About half of the year book photos resemble the celebrity that we know, love and hate today:

While others were just down-right surprising:

Not too shabby Seacrest… not too shabby at all.

Anyway thought some of you might get a kick out it, head on over and check it out.

Over the last few weeks you might have seen a warning window like the one above (or similar to it) when visiting the site. Unfortunately it looks like some WordPress plugin-tinkering that I did right before going on vacation introduced an obnoxious malware hook into the site (don’t worry, it’s nothing epicly horrible).

I just finished manually cleaning it out using talgalili’s tip here. The infection was an invisible iframe-hack injecting a reference to the m-analytics.net site in every single .php or .html file hosted on the site — really obnoxious but easy enough to clear out and tighten up everything in the process.

Sorry you guys had to deal with that while I was gone, we should be good now.

Likewise, this is an EXCELLENT video to show all your friends so that forevermore “ring ring ring ring ring” will mean something special to you. Pretty special, dude…pretty fuckin special…

And if you are getting hooked now on the miracle of viral videos, you’ll be happy to know there is a whole series of Magical Trevor videos to get into. Here’s one to get you started.

A week ago I went to the NIN/JA tour, a farewell tour for Nine Inch Nails and a reunion tour for Jane’s Addiction. As I sit and reflect on just how good the show was, and it was great, I am still, a week later, having to lean to one side due to the enormous chunk of my ass that is missing from the ticket price. I loved this show but I paid far more than I should have and it still stings. I have been sitting on this article for awhile, partially to try to give myself extra cushion, but partially to see if my anger for the vicious fucking by ticket that my anus was treated to would subside or die down into that dull roar that is essentially the soundtrack/background noise to my life but it has not.

Now I know with that kind of set up you are probably left with a stomach twisted in knots to hear just how much Livenation, the ticket vendor,  stole from me like a mugger in a back alley. I feel like Bruce Wayne after seeing his parents gunned down for his mom’s pearls. I want revenge. Of course rather than dress in tights and fight crime I am just going to go ahead and bitch online. I don’t need to add broken bones to the shattered remains of my spirit and naive belief that a company might not try to gouge honest Americans of their hard earned dollars in the midst of such challenging economic times.

So here it is. I paid $20 a ticket. Well technically 19.91 but close enough. Now sure, you are probably going ‘Alright asshole, what is the deal? 20 bones for two alternative legends is a great price and you should be happy they let you in the door!’ I get that. I think $20 is a great price for this show. It was incredible. It was probably NIN’s best set I’ve seen and I’ve seen them five times. So why am I complaining? $19.91 is what I paid. The actual ticket price was-wait for it-$7.66

I am going to give that its own sentence.

I paid $20 for a $7.66 ticket.

So for those of you playing along and home, that means that I paid just under twice the actual ticket price in service fees. That is fucking criminal. Now again, if the ticket price was $20 full stop, I would have no problem paying that for this show. I would have paid a lot more. But I feel like I have really been had here. I have never felt so fleeced in all my life for $20 and I bought Brokeback Mountain without seeing it first (it isn’t because they are gay, it is because the movie showed things that should have been in a montage and skipped over parts that would have actually been interesting). A friend of mine was a bit slower with the ticket purchase and she had a $2o face price. She paid $34.

Let’s break it down here and see what sorts of fees we are dealing with. I mean, I want to be fair and you might be thinking that the fees were justified, that maybe everyone needs to be tightening their belts and jacking up the prices to continue to bring us entertainment in a time of severe ecconomic recession. Okay, fair enough, here it is: Ticket Fee-$6.25, Parking Fee-$6. Now, taken seperately, these don’t sound that bad or unreasonable. Sure they are roughly a dollar and some change less than the actual ticket price but whatever. Bullshit.

First and foremost, what the fuck is a ticket fee? I assume it is a processing fee or service charge but anyway you slice it that is a ‘extra shit tacked on so we can make some money.’ Now sure, the ticket service should get theirs for the show and their cut probably isn’t all that much off of the overall ticket sales. But you know, and maybe I am getting into semantics here, but don’t call it a ticket fee. The ticket fee should be the price of the ticket.  In fact, this should just be incorporated into the ticket price if you want to charge me a ticket fee. Don’t bait and switch me with an extra $6 after I have already agreed to get everyone tickets.

Sure, sure, if they did that less people may go but for a big marquee show like this, you could charge $75 and people would pay. Hell Coldplay charges $120 for shitty seats and people show up to the arena. You are going to get paid if you have a big act coming, you don’t have to be all deceitful and like the Federal Government. So don’t hand me a ticket fee after you’ve suckered me in. I honestly can’t believe this sort of thing is legal. I know it is, but I just don’t see how. At the very least it is disingenuous.

Now to the parking fee. It seems like the parking fee is easier to justify right? You are getting something for it and parking fees are always an extra expense when you go to a show. A parking fee is for convenience. You show up, you park, it is all good. That is fine. And if I were the only one in the car that would be just peachy. I bought 5 tickets and had four other people with me. We all paid $6. That is $30 for a parking space. That was five dollars less than a t-shirt at the show.

Again I have no problem paying for parking. Well, I do, and in cases where it is possible I like to park really far away for free and walk in. I would rather get some exercise than pay extra money so my car can occupy space. But in this situation, I don’t have a problem paying for a space. I do have a problem paying the price of a Blu-ray for it. The way I see it, the venue owed us five parking spaces. Right up until we parked my friend Jeff was lobbying for parking sideways and then setting up flares in the spots that my SUV won’t cover.  I don’t think it was a bad idea but the guy with the orange flag that was directing me to my space probably would have protested and I didn’t want to be ejected before I even got to see Street Sweeper Social Club.

When we got into the venue there were posters all around saying that you should carpool to the venue because it is better for the environment. I assume that the environment of which they are speaking is that of venue’s wallets because that is what is getting lined here. Right there it is proof positive that they KNOW that people are going to be showing up in groups and that $24 of that $3o is going straight to profit.

There needs to be some way to sort that out when you are on the website buying groups of tickets. I know that the counter-argument to this is that people can lie, but you know if the venue can steal then I can lie. I understand that, like the ticketing services, the venue needs to make money but given the fact that a large beer is $8 and nachos are your first and third children, I doubt the venues are hurting terribly much. That being the case, I think the best way to do it is just to do what they used to and charge a flat fee at the lot. That is what is fair. Or, again, incorporate the parking price into the price of the ticket overall.

I heard that Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails) chose Livenation because of Ticketmaster’s well storied egregious fuckings of ticket buyers and he found Livenation’s policies and charges to be more fair. If that is true I imagine that Ticketmaster must rape your mom in front of you while punching your dad in the balls while a henchmen holds you in a half-nelson and a third strip mines your bank account. Then they send a video tape of the proceedings to your girlfriend or little sister.  I looked up ticket prices for the upcoming Green Day show which is being handled by Ticketmaster and while there was a service fee, the prices were much less ridiculous and not even close to twice the face price on the ticket.

I am not sad I saw the show, it was great. NIN was awesome and Dave Navarro is a fucking monster on guitar. I wish I could have used an alternate vendor for the tickets though. I would really like to speak with my wallet on this and show Livenation how much I think they suck by not buying the tickets, but when it is the farewell tour of one of your favorite bands, AND Tom Morello’s new band is playing, they kind of have me over a barrel. How are you not going to see the show?  Moving forward, however, I intend to shout it to the mountain tops and go out of my way to not use Livenation again. I doubt they will ever notice but it makes me feel better. I hope bands in the future recognize the ridiculous gouging and discontinue their use of the service. As Billy Mays might say, ‘There’s got to be a better way!’

Oh and just for completeness here is my receipt for the transaction:

***************************************
Nine Inch Nails / Jane's Addiction at Cricket Wireless Pavilion
05/15/09 7:30 PM
Cricket Wireless Pavilion PHOENIX
Number of Tickets:
5 Adult

Lawn Special
Section GA LAWN, Row G63, Seat # 59
Section GA LAWN, Row G63, Seat # 60
Section GA LAWN, Row G63, Seat # 61
Section GA LAWN, Row G63, Seat # 62
Section GA LAWN, Row G63, Seat # 63

Tickets: $38.30
Parking Fee: $30.00
Ticket Fee: $31.25
Total Ticket Charges for Event: $99.55

***************************************
Ticket Charges: $38.30
Ticket Fees: $61.25
Delivery Fee for order: $0.00
Total Charge: $99.55

***************************************

Now, I had originally typed this post in a fit of rage over this exchange I had with this woefully misguided girl on whether or not gay marriage should be recognized.  She even went so far as sending me a message on Facebook telling me that she’s “sorry that I have been rejected by the male species so many time that I had to turn to a woman.”  She also said that every lesbian she met is “ornery, angry, and honestly straight up ugly.”  But, just to make sure that I knew that she was mostly okay with gay people, Ellen DeGeneres is her favorite talk show host on Earth.

When I pointed out that I was, in fact, NOT a lesbian and that I simply supported the happiness of others, I got a very lengthy, very sincere apology.  I am not certain as to whether I would have gotten an apology if I WAS a lesbian, but – nevertheless – I have to say that I think this girl is just one of a billion hopelessly brainwashed religious zealots who would rather take efforts to see others put down, rather than work on improving their own station in life.

Below is my original post…

Original Post

I have spent the last 12 hours engaging in a pissing contest with some Mormon vag that I don’t even know.  Would you like to know why?

Because she’s an ignorant bitch.  That’s why.

Here’s the back story:  A friend of mine who lives in California and is gay posted his sarcastic displeasure of proposition 8 – which prohibits same-sex marriages from being legally recognized in the state of California – on his Facebook page.  He didn’t swear, he didn’t call anyone any names, he just made a comment about how proposition 8 had been upheld for several hours and the divorce rate was STILL 76%.

So, some little bow-headed snatch decided to comment something to the effect of “I wish there was a ‘dislike’ button.  Seriously.”

The first stone had been cast.

She then went on to talk about how she was just trying to protect what is “right” and how her family had been egged and had rocks thrown at them because they had “good morals.”  Okay, we never discussed exactly what her morally superior family was doing at the time of the egg-and-rock assault, but I am guessing that they were probably out somewhere where they shouldn’t have been, cramming their morally perfect Mormonism down the throats of the very people that were affected by prop 8.

She also pointed out that “Homosexuality is NOT about love, it’s about SEX.”  Well, Homophobia is not about LOVE, either, sister…

Since this is my rant, I am going to go ahead and tell her (and every other self-righteous hate monger) HERE what I can’t tell her on Facebook:  I feel sorry for you.  You have been completely snowed by your church elders into believing that it is okay to be hateful because it is what God wants.  You have no right to judge anyone else’s beliefs or decisions if they do not directly impact you.  You are not gay and you are married.  Proposition 8 cannot be less about you, so why is it so important for YOUR beliefs to interfere with someone else’s happiness?  Perhaps being gay IS a choice.  It is not the choice that YOU made, so what possible difference does it make?

It is people like YOU  that take pleasure in spewing your own brand of religion-fueled intolerance.  This particular individual is Mormon, and since we know that the Utah Mormons have spent an inordinate amount of money and effort SUPPORTING Prop 8, we’ll have to throw them all under the bus.  Mormonism isn’t even a real religion.  It’s a cult and you are all brainwashed.  Based on your beliefs, it is okay for a man to take numerous wives to elevate his status in Heaven.  Women are servants to their men.  And, this is my favorite, since BLACK PEOPLE are the children of CAIN, they were banned from holding priesthood in the LDS church and therefore banned from the temple.  That makes you all racist.  I guess that I shouldn’t be surprised by your equal intolerance of same-sex couples.  Do you think God condones that sort of intolerance?  My God doesn’t, that’s for sure.

Wow…kind of sucks having your shit laid out for judgement, doesn’t it?

Fortunately, your God suddenly realized his mistake about 25 years ago and gave the Grand Poobah of Mormonism a divine revelation that, “Hey, we should stop being so shitty to black people.”

The Mormon Church realized that it just can’t continue with it’s absurdly outdated beliefs and practices, because it was incorrect, hateful, and unconstitutional.  This kind of sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

My advice to all of you is to shut your fucking mouths.  You sicken me with your contempt of other people’s happiness and basic rights and your insistence that you represent the moral gold standard by which others are measured.  Just because you are irretrievably trapped in your contrived little world of dutiful misery, does not mean that you get to project that same misery and intolerance on the rest of society.  You point out that “Prop 8 is about protecting the definition of marriage.”  Well, wrong again…Proposition 8 is protecting the initiative, rather than the actual definition of marriage.  That means any initiative that is passed in California that overturns Proposition 8 will be given the same consideration.

It WILL get overturned.

The whole lot of you can feel free to suck it… I will pray for you.  Nothing personal, of course.

Names have been omitted to prevent the needless waste of the eggs that people would throw at everyone for being such douches.

I am a huge believer in the laws of attraction, as well as meaningful coincidence.  I am also a big believer in heavy sarcasm.  Sometimes it can be hard to reconcile this juxtaposition.  I have recently begun practicing the theories behind the big, fat secret, and I know they work…just like running 100 miles a day will undoubtedly help you shed a few pounds, but it’s still a lot like work.

Interesting Sidenote:  Did you KNOW that it was, in fact, Suzanne Whang of House Hunters fame that introduced Oprah Winfrey to “The Secret?”  True, albeit weird, story.

So, anyway…the basic gyst of The Secret is that you ask the universe for something and then wait while the universe processes your order and then sends it to the fulfillment center which then fills your order, NO POSTAGE REQUIRED…seriously.  You can see where the sarcastic part wants to go for the jugular, right?

Well, I placed my order for a swimming pool to be installed in my backyard, so I will let you know how that pans out.

Seriously, the idea is that you have to want something SO badly that it consumes you.  It has to be the only thing you think about, and you have to think about it all the time.  I have wanted a handful of things in my life that badly, and I have gotten each and every one of them…so far, except the swimming pool.

You also have to create a “vision board.”  You should make it so that you wake up and see what you want every day, so that it never leaves your mind, and it inspires you to continuously think about this thing you want.  This is just one chromosomal abnormality away from stalking.  Just in case you are confused – it is OKAY to put a picture of black Christian Loubutin pumps on your vision board, but it is NOT OKAY to put Christian Louboutin on your vision board…you see the fine line?

I would like for the universe to know that I want money.  Lots of money.

I would also like for the universe to know that I am tired of seeing people that HAVE money piss it away on stupid shit.  I want my shower repaired so that I don’t have to duct-tape tiles back to the wall, and I want those little bastards down the street to stop spraypainting on the front of my fucking house.  I want the aforementioned Wild West Attraction to pony up the dough that they owe me, and I want the ladies that I spoke with to get gonorrhea.

I want to replace my countertops that are original to my circa-1972 house (white formica with a vein of gold).  I would also like the asshole that put up all the paneling in my house to get a boil in his armpit.  I want to refinance my house to a more reasonable interest rate.  I want for people to buy my books.  I want some cake.  I would like for the gecko that was in my bedroom last night to make it back to the safety of the outside.  I want some seed money for my fella’s photography business.  I want a new wardrobe.  I want to be able to get the brakes fixed on the car.  I would like to know how all the peanut shells got hoarded in the corner next to my couch.  I want more attractive feet.  I want REALLY GOOD bras.  I want to be able to afford to send my kids to college.  I want to go to Pinnacle Peak for dinner.  I want to go to San Diego.  I want a more even skin tone.  I want permission to punch people.

And yes, I want fries with that.

There, I really think I have this “secret” thing down pat.  I can’t wait for the swimming pool OR the permission to punch people.

The world is my oyster.

Writing a book is easy.  Promoting a book and finding avenues through which to sell your book and get gigs that allow you to whore said book is really, really hard.  That is why when we visited a famous local wild west attraction, I left with such a sense of pleasant surprise, that I almost floated away on a golden cloud adorned with glee beads and ribbons of satisfaction.

We even ate lunch at a REAL restaurant because we thought we had lassoed the moon.

It started with a simple email mentioning our books and how they made the cover of our second book.  It was well received, and within a day or so we were daydreaming over what incredibly spectacular, history-making shindig we might be able to plan if it’s within our modest budget.  We set up a meeting and waited.

Meeting day came and I dressed in my most responsible looking outfit, and all three of us traveled the requisite 12 miles and a hundred years from town to arrive in a timely fashion, hoping beyond hope that these purveyors of awesomeness would allow us to gaze upon their glory without making us avert our eyes in our lesserness.  Surprisingly, we were shown event prices that were SUPER affordable, they danced in joy circles over the spun gold that is both of our books (and couldn’t WAIT to stock them on the shelves of their 4 gift shops), and finally they carried us out on their shoulders while crowds of minstrels and onlookers broke into spontaneous song and threw confetti.  Doves were released into the sky.  It was a GOOD day.

Armed with prices written in black and white, I ventured towards a proposal that would have been a really fantastic Halloween event that INCLUDED the cost of the ubiquitous and ridiculously over-priced October attraction.  It was going to be a sweet money-making event for all parties involved.

Then the meds wore off.

When the proposal was sent to me, it listed prices that were never discussed in the initial meeting and were totally contradictory to the event pricing list that I was given by the very person preparing the proposal.  When I asked her to rework the numbers because she had made an error in her math, she told me there was no error and that was the cost.

“But I have this price list here that says UBIQUITOUS HALLOWEEN ATTRACTION is INCLUDED.”

No, it’s not.

Even after underlining and highlighting the text, then emailing it to her, she wove an intricate tapestry of bullshit explaining why I was WRONG and how she can understand how I might have MISUNDERSTOOD what it said.

But there was no misunderstanding because it SAYS “UBIQUITOUS HALLOWEEN ATTRACTION INCLUDED.”

That really should have been the red flag that ended my communication with this rickety whorehouse, but NO…I had to push the envelope.

Revisiting the excitement over getting the books on their shelves before the “season” ended, I rode the wave of urgency and ordered a box from the publisher because it was the fastest way to get them on the shelf.  At the meeting, I asked book lady what the customary breakdown on consignment book sales were and she told me, and I QUOTE, “Whatever you think is fine.”  Needing a teensy bit more guidance, I pressed on for more information.  She was still not willing to come up with a number or a ratio.  She wasn’t worried, so I wasn’t worried.  Seriously, am I HIGH?

So, the books arrive and I tell her what the books cost ME and I thought that we could take an equal split of the difference and she adamantly told me “NO.”  She would absolutely not take the books if that was all she was going to make.  This would have been helpful information to have at the meeting when I specifically requested this information but WHATEVER.

I go back to the drawing board and come up with a split that at least included a light smear of lube for Patrick and I, and she agreed to that.  I have the email.  I will show anyone the email that asks.  Based on that promise, we merrily travel twelve plus 100 back to fistville with a teetering constitution and a box of books.  She seemed happy, and the only thing she forgot was to grab a contract, but she’s going to put in a request for a check for the following Thursday. ****DANGER WILL ROBINSON…MAYDAY MAYDAY****

“No sweat” I tell her.  She is going to email the contract to me, we will print it, sign it, scan it, and send it back.  Easy as PIE.  We get lunch at a drive through, this time.

One case of books, three weeks, two emails, zero contract.  This is not good math.  I send one more rather curt email simply telling her to email the contract.  I get a reply!  She wants me to call her.  I fucking hate calling people, so I call her.  I can’t even really remember the EXACT words she used, but she more or less called me a thief and a liar, and she is sorry that she doesn’t have a contract because she can get these books directly from the publisher and make more money, and if her manager knew that this was the deal, we never would have taken the books!  She also stated that this was a bad business deal.  I replied, “Clearly it was bad for everyone involved.”  She once again stated that she would “put in the request for the check, but”…but what?  You have books that belong to me, you have SOLD books that belong to me and you have YET to make payment.  She even admitted that the books were selling WELL.  She stands to make three times what the author is making on each book, but that isn’t enough, and all for doing NOTHING.  It’s pure profit for them, but not ENOUGH pure profit.

Again, I have the email chain stating EXACTLY what our cost was and what we would take for the books, since we all want to make a little money off the deal.

So, between the time we walked out of the door of the gift shop and today, she never sent a contract and she never put in a request for a check.  Clearly, she never intended to pay us for the books, and now she is belligerently calling US thieves.  I am fairly certain my phone call was broadcast on two-way radio, as well.  This was all contrived to set some sort of precedent indicating that we are difficult to deal with, and that we are somehow shady and undeserving of payment.

This is why people suck.  This is why I have hate in my heart.  I wrote a fucking book, but I am a thief for wanting to make what amounts to ONE DOLLAR off of each book.  ONE FUCKING DOLLAR, and that doesn’t even include what it cost me to ship the books from Pennsylvania.

And this, my friends, is what ass rape feels like.

Editor’s Note: <insert goat.se picture here…>

You know, this could have been a perfect example of instant karma.

For those who don’t particularly give a shit, this is Miss California – Carrie Prejean – who recently found 15 seconds of notoriety by declaring herself a staunch homophobe at the Miss USA pageant.  She made it to the top 5, and was answering the question posed by Perez Hilton regarding whether or not each state should make the decision to legalize same sex marriage.

She said – and I am paraphrasing here – that “it’s great that people get to choose, but in HER country marriage is between a man and woman.”

Her country?  Wait…

So, anyway, Perez managed to stifle his urge to rip her jugular out through her throat, and she ended up finishing in second place.

Now, I ax ya…how the hell does she get to make moral judgement calls for an entire nation when she’s got her titties hanging out?  This is a perfect example of how indescriminately people bandy about the word “Christian” to describe themselves…Oh, so you were a “Christian” when you were standing on the stage telling the world that God hates gay people…well then, what were you the day you posed for this titty shot?

Jesus Loves Boobies!

No instant karma here because she gets to keep the title of Miss Tit-ifornia.  She said her titties were out because it was a windy day.

Popular culture has made pirates into silly geese. Certainly not the vicious, murdering pricks they’ve been known to be. Surely these Somali bastards are pirates, in the old school sense of the term. Fox News has taken to calling them terrorists, which I think puts a much-needed urgency on actually doing something about them than does calling them something that your child dresses as for Halloween.

If you’re at a party and some pirates crash through the window, you and your buddies would laugh and say, “That’s hilarious. Remember last year when those ninjas crashed our party?”

But if a gang of terrorists arrives, holy shit, you’re out of there so fast, and even the smuggest of atheists is saying his and/or her prayers (It’s a well-known fact that most hermaphrodites are atheists. I mean, wouldn’t you be?).

Even I, whose great grandfather was murdered by the most famous pirate, Honus Wagner, think of that stupid Sirens act at Treasure Island in Vegas when I think of pirates.

I mean, think of it:

A bunch of so-called “Sirens” catch and kidnap a pirate named Eros. Then they dance and sing, and Ole Sexy Name is resisting because he’s clearly a homosexual. Then the rest of the gay pirates come to rescue him. They’re the worst pirates you’ve ever seen. They’re like the Mighty Heroes meets The Birdcage.

So it’s a battle between the sexy sirens and the gay pirates. The acting is atrocious because it’s this voice over on a PA system that gives the whole thing a Jem and the Holograms feel. The singing is almost as bad, like the Pussycat Dolls. You start wondering if the Pussycat Dolls have names like the Spice Girls: Baby Pussy, Ginger Pussy, Scary Pussy. Anything to take your mind off this abortion you’re witnessing.

Then the pirates start mimicking the songs of the sirens, and, soon, the girls sink their ship. Undaunted, the pirates swim to the sirens’ ship to save Eros. By now, he doesn’t want to be saved. He’s experienced a conversion, but the other pirates don’t care. It’s now “Cockblockers of the Caribbean.”  In the end, everyone’s straight and they all have an orgy. It’s truly a story with something for everyone. It has lots of sexual innuendo and skimpy outfits for the more liberal people, but also a gay conversion story for the conservative viewer.

Is that what these Somali guys are? Ambiguously gay, singing, dancing pirates? Hell to the no! They’re terrorists, like Al-Qaeda and the American Idols producers. So let’s stop calling them pirates unless we’re including the word “butt” in front of it. Stupid Somali butt pirates.

I was logged into Gmail today checking some mail and replying to some folks when I saw this on the right hand side of my screen:

You realize how those ads get there right? When those companies create ad campaigns, they type in keywords that they want to try and match their ads to. Given the email I was reading/replying to was about Dan Brown’s next book, I really have to wonder which exact keywords Shopping.com are paying for from my email that triggered that ad… and what text in my email made them think that female *******ing clips are a good eye-catcher for comparing prices online when shopping.

Super SEO fail… but then again, I did blog about it, so who knows… maybe it did work =/

At the behest of a few friends, I am finishing up Isaac Asimov’s The Foundation Series right now and can’t say I really enjoyed it much. The writing seems shallow, like it’s written by a 20-year-old, and the story content itself feels weak… sort of like a PG-13 retelling of World War II’s most intense battles. It’s not that it’s inaccurate, but without the intensity of battlefield mutilation it’s hard to feel the “intensity” of the situation.

Anyway, Todd Swarthout mentioned to me this morning that Dan Brown apparently has a new book coming out. After 3 seconds on Google it looks like The Lost Symbol is going to be it — This September.

Apparently the book is going to take place in Washington D.C. and cover the Freemason lore. Color me “I want that book!”… I love stories like that, and given Brown’s pacing, story structure and detail that go into his stories to give you that convincing depth… I’m salivating.

While we wait, anyone else got some personal favorite books to share?

The fair is always different depending on when you go, how often you go, who you go with and how old you are. I used to go a lot and with a variety of people be it friends, family, girl friends and (now ex)wives. There were a few years that my Dad was involved in the tractor pull and I was able to get in for free whenever I wanted. That was always a tough decision for me just out of high school, is getting in for free worth the risk of embarrassment of telling your friends that your Dad is in the tractor pull? Yes it is. Besides, no one ever cared and I was just an asshole post-teen who was still embarrassed by things my parents did. I am glad I am never having kids because I would end up with a conservative young republican kid who thinks that comics and video games are ‘gay’; then when I told him that we don’t use that word to describe things because, in addition to the term being derogatory and offensive, it can not be applied to interests as interests are not animate and cannot have a sexual orientation he would slap me in the face so he could laugh about it with his cheerleader girlfriend.

I went for concerts occasionally too. Some local shows and some bigger acts. I was once almost run over by Ben Folds in a golf cart. Those are the memories you cherish. It is also sort of cool when you are sitting there with a group of people bitching about how long it is taking the next band to come out and then they smile and nod and then get on stage and play their set. Awesome. Moreso when your buddy was unsuccessfully flirting with the hot lead singer who turns out to be married to the guitar player which explains much better why he had spent the last 20 minutes looking really smug and amused.

I’ve also been to the fair for dog shows. I had a girl friend who was in dog shows and we went for that a few times. It is like watching Best In Show on Old McDonald’s farm. Trying to go ride rides afterward becomes a challenge. ‘Hey can you watch my enormous golden retriever while I go down that 50ft slide in a burlap sack?’ Awesome.

Most people go to the fair for rides. I like those too, but I really go for the full experience, the exhibition halls, the crazy shows, the vendors, the people watching, the food and then the rides. I went last night with my girl friend and my best friend and I found the night to be a lot of fun but also sort of muted and understated by way of excitement. I am not sure if it is just that I have been so many times over the years or if it is that I am getting older, or a combination of both or neither but the fair has lost a bit of magic for me and it was not quite as magical of an experience. That I was operating on maybe three hours of sleep probably did not help.

We got there around seven and I wanted to check out the halls and all the display things before hitting up the rides. I also had a list of things I planned to eat which stemmed less from a real desire to eat all those things and more from having listed the things I liked to eat at the fair and it then becoming a challenge.

I got a corn dog right away. I did not get the foot long version because I was trying to pace myself and I wanted to start out slow.  I then followed up by tracking down the cart that does the fried desserts. They had a three for 10 special so I got fried oreos, a fried twinkie and a fried moon pie. The twinkie was awesome. When I say awesome I mean like a thing from heaven. The oreos are a bit much and they gave us four. I ate two and my girlfriend ate the other two. The moon pie was awful and I didn’t finish the whole thing. If they had used the banana moon pies I think it would have been different but the chocolate made the whole thing way too rich, which is really saying something when you are talking about something deep fried in hot oil.

We went to the exhibition halls next and looked at the arts and crafts. The items found here always run the gamut from great to god awful. The baked items were horrifying as we are approaching the end of the fair and god only knows how long those things have been sitting out. The apple pies looked more emaciated than Christian Bale in the Machinist. The photo part was really amusing as some of the pieces looked professional and artistic and some looked like they just snapped a shot of their daughter in a sun dress at best and a LOLcatz pic at worst. There isn’t anything wrong with those kinds of pictures, but you should dive into the family album for something to enter into a photo contests in the best of circumstances. When the photo you enter is aging worse than a meth addict you should probably just wait until you have something new for next year.

The exhibition halls really kind of disappointed because I remember seeing them with a certain wild-eyed wonder when I was younger. I am not sure if all the shiny gadgets being pushed by hucksters and the sorts of people you don’t want to leave your children alone with were cooler back in the day or if I just have a better appreciation for the value of a dollar than to waste it on badly hewn homemade clothing or glittery hard plastic 50 Cent and Wutang pendants, but I found the items to be underwhelming even for comedic value. Even the Pro-life booth, which in the past has had video playing and huge posters of aborted fetuses, was low key and sort of respectful. Of course, there were plenty of religious and political  booths to be had including the newly minted ‘Teabagging’ movement. I would make a joke about how hilarious it is that people who oppose the rights of homosexuals then use the name of a typically gay activity to describe the nature of their protests but MSNBC has been mining that particular gold for weeks now and the vein is pretty tapped. So I will take the high ground and not conjure any images of these people expressing a desire to dip their man bits into someone else’s mouth. Oops.

The religious groups at the fair really annoy me. I don’t particularly care what religion someone else is. I have my own spiritual beliefs and while I am willing to talk about them with people I don’t think that shouting those beliefs into a PA system is going to do any one any good. I also don’t appreciate being asked if I am going to heaven while I am trying to find a good price on an Indian Taco. When I answered ‘oh sure,’  I didn’t appreciate the follow up to be ‘how do you know?’ I wasn’t upset he didn’t get that I was quoting Bill Murray’s character in Ed Wood when he was getting baptised but I think it is fairly insulting to ask someone something like that. Of course the point is that  I am either supposed to fire back an angry ‘how do YOU know?’ which would then lead to prostelatizing for 45 minutes or I am supposed to break into tears and confess that I don’t know an I need him to tell me. Also, he got my attention by referencing my Red Sox shirt. So right there he has answered his own question. Had I been wearing a Yankees shirt, then sure my acceptance into heaven would have been called into question, but as it was the question was just redundant.

So after I realized I didn’t want to spend the amount I make an hour on an Indian Taco, I got a pizza on a stick and a cheeseburger. We stopped by the beer garden so my buddy Jeff could ply himself with alcohol and then it was off to the Midway.

Ride tickets have never been cheap but I am kind of surprised they don’t have a second line for ass raping because they might as well finish the process they started with the ticket prices. We got our tickets, which are put on a handy scan card so you don’t have to fumble with the things while waiting in line and went out to find a ride.

The first ride we went on was pretty basic. It takes you up really high and then drops you really fast. Then you get off and go about your business. It looks and sounds pretty tame unless you are so afraid of heights that you are in serious danger of wetting yourself when on a 10 ft step ladder. I kicked off my shoes because they were slip ons and I have the sort of luck would involve me getting the nickname ‘Left Shoe’ forever more and we were on our way. I have been on this sort of ride before. The scariest was the Big Shot on the top of the Stratosphere in Vegas. That was scare mostly because before the ride started I noticed a helicopter a few hundred feet below us and I realized I had really fucked up.  One thing that this ride did differently than the others is that rather than launching you up in the air at mach speeds it just made its way up lackadaisically. This made it much worse because you had a lot of time to see where your body will end up if things go wrong. We reached the apex and Jeff said ‘Now look straight down!’ I suggested that he spend some quality time with himself and his privates and clamped my eyes shut like I was facing down a Nazi firing squad after trying to blow up Hitler. Then we dropped and I screamed like a girl and stopped then screamed again because it took a lot longer to reach the ground that I thought it should. Then it was over and we wandered around to some other rides.

The next ride we went on was the Zipper. This is a perennial favorite at fairs and carnivals all over the country and my girlfriend had never gone on it. The Zipper straps you into cages and spins said cages around while the whole ride spins. There is a lot of spinning. When I was younger I remember the Zipper being tall and imposing. Now it looks like you could probably go ahead and fall off the top of it and not die. Sure you would break something but we aren’t talking about instant and absolutely certain death.  I’ve gone on this ride more times than I’ve had years on earth but it was scarier this time. I am not sure if it was because it was my girlfriend’s first time or if I have become some kind of pussy but it was more intense than ever. For Jeff’s part, the third wheel legend reared its ugly head and he was left at the gate having a shouting match with the ride operator regarding the ‘no single riders’ policy. He ultimately went up with an 11 year old boy. We had been pulling for a hot single girl but you take what you can get. Such is the plight of the single rider.

The rest of the rides were sort of a blur because I had to keep my eyes shut for most of them as they had more strobe lights than a questionable basement rave. Standing in line, however, we noticed a disturbing trend. Teenage girls can’t seem to help but to have their titties hanging out. I would normally not be one to complain about the public display of boobs but when said boobs are attached to a 15 year old, I have to respectfully ask they be housed in more modest accommodations. There is nothing worse than looking down at perfect, enormous breasts struggling to burst free from the oppressive confines of their Fall Out Boy T-shirt and then looking up to get a better look at their owners only to find that they belong to someone  who was born the year you graduated from high school. I think that if we can’t convince these girls to wear burlap sacks around everywhere then they should at least be required to wear some kind of badge announcing their age. I don’t think it is fair that I have to feel like a pedo every time I see a low cut shirt or shorty shorts.

The fair is an odd place. There is a lot to see and take in and there is a wide variety of people there for a wide variety of reasons. Reflecting on the loss of magic, I looked over and saw a little boy sleeping in a red wagon his parents were pulling around and I remembered what it used to feel like as a kid to go to this glittering place with crazy things and crazy people all around. I remembered the excitement I felt and just how I excited on the drive in when I saw the ferris while shining in the distance. It is easy to get cynnical about this sort of thing when you are paying exorbinate prices for things that you don’t need or might make you throw up or when you are standing in line for a half an hour for maybe a minute’s worth of thrills but there was a time when it was magic and wonderful and I think that is what keeps me going back to the fair. It may just be nostalgia but it is my nostalgia.

Some folks were taking their recycling out to the trash and dropped a few cardboard boxes on their way down the drivway… on the return to pick the boxes back up, this is what had happened in the few mins that passed:

In our own independent testing we have in-fact confirmed the findings… a stray box around the house must be sat in as soon as possible.

Another example of boxes and cats are Maru and his best friend… big box:

and then of course Mr. Chubby Cat and his best friend, soda box:

Honestly, Oprah…what gives?  I set my TiVo to record Monday’s episode dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the Columbine shootings and, instead, I watch some prison bitch board an Amtrak train?

Evidently, the show focused too much on “killing,” so people didn’t want to see it.  What?  Killing?  We aren’t talking about Columbine: the Musical?  No shit?

I realize that Oprah stopped being a journalist a long time ago when she started walking on water, but I didn’t think that airing a television show about Columbine on it’s tenth anniversary was considered controversial.  In fact, since I have children in the public school system, I like to keep myself apprised of anything that might help me should I ever find myself needing to stage a bully intervention, and I am not even saying that in jest…I take school shootings very seriously and it’s a totally avoidable circumstance.  That’s why I was surprised to see that Oprah has decided NOT to talk about the issue on such a relevant anniversary based exclusively on the idea that it “focused too much on murder” and she simply bowed her head in acknowledgment of the Columbine victim’s families.

Why didn’t you just reach out your diamond encrusted hand and slap each one of them on the face?

Instead of devoting the hour to Columbine, we watched two segments…the first one was some useless bitch who was getting out of prison for the SECOND time for attempted robbery and how difficult her transition into society will be and how will her kids react to her when she gets home???

I don’t GIVE a frog’s fat, wrinkled ass, OPRAH!!!  Those would have all been relevant questions that she might have asked herself BEFORE she robbed someone for drug money.  She wasn’t even in prison for three years.  Seriously, it was less interesting than televised golf.  The SECOND segment involved Lisa Ling reporting on a child pornography ring that was discovered in Florida, and we heard a graphic retelling of events that involved a young girl of about 5 or 6, ankles bound to wrists, repeatedly raped by a grown man for 40 minutes.

Why are you telling me this?  How is my knowing THESE details helpful to anyone, especially that little girl?  What you have done, Oprah, is raped your entire audience at the EXPENSE of that little girl.  I am disgusted that you used that story to make yourself look like such a conscientious reporter, when all you really did was ignore the big elephant in the room.  Do you know what happens to abused children that fall through the cracks of society, Oprah?

Or is this too violent for you?

*****Don’t forget Columbine…the victims AND the killers were somebody’s kids. *****

I heard on the news today that somewhere - I’m hearing Kansas or New York or Mexico – one of those places (you know what I mean) - swine flew! Flew! Oh, they tried to scare us a couple of years ago with that whole “birds flew” business. Well, duh-huh-huh-HUH!

That, my friends, is what birds do.

This, however, is much more serious. I’m married now. They said it would never happen, but it did. And do you know how many dames told me they would date me when pigs fly? You can’t even count that high! No one can! Even an  Asian kid!

Now these girls are all getting away with gyping me out of my date. Well, I won’t stand for it! I’m taking my elephant gun – the one I used to kill the woolly mammoth last Thanksgiving – and I’m a hunting flying swine, and there’s not a damn thing the government can do about it. I’m calling Charlie Manson and the Big Bad Wolf and we’re baggin’ us some piggies.

Swine flew indeed!

And, while I’m at it, I visited my mother a few months ago and not once did I tell anyone that I flied to Dallas. So stop saying Dustin Pedroia flied to right his last time up, please, Mr. Baseball Announcer Guy. I’ve put up with that shit for 30 years. He flew! Just like these pork products that have ruined my life. You’d never say Thurman Munson flied into a tree in Akron, or that Corey Lidle flied into a Manhattan building, would you? No!

Oh, I’m having me some bacon wrapped in ham with a side of mini-weenies tonight. You can bet your coily ass on that!

I found some very useful info from a website called Bushveld about my recent purchase. The Rock python is Africa’s largest snake. The rock python eats mammals and birds, refrigerators and small moving trucks. Fantastically, the thing can lay up to 100 tennis-sized eggs. Just imagine 100 of these babies slithering around town!

I have this thing about teeth.  It’s one of the first things I notice about people when I meet them, and I brush my own teeth with a rabid sort of OCD that makes the bristles of my toothbrush part like the red sea and lay flat against the plastic.  Suffice it to say, I value my teeth and I fully judge others based on the condition of their teeth.

That being said, I find myself noticing each time a celebrity goes out and buys him or herself a new set of veneers.  (Here’s a widely overlooked fact about human teeth:  the teeth you are born with are the teeth you are supposed to have.  If you look in a mirror, you will notice that the shape of your teeth matches the shape of your face…I’ll wait while everyone tests that theory)…In my humble opinion, it is both aesthetically pleasing and structurally vital for one to take great care of the teeth that God gave them rather than paying for a set of Lee Press-on Teeth, lest your mass-produced pebble-tech teeth make you look like this:

Seriously, think about ANY Hollywood celebrity and picture their teeth.  Chances are they have had a set of Chiclet veneers placed over their perfectly good, natural teeth.  Nicholas Cage, Chris Rock, Elliot Yamin…the list goes on.  Even Miley Cyrus had her fucking baby teeth covered in veneers (of course, hers have a long stem on the back, so you can just poke them into her potatohead):

As if she didn’t look like an 18 pound bag of ass before…now she SOUNDS like she has a mouth full of potato salad, thanks to the second row of shark-teeth she had glued to the first set.  Here’s another example:

Perfectly fine teeth…freakishly unnatural teeth.

Editor’s Note:

Fake tan, fake teeth, fake boobs, fake ass…and they still don’t look good.  That reminds me, has she done ANYTHING else besides being “Posh?”  Ugh.

Editor’s Note… again:

Editor’s Analysis: siiiiiiiiiickkkkkk

Here’s the deal.  Fake isn’t pretty.  Fake is fake.  If you want straight teeth, visit the orthodontist.  Why can’t chubby girls with their own teeth and boobs be considered pretty?  Just wondering.

As if these veneers aren’t creepy enough, get a load of THIS…

This little pageant victim is wearing what is known as a “flipper.”  Evidently, it is undesirable for little girls competing in pageants to have missing, crooked, or otherwise unsightly teeth, so their mothers and pageant coordinators provide them with vendors who will gladly create a snap-on set of false teeth so that they can be “glitzy” and “glam.”  Comfort is not a priority.  Beauty is.

What is the shelf life of these fake teeth?  Will they expire and start popping out of celeb mouthes in a mass exodus of porcelain?  Or is like painting a house, where layers and layers build up over time, so much so that they will eventually not be able to close their mouthes?

this creeps me out…what’s next?  Kneecap veneers?

Now y’all had to know I would go see this.  I plan on spoiling the everloving HELL right out of it, so if you plan on seeing it, just stop reading now.

****** Seriously, I am holding nothing back.  You have been warned. ******

Okay, so, I am fairly certain that most of you have seen the Haunting in Connecticut T.V. show that aired on…I believe…the Discovery Channel.  I will admit that it was my favorite.  The very idea that a family moves into a funeral home and starts seeing dead people practically makes me salivate.  In fact, I found the “less is more” approach to the portrayal of the activity to be very easy to watch and enjoyable.  The family chose to remain anonymous in the show, and I actually found myself being very creeped out on their behalf.

Backstory

The oldest son of the family was undergoing cancer treatment in Connecticut, and since the rest of the family lived quite a distance away, they decided to find a cheap place and move their family temporarily.  They found a nice big house with cheap rent.

After they move into the house, strange things start happening.  In the T.V. version, the oldest son moves into the basement and starts seeing these creepy ghosts in the “morgue,” and the rest of the family slowly starts seeing ghosts.  Eventually they call in a group of investigators,  including John Zaffis – a very well known paranormal researcher and “demonologist” – who, during the course of the investigation, has some profound experiences of his own.  The activity was noted, and the family moved out.  The son’s cancer went into remission and he remains cancer-free to this day (the best part of the story).

Now, having heard John Zaffis speak publicly about this investigation, by his own admission it was embellished for television, although he stands pat that the activity was real, and for a very long time the family continued to remain anonymous.

Until money started flowing.

Now Carmen Reed has her own website and routinely makes appearances at conventions as a “psychic medium” and the “mom from the house in Connecticut.”

Psychic medium.  Really?  How convenient.  I wonder then how it escaped your attention that your own house was haunted and you refused to believe your children when they consistently relayed their terrifying experiences?  Whatever.  We’ll revisit this topic.

Back to the Movie…

So, anyway, the movie starts out similarly – the family moves because of the son’s cancer – but the first difference I notice is all the Victorian books of the dead that start popping up.  That was not mentioned in the T.V. version, although the concept must have looked really cool to them when they robbed it from “The Others.”

Tangent.  Sorry.

So the family lives in the house and, right away, stuff starts happening.  Dark shadows in mirrors, footsteps overhead, generalized banging and clanging…all things you might expect in a haunted funeral home.  Then shit gets weird…we know this because the niece, in one particular scene, repeats “Now this is where it gets really weird” enough times that it makes me want to kick the projectionist in the balls, and it totally isn’t even his fault.

As the movie veers towards the offramp of believability and careens into “you are totally making this shit up,” we start to see that the ghosts aren’t just regular, run-of-the-mill wispy shadows, but rather zombie-like creatures with strange carvings covering the entirety of their flesh, wrapped in cheesecloth, and whose eyelids have been snipped off…all “facts” that were excluded from the television show.

Now, here’s where the story gets weird…again.  During a game of hide-and-seek, the daughter runs to the attic and falls through the floorboard.  When they pull her out, they find a box and some photos that had been hidden.  We see more photos of dead people, but now we get to see photos of sceances, and a boy who appears to vomit tablecloths.

Cancer boy and his cousin decide to investigate…so they go to the library.

Now, here’s where the story gets weird…one mo’ ‘gain.  After what seems like MINUTES, they manage to find a newspaper clipping that tells them that the funeral home once belonged to a man named Aickman, who had a son named Jonah.  Aickman embalmed people, and Jonah could see dead people, so they held sceances in the home, and Aickman was trying to AMPLIFY Jonah’s POWERS so that he could make ECTOPLASM COME OUT OF HIS MOUTH.  At about the same time, the city built a highway that cut through the local cemetery, but HUNDREDS of the bodies went missing.  Obviously it was because Aickman and Jonah TOOK THEM.

Now here’s where the sto…aw, fuck it.  Now, while cancer boy was receiving treatment, he met a man of the cloth who somehow knew that cancer boy could “see things” and explained that it was because he was walking through the valley of the shadow of death, and that he should fear no evil.  After they got back from the library, they called the reverend.  Reverend arrives at the house and they show him all the stuff they found, including a box of what appeared to be hairy tea leaves.  He informs them it is a box of eyelids and likely the result of necromancy, or “corpse bothering.”

Corpse bothering?  (This is now the point where my friend, Felicia, started poking me in the arm repeatedly as if to “bother” me…)

Editor’s Note: I wonder if Ghost Hunters should change their name to “Ghost Botherers”… I like it!

The reverend comes to the conclusion that Jonah’s remains are trapped in the house, he digs in the chimney and pulls out a jawbone, wraps it in a napkin, and takes it away.  He assures everyone that the activity will now stop because the spirit was trapped in the house, essentially “possessing” the house, but now the spirit is RELEASED and birds will chirp and unicorns will poop marshmallows and the world will become colorblind and barrier-free…or so we think.

On the car ride home, the reverend sees Jonah in the backseat of his car, and he is badly burned.  Oddly, cancer boy – who is now hospitalized – is ALSO seeing Jonah who is badly burned.  Using NO words, Jonah is able to convey that he was trying to free the spirits of the dead people that are buried in the house…you know, the ones that mysteriously disappeared from the cemetery…they are all stacked in the walls of the basement.  Hearing this, cancer boy runs all the way home in the middle of the night and rips all the walls of the basement apart, revealing a pile of crash test dummies wrapped in rags.  He then uses the formaldehyde to start a fire, and he burns down the house…but, of course, they rescue him…and then the movie ended.

What the fuck?

It was exactly the same formula as Amityville…big haunted house, scary basement, room for blood-letting, disturbed remains, angry, drunken father…oh, and Lorraine Warren.

That is the common denominator of both of these ridiculously made-up stories.  Lorraine, and her now deceased husband Ed Warren are the original self-proclaimed “demonologists.”  As far as they are concerned, every place is haunted by a demon that needs to be exorcised, including places whose paranormal activity has been proven to be a hoax.  Not surprisingly, John Zaffis is their nephew.

Paranormal research is a good ol’ boy network, and whether or not there is any legitimacy to your story, if they like you, you get to hang out with them and eat at the cool kids’ table.  If they don’t, you don’t exist…they just wish you into the cornfield.

In summation, I’m gonna have to call the bullshit flag on this one.  99% of it never happened, and the 1% that MAY HAVE was NOT enough to warrant a movie.

I guess the next step is to give Carmen Reed her own show…maybe she’ll carve some airport codes into the back of her hand and yak up some doilies.

Thanks goes out to Marc Chung for atleast getting us introduced to the bringers of end-times.

With Terminator Salvation release looming this Summer and these spider-robots being produced, I really have to wonder if Green Living is our most important challenge to solve right now… how about not making SkyNet… or creating machines that can hunt us more effectively.

I’m all for electric cars and zero-emissions, but if I have this chasing me:

I’m not really easing off the gas to make sure I hit that 50 mpg number…

WrestleMania is now a quarter of a century old as WrestleMania XXV is upon us. This is when wrestling fans say – So what if wrestlers are dropping dead by the dozens while the living ones are in wheelchairs? This shit is catching up with the Super Bowl in Roman numerals, and we have celebs, damnit!

This year’s main attraction is Oscar nominee Mickey Rourke, who portrayed Jake “the Snake” Roberts and at least 30 other aged grapplers in the wonderful film The Wrestler. Rourke will be in “Nature Boy” Ric Flair’s corner as he takes on his children in a handicapped match.

Some are saying the actor is Vince McMahon’s biggest WrestleMania get yet. An Oscar nominee! That hasn’t happened since Brando sent that Indian chick to break the Fabulous Moolah’s legs with a loaf of French bread at WrestleMania 2.

WrestleMania, like a Lakers game or a courtroom, is where the celebs have always shined. For one day a year a veritable Who’s Who attends the matches like it was the 30s when everyone thought it was real. Remember when Harpo Marx beat George Hackenschmidt for the title? Ah, the good ole days.

As we celebrate 25 years of WrestleMania, let us look back at the celebs who have sat and watched grown men in tights while wondering what happened to their own careers.

Celebrity involvement in WrestleMania has been pretty steady and ridiculous over the years. You can credit McMahon himself and his longtime desire to be great in something other than wrestling. He’s tried boxing, football, and body building. He’s tried singing and hosting a talk show. Celebrity-whore Vince always wanted greatness beyond the squared circle.

Looking back, I blame the success of the “Rock n’ Wrestling” gimmick of 1984-85. The pairing of Cyndi Lauper with Captain Lou Albano, and their feud with “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, gained a lot of attention. It probably shouldn’t have, but it did. Throw Hulk Hogan in there, I guess, and you’ve got something. Or maybe it was Lauper. Chaka Khan may not attracted nearly the audience.

This clusterfuck reached its peak at the very first WrestleMania. But let’s not forget the inaugural show’s other absurd attractions, such as guest ring announcer Billy Martin and guest timekeeper Liberace (joined by the Rockettes). Why does wrestling need a timekeeper, and why must it be Liberace no one ever clarified.  Way to bring the gay into wrestling with the first shot, Vince!

But Wrestlemania 1 was pure genius compared to the rich and famous that were gathered for Wrestlemania 2, where a boxing match (A boxing match!) between Piper and Mr. T was “judged” by NBA star Darryl Dawkins, G. Gordon Liddy, and Cab Calloway. How many names were thought of and phoned before that trio was confirmed. The corner men for this match were Lou Duva and Joe Frazier, because anyone to do with boxing would seemingly give this match some legitimacy.

Six NFL football players, including William “The Refrigerator” Perry, took part in a 20-man battle royal. Other celebs (Oh, yes, there were more!) included Susan St. James (commentating), Tommy Lasorda (ring announcer), Ozzy Osbourne (corner man), plus Burger King’s Herb and Wendy’s Clare Peller ((Where’s the beef?”), both from popular television ads of the day, and both as “guest timekeepers.”

Can you imagine having two icons of fast food commercials at your event? Ronald McDonald must have had the flu or else he surely would have been there.

Understand that this is only two years of WrestleMania thus far. Imagine the legend that lay ahead!

Well, Wrestlemanias that followed weren’t quite as abundant with celebs, but they did include interviews conducted by Bob Uecker, Mary Hart and Steve Allen; more exciting uest timekeeping by Vanna White, Jennie Garth, and Jonathan Taylor Thomas; ring announcing by Alex Trebek, Ray Combs, Burt Reynolds, and Donnie Wahlburg; instant replay sketches with Paul Maguire and George Steinbrenner; a World Title presentation by Robin Leach; plus an appearance by Morton Downey Jr., and performances by Run DMC, Robert Goulet, Willie Nelson, Reba McEntire, and Little Richard. Perhaps the worst was the Hair Club for Men’s Cy Sperling presenting a hairpiece to ring announcer Howard Finkel at Wrestlemania X.

Read all those names again. It’s absolutely breathtaking.

A couple of the really big ones were Lawrence Taylor, backed by Reggie White and other NFL stars, wrestling Bam Bam Bigelow at Wrestlemania XI, which also included Salt-N-Pepa performing “What a Man” for LT; and Mike Tyson as the “ringside enforcer” at Wrestlemania XIV. This Wrestlemania also featured an interview and some ring announcing from Gennifer Flowers, of the pre-Monica Lewinsky days.

Over the last ten years the celebrity appearances have diminished, as McMahon slowly realized that it was always the wrestlers that were the draw for most viewers. There have been mainstays such as Pete Rose and Donald Trump, both of whom have made numerous appearances through the years. Nowadays, you can be pretty certain that the equivalents of Herb and Liberace will not be appearing at wrestling events. At least not for WWE.

So, while Mickey Rourke, to me, was robbed of his Oscar, he’ll always have WrestleMania on his list of memories that came with his great performance.

But that’s ok. That’s ok. You’re here now. You can join the 21st century now. And only just in time for…the End of Ze World.

They  make a good point with that video, so naturally, your immediate response should be to grab the one you love – or the one who can’t run faster than you…whatev…and just – BANG BANG BANG!

To conclude your education of the classic internet video world, let us now join together to raise our glasses and raise your IVIQ (internet video IQ) to…SCHFIFTY FIVE!!

If you have more personal favorites to contribute, by all means send em our way…

I was thinking about what I could say about my addiction to American Idol.  Should I talk about how I look forward to the annual January audition shows as though it was the first holiday of the year?  Or, perhaps I should talk about how much I like to mock the talentless droves that turn out, in tens of thousands.  No, I think I am going to instead bag on my least favorite contestants!

Enter Scott MacIntyre:

He’s like the Greatest American Hero meets Lawnmower Man.  He’s blind as a bat and can’t sing a note.  The judges, particularly our favorite drug-seeking, word-slurring, accessory-whoring Laker Girl, seem to mollycoddle him as though he has genuine talent.  He can play the piano just fine, but, on his BEST DAY, he sounds like Michael W. Smith straining to pass a hard stool.  He needs to go.  He’s a nice guy, but he’s GOT to get voted off.  This is not what America wants to hear…this is someone that America wants to keep around so they can amuse themselves with his incredibly dippy countenance.  I am sure he’s a nice guy, seriously, but don’t string him along because he’s blind.  He doesn’t need pity.  He needs to sing inspirational music.

When he goes, he can feel free to take this tramp with him:

This is Megan Joy, formerly Megan Corkrey.  I think we can just shorten it to “meh,” if I am being completely honest.  It hurts my feelings to listen to her caterwalling.  It is THAT BAD.  The thing is that, at first blush, it SEEMS like she can sing, but as you listen you realize that she is forcing these sounds out of her body as though she doesn’t know how to stop them, and she appears to be suffering from an advanced case St. Vitus’ Dance.

I can’t figure out how to get the damn youtube video embedded (I did that one time, and it was a friggin’ miracle), but I strongly urge you all to see exactly how loudly and broadly she sucks by watching her warble her way through “For Once in my Life”…it’s just jawdroppingly horrific.  If you are so inclined, you might also check out her rendition of “I Go Walkin’ After Midnight.”  I had no idea someone could sound so bad and look so terrible at the same time.  The dress she was wearing made her look like a melting candle, and her boobs looked like bags of sand.  And what an ugly tattoo, seriously.

Now, for the good stuff…

This is Adam Lambert.  He is criminally hot.  He is also a good singer, very much, and cute, too, also.  We at UP MY OWN ASS, fully endorse Adam Lambert!  All of us.  I am speaking for everyone.

Again, if I COULD embed a video, it would be his rendition of “Ring of Fire” followed by “Tracks of my Tears.”  Maybe the fair and wise King Editor will embed these videos for me!

Cute as a button, I tell ya.

Glommage.

Glommage is a phrase that has been coined to represent the act of attempting to take what is not yours.  The original phrase is “glom onto,” but we have modernized it and put it to good use.

There are really two types of glommage at play in any given scenario:  Typical glommage – which equals brazen, unabashed takery, and then there is the Mobius strip of glommage – which represents healthy piggybacking of one skill set onto another’s project.  Professional backscratching.

Unfortunately, my recent experiences have leaned more into the realm of straight up “I just wanna take some of your shit.”  Now, as if we hadn’t broadcast this tidbit enough, Patrick and I have written a couple of books together that people seem to really enjoy, and we have achieved a modicum of local notoriety in certain circles.  As a result, we have been thrust into groups that have made it their jobs to try and take a piece of what we do.

We have someone who routinely introduces herself as our publicist, whom I have not heard from in – literally – months, and that was just to tell me how unprofessional my husband was because he didn’t return a call from her that she never actually made – Oh, and she needed to use a connection of mine to get into a place for free.  This is after taking several copies of our book – intended for promotional use – and passing them out to people that she wanted something from that had nothing to do with us…she didn’t even send so much as a press release to any of the local papers.

Most recently, though, and it’s unfortunate if anyone recognizes themselves in it, I have had the experience of people catching wind of projects that Patrick and I are working on and saying, and I quote, “I want part of that.”

“I want part of that.”

Yeah, well I want part of Microsoft, too.

For no other reason than because people make the declaration, they seem to feel a sense of entitlement to benefits achieved through projects to which they have no logical or meaningful bond.  Just, simply, “I see the potential for money and I would like some because I know you.”

Well, respectfully, that is too Goddamned bad.  Sadly, this type of interaction has become part and parcel for the type of work we do, and it is jading me more and more every day.  It is so ridiculously infuriating that anyone would even think that it’s okay to do that.  We have wallowed through all the shit, we wrote the proposals, we wrote the books, we do the appearances and answer all the combative questions…but let me just hand some of the tiny profit we realize over to someone who says, “I want part of that.”

Somehow it has become our job to make people feel better about themselves and to hold their hands and walk them to success’ front door.  Well, that ain’t happening.  Success isn’t even taking MY calls, at this point, so I will be DAMNED if I am going to make myself someone ELSE’S stepping stone.

Here is some advice to all the glommers out there:  Get off your dead lazy asses and do it your damn selves.  Stop hating on ”the man” who you think is bringing you down, and take an action – any action – that might get you a step farther towards your own goals.  This particular path that I am walking right now, is MINE.  Not yours…MINE.  Whether I make $34.00 or $34,000, again – it is MINE and I am not planning on doling it out to anyone else.

If that doesn’t answer the unspoken question, let me make it perfectly clear:  I will not be giving you any money, I will not be giving you any freebies, I will not be attaching my name to projects just to make you look better in the eyes of bloodsucking leeches.  In other words, “What’s in it for ME?”

If I stand to gain nothing, I will invest nothing…bottom line.  After all, everything counts in large amounts.

Editor’s Note: A new book you say? Getting ready to publish you say? <twirls mustache and flips coin in other hand>

Well, after shock jock Stern’s marriage to some horse faced model back in October, a smattering of rumors began gently floating off and on, and in and out of New York’s hoity-toity Hamptons community, that the seven-foot tall, wig wearing former disc jockey/Joey Ramone impersonator is indeed still among us.

To refresh your memory, the once famous radio personality of the 80s and 90s vanished into an irrelevant non-entity when he left radio in 2006, indeed becoming not even the most famous person with his own stupid name.

But has anyone been keeping tabs on the once-popular and controversial host who followed in the shock-jockery footsteps of radio legends Don Imus and Steve Dahl, but has now joined the ranks of faded icons like Fred Allen and Soupy Sales?

A Brief History

Stern once thrilled audiences with his tales of being “half-Jewish,” growing up around black people, and masturbating 1000 times a day, a schtick revealed to have been completely stolen from Philip Roth’s 1969 novel Portnoy’s Complaint once one of his fans actually picked up the book and said, “Holy shit.” Seriously, read the book. It’s uncanny. It reads like a prequel to Stern’s books Private Parts and Miss America.

Thievery was not something new to Stern, having taken his Fartman character from National Lampoon and his silly “Butt Bongo” concept from two disc jockeys in Maine early on in his career. But, insanely and “What balls!“-ly enough, Stern himself later became known for claiming he invented things that others were stealing, concepts such as asking questions, having artists play a guitar, and radio itself. Even claiming that his precursors Imus, Dahl and Guglielmo Marconi were ripping him off!

Despite the moderate success of his 1997 sci-fi/fantasy motion picture talkie Private Parts, Stern’s subsequent failures outside of radio were a major disappointment to his career and ego. His production company’s television show Son of the Beach, hailed by many critics as “Baywatch meets a pile of horse shit,” was cancelled after two seasons. Stern’s planned remakes of the early 80s films Porky’s and Rock and Roll High School – seemingly in production since the originals themselves were released – have yet to see the light of day.

So Stern began slowly going insane. After staging his own radio death twice in 2004 – once with a silly April Fool‘s gag, then again with the same insulting stunt months later –  and convincing his more dim-witted fans that the President of the United States was actually after him and trying to get him off the air, Stern began his on-air campaigning for John Kerry in the ‘04 presidential election. Once an outspoken hater of celebrities with political soapboxes, Stern’s increasing paranoia caused him to invite a virtual cavalcade of liberal celebs onto his show, including Tim Robbins, Michael Moore, and the Dixie Chicks.

When President Bush won that election, he amazed no one by not giving a shit whether Stern remained on the air, or even alive, leaving the large-nosed curmudgeon to become less and less funny – and more and more delusional – for another 14 months.

Today, still claiming that the government and big business are after him, and that everyone in radio, television and film rip him off and owe him for being alive, Stern has traded his fame in for total obscurity and millions and millions of dollars.

So, whatever happened to Howard Stern? He was just charged in the death of Anna Nicole Smith.

There was also a time in this country, a much more naive time which did not have its finger on the pulse of anything because it was stuck so far up its own butt that it could pick its nose from the inside, in which the notion of marriage was a binding contract in which was clearly stated the mandate that sex with other people was forbidden. For this reason, unprotected sex with a person’s spouse was always considered okay. Now, sex outside the marriage is widespread and perhaps even allowed and, due mostly to some people’s abject lack of the ability to not be a lying whore, it becomes dangerous to trust that your significant other hasn’t brought some extra action to bed with you.

So I recently extricated myself from the sort of marriage that suggested that I should go ahead and have a full STD panel done to make sure I didn’t have a little bit extra to offer. Because the economy sucks and I am two bubbles from being a complete loser, I have no health insurance. This left me with a couple of options: Planned Parenthood or the neighborhood free clinic. Planned Parenthood can be tricky insofar as it can be expensive and having to navigate the slalom course of Pro-Life protesters makes rollerblading through the Demilitarized Zone look like skipping through a field of daisies.  So it was the neighborhood free clinic for me.

Now, a few things should be mentioned about the neighborhood free clinic. One it was no where near my neighborhood. Now that I think about it, it wasn’t even in a neighborhood but rather snuggled uncomfortably against the frontage road on the wrong side of the Interstate.  I don’t want to be overly critical but when you are already feeling uncomfortable about the potential of having something that could crust over your genitals like Rick Moranis after Gozer gets fried at the end of  Ghostbusters at best or something that can straight kill you at worst, you really don’t need to feel like you are an extra from the Road Warrior walking through the parking lot.

Further, the clinic is anything but free. Much in the same way that the cheap theaters are often still referred to as ‘dollar theaters’ the free clinic is now charging $20 for the basic panel and $30 if you want to test for HIV. That is okay I suppose, nothing is free anymore and it isn’t that much compared to a non-insured hospital visit, but when you have dudes in their early 20’s coming in first thing in the morning trying to bum a 20 off the receptionist because he ‘made some really bad choices’ the night before, maybe you should relax the fee just a bit.

Going in to the place, I was worried. Not necessarily because I was worried about the results. I had no  symptoms and hadn’t engaged in particularly high risk behaviors aside from trusting the wrong person, but still when you have a yes or no question in front of you the answer of which means you either live or die, you get a little nervous. Also, classic Gonorrhea testing includes a swab put in the urethra with an instrument that looks like a really thin Q-tip if its mom had unprotected sex with its pipe cleaner father. I realize that women are gone after with a speculum and that is traumatic and painful, but the pee hole is a bit smaller and not at all built for items of any size being inserted into it.

At the window where you sign in, I told the lady I wanted to do the full panel and she asked if I needed any counseling or an examination. I told her no, that I was just there for a routine check and I had no symptoms. She looked at me like I was anally violating a donkey with the head of Burt Reynolds and made an odd clucking noise with her tongue. I filled out my paperwork and was instructed to sit down and wait for my number to be called.

Armed with fear, my girlfriend’s support, and a wallet lighter from the evacuation of $3o, I sat in the waiting room for my turn to have a procedure done that Jack Bauer might use to get me to tell him who stole the nuclear football. As it turns out, the swab has been retired and the procedure is just a pee test. Sure peeing in a cup is a bit awkward and embarrassing, but the ability to walk properly afterward is a compelling feature.

There is a new way to perform HIV testing nowadays which involves a finger prick and a device that looks enough like a pregnancy test that I wondered if the results presented as a happy face or a sad face. This test delivers results in about 20 minutes, a rate of completion that beats the hell out of the week of hand wringing and asking yourself why you thought it was a good idea to have unprotected sex with that Haitian immigrant with the open sore on her mouth. The results will tell you a negative result to 100% accuracy and a positive result to about 90% accuracy. If you get a positive, you have to go with a bigger blood test to make sure it isn’t a false positive. The tests for syphilis, chlamydia and gonorrhea are done with blood and urine samples.

I went into the first phase of the process to do the HIV test and to complete a sexual history survey. I think that this would be better served with a self-written summary but I was asked questions by a fetching technician who was as stoic as a panel interviewer for a job at a bank. She gave nothing back as she asked me things like ‘have you ever had sex for money?’ and ‘have you ever had sex for drugs?’ and a question about current sex partners that doesn’t include a steady girlfriend or boyfriend. I guess they figure if you were walking the straight and narrow you wouldn’t be in for STD testing. Which is a huge problem for me, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself. Also, I am not sure why the distinction between sex for money and sex for drugs.

So I get the finger prick and answer her questions and ask a few of my own, all the while wondering if it would be in poor taste to shovel a pocketful of free condoms into my cargo pants from the bowl right next to me while she gives me less human interaction than the last time I did the over-the-phone job interview for Best Buy. The only thing that suggested she was actually human was a smile when I asked if she would like me to close the door on my way out.

I waited in the waiting room for about 10 more minutes before I was collected into another room where I had blood drawn. This technician was fairly upbeat and found my aversion to watching the blood extraction to be funny. I asked to see what the swab would have looked like and she produced what I am fairly certain was a streamlined version of something developed during the Spanish inquisition.  After noticing that my name was misspelled on the sample and paperwork, I was shuffled into the bathroom with a cup and instructions to bring it back in and set it on the counter while she goes to fix the labels.

I had some water to drink on the way and had no problems relieving myself into the cup and I brought it back in. I put it down and waited for her to return. She came back and started gathering the samples and the first technician came back in holding a manila folder. Now, it had been about a half an hour since the HIV test and the whole time I couldn’t stop asking myself what I would do if it was positive. It would be a cataclysmic event in my life and it scared the crap out of me. The first technician showed the contents of the folder to the second and she said ‘hmh!’ with a high note at the end and I wasn’t sure what that meant. She put the folder on the examination table and pointed to a big read stamp that read NEGATIVE and I chirped ‘AWESOME!’ and maybe did a little arm pump that probably wasn’t in keeping with the general decorum one is expected to comport oneself in whilst in an STD clinic but fuck it, I wasn’t going to die. Not of AIDS anyway.

I was given a card and a password and told to call back in a week for the other results. This would be a long week.  The following Monday rolled around and I called for my results. A girl answered and I asked for my results. She paused a long time like I had called her child a mongoloid and then put me on hold. Another woman answered and asked for my name and birthday. She then said that the results weren’t back yet and I was calling too early and I should call back tomorrow. I mentioned that my card said to call at that time and on that day. She said that not all of them were back. I asked if that meant that some of them were back. She put me on hold. Another woman came back on and told me that they had switched labs and that the results were being delayed and I should call back Wednesday.

To shorten the story, I called back on Wednesday and they said I did not have syphilis but the other two results weren’t back yet. I had to call four more times and didn’t get my final results until Monday. So what was supposed to take a week took two, which would have been fine had they mentioned that to begin with. I can only assume that they KNEW they were moving the lab when they told me to call back in a week.  I would have much rather been told that upfront than to have to feel like  I was playing the first Super Mario Bros being told ‘Your test results are in another Castle!’ The people I spoke to on the phone ranged from being very helpful to very rude but regardless I began wondering if I was going to have to go back in and redo the tests. All my tests were negative. WHEW!

I tell this story not to give readers way more insight into my life than they would ever want but rather to illustrate why so many men do not take proper responsibility for their sexual health. With all of the various and sundry ailments hopping from bed to bed out there men should be on top of this shit certainly before getting on top of anyone else but that is not how it is.

The onus of sexual health is placed squarely on women. Given that STDs do far more damage to women than to men and that women have to deal with the greatest of all STDs, or pregnancy as it is also known, I think that men should do some preventative tests and make sure they are clean. That would really sort out a lot of problems and keep people safer. Also, if they didn’t give women that line about not being able to feel anything when wearing condoms, that would help. If you get the Hammerhead Clap, you will get all the feeling you need and you then deserve it, asshole.

So guys should get tested more often, but it isn’t easy.  Even the CDC suggests that men wait to get tested until they get symptoms or until their girlfriend starts having tentacles coming out of her cootch. I suspect this is because the people who wrote those guidelines for the CDC were dudes. It doesn’t make sense to wait for symptoms because a lot of times, symptoms in men do not present terribly strongly. So you can get Syphilis and have your brain eaten away before ever noticing.

Aside from that, there is the stigma of going to get tested. If you say you are going to get an STD panel people look at you like you are dirty and have been doing something nasty. And maybe you have been, but if everyone is safe and gets checked out it shouldn’t matter. Getting STD testing is the responsible thing to do and no one should be vilified for it. Creeping around carrying more STDs than the cast of RENT is not cool. Asking what sort of make-up is best for hiding your herpes sores from your girlfriend is the worst kind of irresponsible at best and the best kind of evil at worst.

At the end of the day, people get shit for taking care of themselves. If you say you are going to go to therapy for some problems you are having, you get treated like you are a broken person who should be tiptoed around and kept away from pointy objects. If you say you are getting STD testing you are treated like you are the subject of a Mapplethorpe series  on goat fucking. This is batshit crazy. I want to be healthy and I want people I care about to be healthy. Regular testing is one way to be healthy. The only shame lies in spreading shit around when you could have taken care of it. And if you work at an STD clinic, try to remember that the people coming in are the ones responsible enough to get problems taken care of and they may or may not have had anything to do with why they are at risk. Not every one who has an STD has earned it through bad choices. Or at least not a bad choice made in the past five years.

A story on Yahoo News says that based on the orders coming in for certain lines of Victoria Secret bras, they are seeing a 53% increase in sales on bra sizes “D to J”… J is a size? 

<frantically searches Expedia for the cheapest airfare to NZ while simultaneously listing his house for sale, for $11.50, on Zillow>

Anyone wonder if this news is true or if NZ is just trying to compensate for lower-than-normal tourist numbers?

Do you see this?  This is the bite that my ex’s girlfriend’s mother’s DOG took out of my son’s ass.

Am I pissed?  You BETCHA.

Here’s the setup – I needed to go out of town for half the day on Sunday, and she said she would watch my children.  I certainly couldn’t ask their FATHER because, as with tits on a bull, he is not very useful.  So, I cheerfully took her up on her willingness to watch the kids and went about my merry way.

So, let’s move forward about 6 hours.  We have long since returned from said trip and the children are home.  Bitten child says to me, “I’m gonna take a shower.”  Now, this is immediately suspect since he would normally rather eat his own spleen than shower, but I chalked it up to his having had the flu all weekend and paid it no further mind.

That is until older son comes into my room with the “calm down” posture and says, “Okay, MOM, just to let you know, Gladys’* mom’s dog bit *name omitted to protect my beautiful, innocent green-eyed dumpling*”

WTF?!?!?!

So, bitten child comes into my room and shows me said bite – exactly as pictured above.  Now, seeing as how it’s been hours and all the dog drool cooties are now furiously and feverishly coursing through his veins, we scoop him up and take him to the ER, where we wait for a REALLY LONG TIME.

Now, of course I have alerted the ex that younger boychild was bitten by a dog, and his first reaction was, “Just so you know, he’s been told not to mess with those dogs.”  Not, “Oh my GOSH, is he OKAY???” but “the little punk was causing trouble.”

What he failed to realize is that he just told me that the dog is, in fact, a known biter.

But, accidents happen – especially when under the care of less than attentive non-parents, and I am just concerned that he get his little butt all sewn back together so we can all go to bed.

Now, unbeknownst to ME, all the while we are sitting there awaiting treatment, Gladys* is ringing up my older son and shaking him down for information.  Now, let me be clear when I say that, even as of this writing now three days later, NO ONE has called to check on the welfare of this child or express any regret that the event transpired.  But what WAS discussed on this phone call – placed WELL after midnight to a young teenager on a school night – was whether or not the bite was that bad (because everyone KNOWS I am a dramatic, hystrionic liar) and also whether she or her mother should expect a bill.  Also, was I planning on suing her?

Um, can we just get the bite cleaned up, first?  Honestly, knowing VERY well how crazy bitches behave, I wouldn’t be surprised if they called me psycho up one side and down the other.  She probably called her mother and they have their whole “he was messing with the dogs” defense sorted out quite nicely.

Now, again, let me remind you that at no point have I done ANYTHING but call up the ex and tell him that I was taking the child to the ER.

Here are some questions that I would like answered:

• Why did no one call me the instant this child was bitten?
• Why was he not afforded proper medical attention IMMEDIATELY following the bite?
• Why did no one address his statement “the dog just bit me?”

If I am the psycho, why is this bitch calling my SON at MIDNIGHT to ask him whether HIS MOTHER was going to file a LAWSUIT?

If he was “messing with the dog” as the offenders have repeatedly said, why is the bite not on his HAND or FACE but on his backside?

Oh, and here’s a biggie, Why the FUCK was my son allowed to enter a yard with a fucking BITING ANIMAL to BEGIN WITH?

Just for the sake of completeness, my son is now taking a nasty course of disgusting antibiotics and they were unable to close the open portion of the wound because the fucking SKIN WAS MISSING.  We are awaiting word from animal control to find out if this dog really IS up to date on his shots, or if that is ANOTHER thing we will have to deal with…

But I’M the crazy bitch.

*name has been changed so that the irretrievably irresponsible asscow can remain anonymous

The premiere of a new season of one of television’s many dead horses is once again upon us. Greats like Joan Rivers, Dennis Rodman and Tom Green are starring in Celebrity Apprentice 2. Electric Boogaloo. (Sorry. I always have to throw that in with sequels.)

My eyes, like the peepers of many, will be on one contestant this season in particular, one who lasted about as long as Gene Simmons did in Season One. That celebrity is none other than comedian Andrew “Dice” Clay. He was fired on the very first show because he’s complete horse’s ass.

A while ago a co-worker and I debated about who was sadder: Clay or rapper Vanilla Ice. His position was, as I believe it would be for many, that Vanilla Ice was the sadder one. I stongly disagreed.

For Ice is one of many flashes in the pan that the music industry has seen over the years. There are literally hundreds of one ot two-hit wonders that our culture made huge at one time, but now make fun of.

Dice is a whole different animal. Name another comic who was on top of the world then died off so quickly. Sure, he had a couple of big comedy albums and an HBO special, but he then failed in movies and television and disappeared.

Every other major comic I can think of, from Bob Newhart to Steve Martin to Eddie Murphy to Dane Cook remained successful. And I’m talking huge ones. I don’t mean Sinbad or Harry Anderson. Yet, not only did Dice fall so quickly, he holds onto that brief fame firmly within his own mind.

Here’s his quote from CA2’s premiere episode:

“I’m the biggest stand-up comic in history. Nobody ever, to this day, has sold more tickets in concert than myself.”

Dice’s Web site also still refers to the comic as “The Undisputed Heavyweight Comedy King.”

Perhaps by using the boxing terminology he’s only referring to physically large comics like Louis Anderson and John Pinnette. Nonetheless, this is 20 years since his peak in 1989-90. You might as well argue that Rick Astley is the biggest singer in history, Driving Miss Daisy is the biggest movie, and Roseanne the biggest television show.

I don’t know where you would get the career-long ticket sales for comics, but I would bet Martin, Cook, and even Larry the Cable Guy would give Dice a run for his money. Dane Cook, in fact, should come out and challenge Dice’s statement. The two have a lot in common. Cook steals from the likes of Joe Rogan, Louis C.K. and Demitri Martin just as Dice did from Sam Kinison, Otto Peterson, and who knows who else.

Dice Web site also states the following:

“His rise to fame was meteoric – with sold-out arenas, platinum albums, and starring roles in films and TV specials. His fall was just as epic – blackballed by the industry and becoming the man to hate by every PC group in the country.”

Yikes! A couple of things happened to him on MTV and Saturday Night Live and he’s coming off like he’s Lenny Bruce. Poor Dice! Forget that he never had a hit film or TV series in his life. Forget that Kinison, Murphy, Bill Hicks and others were just as dirty. He probably thinks Trump’s show will bring his back to his former stardom.

I’m not one to give credence to lists, but Comedy Central’s “Top 100 Stand-Ups of All Time from a few years ago is telling about Dice.

Let’s look first at the Top 10:

1.  Richard Pryor

2. George Carlin

3. Lenny Bruce

4. Woody Allen

5. Chris Rock

6. Steve Martin

7. Rodney Dangerfield

8.  Bill Cosby

9.  Roseanne

10. Eddie Murphy

Now let’s look at where Dice was on the list:

90. Dana Carvey

91. Jim Breuer

92. Louis Anderson

93. George Wallace

94. David Allan Grier

95. Andrew “Dice” Clay

96. Joey Bishop

100. Gallagher

Wow, not quite as grest as Grier or Anderson. At least he beat Gallagher. And Joey Bishop, who, I’ll be honest, I didn’t even know was a comic. I thought he was just some dude who Sinatra and Dean Martin let hang around.

It’s interesting to note that Hicks and Kinison, two of Dice’s very funny contemporaries who happened to both die in the early 90s, were numbers 19 and 20 respectively.

If Dice had died young would he be more respected as a comic? Or, looking back, is his stuff a tad hacky, to the point where he’s Freddie Prinze (#49) at best?

Should Dice have been able to maintain the legendary status of a Chris Rock? Where were the hit movies that Woody Allen, Eddie Murphy and Steve Martin made? Where was the big TV show that Cosby, Roseanne and Jerry Seinfeld had?

Dennis Rodman has just as much right to call himself the biggest basketball player that ever lived as Dice has of his stupid claim. That’s why Andrew Clay is more sad than Vanilla Ice. This is why he’s doing CA2 with Joan Rivers, who, by the way, was at #44 of the list. So, according to Comedy Central, Dice isn’t even the biggest comic on CA2 this season.

I will admit that there is definitely a certain intangible appeal to Facebook.  Perhaps it’s the voyeuristic attributes that allow you to simply rifle through someone’s profile as though it were their medicine cabinet, or perhaps it’s the ability to add friends to your Facebook account like you are adding rats to a maze, and to watch the interactions begin.

I think my favorite thing is reading all of the carefully chosen status updates that are intended to convey superiority and indifference or exasperation in a simple sentence.

Katie is…FINALLY getting a break from piling her stacks of thousand dollar bills so that she can take them to the bank and get them OUT OF THE HOUSE!!!!

You see, I am exasperated by how mundane and exhausting my life is, but I am also really RICH…you see how that works?  Or how about this one:

Katie is…tired of having to dust that damn Congressional Medal of Honor and wonders if she should sell it on eBay?

This will generate comments like, “OMG, I didn’t know you had a Congressional Medal of Honor?” or “NOOOOOO…You should be PROUD to have that…I am proud to KNOW you and you worked HARD for that…”

It’s the perfect tool to get people to congratulate you.  It is a perfect platform for the narcissist in all of us.

My favorite Facebook narcissist is the one who revels in the waves of compliments, and then agrees with everyone…for example, “OMG, You are so funny!!!  I totally missed your sense of humor!!!  I am glad we reconnected so I can keep telling you how awesome you are!!!” to which one might respond, “Thank you!  I often amuse myself!  Thank you everyone for noticing how funny I am…I was beginning to think I was the only one who thought I was funny!”

What the heck?  Funny people don’t laugh at their own jokes.  Funny people don’t need people to tell them they are funny.  INSECURE people need the constant positive feedback.

Oh, I also like people who wax political…I have been following the daily ramblings of my new favorite Facebook kudo whore and, among her requests for constant attention and affection, she decided to go off on a political rant about…well…nothing.  I wish I could repost the whole thing here, but I could seriously not figure out what the hell she was trying to say.  I read it like a dog with my head tilted to the side and a puzzled look on my face…I even showed other people who then tilted their heads and look puzzled…

Now, instead of one person saying, “What the hell are you talking about?”  The sheeple that responded all agreed…”OMG, Thank you for having the BALLS to write that!” or “I AGREE!!!  I am SO glad someone finally SAID what I was THINKING…”

This makes me wonder if they aren’t all schizophrenic.

I make it a point to limit the amount of exposure I have to politics in general.  By NOT following the minutae of budgets and taxes and cutbacks, I am able to save my energy for important stuff – like school budget cuts.  I also don’t profess to know anything about the agendas and sub-agendas of past presidents like Reagan or Carter…you know why?  Because I was 6 when Carter was in office and 10 when Reagan was…anybody on my facebook page that suggests an intimate knowledge of either of their presidencies is full of shit.

Now let’s discuss the carefully chosen Facebook photos.  Why does everyone feel compelled to look like a sex kitten?  I have a respectably decent picture on my Facebook page, in fact, it’s the very same photo as is inside the front cover of the last BOOK I had PUBLISHED (you see, just a tiny drop of “now tell me how awesome I am”).  I don’t have my lips puckered in a sultry pout.  I don’t have my hair cascading in a deep wave over my eye, a la Veronica Lake.  I just have tidy hair and a big smile.

At least nobody has a picture of their titties on Facebook…yet.

Oh, well…at least Facebook gives me something to complain about in my otherwise perfect life!

Katie is…wondering WHY Vogue and Allure decided to feature her on the cover AT THE SAME TIME??  God, I wish these people would get their heads out of their asses!!!

March Madness. I’ve never had it. I’ve had spring fever. I’ve been cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. I even had a touch of the AIDS until I beat it with Robitussin. But I’ve never gotten March Madness.

Maybe it’s because I don’t watch college sports.

College, my Grampy used to say, is a time for cheating on trigonometry exams, eating nothing but Ramen noodles, and standing in a circle with five other fraternity pledges and jacking onto a pizza. Then eating that pizza before the frat’s Grand Kleagle smashes your pimply faces with a Louisville Slugger. Then you drink like a marooned sailor until you pass out and eventually die of alcohol poisoning.

Yes, that, my friends, is what college is about.

Yet, working adults with bills, mortgages, and children of their own clamor to watch these stupid kids play a game. And it’s only football and basketball, mind you. Pussies play any other sport in college. Like lacrosse. What the hell is lacrosse? A damn French game, that’s what. Call it, Freedomcross! Lose that damn e at the end of it. Play that game, my Uncle Squiggy says, and you’re either gay or you get falsely accused of rape.

March Madness is when we gamble on these coddled drunks and universities allow them to miss as many classes as they need to so that they may get to snip at a net with little scissors and make out with a trophy. Hey, LeBron, Kobe and KG didn’t need that horse shit.

The older I get the less I care about these babies and their games. That’s why Don Imus was right to say what he said. I mean, I’d have been shocked if he said it about a men’s team. But women’s basketball? At Rutgers, where Mr. Magoo went to school? Who cares!

All the rah-rah and the stupid trumpets and the 60-year-old commentator analyzing young black men. It’s creepy.

And that Barack Obama wants to screw with the BCS. Be the BCS president then, shithead. Otherwise, save our economy before we’re all eating dirt. Stop worrying about the right way to determine the best team of delinquents. Do you know how long a football tournament takes? They’ll be playing into April. Then they’ll miss spring break and all the homoerotic lessons that come with it. Is that what you want, Barack?

So, no, I don’t watch college sports. Put cameras in a sorority house on a Friday or Saturday night. That’s the sport I want to gamble on and eat potato chips to. If I want to watch 18-year-old amatuers throw a ball around, I’ll go back to selling drugs to high school kids after school.

All these grown men in ties at the workplace. “Hey, do you think Gonzaga can beat Virginia Tech?”

“Gosh, I don’t know, Bill. We’ll have to wait and see if there’s another shooting or beheading at Tech. Then we‘ll know.”

Everyone with their brackets and their divisions of four and alliterations for each round. “Well, now we’re in the Final Four. Before that it was the Elite Eight. But that was after the Sexy Sixteen and the Thalidomide Thirty-two.”

Shut up! Most of these kids will be working in some mailroom next year with the same sheet of paper and 64 stupid schools typed on it.

Rah-rah-rah, shish-boom-bah this, you little bastards.