than the sweet, sweet bite of icy cold aspartame. 

Stepping up to the counter to order the “Double Down Value Meal,” I mused just calling a spade a spade and referring to it as “The Fat Fuck Meal.”

Earning my “Fat Fuck” status, I decided to add a glutonous boost of flavor by dipping the Double Down into my mashed potatoes and gravy for a spicy zip.  (It’s delicious.  Really.  Try it!)

So far, it’s been over two hours since ingesting the sandwich and I have yet to be doubled over by the double down.  The Colonel’s Punishment has escaped me, thus far, and besides some faint digestive rumblings, I have yet to see the inside of a bathroom stall.  With all that grease and fat, I was expecting to find myself hunkered down on the crapper and a rectal luge to come shooting out with enough force to lift off the Apollo 13. 

Mind you, I took the precaution of preparing my stomach for the onslaught of unhealthy that would soon invade my gullet like some sort of medieval battering ram powered by 1,000 angry villagers.  Having exercised some restraint with my Easter candy, I had several remaining Cadbury Eggs and Russell Stovers eggs left, among other items.  I chose a Russell Stovers Strawberry egg and one Cadbury to lay the foundation upon which my Double Down would sit.

Normally, I eat pretty healthily.  I rarely eat red meat and subsist off of fruit, veggies, yogurts, grilled fish and some chicken. For that reason, when I do eat fast food, I’m pretty succeptible to The King’s Revenge and the McSquirts, my digestive system crying out “Robble, robble!” as it’s squelched into submission.  Oddly enough, the Colonel has shown mercy on me and my colon.

Aside from having busted one in my office about a half hour after eating the Double Down and engulfing my cubicle in a mushroom cloud of noxious fumes for a ten-second stretch, subsequent silent blasts have yielded very little odor.

So far, the only negative thing I’m feeling right now is a slight fuzziness in my head. It’s kind of like a toned down hangover with a few some hot flashes.  That could be due to the mother lode of sodium in this sucka — 1,380 milligrams, to be exact.

Thanks for taking it easy on my colon, Colonel!

So, it could be that the Colonel has done to me as he’s done unto his chicken and done me right, that barrier of Easter candy helped spare me, or it could just be that lone gram of fiber in the Double Down that’s spared me from crapping my brains out. 

Food snobs and health critics will vilify this sandwich.  (Well, as much as you can vilify an inanimate food object.)  However, the Double Down is delicious.  It goes down easy, packs quite a bit of juicy flavor, and isn’t quite as slathered in special sauce as you would think.  Sure, it’s greasy, but if you’re headed to KFC, you’re not exactly going there for the salads.  If you don’t mind the feeling of a slight food hangover, give this one a try.  I won’t make the Double Down a way of life, but as far as an occassional deep fried delight, this one lives up to the hype as much as a “sandwich” can.

- Dedicated to my friend, Danielle, who is across the pond and sadly, cannot enjoy the decadent deliciousness of the “Double Down” until she returns Stateside.  God speed you onwards towards transcontinental transfats, my friend!

I’ve seen the commercial with Tiger Woods looking all sad-faced and sorry. Since you’re still endorsing him, can you lengthen the five-character limit on your Tiger Woods Nike ID sneakers so that I can fit “I want to treat you rough. Throw you around, spank & slap you…Hold you down while i choke you & fuck that ass that i own” on my custom shoe?

Thanks,

           ~ Me

For all of the flury of negative press Tiger Woods has received, the man’s game on the links is still bulletproof.  Tiger may have given new meaning to “18 holes” with a tally of mistresses possibly exceeding that number.  He may even beat out Jesse James and Senator John Edwards for a coveted green jacket on the Whore Masters Tour.  But that’s not my gripe with the guy.

What he does in his private time away from the green should have little bearing — if any — on how his contributions to the sport of golf are viewed.  I’m not a fan of golf, but after the science and skill behind it was explained to me by a friend, I do realize that there is more to it than meets the eye and requires significant dedication and prowess. I’ll take watching football or MMA any day over golf (it’s still boring as hell to watch),  but barring my own personal preferences, it’s impossible to deny that Tiger Woods revolutionized golf.  He single-handedly upped the ante, turning what was once sport for saggy old white dudes into a younger, more athletic man’s game.  He opened the doors for people of all ages and races to embrace another sport.  Moreover, he did the impossible and made golf … cool. 

And who better to capitalize on that newfound cool than Nike and a host of other sponsors courting Tiger to ply their products?  Today, endorsements are just as intrinsic to a sport as “the love of the game.”  You can’t blame atheletes for wanting to maximize their earning potential, even if it’s at the hands of companies who are all too willing to profit from a star’s given bankability.

Not only do athletes have to live up to their “role model” status on behalf of their respective sports and their all-powerful, overseeing associations, but they must appease their corporate sponsors to continue to rake in a tidy side income. 

Trust me, I’m not crying in my cornflakes for these guys.  Being able to play sports for a living and then hawk products for an additional hundred million is hardly Shakespearean tragedy. These guys are entitled to make as much money as they can for using their talents.  It’s smart and what anyone else in their position would do.  They’re just fortunate enough to be able to do what they love for a living and make an exceedingly comfortable living doing it.

What I’m condemning here is the hypocritical culture that holds up a standard of faux morality for public figures to project. 

It’s pretty crass to trot out the ghostly voice of Tiger’s dearly departed dad, Earl Woods, over this new commercial, which looks to be the first in a series of Woods’-flavored Nike ads. Earl’s voice is heard asking Tiger what he’s learned from his mistakes as Tiger stands by, breaking the fourth wall of the camera and staring with sad, puppy dog eyes at the viewer. 

It’s certainly a poignant image.  Speaking as someone who has lost both parents at a relatively young age, the commercial hits home. You always wonder what your parents will say about the life you’re leading now without them there to guide you.  I can certainly sympathize with Tiger Woods on a human level about that.  But ultimately, regardless of if you have your parents by your side or not, you make your choices and learn to live with them and their upsides or consequences. 

It’s just bad form on the part of Nike and for Tiger Woods to use his relationship with his dead father as a sympathy ploy to try to repair his image. Lots of other people have dead loved ones.  But how many of us have the ability to use the emotions stirred by conjuring their ghosts to score a raise or a promotion? How many of us really would stoop that low just to gain favor in the eyes of the boss?  Furthermore, in a regular, 9-to-5 environment, it’s frowned upon to bring your personal problems to work.  Yet, for some reason, we look to celebrities far removed from the concerns of the average working class person to provide us with a moral compass.  It doesn’t seem logical.

The fact that Tiger Woods agreed to this commercial in an effort to appease his biggest remaining sponsor says something about his moral fiber. (Beyond the fact that he banged every chick in a 50 mile radius who bore a passing resemblence to a Penthouse pet and sexted them with some totally hilarious messages.) The weepy-eyed look he fixes the camera with solidifies that all of the hand-wringing at his “I’m so sorry, Uncle Albert” press conference was a carefully crafted performance designed to win back his fans and sponsors. 

Tiger was sorry.  Sorry he lost millions of dollars in advertising revenue.

But that has absolutely nothing to do with Tiger Woods’ ability to golf like a mutha fucker.  The man is untouchable.  Why should his daliances with a parade of poonani — none of which belonged to his wife — have any effect on his legacy as a golfer?

So many people are talking about how they’re “boycotting” watching the Masters and damning the PGA for welcoming Tiger back after his transgressions. Why? For cheating on his wife?  That has nothing to do with golf. If he cheated at the game, it would be one thing, but what he does in his private life is his own business.

Where does morality enter into sports?  More importantly, why? Like rock stars with jerseys, athletes have their fair share of groupies.  Eating caviar off the tits of barely legal girls is just one of the perks of the gig.  You’d be a fool to think that the majority of these guys live otherwise.  Sure, there are a few moral, tee-totaling athletes and celebrities out there.  That’s commendable, but completely separate from what they do and how well they do it.  We shouldn’t have to be told that someone pitching Gatorade is a hero.  You can admire the dedication they put into their sport or craft.  You can apply that standard of dedication to your own aspirations.  But you’re in for a let-down and are depriving yourself of that appreciation of an athlete or celebrity if your personal moral code isn’t in lockstep with theirs.  They’re just celebrities. 

Granted, Its always nice when you learn that the people you look up to are honest, humble, and “what you see is what you get.” However, it shouldn’t be mandatory to be able to recognize that even a douchebag can be a great athlete, musician, or comedian.

Is Tiger Woods a scumbag.  Yes!

Is he still a great golfer? Yes!

What do either of the two have to do with one another?   

My only gripe is that I resent the lack of honesty that Tiger Woods and his sponsors have approached the entire sordid scenario with.  Rather than deliberately milking his dead dad for sympathy and welling up at his super-staged press conference, I’d rather see Tiger Woods embracing the private-life-made-public that he’s led. 

I realize that I’m talking from a purely idealistic standpoint.  Realistically, Nike wants to show moral, sportsgear buying America that their spokesperson is a human being with frailties of  his own.  They want their audience to connect with Tiger Woods and buy the gear and apparel he’s shilling for the Swoosh-meisters.  They believe (and are likely right) that people like the illusion of a penitent celebrity who has fallen from grace.  They want to see him poised to rise like a righteous phoenix, not on the strength of his game, but from a newly-reformed sense of “morality” propelling that success forward.

And keep in mind that Tiger has to make ammends to an authority higher than any Gatorade or Nike CEO: his wife.  (HALF, Tiger!  Half of everything you own!)  If he wants to hang onto as much of his cheddar as possible, he’ll play the role of Captain Contrite to the camera for all it’s worth.

In a perfect world, though, I, personally, would appreciate honesty from celebrities and public figures.  Just be who you really are so long as you’re doing what you’re paid to do well.  Let people decide for themselves who they want to look up to and why.

That said, I’ve learned to deal with seeing the twit’s smarmy-looking mug splashed across my screen along with that of his two, equally FICO-fucked compatriots. The Credit Score Whore is just a sad fact of life and a commercial fixture.  I’m over it, if only for the fact that I’ve found a new commercial character to hate with the fire of a thousand desert suns instead.

So, who is such an insufferable tool that, by comparison, makes me want to go out and grab a beer with the Credit Score Whore?  None other than the McDonald’s Premium Roast Putz on the fast food giant’s latest commercial shilling their designer coffee as a competitor to Starbucks, et. al. 

Observe:

How can you NOT want to slap this guy repeatedly?!  He curtly dismisses everyone around him, including his roommate, neighbor (who clues us in to the fact that Premium Roast Putz’s name is actually “Tim”) and the chirpy chick on the bus.  He then proceeds to snap at the hapless McDonald’s cashier whose job is to push the Premium Roast from their Dollar Menu.  It’s only after she says the magic word of “coffee” that he halts in his tracks, near-deadpanning without even the faintest hint of irony: ”Talk to me.”

From those three simple words, it conveys that Tim the Premium Roast Putz is one of those “on-the-go” types who’s all business with no time for anything or anyone unless it benefits him — particularly if it’s before he’s had his all-important coffee.  If someone ever said “Talk to me” in the tone that Tim hit the smiling (because she has to) McDonald’s cashier with, I would eviscerate them on the spot. 

I discovered that I wasn’t the only one who shares a pointed disdain for this commercial character. After speaking with a co-worker, I found yet another person who wanted to bitch-slap this cat, too.  Venturing over to YouTube to find  the above footage accompanying this blog post, I read the comments posted beneath the clip by other viewers, most of whom were also calling for the head of this coffee-addicted ass clown.

At least I’m not alone.

I think what I hate most about this commercial, however, is that it gives the greenlight to rude, self-important behavior on the grounds of not having imbibed coffee that morning.  Are we Americans really that dependent on coffee to make us functioning, aware individuals, or is the caffeine just a prop or an excuse that we need to either start a morning conversation with those around us – or to excuse us from one? 

And why is it that these commercials always use the same type of ”All-American Slacker” character actor to convey these messages?  Take a look at Premium Roast Putz and the Credit Score Whore in a side-by-side comparison and notice the similarities:

Both have tousled blonde hair, slightly pouty lips, doughy features, and day-old slacker stubble to camouflage a lack of chin framing the smug expressions on their faces.  They’re even wearing the same lightly-checkered-plaid-but-not-flannel type of shirt.  Is there some sort of a reason that casting agents feel that this is a model that the general public will connect with? 

What I disliked so much about the Free-Credit-Report-Dot-Com commercials was the insinuation that you are your credit score and that any decision you may make in the future is impacted by a flawed system that hangs over your head bearing the financial misdeeds of your past.  The way scoring works, it takes much longer to rectify a delinquent payment on a credit card bill than focusing on years of timely rent or mortgage payments. The flaws with FICO, Equifax, and any other credit scoring system are only exaccerbated by what has now been dubbed “The Great Recession.” 

That said, the Great Recession didn’t just happen.  Many factors helped it along, including the credit card companies stationed on college campuses; handing out cards willy-nilly to any co-ed they could accost with a clipboard and a free t-shirt.  The lack of education as to balloon mortgages and unscrupulous banks willing to capitalize on the ignorance of generally honest and hardworking people played a role in bringing about The Great Recession, too.  To still cling to the Credit Score system put in place before a sizeable percentage of Americans had lost their jobs and were forced to refinance homes or live off of credit to survive seems to be extremely unfair.  With that in mind, it’s precisely why I hate the “message” buried in the Free-Credit-Report-Dot-Com commercials.

I hate the McDonald’s Premium Roast Putz commercial for a similar reason about what it implies about us as a society.  McDonald’s seems to be insisting that no one is really accountable for their own actions.  It’s okay for Tim to act like a snide little shit heel because it’s not Tim being an asshole, it’s Tim’s lack of coffee (or insert your “substance of choice” here) that’s making him be an asshole.  He’s not accountable for being a dick to everyone around him.  It’s perfectly acceptable to blame outside circumstances for the Premium Roast Putz’s behavior.  His dependency upon coffee to function and act like a normal human being has been impeded and that’s precisely why Tim will take your fucking head off….And that’s okay!  Just overlook it!  Tim will go back to being the semi-congenial slacker with a modicum of personality that he is once he’s downed a cup or two of joe.  But before then… Look out, because this boy’s got a license to douche!

Tim, the McDonald’s Premium Roast Putz now joins the Credit Score Whore in the hallowed halls of commercial douchedom.  Which, actually, is not so much a hallowed hall as it is a narrow, poo-packed sphincter reserved for swinging dingleberries like these guys and the advertising executives who believe that characters like this “speak to” the American public or serve as an accurate representation of society as a whole.

And by the way… Screw you, McDonald’s!  I prefer tea anyway!

Everyone does it, yet no one wants to talk about it.  People are more apt to discuss their sex lives than poop, with fewer eyebrows raised as to the subject matter.  Think about it.  When you’re talking about sex, you’re not just bringing up something that is the private, personal business of yourself, but also the private, personal business of the person(s) you’re doing it with.  When you talk about poop, unless you’re pointing the finger at the local grocer who sold you Ass Blaster Bran or encouraged you to have a fiber fiesta, you’re the only party involved.

That is, unless, someone you know unleashes a particularly interesting butt nugget and you just have to talk about it.  In my family, a certain thing called “shame” does not exist.  We’re pukers, we’re farters, and we’re crappers.  That’s just the way it is.  We think nothing of taking the phone into the bathroom and talking while taking a dump.  During my high school years, I’d talk to my friends while pinching a loaf.  One occassion in particular, my friend that I was talking to on the other line was also releasing some chocolate hostages, having also been the victim of the batch of “Death By Chocolate” ice cream that he had with my family at my house the day before.  (Whoever named that ice cream sure wasn’t kidding.)

The Craptacular Spectacular ante was upped, however, when another high school friend of mine photographed a monstrous turd he had unleashed, snapping a Polaroid of the brown beast and scrawling the epithet, “The Log,” under it in bold black Magic Marker.

My brother and I were so impressed by my friend’s turd trophy that we decided that we should try our hand at preserving poop for posterity.  It couldn’t just be any turd… But a piece of dung that would make you sit up and take notice! That year, I got my first 35mm camera and in between snapping photos of people with gigantic asses bending over at the mall, I took a picture of a strange, squiggly offering that I had grunted out. 

It was long, thin, light brown and formed a completely unbroken, squiggly line that curled over itself like calligraphy. I dubbed it “The Hostess” because it looked like that little, squiggly line of white frosting that decorates the top of  a Hostess chocolate cupcake.

I still have that photo to this day.  But because I’m not sure where you, dear reader, stand on the issue of poop pictorials, I’ll keep that one in my reserves for now.

That hasn’t quite extended to my brother’s wife and my own significant other.  My sister-in-law was aghast the first time Dad ever farted in her face and then laughed.  This, I informed her, was just his way of admitting her to the family and saying, “Hey, kid! You’re one of us!” 

As for my long-term boyfriend, that thing called “lack of shame” hasn’t quite rubbed off on him after all these years.  He’ll talk on the phone while on the crapper (something he hadn’t previously found to be acceptable when we first started dating), but the topic of his turds is verboten and a source of shame. 

Which is why he will hate that I’m committing this story to blog format.

Anyone who knows me or my boyfriend (or who has heard me talk about him) knows that he’s a regular guy… And he likes to stay regular.  With the aid of prune juice.  Tiger Woods may be barely hanging onto his Nike sponsorship by a thread, but my boyfriend could have a Sunsweet spokesperson contract on lock if he really wanted to (or if he was actually famous). Please believe.

Sunsweet: You WILL respond.

Because his diet lacks in fruits, vegetables, and other sources of fiber and because he’s so paranoid about his colon becoming obstructed and (possibly putting him at risk for colon cancer — a rather legitimate fear, I’ll admit), every night like clockwork, he will guzzle two gigantic glasses of Sunsweet prune juice.  It has to be Sunsweet. No substitutes accepted.

And, again like clockwork, around 8:20PM, after dinner and a large glass of water, he spends 20 minutes in the bathroom for Round 1 of his colon cleanse. 

Farting and fizzling noises emmanate from the bathroom for the bulk of a half an hour.  The cycle repeats itself again, about a half hour later, when he makes an offering of the rest of his rectal waste products at the porcelain altar. 

He went to sleep without having squeezed out so much as a nugget.

At around 2:30 AM, Eastern Standard Time, I awoke to my boyfriend getting up out of bed, his voice lowered in an alert, serious tone:

“Don’t move.”

I squinted my eyes in the dark. “What’s up?”  I was thinking maybe there was an intruder who had broken into the house during the night and we’d have to reach for the ol’ Peacemaker and blast us some burglar. 

“Don’t move,” he repeated before finally dropping the bombshell: “I think I shit the bed.”

“WHAAAAAT!?!?!” I jumped out of bed and threw back the covers.  Sure enough, there it was.  A small smear of brown doo-doo butter smack dab in the middle of the bed. 

I had to take command of the situation like a general. A general who hadn’t shit himself.  Now fully awakened, I had become the Patton of Poop and began barking orders.

“Alright, you go to the bathroom. I’ll clean this off, pre-treat it, and throw it in the hamper and change the sheets.  Go do the rest of your business.  Clean out your ass and get back to sleep.”

As it were, my boyfriend sleeps in the buff, making this accident possible.  I, on the other hand, prefer to sleep fully clothed.  Had I rolled the wrong way onto the brown landmine, one of my favorite t-shirts may have been claimed as a casualty of this dis-ass-ter.  I would not have been pleased.

Anyway, the stain was removed, the sheets were changed, and everyone in that room got a good night’s sleep.  Before he drifted off, my boyfriend said, “Please… Whatever you do.  Don’t tell my kids… And don’t tell your Dad.”

To be fair, I never told his kids about the time he crapped the bed…. But the next morning….

The Man, the Myth, the Legend: my Dad.

“Hey, Dad! Guess what happened last night?  My boyfriend shit the bed!”

Dad and I had a good laugh about that one for weeks afterwards.  My boyfriend eventually learned that I had let the crap out of the bag when Dad called up one night.  He answered the phone and Dad’s gruff voice spoke from the other end: “Hey! How’s it going?  Shit yourself again lately?” 

I could hear Dad’s laughter on the other end as my boyfriend handed the phone to me.  Shaking his head he said, “You told him, didn’t you?”  I nodded and started laughing myself.  He got over it and wasn’t really mad about it.  How can you shit the bed and not expect someone to laugh at it!?

Anyway, this isn’t my first post on poop and won’t be the last.  However, I will refrain from talking about the B.M.’s of others and will recount my own bowel battles — at a later date. Tune in next time for the saga of “I Shat the Wall and the Wall Won.”

Chances are, you’re probably bored with the same ol’ selections on the tube. (That is, if you can find any worth watching that haven’t been played to death, or if any cable channels are actually showing horror flicks during the Halloween season.) Sure, I love Freddy, Pinhead, the (original) Wolfman and all those other homicidal old friends as much as the next nut case, but sometimes, you gotta switch up the menu.  With a few weeks left until Halloween, there’s still plenty of time to scout out some unexpected treats to gobble up on DVD - or VHS… for the really obscure films - to host a horrorfest of your own.  After all, you can only sit through Friday the 13^th so many times. 

While there were a few movies I would have loved to plunk in here, they were either too commonly shown on the television during Halloween (i.e. Psycho, Bram Stoker’s Dracula), too ecclectic and expensive to track down (Clive Barker’s Rawhead Rex… The cheapest which it can be purchased for is $76 on VHS! Hello, economically feasible DVD re-release already?!) or they weren’t straight-up horror, but more along the lines of film noir (Sunset Blvd. and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane). Regardless, I attempted to pull from a wide variety of horror subgenres when compiling this list, so hopefully, there’s something for everyone’s tastes!

That said, here are some of my recommendations for horror films you may not have seen that are worth digging around for (in descending order with the most recent films listed first).  Happy Halloween!

 1.  The Devil’s Rejects  (2005)

It’s hard to classify Rob Zombie’s The Devil’s Rejects as strictly a horror film.  It’s more like a buddy picture/road trip movie with a shitload of violence.  Kind of like Bob and Bing hit the road and go on a killing spree or The Wild Bunch meets Natural Born Killers. With its grubby, grainy film quality, there’s a stylistic ’70s feel to the film even beyond its period setting. 

The Devil’s Rejects is one of those rare films that’s better than its predecessor, in this case, Zombie’s House of 1,000 Corpses.  It continues the saga of the demented Firefly family, focusing on its patriarch, clown makeup-sporting Capt. Spaulding; his psychotic, thrill-killing daughter, Baby; and his adopted son, Otis P. Driftwood, an eloquent, yet utterly batshit maniac who may enjoy killing even more than Baby.  The Firefly family is oddly likeable, in spite of the fact that they kill for no real reason other than for kicks.  Then again, it’s hard not to like a bunch of lunatics who converse about “Tutti-fuckin’-Fruity” ice cream, lament being labeled as a fornicator of poultry, and stress the importance of “Top Secret Clown Business.” The Devil’s Rejects  is easily one of the best films of any genre - not just horror - in terms of character development, writing, story, and direction.  If you haven’t seen it, it should definitely make its way into your Netflix queue.

2.  Strangeland (1998)

I was probably one of the few people who actually got to catch Dee Snider’s Strangeland in its theatrical release before it gained a small cult following.  For years, Snider has been trying to release a sequel, but a string of unfortunate circumstances have blocked the film (and comic books in the form of a prequel) from being completed with the rights tied up in litigation.  Most recently, it was reported that Dee Snider is partnering with NEHST Films to produce the long-awaited sequel  entitled Strangeland 2: Disciple.  Although it seems like a long-shot for it to be completed this year, there’s a good chance Captain Howdy will ride again in 2010.

Released in 1998, Strangeland made a great social commentary early into the internet age.  Snider’s script was oddly prophetic, forseeing not only the To Catch a Predator-esque pitfalls of what was once dubbed the “Information Superhighway”, but the emergence of extreme body modification breaking the mainstream surface.

Additionally, at a time when the genre was dominated by “teen horror” flicks, the film’s anti-hero Captain Howdy (played to the hilt by Snider himself) - a  tattooed, pierced, and technology-savvy mad man with a shamanistic streak — was a throwback to the days of wisecracking horror movie icons with a personality à la Freddy Krueger. 

3. Nudist Colony of the Dead (1991)

What’s not to love about a low-budget zombie film that’s also a musical!? Made on a shoestring budget, there is very little actual nudity in Nudist Colony of the Dead, unless you count the awful polyester zombie “birthday suits” worn by the singing, dancing, decomposing zombies.

The premise of this fantastically bad film revolves around the undead former residents of Sunny Buttocks Nudist Camp who turn on the gang of religious zealots that condemned their  peaceful colony.  Having decided it’s better to be expired than fully attired, the nudists indulged in a suicide pact and return  from the dead. Having been buried right at the site of their beloved Sunny Buttocks, the undead nudists wreak havoc on the hapless bunch of Christian day campers – the children of those who condemned them.  Even better, they sing, dance, and even rap for these repressed teens before devouring them!

Although Nudist Colony of the Dead has the feel of a Lloyd Kaufman/Troma film, it was actually made by writer/director Mark Pirro who brought the world such gems as the Polish Vampire series and Queerwolf in addition to roving the country giving college seminars on low budget filmmaking.

4.  Exorcist III (1990)

George C. Scott examines a very hardcore pair of hedge clippers in "Exorcist III"

Everyone heralds The Exorcist as one of the greatest horror films of all time.  Not taking anything away from its revolutionary-for-its-time status, but Exorcist III is sorely underrated as a sequel and a horror film.  It picks up with the rather unique torment of Father Damian Karras’ body and soul as laid out by the demon he had exorcized. Additionally, the script for Exorcist III was based on Legion, William Peter Blatty’s sequel to his novel The Exorcist.

Jason Miller reprises his role as Father Karras and George C. Scott gives a tremendous performance as Detective Kinderman, a man of conviction set upon the task of finding out the identity of the serial murderer known as “The Gemini Killer” (yet another casting coup with Brad Douriff!) – and his potentially otherworldly origins.

There are very few gruesome scenes in the film, but when they crop up, are highly effective.  Overall, the film carries a very disturbing, supernatural atmosphere and doesn’t really need blood or gore.  Beyond that, George C. Scott’s performance really makes the film.  Scott’s portrayal of a very human, very emotional man underscores the theme of Good vs. Evil and the shards of each that exist within each person, waiting to be brought to the surface.  While elements of the original Exorcist can be laughed at, there’s very little (unintentional) humor to be found in Exorcist III.

5.  Misery (1990)

Break out your rubber underpants as Annie Wilkes prepares for a hobbling in "Misery."

Chances are, you’ve probably seen this adaptation of the Stephen King novel.  If you haven’t, you’re missing out.  In a rare Academy Award acquisition for a horror flick, Kathy Bates deservedly earned a Best Actress Oscar for her role as the romance novel-obsessed Annie Wilkes.

In Misery, Wilkes happens upon a car wreck containing her favorite author, Paul Sheldon (James Caan) and takes him into her home.  What is initially perceived as a kind gesture soon becomes a nightmare for the author.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a more cringe-worthy movie moment that doesn’t involve blood than when Annie Wilkes “hobbles” Paul Sheldon.  Moreover, Misery manages to be both brutal and funny at the same time.  Caan’s low-key reactions help to further sell Bates’ contrasting, manic portrayal of Annie Wilkes.  In turn, Bates get to drop such verbal gems as “You’re a dirty birdie” and “He didn’t get out of the cock-a-doodie car!” She’s so socially awkward, you’d almost feel sorry for her… If she wasn’t such a fruitcake.

6.  Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986)

Rev. Kane: Creepy dude from "Poltergeist 2" and the ultimate boner-killer

Poltergeist II is far creepier than its predecessor.  Some of the film’s most disturbing moments can be attributed to the skeletal Julian Beck’s portrayal of the demonic Reverend Kane.  (Incidentally, Beck was a rather remarkable avant garde actor, having created The Living Theatre which still carries on to this day under the direction of his widow, Judith Molina.)  The fabled “Poltergiest Curse” also adds to the willie-inducing aura of this film with many of its cast members having died shortly after the film was made.

In Poltergeist II, once again, the Freeling family finds themselves haunted by unwelcome spirits that are drawn to their highly clairvoyant little girl, Carol Anne. This time, the family gets help from a mystical Indian (is there really any other kind?), played by Will Sampson (”Chief Broom” from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest).  Back for a second appearance in the franchise is the teenie-weenie medium, Tangina Barrons (Zelda Rubenstein). Horror hijinx ensue. The scene to watch for is the utterly creepy instance where Kane wails “you’re all gonna die!” through the Freeling’s porch screen door.  

7.  Nocturna (1979)

There isn’t really anything terrifying about Nocturna except that it revolves around disco and vampires: two things that suck. Released under the title Disco Dracula in its South American release, Nocturna  was the vanity project of exotic belly dancer, Nai Bonet, and an attempt for her to branch into film.

This midnight movie masterpiece features Bonet as the disco-dancing granddaughter of Dracula (John Carradine) who falls in love with a mortal.  With stereotypical ’70s NYC “street” characters thrown in amongst vampires, Nocturna  also boasts a triad of horror movie icons who lend the film a tad more legitimacy.  John Carradine portrays Dracula… with dentures!  In the latter part of his career, Carradine suffered from crippling arthritis.  If you watch closely on this low-budget bonanza, the cameraman didn’t have the foresight to pan the camera away from Carradine’s badly gnarled hands.  Yvonne DeCarlo (AKA - Lily Munster) stars as Jugula, Dracula’s former paramour who takes Nocturna under her (bat) wing.  And finally, Brother Theodore (perhaps best known for his Letterman appearances and his work in The ‘Burbs) plays Dracula’s lecherous werewolf henchman who has the hots for Nocturna.  (You haven’t truly known shame until you’ve seen a 50-something German man question himself as to “When will she be… my little yum-yum?”)

It’s a hard one to track down, but for the humor, camp, and rarity factor,  Nocturna  is one horror film worth searching for.  Try digging up this one on bootleg horror sites as it was never sold on DVD or VHS except as a rental-only release.

8.  The Sentinel  (1977)

John Carradine is way creepier than usual as a blind priest in "The Sentinel."

The Sentinal is perhaps the scariest film I have ever seen.  Ever. (And no, I’m not referring to the action/”adventure” piece of drek released a few years ago). It’s hard to pinpoint just what is so utterly terrifying about The Sentinel, but it is. Maybe it’s the religion-tinged occult themes.  Or the fact that the ending sequence of the film features a coterie of actual freaks and seriously deformed people, unaltered or unenhanced by any theatrical makeup?  Who knows.  All you need to know is that it’s creepy.

The Sentinel  centers around a young model who had previously attempted suicide.  Rehabilitated and on the right track, she moves into an unbelievable — and rent controlled! — NYC apartment building.  Unbeknownst to her, the building is actually the gateway to hell.  Additionally, the film features some well-known stars in minor roles.  Christopher Walken has a bit part in one of his earliest film appearances.  Chris Sarandon has a feature role, as does Burgess Meredith as the cutest little ol’ man Satan you’ve ever seen!  Also making appearances are Beverly D’Angelo and John Carradine as a blind, elderly priest – the Sentinel himself. 

If The Sentinel  doesn’t scare the shit out of you, you’re hopelessly constipated.

9.  The Wicker Man (1973)

Christopher Lee's Lord Summerisle dresses as Cher for the island's Pride Parade in "The Wicker Man." Fierce!

We’re talking about the original Wicker Man here, not the abomination of a remake starring Nicholas Cage that was made a fewyears ago.  The only remotely horrifying thing in that remake was Cage screaming “My eyes!  My eyesssss!!!” and emoting with the all depth of a brick of Velveeta.

This — the original and far superior — version stars Edward Woodward (The Equalizer) as an uber-religious (possibly Catholic) cop who is called to a small island to investigate the disappearance of a young girl.  His narrow minded, religious sensibilities are offended when he discovers that the island has stayed true to their British Pagan roots, employing a number of old traditions.  This tucked-away Pagan society is headed up by Christopher Lee as the dashing Lord Summerisle.  The practices of the islanders don’t go over too big with the detective, who soon discovers that the community’s inhabitants have plans for him other than tracking down the missing girl. As it turns out, some of the locals’ quaint Pagan traditions aren’t quite so quaint.

Wicker Man is truly disturbing, right up until the very end.  If the plot and suspense of the film alone doesn’t make you want to check it out, then just watch it for a glimpse of Christopher Lee merrily prancing about in drag.

 10.  Masque of the Red Death  (1964)

Roger Corman directed this adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe’s short story, one of his many Poe-inspired films that he directed and/or produced that starred Vincent Price.  Set in the Dark Ages, Price stars Prince Prospero, a devil worshipping regent who barricades himself and his court against a plague ravaging the countryside.  The devil worshipping Prospero takes in a young, virtuous woman to his castle under the premise of helping her and her family escape the plague.  His true intention is to corrupt her by introducing her to the debauchery commonplace amongst his royal followers.

 Masque of the Red Death is surprisingly complex thanks to Price’s performance as Prospero.  It’s obvious he enjoys camping it up, almost twirling a Snidely Whiplash ’stache at various intervals throughout the film.  However, there is an almost tragic anti-hero aspect to Price’s characterization.  Evil isn’t shown merely as a one-note entity that wants to corrupt Good.  Rather, Evil is attracted to Good because it possesses traits that Evil can never have.  That difference makes it all the more intriguing of a subject to corrupt.

According to Courtney Love’s mad ramblings on Twitter, she claims that although she agreed to allow Activision to use the master recordings of Nirvana songs “Lithium” and “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” she did not allow them access to her husband’s likeness. Activision counters this claim, stating that Courtney Love signed a contract giving them full rights to make a playable character based on Cobain’s image.

Adding fuel to the fire, in a Tweet from her personal account, Courtney notes: “we get NO money for this, travesty, Frances gets NO money for the rape.”

Wow. There’s just so much wrong with that statement that I don’t even know where to begin. Apparently, it’s a demeaning “sell out” if her dead husband’s likeness is shown lip synching to Bon Jovi or Queen, but it’s perfectly justifiable “rape” if she receives some money for it. In that case, the “rape” would be upgraded to “surprise sex” and not nearly as harrowing since there’s a pay day in there somewhere. Leave it to Courtney Love to tug at the heart strings as only she can, lumping her offspring, “rape,” and “money” into the same sentence together.

When all else fails, however, the default action is to point the finger of blame at Dave Grohl, the perennial scapegoat (read: most overwhelmingly successful ex-member) of the Nirvana L.L.C. camp. Courtney went on a tear on her Twitter page, calling for Grohl to be “ass-raped” for his supposed hand in allowing this to happen. In turn, Grohl and Krist Novoselic, the surviving members of the band, issued a joint statement asking Activision to retract their decision to (re)animate their former lead singer:

“While we were aware of Kurt’s image being used with two Nirvana songs, we didn’t know players have the ability to unlock the character. This feature allows the character to be used with any kind of song the player wants. We urge Activision to do the right thing in “re-locking” Kurt’s character so that this won’t continue in the future.

It’s hard to watch an image of Kurt pantomiming other artists’ music alongside cartoon characters. Kurt Cobain wrote songs that hold a lot of meaning to people all over the world. We feel he deserves better.”

What I fail to understand is why there is such an outcry about Kurt Cobain being a playable character. Why is it that Kurt Cobain is some sort of sacred cow that must retain a level of “purity” somewhere between a unicorn and a bar of Ivory soap?

Really. What’s the big deal? The guy wrote cryptic, unintelligible lyrics that were only slightly less obtuse than his widow’s cryptic, unintelligible Tweets and MySpace blog entries. Maybe I just don’t get it, but I fail to see how saying “I wish I could eat your cancer when you turn black” qualifies someone to be “The Voice of a Generation.”

I realize that saying “I think Kurt Cobain sucks” is one of those things that gets a person’s supposed “cool cred” revoked, but I take my “Cobain sucks” and dare to raise you a “I much prefer the Foo Fighters and find greater personal meaning in their music than I do any of Nirvana’s tunes.” I will raise the stakes even higher and say “I found Courtney Love to be a better songwriter whose music from the same era more accessibly conveyed the angst of a generation.” Yeah. That’s right. I said it.

As it pertains to Guitar Hero, it’s not like Cobain is the only musician who has been rendered into an unlockable, playable character. He joins Johnny Cash, Carlos Santana, Shirley Manson of Garbage, and Matt Bellamy of Muse in the ranks of the polygonal.

If we’re talking about what could possibly be perceived as demeaning to the legacy of a deceased celebrity, Johnny Cash is as iconic a musical folk hero as Kurt Cobain, if not more so. Yet, Johnny Cash is an unlockable, playable character in the exact same game with the exact same functionality as Kurt Cobain’s in-game character. You don’t see any of Cash’s family, fans, or colleagues claiming that they find it “disturbing” that gamers can make The Man in Black mouth the words to a Megadeth song if they so choose. No Cash fans have their knickers in a twist, shaking their fists that decades of his musical legacy are being undone, simply because you can play as an animated version of him in a video game.

Who deigned it that every time Kurt Cobain forcibly lip synchs to Billy Idol’s “Dancing With Myself” a kitten dies? Would there be a problem with Guitar Hero Kurt pantomiming “Bullet With Butterfly Wings”? (After all, it wouldn’t be the first time a Cobain mouthed the words to a Billy Corgan song.) Lighten up! It’s a fucking cartoon! It’s not like someone literally dug up Cobain’s corpse, pissed on it, and propped it up onstage for a rousing round of Weekend At Kurt’s.

In all honesty, I don’t see the harm in loaning out Nirvana’s music, or what’s so offensive about what is essentially a cartoon version of Kurt Cobain lip synching to Bon Jovi. If even religious icons are fair game to having their likenesses splattered with poop in the name of art, why is it that Kurt Cobain transcends any level of (perceived) mockery? Is it because music magazines can splash his picture up on the cover to push a few extra copies in a given month? I’m sure the same can’t be said if you saw the Virgin Mary on the cover of SPIN or Rolling Stone.

The real question here is: What’s so wrong with making a profit? The rallying cry of the alternative movement of the ‘90s was that “corporate rock” (meaning anything that was not released on an independent label) was bad, false, and loaded with pretense. It was a backlash against party anthems and odes to pole dancers by bands like Warrant and Poison. While guilty of abusing AquaNet and mixing leopard print with zebra print, you could hardly call either band “pretentious.”

Bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, and Alice in Chains were all lumped under the grunge/alternative banner. However, the only band to really take a political or protest stance was Pearl Jam. By contrast, the only thing Kurt Cobain ever protested was sobriety.

Any of those aforementioned bands that are still around or former members who have gone to create new music of their own have taken the next logical step and evolved their music over time. As people (and artists) age and experience different phases of their lives, their art reflects it. Most of these guys aren’t a fraction as angry or miserable as they were in the ’90s. And chances are, had Kurt Cobain not taken himself out of the equation and were still creating music, he probably wouldn’t be as whiny or depressed as he was in Nirvana’s heyday.

For all of the idealistic grandstanding that ‘90s alternative devotees engage in, grunge was no different than any other reactionary form of music to come along and supplant the popular style that came before it. Grunge may have changed the musical landscape of the time, but it’s no different than any other genre of music that a generation grew up with, felt a sort of kinship with, and fell in love with. The hippies have their Woodstock-era bands, the children of the ‘80s have neon-tinged pop and spandex rock, and the current generation - for better or worse - is inextricably bonded to Brittney, et al.

Ultimately, what is so wrong with an arguably talented band being able to make a career off of doing what they love? How is making money, even if it means signing a Faustian pact with a record company, such a bad thing? Thanks to the internet, we all know how little bands actually make off of record deals. However, if a band is successful enough to make a go of it, who is hurt by the band’s success? Aren’t they entitled to some reward for baring their soul through their art?

With that in mind, let’s call a spade a spade. Courtney Love still wants to be “the girl with the most cake.” She wants the cash that results from licensing Nirvana’s music and Cobain’s likeness to other companies, yet she doesn’t want the ire of the fans branding her a “sell out.” The result is Courtney attempting to backpedal her way to favor and calling Activision — and anyone else remotely associated — to task.

That said, what’s stopping Courtney Love from making a buck off of her own talents?

Nobody’s Daughter, the album Love has had in the works for nearly five years, has been repeatedly pushed back. Chances are, it just may be pushed back yet again until next year. Further complicating issues are whether or not Nobody’s Daughter will be released as a Courtney Love affair, or as a Hole reunion album. Although it was reported that Melissa Auf Der Maur may play bass for the disc along with an unnamed drummer, and Micko Larkin on guitar. Former Hole guitarist and co-founder, Eric Erlandson has remained mum on any involvement, which may put the kibosh on a proper Hole-as-Hole reunion. Contractually, a stipulation exists that there cannot be a reunion without approval or involvement from Erlandson, who supposedly co-owns the Hole name/trademark along with Love.

At this rate, Nobody’s Daughter just may cement Courtney Love’s reputation as the female Axl Rose and stand as her own personal Chinese Democracy.

Truth be told, in spite of her whacky antics, I want Courtney Love to release Nobody’s Daughter. All of her tantrums aside, Courtney Love has done some great music both on her own and with Hole. She puts on amazing live shows. Back in 1999, was fortunate enough to catch her on Hole’s “Celebrity Skin” tour. Granted, she showed up an hour and a half late, even though HBO’s Reverb concert series was there to tape it for a televised episode. Despite her threats to the audience to walk off the stage if they didn’t cheer like mad for (then new) drummer, Samantha Maloney, the show was top notch. When the girl’s on, she’s spot on. Courtney Love is ballsy, fearless, talented, and can command an audience like no other. While she’s undeniably feminine onstage, there’s something very aggressive and dirtily masculine about her mannerisms that make her so much fun to watch as a balls-out frontwoman. Vocally, there’s something comforting in her weathered, gritty voice. It lacks the blues-factor of Janis Joplin, but when she sings live, Love can unleash all of her strengths and frailties in a single phrase.

It’s a pity Courtney hasn’t spent more energy on putting out another album instead of farting around on her MySpace blog and Twitter.

~ for my friend, MB

It’s been a few months since I’ve turned 30 and, so far, no magical Maturity Fairy has descended to drop some serious knowledge on my ass. It’s not much different from when I turned 18 and the Adult Wisdom Fairy failed to put in an appearance. It seems only fitting that 30 is as equally anti-climactic as legal adulthood, what with the current cultural trend of “30 is the new 18.”

In this youth-obsessed culture, more and more of us are rapidly regressing towards our teen years. Everyone I know, including people younger than me to people 65+ years of age, have feelings that aren’t that far removed from high school. There’s something about 29 – that onus of being on the cusp of something potentially bigger, brighter, and perhaps more solemn – that makes that second wind of adolescence all the more poignant.

It’s not much different than the feeling you get when you’re (to cop a phrase from The Sound of Music) “17 going on 18.” You believe you’re going to set the world on fire and break free from the tyrannical rule of your teachers, principals, and parents once that status of legal adulthood is granted. At 30, it’s a different sort of tyranny you find yourself railing against, still wanting to make your mark. Compared to the world of responsibilities that come with “adulthood” such as jobs and “serious” relationships, life at home with Mom and Dad seems like an unappreciated sanctuary you wish you could crawl back to.

Considering the economic climate of the times, that feeling is only exacerbated. That love/hate relationship with your oppressive employer in the downright shitty job market is further complicated. Greener pastures are ready to be sought, but they’re nowhere in sight. At the same time, you find yourself thinking, “Shit, I’m lucky just to have a job,” while still hoping you can someday live out your dreams as your 401K goes to shit and the prospect of cat food becoming a large part of your “Golden Years” looms ever-closer.

When you’re 29 going on 30, that three-decade milestone makes you wonder why you’re not where you envisioned yourself being at 30 when you were 17. It seemed so simple with no roadblocks on that map to success. But now… The clock is ticking. The race is on to make your mark and achieve the elusive happy ending. And sometimes, except for the lucky few, those things are harder and slower to come by than you would have ever dreamed.

Contrary to what you were fed in high school and/or college, it’s a much bleaker picture. In this day and age of bicycle crash helmets, pet therapists, and all manner of molly-coddling, the harsh truth isn’t discovered until you’re out there shopping resumés, manuscripts, or even your telephone number at a club during last call to anyone who may seem even remotely interested. That, my friend, is the much-vaunted “pursuit of happiness.”

I’m sure everyone has, had, or will have their own take on 29, but as for me, I found it to come with euphoric highs and bottom-scraping lows. That whole thing about reverting to a teenage state of mind? It came back in spades during my Trials of 29.

For instance, I found myself searching for deeper meaning in some seriously weird shit…like the sound a computer makes as its shutting down. I wondered if Bill Gates purposefully commissioned that tinkling, four-note synth/piano soundbyte that rings out as you power down. There’s something final, yet open-ended about it. A little sweet, yet a little sad. Like Windows knows you’ll eventually log on again, and that this is just a temporary goodbye for now. I found myself wishing that humans could have a little noise like that to signal to everyone around them that they’re (physically and emotionally) shutting down, too.

Still in keeping with technology-inspired personal breakthroughs, I found myself embracing the social bookmarking trend favored by tweens, teens and 20-somethings –immersing myself in MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter culture. In doing so, I came to the revelation that many of my MySpace default photos showed me flipping the bird at the camera, which is always a hallmark of wisdom. I’ve also taken great pride in the fact that I inform those on my friends lists of exactly how I’m feeling. Whether I had taken a good, hearty shit or found myself constipated, “the truth was out there.”

I’m not saying that it’s not okay for people over the age of 30 to have a MySpace or Facebook page, but sometimes you have to take a step back and give yourself a smirking pat on the back for shrugging off so-called “maturity” and diving into the void of voyeurism and self-superstardom. Then again, why is it “immature” to dismiss passive-aggressive, “I’m smiling on the outside but crying on the inside” conventions? What’s wrong with acknowledging that your Facebook photo can silently say what you can’t, bearing in mind that things like eating and maintaining a roof over your head are something of a priority and might be jeopardized by expressing this to your employer in a face-to-face setting. There were days, however, where this sentiment carried over into “real life,” finding myself going so far as scrawling a prison-like “Fuck This” across my knuckles with a ballpoint pen during particularly frustrating days at work.

Another staple of my youth that I reverted to was drinking.

Heavily.

I found myself engaging in the sort of binge drinking I hadn’t done since I was in high school, when suckin’ back on the sauce was legally verboten and every drop of booze was a precious commodity. However, at 29, I drank with friends, and (like George Thorogood) I drank alone. I hid bottles in my closet from my tee-totaling boyfriend who would simultaneously offer me the Devil’s Advocate treatment after I had a hard day at work before turning on a dime and chastising me for wanting to imbibe from the Fount of Artificial Means of Mellowing Out.

Since I was well over the legal drinking age, I found myself becoming increasingly more innovative with my alcohol-related activities, going so far as to lay down a “Three Drink Minimum” for myself when drinking with friends and then devising the “One Hour Pub Crawl,” which involved drinking one beverage per bar and seeing how many bars it was possible to hit in an hour.

Then, in what may have been the pinnacle of alternating fits of clean living and self-destruction, I found myself downing my very first Irish Car Bomb (a shot each of Bailey’s and Jameson dropped into a pint of Guinness) moments before engaging in a hardcore upper body workout and military pressing 60 lbs. above my head. It doesn’t get much more stupid and reckless than that.

It didn’t really prove anything (except that drinking can sometimes enhance a workout), yet it was something I felt compelled to do, if only to say that I had done it. There’s something oddly exhilarating about taking a mundane activity to the extreme, elevating it to a level of functional and reasonably acceptable debauchery.

Then there were the really simple pleasures. Rite Aid became my particular homebase for a variety of strange doings, perhaps the tamest of which was launching into an impromptu dance set to the in-store radio’s selection of Enrique Iglesias’ “Escape” in the feminine hygiene products aisle. It was at Rite Aid where I pondered the mystery of why there are no greeting cards catering to the niche market of phone sex friends and it was Rite Aid where I amassed an assemblage of items that proclaimed to the world (or, at least the cashier) that I was someone who favored homeopathic cures for yeast infections, relied upon Ramen and Oreos as comfort food, and read tabloid smut in the crapper while meticulously moisturizing in an attempt to stave off the aging process as early as possible.

Beyond these self-revelations, I’ve found myself using the latest technology to continue a favorite pastime of my teen years. Blogging has replaced the volumes of bad poetry I had scribbled in spiral-bound notebooks and frequent mood status updates have become the “professional” equivalent of passing notes in school. Additionally, the “playlist” feature on my iPod makes it so much easier to create a queue of songs to compliment my myriad of mood swings. Whereas, back in high school, I would have to manually cue up the tape deck to play Air Supply’s “Makin’ Love Out of Nothing At All” as the backdrop to a sad, self-performed sock puppet re-enactment of my latest love life drama, I now have a playlist chock full of Manson n’ Morrissey at the ready to brawl or bawl to! Outstanding! All my old favorites are still on my iPod along with newer discoveries.

Oddly enough, it wasn’t until I turned 29 that I realized just how many songs feature lyrics about being 29 or are just devoted to that bizarre year of life. While I was in high school, I’d always looked to music for cathartic solace. Over a decade later, that hasn’t changed. In fact, I realize a lot of song writers find 29 as trying a time, if not moreso, than their high school years. Proof of this sentiment can be found in the Gin Blossoms’ “29″ and in The National’s “29 Years” and “Slow Show,” which features a line that sums up the 29 milestone perfectly: “I leaned on the wall / The wall leaned away.”

Is it any wonder that even Shakespeare may have been onto something when he created one of his most conflicted and soliloquy-spouting characters, Hamlet? Many scholars debate that Hamlet was 29 or 30 when the major events of the Bard’s tragedy occur. Coupled with the fact that he’s a university student, initially, it would seem that Hamlet’s mood swings are typical of an overly emotional teen or young adult. Taking a step back, it makes perfect sense that Hamlet is 29 or 30. He exhibits the sense of wherewithal to not display all his cards on the table, although he still carries with him lofty ideals as it pertains to moral realms concerning family and politics. On the flipside, in spite of his reflective nature, he reacts impulsively, often with destructive and self-destructive consequences.

In a nutshell, that describes being 29. Deep thoughts and world-weary observations meet up against the borders of doing completely stupid shit just for the sake of doing it. An impending sense of mortality creeps up, and essentially, it is the death of your 20s. You’re forced to call into question where you are and where you’re going. It’s a repeat of turning 18 and graduating high school all over again. This time, the stakes are higher and you’ve gotten more of a taste of the alternating fits of disappointment and hopefulness that life has to offer.

It’s a year full of highs and lows. Looking back, I remember that for one solid month during my tenure at 29, I felt really and truly happy – so happy, in fact, that when catching up with an old friend in a group setting, one friend remarked, “Yeah, you missed it. Lana was happy for a whole month.” The operative words in that sentence being “missed it”… As in, “blink and you.” Conversely, there was an entire month that I was pretty damn depressing to be around. It happens. It just so happens that 29 is the age that brings about a hyper-awareness of these things.

While 30 hasn’t brought about an epiphany, to a degree, I’m glad to be out of that awkward year known as 29. I don’t feel any wiser and don’t feel any closer to unlocking deeper truths within myself and the universe. Unless you count the minor epiphany of realizing that, when you’re drunk, it’s much better to show your friends embarrassing pictures someone else sent to you instead of taking embarrassing pictures of yourself and sending them to someone else.

It’s not much, but at least it’s a small shred of wisdom to cling to and carry into the next decade and beyond.

Is America sick of John and Kate Plus 8? TLC doesn’t seem to think so as evidenced by their ad nauseum marathoning of the show this weekend in 24 hour blocks. As if the steady stream of online tabloid reports on the fertile philanderers’ daily doings wasn’t enough, TLC has gone into John and Kate overload, hyping the newest season of their reality TV show by airing back-to-back-to-back episodes.

I’ve been sick of John, Kate, and their unwieldy horde for awhile now. Mind you, I’ve never seen an entire episode of the show, but have been exposed to dozens of commercials for the series. I would cringe every time I saw one while watching Miami Ink, L.A. Ink or some of the other tattoo-related shows that used to air on TLC. Miami Ink however, has been cancelled to make room for more shows about people with Ma and Pa Kettle-sized broods like the new Table for 12 and 18 Kids and Counting. There’s yet another new show devoted to “little people” called The Little Couple which seems more like a prelude to Little People, Big World.

You can practically see some programming exec sitting in his leather swivel chair at TLC headquarters saying “Let’s get some more midgets up in this piece!” (Need I mention that the executive is probably some 40-something, uber-white yuppie attempting to incorporate what he believes to be hip, urban slang into his boardroom vernacular?)

Does anyone else remember when TLC stood for “The Learning Channel”? There’s very little “learning” to be had anymore. Hell, half of the stars of its reality-based programming haven’t learned how to use a condom yet. Now the network features programming so inane that it makes Daisy of Love look like Meet the Press by comparison.

TLC’s “new” programming is all more of the same. More midgets. More ferociously fecund families. More shows attempting to teach haggard haus fraus how to dress.

To be fair, even Miami Ink spawned more tattoo shows, saturating the airwaves with spin-offs like L.A. Ink with Kat Von D and the short-lived London Ink. In keeping with what seems to have been a “more drama” mandate handed down by the TLC powers on high, Miami Ink deviated from its original, relatively drama-free format that focused on tattooing as an art form with four renowned artists. By the time it reached its fourth and final season, the show was more of a soap opera for heavily-inked dudes than it was about the business and art of tattooing.

Discovery seems to be the only educational-themed channel holding up its end of the bargain with a variety of eco-themed shows rounding out its schedule in addition to the ubiquitous American Chopper (which has also succumbed to the “more drama, less craft” formula).

Although it’s a separate network from Discovery, TLC, et. al., the History Channel and A&E are picking up on the current trend favoring sensationalism over knowledge. As it stands, the History Channel should just rename itself the Apocalypse Channel. Every time I turn the History Channel on, there’s very little “history” to be had. Instead, there are numerous shows detailing how the world just might end – be it by comet, Mayan prophecy, or unforeseen ecological disaster. The channel probably isn’t too far off from announcing its fall lineup including The Nostradamus Quatrain n’ Comedy Hour or The Illuminati Variety Show to tie in with whatever Dan Brown book is hitting theatres or the Netflix queue.

If the History Channel hasn’t totally fixated itself on apocalyptic speculation and it’s a slow week, you can always count on a show or two about Hitler. (Hmm… The Hitler Channel! Now that has a certain ring to it!) The History Channel doesn’t even do shows about Hitler, but more of the sensationalistic, mystically-themed exploits of the Third Reich, such as Hitler’s co-opting of Norse Mythology to pimp his Master Race. (I think I’ve seen this particular show five times already.)

It seems that the History Channel has become blissfully unaware that there are other historical figures than Hitler. Even if they’re stuck on WWII, there are other aspects to explore about that period in history. How about a splash of Hirohito? What’s wrong with a dab of Mussolini every so often? Hell, Night At the Museum: Battle For the Smithsonian probably features more historical figures than the History Channel does right now. It’s a rather sad state of affairs when you find yourself looking to Ben Stiller as a de facto history teacher instead of a bunch of networks that claim to espouse learning.

And yet, it all comes back to John and Kate and their plus eight. I can’t fault them for wanting the network to subsidize their mansion, the bodyguard that Kate’s banging on the side, or the revolving door full of nannies and hired help who are actually parenting the couple’s kids. However, I blame the programming executives for indulging them, and in turn, using the banner of learning and education to create subpar pseudo-celebrities out of self-entitled suburbanites who have so little in the way of substance to offer to the world that they make Paris Hilton look like a Nobel Peace Prize winner. Granted, Kate seems to have a talent for emasculating her husband once or twice per episode, and John is pretty darn good at impersonating a eunuch. In light of the current events of “John and Kate-Gate,” it’s not hard to understand why John’s seeking validation from outside sources and screwing around on Kate and her Marcy D’arcy hairdo. In the immortal words of Whitney Houston, “It’s not right… But it’s okay.”

Personally, I can’t wait for a show focusing on the couple’s extra-marital affairs. They could call it “John and Kate Fornicate”! Think about it… It would be brilliant! They won’t even have to pretend to parent their children anymore! Kate could even manage to squeeze out another ghost-written book deal out of it, too!

Maybe TLC and its satellite networks should consider getting back to the basics of their programming. Better yet, if TLC is so hell-bent on zeroing in on a certain demographic, why not focus on real families that people can relate to? Chances are, if you’ve had infertility problems and can afford to seek out specialists, much less carry eight children to term and make the decision to raise them in a cozy, upper-echelon Philadelphia suburb, than perhaps John and Kate aren’t the Everyman and Woman that they’re made out to be. Rather, TLC is trying to pander to its audience by making them believe they have something in common with spoiled celebutards.

Instead of cramming John, Kate, and all the other rubber-chuckers on their lineup, TLC could set itself apart from the deluge of drek and feature shows focusing on real families struggling to make ends meet during the recession. Why not have “What Not to Wear” do a special, Salvation Army episode with Clinton and Stacy slumming it on a budget? Instead of shows like Say Yes to the Dress, why not do a show on how to put together a classy, meaningful wedding ceremony on a budget, rather than building up unrealistic expectations and going into debt before the ink on the marriage license is even dried?

It may not be glamorous to see families trying to make it on a single income, but chances are, there are a lot more people that could identify with those more pressing struggles than merely dodging fame.

To be fair, each section of Philadelphia has its own unique vibe. In that sense, it really is “the city of neighborhoods.” In addition to the distinct brand of ambiance native to each part of the city, some areas of Philly have a better sense of fashion than others.

You’ve got your uppity, Main Line society types, many of whom plan on dousing themselves with pastel shades of Lilly Pulitzer with the onset of Spring. North Philly has its streetwise, uptown thug style and West Philadelphia follows suit, with some “hipster” fashion thrown in for good measure, depending on if whether you happen to be up or down from 34th St. South Philly is also an enclave of hipster-attire, as is some of Center City, although, as a rule, Center City is something of a melting pot in terms of people and fashion for Philadelphians. South Philly (and the parts of Fishtown swarming with fresh-off-the-boat Albanians) favors the neo-Guido look of nylon tracksuits and gold chains nestled on a bed of thick chest hair.

Like I said, some parts of the city feature better dressers than others.

I happen to live in the Northeast part of Philly — AKA - The Land That Style Never Touched. With the possible exception of Manayunk, you won’t find a more shoddily turned-out area of the city. (While the Northeast owns up to its White Trash status and makes no pretense about it, Manayunk/Roxborough is home to the bizarre dichotomy of the White Trash Yuppie. Its geographical locale at the tip of Montgomery County renders it as close to a suburb as you can get while still technically being considered part of Philadelphia (which could account for such white trash snobbery). That said, the Northeast suffers from a severe lack of snappy dressers.

On my daily commute to and from work, I’ve seen some pretty heinous outfits. Pick up a magazine from five, maybe ten years ago. That’s what you’ll see on any given day in 2009 in the Northeast. It’s small town fashion at its worst, transposed to the big city: Printed turtlenecks with tiny patterns worn under bulky sweaters. Velour track suits. Tight sweatpants that yield a tantalizing glimpse of camel toe (or “moose knuckle,” depending on how big it is). All your old favorites are there!

And heaven forbid you actually put some thought or (dare I say it) pride into putting together your attire! If you do, you’ll find yourself treated to the Stink-Eye Supreme by some Hagen Dazs-huffing hippo with her hair tacked into a high bun whose muffin top threatens to eclipse the side pockets of her unfortunately skin tight jeans.

Conversely, for every fashion victim riding SEPTA, I’ve seen some pretty creative dressers on the bus, too. No one (myself included) busts out the Versace to ride SEPTA. (Not that I own anything by Versace. Except for a kick ass pair of sunglasses that would do Elton John proud!) That’s not to say you can’t dress well on a (very low) budget.

This past week, I saw a very “unique” ensemble worn by one of the passengers on the 84 bus. While it wasn’t the pinacle of fashion, I have to hand it to the girl for creativity.

I see a lot of crazy things on the 84 from time to time. One of the strangest I had seen over the years was the trend of “conjugal visit Polaroids.” The 84 bus passes by a local Philadelphia prison. The bus is usually packed with people coming to and from visiting their loved ones during the morning and afternoon commutes. On a few separate occasions, I’ve seen visitors on the bus returning from their visit clutching Polaroids of themselves and their favorite inmate.

One day, I had to do a double-take when I saw a girl wearing the same outfit as she was on the bus in the Polaroid photo she was clutching with her prison beau’s arms wrapped around her like they were at the prom. Only in lieu of formalwear, the girl was wearing denim capri’s and layers of pastel polo shirts and a neon tank top and her “date” was clad in the standard-issue orange jumpsuit of the Philadelphia House of Corrections. His arms were delicately draped around her waist as they stood together, her back to his chest, both smiling prettily for the camera.

The only thing missing were the requisite balloons, streamers, and trellis full of flowers behind them and it could have been a snapshot from an oddly-themed prom. Forget “A Night Under the Stars”! Here comes “A Night Behind Bars”!

This wasn’t the first time I had seen the Conjugal Visit Polaroid on the bus… And it wouldn’t be the last.

Apparently, some of the visitors really get creative when they know they’re going to have a photo opportunity with their beloved behind bars. On their way back from a visit to the penitentiary, one woman and either her sister or her inmate-boyfriend’s sister had brought several young children with them for what would presumably be a family portrait. Both girls and all of the kids were wearing matching red t-shirts.

Lo and behold, one of the girls was clutching a Polaroid. My curiosity piqued, I looked over and wouldn’t you know it, but it was yet another Conjugal Visit Polaroid. In the photo, the girls were holding their kids on their laps and seated at the feet of the only person in the photo not wearing a red t-shirt. One of the kids was sitting on the inmate/boyfriend/brother’s lap. It struck me that this could be the family Christmas card if you Photoshopped Santa hats on everyone in a red shirt and a white beard on the inmate – if Santa wore an orange jumpsuit.

I don’t know if that was the original intent behind this impromptu family photo, but it sure looked that way.

That’s not to say that I’m downing the idea of Prison Polaroids. Inmates are human, too, and deserve time with their families and friends who love them. It’s actually quite nice that the family is allowed to have a memento of the person who can’t be a part of their everyday lives due to incarceration. However, I often wonder how these photographs happen the way they do. The matching red shirts (that would undoubtedly clash with the orange jumpsuit) and prom-like atmosphere in these photos certainly merits a hearty “What the FUCK!?”

While I’ve seen some doozies, this week however, I saw the most creative combination of Conjugal Visit Polaroids and fashion that I may have ever seen. Ever.

Either that, or a heralding sign of the Apocalypse.

It was a crowded rush hour ride home when a gaggle of prison visitors got on at their stop. It was standing room only and one girl wearing a hoodie had situated herself in front of me. The hood of her sweatshirt was up and I was afforded a full-on look at the back of her carefully airbrushed hoodie.

In that instant, I was kicking myself for not having my camera ready or having a good enough angle to inconspicuously capture this image for all time with my cell phone camera.

On the back of her hoodie was a giant, airbrushed portrait of the hoodie-wearer and her imprisoned boyfriend captured for posterity in their very own Conjugal Visit Polaroid. Only instead of being placed in a photo album, there it was — big as day and splattered across the back of a very dubious fashion statement.

If that don’t grab your attention as a fashion statement, nothing will!

The airbrushed photo on the back of the hoodie still had the familiar white border of a Polaroid snapshot as part of the artistically rendered design, framing the prom-like, posed photo of the two lovebirds — one of which was a jailbird.

Before I could find an inconspicuous way to snap a shot with my piece of shit cell phone of this miraculous monument to love behind bars and airbrushed fashion, the girl hopped into an open seat, the back of her hoodie obscured for the remainder of the ride.

Son of a bitch!

I may not have been able to take a picture of it, but someday soon, I hope to capture the rare, elusive prize of the Conjugal Visit Hoodie on film. Hey, if someone can get shots of Big Foot and the Loch Ness Monster, damn skippy, I will get a photo of this article of clothing perhaps more mythical than the Shroud of Turin itself. For now, dear reader, my mere description will have to suffice and the Conjugal Visit Hoodie shall remain the stuff of legend.