Douche Bag of the Year

3/29/06

I don't know if you've been keeping up with the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui (pronounced Moo-Sow-Ee) or not, ladies and gentlemen, but some really side-splittingly amusing stuff has come to light. While it may be in bad form to think anything about the trial of a confessed 9/11 terrorist is hilarious, I challenge you not to laugh at the direction Moussaoui is taking in his "defense," and the evidence surrounding it. First, the nuts and bolts.

Moussaoui is an al-Qaeda operative who was arrested prior to 9/11, and has since confessed that he was involved in the plot and had prior knowledge that he purposefully withheld from the FBI so the hijackings would go off as planned. As he took the stand earlier this week, some unexpected and radically disturbing things began spilling from his maw, much to the slack-jawed chagrin of his defense team.

According to his own testimony, Moussaoui was supposed to be a part of the September 11th attacks by hijacking a 6th plane along with accomplice Richard Reed and fly it into the White House. You may remember Reed as the MacGuyver-esque brainiac who was arrested when he tried to blow up a plane with exploding shoes like something out of a Road Runner cartoon. Moussaoui's in-court confession paints him as a high-level al-Qaeda member who was quite the man-about-sleeper cell when it came to the World Trade Center attacks. The most despicable madness that came out of his mouth was a statement that when he heard one of the flight attendants on a recording from a doomed flight say "I don't want to die," that pleased him to no end. Take notes, ladies and gentlemen; this is how to be a world-class douche-bag. And, as it turns out, somewhat of a sad, braggart of a liar with delusions of grandeur.

In an effort in damage control, the defense for this goat's penis of a man submitted testimony from actual high-ranking al-Qaeda operatives, who attested to the fact that even if Moussaoui had informed FBI officials of what he knew prior to 9/11, it would've been about as helpful as telling Custer that it was supposed to be a sunny day at Little Big Horn.

To a man, Moussaoui's fellow al-Qaeda compatriots said, basically, that he was a douche-bag in so many words. They wouldn't have trusted him with pooper-scooper duties, let alone include him in the 9/11 plot. Walid bin-Attash ("Khallad" to his buddies) famed for the attack on the USS Cole, said that at one point he'd given Moussaoui his secret cell phone number to be used for emergencies only. Well, Moussaoui was so desperately hungry for a friend, it seems, that he called Khallad every day; so many times that Khallad had to disconnect his phone and get a new one! Not only was Moussaoui annoying the piss out of him, Khallad was afraid he'd blow their cover using the damn phone all the time. I can just see it:


(Zither music ring-tone goes off)

Guy: Who is it, Khallad?

Khallad: Ohhh, DAMNIT!

Guy: Not that Moussaoui guy again…

Khallad: Yeah, it's him. Man! That guy just cannot take a hint. (Pushes the "Send to Voicemail" button.) Praise Allah for Caller ID.

Guy: Let's start a rumor that he wets his bed.


It gets better! Another al-Qaeda member, this time Mustafa Hassauoi, responsible for a fair piece o' terror in Asia, testified that his terrorist cell couldn't wait to get rid of Moussaoui whenever he would come to visit, actually dipping into their personal funds to pay to pawn him off on somebody else! This is comedy gold! Moussaoui is the terrorist equivalent of that needy, pathetic friend everyone has that you don't really like but can't bear to tell directly to "fuck off," so you try to avoid him and give him the wrong directions to parties and shit.

Mustafa claims that Moussaoui was always trying to get them into schemes that al-Qaeda really didn't have any interest in. I guess nobody liked his "al-Qaeda Funky Car Wash" charity drive idea, or that jihad against "Shelly," the waitress at Applebee's who didn't refill his coffee enough times. Mustafa is actually on record as saying Moussaoui was, "not right in the head."

I fucking love it! Hey, they may be sociopathic, hijacking murderers, but they're not crazy. Moussaoui is actually too nuts for al-Qaeda. That is some kind of special breed of staggeringly awful human being.

For all of these reasons and more, I nominate Zac Moussaoui for

Douche-Bag of the Year!

Drunken Public

3/28/06

I haven't been really pissed off in a long time. With Bush's approval ratings swimming somewhere around the low water mark, Dick Cheney shooting an old man in the face, crooked Congressmen being indicted left and right, and reruns of John Doe back on the air, you'd think I'd be a pretty happy guy. And I was. It had been a long time since I'd been really, ravenously annoyed by some piece of news concerning the erosion of personal freedoms. Except that abortion thing in South Dakota. And the wire-tapping crap. Oh, and people being arrested at political rallies for wearing dissenting t-shirts. Okay so maybe it hasn't been all that long but I came across a doozy today, ladies and gentlemen. This one really hit me where I live because it concerned one of my favorite pastimes. Namely, pouring large quantities of spirituous liquors down my gullet.

I don't know why it took me so long to notice this little gem, but last Wednesday the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission announced it has been sending undercover agents into bars around the Lone Star State in order to route-out and arrest people who are...drinking in bars. Specifically, people who are drunk, in bars. That's right; in Texas it is illegal to be publicly intoxicated, and the TAB Commission's Carolyn (pronounced "tea-totaler") Beck stated that just because you are in a perfectly legal establishment performing the perfectly legal act of drinking, doesn't exempt you from the law. Sweet mother of crap I think I might throw up.

Agents recently performed the hard-hitting task of going undercover to trick drunken patrons into admitting to being inebriated, whereupon they slap them in handcuffs and drag them down to the station. This is the law enforcement equivalent of fishing with dynamite; it's just cheating. Thirty six bars were "infiltrated" and thirty people were arrested for public drunkenness.

"Chip-on-her-shoulder" Beck had this to say: "We feel that the only way we're going to get at the drunk driving problem and the problem of people hurting each other while drunk is by crackdowns like this."

Do you hear the same thing I do, or have I gone stark raving insane? This project is like staking out a gun and ammo shop for someone to buy a firearm, then just shooting them in the eye because they might use it in a crime. I think Ms. Beck has perhaps watched Minority Report too many times. It's rather like her own version of Future Crime, if it were run by snapping turtles with a few extra chromosomes.

Beck, donning a red arm band with some crazy, squiggly black X on it, said her next plan is to set up bear traps in all the state parks to keep people from poaching, and removing all the knives from the state because sometimes people stab each other. Okay I made all that up, but man, this is really wonky. Sometimes I just want to grab someone and shake them until the cops come and haul me away to a nice, padded room where I can look forward to horse tranquilizers and 1000 volts of electricity running across my brain. I can thank my lucky stars that I don't go to Texas unless I lose a bet or something.

I guess it's also a good thing I rarely drink in bars. Usually I'm imbibing at home. Alone. . . With the lights off and hardcore porn playing in the background.

What was I talking about?

Try Suicide

3/27/06

I had an uncle who committed suicide. Not recently, mind you; I never even met the fellow and this happened before I was even born. I can't remember if I was told how he died when I was a kid, but I might have simply assumed he was killed in some war or another because the only picture I ever saw was him decked out in military garb. I do, however, remember the first time my Dad ever actually informed me that Uncle Dave had killed himself.

I was either sixteen or seventeen and had been getting queer looks from my father and step-mother for some time. All things being equal I could have just as easily been imagining the whole affair because, as anyone who has been through that most disgusting of transformations called "adolescence" knows, the world revolves around you and people's motivations and reactions independent of being about you simply do not exist. But it turns out this time I was right; it was about me. I have never been accused of being a particularly normal human being, and with my body virtually dripping with all manner of horrendous hormones, I was doubly weird.

Most teenage males are pretty annoyed at the world pretty much of the time, especially in matters of other people telling you what to do. They have a tendency to spend the lion's share of time in their room either being petulant or learning the most proficient way to wack-off. Sometimes the two overlap and you get this freakish variety of angry masturbating that's best left to someone with a degree to explain. But I digress.

I spent a lot of time jerking off and wondering why none of the females in my school were goodly enough to open their legs for me and was pretty depressed pretty much of the time. It did not occur to me at the time that probably the reason girls weren't interested was that nobody really wants to date someone who has no self-confidence, wears long sleeve shirts tucked within an inch of their lives into tapered-leg jeans and thinks it's really funny to videotape themselves lip-syncing to "Jitterbug" by WHAM.

According to the CDC, suicide is the third most common death for people 15-24, 86% of those deaths being males. That's about 13% of 15-24 year olds offing themselves a year. So I guess I can understand why my father thought it best to have a talk with me before he found me swinging from a rope in the closet, given all the sulking and moping and drawing really rather morbid pictures I was doing.

I give the man credit for actually coming and talking to me about something that must have been ridiculously difficult to bring up, but I'm not sure if his opener was the best choice. Dad told me that his brother Dave had committed suicide, and that I remind him an awful lot of his brother Dave. Subtle. I was so shocked that we were actually having the conversation I didn't think to ask how Uncle Dave had chosen to buy the farm, and that pisses me off because now I'm curious and can't think of a casual way to bring it up. Maybe:

"Hey, Dad, remember your brother who bumped himself off? Yeah, that one. So I was just wondering, was it a gun or a razor or like, off a building, or what? What do you mean 'why do I want to know'? No I'm not looking for ideas!"

Maybe not. I honestly don't remember much more of the conversation, other than him asking if I had considered that I might be gay because of all the not-girl-dating I was busy doing, and me assuring him that, no, I was not gay, I had merely narrowed my female selection to girls who said yes, and up to that point it was a crowd of zero. (Which was a pity; I was watching a lot of porn and had picked up some pretty neat moves. Way to drop the ball, Melissa!)

I finally managed to convince Dad that I wasn't going to open up my wrists at the dinner table or anything and that was the last time either of us brought it up. Had my father actually known the thoughts rattling around in my testosterone-soaked brain he probably would have locked me into a padded room. Most teenagers consider suicide, hell, most people consider it at one point or another, and I was no exception. I simply lacked the determination to do so. Can you dig that? Too ambivalent to kill myself. Sounds like a Country song.

I don't think about suicide as much as I used to, and thank the gods I've stopped all the half-hearted "attempts" that I never really committed to in my youth. The most openly hilarious of them being the time I left the gas on in the oven, but didn't have the guts to actually lay next to it so I just woke up on the couch several hours later with a headache and a smelly house. Oh, and there was the time I turned a hairdryer on and plunged it into the toilet. It made a sound like a boat motor with the flu and shut off. Damn safety features. If I'd really wanted to kick the bucket I would have done so. I haven't and don't have any plans to in the near future, though it is comforting to know that most life insurance will still pay out for suicide if you have the policy for more than two years.


Here are some fun suicide facts*, ladies and gentlemen! Enjoy!

Suicide is the 11th leading cause of death in the US.

It is the 8th leading cause of death for males; 19th for females.

Despite the fact that 4 times more males commit suicide, 3 times more females attempt it.

73% of all suicides are white males.

Suicides are actually at their highest rate in the Spring, not the Winter as is commonly thought.

Suicides are highest in the Western states, lowest in the Eastern, and the Midwest splits the difference.

In 2001 there were 30,622 suicides, outdoing homicides (20,308) by 3 to 2.

55% of all suicides involve firearms.

The risk of suicide actually increases with age, and is highest in those 65 and older; 85% of suicides in this age group are male.

Suicides are higher in religious faiths in which it is strictly forbidden, such as Islam and Christianity, as opposed to religions with more accepting toward it such as Buddhism.

There are an estimated 8-25 attempts for every suicide.



*all statistics are from 2001 data.

Life in the Fast Lane

3/24/06

"Oh you have got to be kidding me," Josh said, wiping the salty moisture out from under his eyes before it had a chance to pool and form actual tears. He laughed a sort of choked, dry chuckle. "C'mon!" he said to the empty store, "it's the Captain and fucking Tennille."

The only response from the 24-hour convenience store with a logo outside that matched the one on Josh's irritatingly red polo shirt was to continue playing "I'm All Out of Love" softly from the radio behind the counter. Could Josh really miss her so much that squishy 80's pop songs made him misty? It seemed so. The pot of coffee he'd been brewing agreed that, yes, that was pretty fucked up.

"I should just join the Peace Corps. Or maybe the Army," Josh said as he wiped off the coffee station and wandered back behind the counter. It was nearing two in the morning and the stampede for beer before the cut-off had ended almost a half hour ago. This was the beginning of the four hour block of slow time—slow, hell it's dead—between two and six a.m., when the morning crowd would start rolling in.

There was a list of some twenty things he had to do before the first shift showed up to relieve him at seven, but Josh barely glanced at it anymore. He tried not to think about how sad it was that he'd been working at a FastLANE! convenience store long enough to have memorized the job.

Four hours, Josh thought, four hours to kill while my mind just wanders around thinking about that woman and how she--

Whoa. Best to cut that off right there. It was funny—funny or soul-crushingly depressing—how ones thoughts could careen away in the wee hours of the morning when customers never wanted anything other than tobacco.

The electronic bell on the door went off and three girls entirely too young to be dressed like that strolled in from the breathless, humid outside night.

"Hi," Josh said, as per the official corporate script. The girls didn't answer but one actually deigned to make eye contact with him.

They look like slutty pixies, Josh thought, wondering what fresh hell this giggling gaggle had to bestow upon him. He watched them for a moment and was disturbed to find a tingle in his balls when the dark one bent over in the candy aisle. They were doing it on purpose, this sort of aggressive flirting with older guys, no matter whether they were interested or not. It always struck Josh as more of an act of hostility than lust; as if they were getting off on riling up dudes too old for them and pissed off about it at the same time.

Deciding they weren't going to be quick in finding anything to buy, Josh turned his attention to the little advertisement that sat on the counter next to the cash register that offered horoscope scrolls for a mere dollar. He didn't want to look at it; the devilish thing just drew his eye like a junkie to the needle. One would think that register jockeying a glorified gas station at two a.m. would be a place devoid of melancholy, but there really was no place like that, was there? Maybe a coffin. Surely it was Josh's imagination that the smiling blond on the horoscope display looked like "she who shall remain nameless." It had never reminded Josh of her before, had it? This betrayal of his emotions was unacceptable.

"Can I get a pack of Marlboro Ultra Lights?" said a high voice that mercifully broke the back of Josh's thoughts. He turned to look into the face of the girl—sweet mother she must put that lipstick on with a pain sprayer—that he'd caught bending over. Up close like this, if she was a day over fifteen he was a tap-dancing gorilla.

"Sure," he said, actually managing a smile, "could I see your ID?"

A brief expression of disappointment crossed her face, but it was quickly replaced by petulance, like a spoiled child who feels perfectly justified in stealing that cookie.

"Sorry," she said, opening a smile, "I forgot it. C'mon, I'm old enough."

"I'm sorry, I can't do it. Company policy, you know? Cameras and everything…" Josh trailed off, vaguely gesturing toward the security cam behind his shoulder as if the device had ever been used for deterring underage purchase.

The girls wiggled out without buying anything.

An hour later Josh was filling bags with seven pounds of ice each for the cooler outside when the door chimed for the first time in forty-five minutes. Just as well; he was starting to weaken in his resolve not to call her.

"Is it too late to buy beer?" the guy fidgeting in front of the register said in a voice that would have been better suited to a reptile.

Josh glanced at the clock. 3:32 a.m. "Uh, yeah," he said, coming in behind the counter. "We stop selling at 1:30."

"Right, right," the man said, not looking at Josh and not seeming to particularly hear him. Josh had an idea the fellow was on meth, or its equivalent; the dude was vibrating in place like a paint shaker. Now that he was closer Josh thought the man smelled as if he had just smoked six packs of cigarettes while sitting inside a bread box.

"Tell you what, man," the guy went on, "just gimme a pack of GPC's, yeah?"

"It's $3.26," Josh said, flitting the little box across the scanner with a comforting beep.

The man pushed a hundred dollar bill across the counter at Josh as if it physically pained him to do so.

"Uhm, I can't take this," Josh said, pushing it back.

"Why not? Ain't you got change?"

Josh sighed. "Well, yeah, but I can't take it because of this," he said, pointing to the president on the bill. It was obvious even at a glance. This amateur forger had cut the corners off a hundred and taped them to the note, apparently neglecting to notice the fact that George Washington still stared back from the face of it; the words "one" stamped out in large, green letters. It would have been funny if it hadn't been so pathetic.

Without a word the man pocketed the bill and turned away. He stopped and gave a quick little glance back at Josh, as if sizing him up. Pausing only for a second the meth-head abruptly grabbed two 12-packs of Budweiser from the pyramid display in the center of the store and breezed out the door with the pace of a mall-walker. Josh watched him go, sighed again, and picked up the phone to call the police. What a hassle, he thought, purposefully avoiding the gaze of that evil little blond on the horoscope ad.

Exactly when the sun rose Josh couldn't properly say; he'd been too busy selling coffee and newspapers and a staggering number of PowerBall tickets. The jackpot must have been at that critical tipping point when seemingly intelligent people are willing to part with their cash for astronomical odds. The only good thing about the morning rush was that it made the last hours of his shift fly by and finally he was off the clock, his manager having taken the register reins.

"Ring me up for a twelve of Bud Light, would you?" Josh said, taking the item in question out of the cooler. There was something surreal about purchasing beer at seven in the morning; something even stranger about getting drunk while the rest of the world was just waking up, but working here, Josh's life had become one long night with fragments of daylight jammed in between like railroad spikes. The radio sang something about not taking your love to town as Josh left the store, daring his eyes to just try and well up, you bastards.

On the way home Josh wondered if twelve beers would be enough to sufficiently numb him. Sober Josh gave a warning to the future, Drunk Josh not to call her. Just fifteen hours and he'd be right back at the FastLANE! to start the whole mess all over again. Maybe tonight he'd just throw away that horoscope display.

Maybe He Meant Ra-coon

3/23/06

Dave Lenihan, a radio host for KTRS-AM out of St. Louis, was sacked yesterday after a "slip of the tongue" in which he called Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice a "coon," in so many words.

Lenihan, who says he likes Rice a great deal, apparently had a cranium meltdown whenever discussing the recent announcement the recent retirement of the NFL commissioner, a job in which Rice has long expressed interest. Here's what Lenihan said:

"She's African-American, which would kind of be a big coon. A big coon. Oh my God. I am totally, totally, totally, totally, totally sorry for that."

Oops. You might call using Rice's name and a racial slur in the same paragraph a bit of a blooper...in the same way you might say Iraq has "a bit of a civil unrest problem." It doesn't seem as though Lenihan actually meant to call Sec. Rice a coon, but that seems like a pretty odd blunder, and why the devil did he repeat it? And upon repeating it, why didn't he explain what he really meant to say? When contacted later at his home Lenihan said he meant to say "coup." That seems reasonable, in a weird sort of way, I suppose.

Freudian slip or not, the GM and station manager for KTRS Tim Dorsey said that it was "unacceptable, reprehensible and unforgivable."

"I was trying to say 'quite a coup' but it came out coon," said Lenihan, "I caught myself and apologized. It wasn't anything I was meaning to say. I never use that word."

I like to think that Lenihan did just make an error, but man, when he does it he goes whole-hog. I remember one time I meant to ask a Jewish deli owner for a pastrami sandwich and "I'll have it on rye," came out as "I'll have it on big-nosed, horned kike!" So I can feel Lenihan's pain.

Movie Reviews From the Past

3/16/06

You know how sometimes you catch yourself watching a really shitty movie, and beyond all reason you keep watching it all the way to the bitter end even though there's a red liquid coming from your ears and you can smell baking ozone? My roommate Aaron and I find ourselves in this situation more often than should be accounted for by chance. I still have sweaty night terrors from viewing Over the Top; a steaming pile of an arm wrestling movie "starring" Sylvester Stallone. The other night we found ourselves actually watching the celluloid equivalent of scooping your brain out with a rusty spoon. I speak, of course, of Point Break.

In the vein of testosterone-laden, overtly homoerotic movies, Point Break delivers like gangbusters, with raw, oily man-tension between Keanu "Whoa" Reeves and Patrick "Roadhouse" Swayze.

Overall the plot is patently ridiculous. If you've never seen it let me save you some heartache: Keanu is an FBI agent who couldn't find his ass with a flashlight and Sherpa guide, going after a blond, crimp-haired Swayze who is the leader of a gang of bank-robbing surfers. Bank robbing surfers. It's the amphetamine-induced fever dream of a madman with visions of kittens juggling knives in his head.

The dialogue is so patently ridiculous that you expect at any moment to see one of the actors to crack open a Mountain Dew and pour it over their face while shouting, "Extreme!" But as I sat there wondering why one of Swayze's surfer crew had a Robin Hood beard, feeling my brain try to squeeze down my throat in an attempt to save itself, I realized that this movie, despite its savage failings, is actually revolutionary in many important and stupid ways.

Most buddy-cop movies apply the time-honored tradition of pairing a loose-cannon with a by-the-book straight-arrow and we all watch the hilarity. They annoy the shit out of each other, but both are always great cops. Point Break shatters that mold by taking the bold step of just cramming two openly psychotic, ineffectual agents who are lucky not to be meter maids together and watching the ensuing car wreck. Keanu is partnered with the always funny (in a terrifying sort of way) Gary Busy. How these two ever made it through the first week at Quantico is a mystery to me. Seriously, they make Dudley Do-Right look like Elliot friggin' Ness. The only way they accidentally get any police work done at all is by falling ass-backwards into it then fucking it up beyond all repair.

First, we're treated to Keanu and Gary's bungling brand of ineptitude when they set up a narco bust on a house containing several armed-to-the-teeth drug dealers, one of which amps-up the gargantuan acting skill already assembled in this movie by being Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. What does our dynamic duo bring with them to this highly dangerous bust? A crack SWAT team with riot gear, shotguns and body armor? Not for our heroes! No, they feel it's much more appropriate to take this prey down with the two of them clad in Hawaiian shirts, sporting tiny handguns with the awesome backup of two comparably armed, bottom-barrel FBI grunts, who look like the guy in the red shirt that always got killed when Kirk and Spock beamed down to a planet. It does not go well.

Sadly, our two stars survived.

Moving right along to their next cluster-fuck, we find Keanu and Gary staking out a bank, confident the ex-president mask-wearing surf robbers will be hitting it that very afternoon. (Spoiler--Swayze's the one wearing Ronald Reagan.) The success of being proved correct is completely overshadowed by the fact that while the bank is being robbed, Keanu and Gary remain blissfully unaware of it because they're getting meatball subs from the local stand. Finally coming out of their beef and sauce-induced stupor whenever the robbers burst from the bank and make their getaway, Keanu and Gary undertake the most convoluted, Rube Goldburg-ian of chases (this time sans backup!) in which at any moment you expect the movie to just implode upon itself because the universe can only put up with so much ridiculousness before it just throws up its hands and rips a hole in space/time.

This eventually degenerates into an unapologetically retarded foot chase between Keanu and Swayze where at one point--I'm not kidding--Patrick throws a fucking dog at him. I'm genuinely surprised there wasn't a banana peel gag. Of course Swayze gets away because Keanu can't shoot him (they're buds!) and you're left with the taste of rising bile in your mouth, wistfully pining for the competent police work of the Keystone Cops.

Finally we get to the last showdown which takes place at an airport; Keanu and Gary presumably being chauffeured there in an FBI short bus. What have our heroes learned from constantly underestimating the bad guys and perpetually getting caught with their pants around their ankles? Nothing, apparently, as Gary gets shot in the back and Keanu is blackmailed into aiding Swayze with his escape. It was about this point in the film that I just wanted to reach through the TV and dump Keanu's books for being such a tiresome, pathetic, "special" agent. You sort of want him to be attacked by killer bees.

The last scene of the movie is the best...or worst, depending on your tolerance for awful hilarity. Skip ahead a year or so and we have Keanu running into Swayze down on a beach in Australia where Swayze is planning to "catch the ultimate ride" he's been talking about the whole goddamn movie, on waves large enough to capsize Noah's Ark. It's revealed that Keanu has been tracking Swayze this whole time, just missing him in every city (shocker there.) Since the dolt knew Swayze would be at that beach at that this time of year did he have to go all "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego" on his ass, I dunno. And then, when Swayze asks:

"Still surfing?"

Keanu answers, "Everyday."

WHAT?! Well maybe if you weren't fucking surfing every damn day you could have saved a lot of trouble and caught him months ago, you inbred piece of Jell-O headed shit!

So far, Swayze has metaphorically bitch-slapped Keanu every step of the way. To be fair, this is not a monumental task; a dim-witted woodchuck could pull one over on this guy. It's less Sherlock vs. Moriarty and more Mr. Magoo vs. a small piece of lint. I won't go into the asinine ending of this sweltering mass of action-genre vomit, but rest assured Keanu lives up to his role as a spinelessly-indecisive, quivering mound of something a whale barfed up.

Goddamn I hate that movie.

MARRIAGE: hungh! What Is It Good For?

3/15/06

Today, ladies and gentlemen, the first part in a two or maybe three-part expose on marriage. Why would you want to listen to an unmarried, childless (paternity test pending) male alcoholic who watches too much porn? To that I cannot attest. Perhaps you are mentally deficient in some capacity; I don't know.

__________________________________

It's nice that even in these times of widespread cynicism and apathy I can still be shocked if not surprised by the callousness of advertising. Consider this recreation of a recent ad I ran across in the newspaper:


DIVORCE!

$189!

In most cases you can be divorced in 45-60 days

and you'll never need to appear in court!!!


We all know the state of marriage is under somewhat of a crisis in this country. Whether you choose to focus on the 50% divorce rate or are scared cowering in your closet in protection of your butt-hole from the prospect of same-sex unions, we can all agree something fucked up is going on here. For those marriages that somehow magically don't end up on the compost heap of the big D, we can pretty much guess that another 20% are unhappy. Add another hundredth of a percent or so for those rare occasions when one of the couple shoves a meat cleaver up the other, and we're left with a whopping 70.01% failure rate. Good gods.

But perhaps I'm being too hasty here. Conservative and complex estimates put the actual divorce rate at 43%. Still not good, but sometimes when very drunk I like to be optimistic. (I would like to get married. The whimsical, naïve part of me that still believes in unicorns would love to find someone else who wouldn't mind being annoyed by me for the rest of their life.)

Whenever I started out to write this I had planned on just giving a sort of general cataloguing of divorce statistics in the US and maybe a few dick and poop jokes thrown in for flair. Sort of interesting, but admittedly kind of flat. Then I ran across some fascinating facts concerning the divorce rates among different religious groups.

A study of 4,000 people conducted in 1999 and updated in 2004 reveals that faith has absolutely no correlation to marriage success, and in some cases, is at least statistically less successful.

As I write this I can hear thousands of angry Christians loading automatic weapons and looking through the phonebook for my address. I would point out here that my whereabouts are well hidden and technically—if not currently in fashion—I still have protection of free speech in this country from people who'd like to make new and interesting puncture wounds in my body.

About 25% of all US adults, regardless of religion, have experienced at least one divorce. Broken down by religion, the divorce rates look like this:


Denomination % who have been divorced

Non-denominational (independents)…...34%

Jews……………………………….........30%

Baptists………………………………....29%

Born-again Christians…………………..27%

Protestants………………………………25%

Mormons………………………………..24%

Catholics………………………………...21%

Lutherans………………………………..21%

Atheists……………………………….....21%

Agnostics………………………………..21%


I honestly did not expect this result. I figured the statistics would actually be closer together, with little difference between the religions (or not) at all. Like I said, the statistics of religion are not necessarily causical; just because you're keen on Jesus doesn't mean that's the reason your divorce rates are higher. But if taken in a tongue-and-cheek sort of way, the crippling guilt of Catholicism seems to work just as well as the pricks who make fun of organized religion, and playing with a dreidel or holding someone underwater for the Almighty is as good as a kiss of death, matrimonially speaking. Please stop loading your shotguns, I can't hear myself think.

Is there a conclusion we can draw from this? Probably not much of one; the best we can say is that religion seems to have no bearing on a healthy marriage. (Food for thought for all of you out there dumping in your shorts about queers getting hitched) Whatever your particular breed of superstition, at the end of the day we all have to sit there and accept being annoyed by that one person for the rest of our lives. If we're lucky, that is.


____________________________________________


Sources: http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_dira.htm http://www.valleyskeptic.com/christdivorce.html http://www.barna.org

All Hail the Porcelain God

3/15/06

What in the name of all that is holy is the matter with men? Now, I am loathe to bash my own gender, but seriously…what the fuck? For the purposes of keeping this diatribe down to a digestible size I wish to focus on my sex's curiously bad behavior in the single men's restroom we have at work. There's a women's room, too, but due to a court order I'm not allowed near it. I'm picturing something akin to the Garden of Eden, complete with a waterfall and little bunnies with white gloves that dab your privates dry while butterflies whisper how pretty you are and ask you if you've lost weight.

Let us try to forget for a moment the dubious wisdom of having a single bathroom with one paltry urinal and two stalls (one of which is perpetually backed up due to people, I dunno, pooping concrete or whatever) in an office with some hundred and twenty employees on shift at any given time.

The first thing one is struck by upon entering our modern day outhouse is the fact that everything is wet. Not damp…wet. Like a cave. The area around the sink and especially the wall upon which the soap dispenser is located looks like the victim of an impromptu water balloon fight.

Along the same lines but infinitely more disturbing is that fact that all the toilets are wet, too. I can deal with the fact that some people, possibly lacking arms, don't want to lift up the ring. It seems odd, but after all, urine is sterile and it's not so tough to give the seat a once-over with TP before applying your butt. What I can't fathom is how a grown human, with opposable thumbs and everything, can miss the gaping maw of a fixed urinal. I could be sympathetic if randomly, every third customer or so, the urinal just sort of spun madly without warning or shot up to the ceiling, or it was like one of those midway games where you had to fill up the clown's mouth with your fleshy pee-canon (actually that sounds kind of neat!) but no, it's like hand grenades; you just have to get close. These bastions of aiming skill with whom I whittle away 40 hours a week have apparently forgone the idea completely and taken to pissing with their eyes closed, gyrating in place to imaginary disco music and just generally marking the whole region with their piddle. And joy of joys, you get to stand in it while you go! There has to be an awful lot of floor-pissing to turn the tiles in a 3-year-old building muted yellow. Gross.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, we come to the most mind-boggling and spine-liquefying horror of all. Those with a strong gag reflex be forewarned.

While standing at the urinal one is treated to modern art the likes of which would make Oscar the Grouch queasy. Not only is there a freakish amount of pubic hair on the lip of and inside the urinal, it's also randomly plastered against the three walls that surround you. And I'm not talking about your run-of-the-mill, short little meat-and-potatoes pubes, either. We're talking like mutant strains of uber-pubes up to several inches long. If you saw these pubes on the street you'd be afraid they were going to mug you, okay? I pity the women who have to sleep next to Sasquatch and that shag carpet covering his privates. Maybe that's why they can't hit the urinal; they can't find their penis to aim inside the thatch of black forest. And these pubes are everywhere, as if people have been plucking and just gluing them to the ambiance like some disgusting bulletin board.

Oh, and sometimes these guys use the wall as their own personal Kleenex, just to break up the tedium of staring at plastered pubes.

Clearly, one feels dirty after exposure to this lavatory of shame, and might want to wash their hands. Here, too, we run into issues. Besides the aforementioned dripping wetness everywhere, the soap is probably empty and if by some stroke of chance it has a few encrusted crystals around the nozzle you can chip off and moisten into a crude lather, there aren't going to be paper towels. Well, to be fair, there will be paper towels, but because the guy who refilled them was too lazy to open the dispenser and the rest of the men are savages, said package of towels now resembles something gotten at by a rabid pack of wolverines. It's…it's just twenty degrees of fucked up is what it is. I've started shitting in the alley.

There are those who might like to point out here (Hanni, I'm looking in your direction) that my home bathroom is not exactly a temple of cleanliness, but I think even those of you goodly enough to have visited my home will agree it in no way approaches the Herculean feats of foulness described above.

SPAM with Tits! Part III

3/8/06


Occasionally I enjoy bringing you wonderful ladies and gentlemen a heartwarming tale designed to lift your spirits and fill your soul with… Ah, who am I kidding; I'm making fun of some ridiculous crap. Once again we're looking at the resurgence of a practice that was marginally annoying in the good old days and has since undergone a Friday the 13th-like resurrection thanks to the magic of the internet. I speak, of course, of asinine chain letters couched in the guise of inspirational anecdote.

If you're alive I'm sure you receive one of these magical little gems in your inbox on the order of once every thirty-four seconds, probably sent to you by the lonely fat lady in Customer Service who giggles at cat calendars. There are many different styles, but all are variations on a theme. They all must have two things:

1) Touchy-feely inspirational nonsense, and

2) Shit that's hard to believe

Take the following as a perfect example.

Do u have feelings 4 someone
If this doesn't touch u.....you're heartless

One night a guy & a girl were
driving home from the movies. The
boy sensed there was
something wrong because of the painful
silence they shared between them
that night. The girl then asked the boy to pull over
because she wanted to talk. She told him that her
feelings had changed & that it was time to move on.
A silent tear slid down his cheek as he
slowly reached into his pocket & passed her a folded note.
At that moment, a drunk driver was speeding down
that very same street. He swerved
right into the drivers seat, killing the boy.
Miraculously, the girl survived. Remembering the note, she
pulled it out & read it.
"Without your love, I would die."

1st:
If u post this on a bulletin in 5 minutes
someone special will message or call you.
2nd:
REPOST IF YOU CARE ABOUT SOMEONE SO MUCH THAT YOU CANT LIVE WITHOUT THEM!!! (EVEN YOUR BEST FRIENDS!)

Okay…first of all, this did not happen. This never happened, this never will happen. For those of you who think these tragically unlikely events actually transpired in the physical world, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you while we go Snipe hunting and look up "gullible" to see if it's in the dictionary.

This particular story is a bit different than most in that it seems kind of sick. Upon first viewing you might think it's a wonderfully sad little story about the virtue of telling people how much they mean to you, but it is not. I invite you to look closer and you'll find the truly hateful and insidious nature of this demonic tome.

How far this couple was from home is one question that bubbles to mind. I mean, how eager was this broad to break up with Junior that she couldn't wait the twenty minute car ride back to the ranch? Maybe it was one of those fancy drive-ins thirteen towns over or something. On top of that, what sort of sadist breaks up with someone in mid-transit so they can stew silently next to each other in an enclosed space for an extended period of time? I can only assume the girl in the story is the type of woman who would whip out photos of her hysterectomy over strawberry short cake at her niece's birthday party.

Second, and a bit more vague of a sticking point is that the instant she finds out she wasn't horribly mutilated in this roadside debacle, she immediately reaches into her pocket for the note. What a self-centered bitch, man! Does she thank (insert supreme being of your choice here) for being alive? Does she maybe check on her heretofore boyfriend currently dripping off the ceiling? Maybe she tries to call for help? No. Mortal danger instills an irresistible desire to read. Maybe we should be threatening children with assault rifles as part of the normal school curriculum.

But I don't want to make you think the boy is blameless here. Clearly from his borderline psychotic note about ending his life should she ever be gone longer than a bathroom break, he was a bit needy. No wonder Cinderella broke up with him. I can see how they got together in the first place; a heartless, impulse-driven wench and a spineless, quivering pit of emotional need. That sounds about right.

Lastly and most staggeringly frightening of all is the fact that now this (admittedly rather unpleasant) girl is going to be fucked up for the rest of her life. Not only did she get the gift of watching the guy whose heart she drop-kicked splattered into a fine paste before her eyes, but she'll also never get over the guilt of making lover-boy's last thoughts those of crushing loss and despair. Plus there's the whole supernatural coincidence of the substance in the note, as if Fate or God is some kind of twisted fortune cookie ghost writer channeling through a love-sick adolescent for His own insane jollies. Oh yeah, this one's a real pick-me-up.

I can only assume whoever actively circulates this level of evil either hates the recipient or is so blissfully unaware of the psycho undertones in the farcical fiction that they might not be able to comprehend the instructions on a Pop-Tart.

Roe vs. Rounds: Cage Match, Bitch!

3/6/06

South Dakota doesn't want abortion. At least, Governor Mike Rounds and his supporters don't want it around, cluttering up the place with excess fetuses, apparently. On Monday Gov. Rounds signed legislation banning all abortions in the state, save those necessary to save the life of the mother. As a female, before you move to the "Under God the people rule" state, you might want to ask yourself if you are:

1) Planning on getting raped

2) Currently engaging in or considering incest

If you answered "yes" to either of these questions you might want to give your relocation plans a pause, rape and incest are not legal reasons for abortion under the new law. That's right ladies; should you be foolish enough to become impregnated by either a random attacker or, say, your father-brother, you'll just have to carry that little present from your prince around for nine months or so before you can shovel it off for the state to deal with. Or you could jaunt off to another state to get the procedure, as proponents of the bill like to point out. This should be especially convenient for the women who most commonly receive abortions, namely the poor, who should have no problem whatever taking two to three days in a row off work.

I don't want to harp on this one particular portion of the issue, but putting aside the attack on the precedent of Roe vs. Wade, what precisely are we striving to achieve by saving the children of rapists and child molesters? Lord knows the hereditary score of a sexual criminal should be a real boon to our society, not to mention the numerous Nobel Prize winners spawned from the genetic wildcard of family copulation. I guess I just don't understand the logic here; it's alright to kill the baby if the mother is in danger but not if that same woman is impregnated because of a crime committed upon her? Why not just go the whole hog and leave the danger of the mother up to God who you think seems so keen for us to cram the planet with bodies until we're packed in here like disgruntled sardines fighting over whose turn it is to eat the dirt and who gets stuck with rocks.

There's a controversial theory put forth by economists Steven D. Levitt and John Donohue that states the legalization of abortion directly led to reduced crime rates. In the eighties crime had been rising for some time and showed no signs of stopping. Almost unanimously the experts were predicting to a Mad Max-style future where roving gangs of adolescent "super criminals" prowled the streets just stabbing people in the face. Then all of a sudden in the nineties the crime rates plummeted. Levitt and Donohue propose that the core criminal group which would have come of age in the nineties (15-20 years after the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision) were greatly reduced since most criminals come from unwanted children of poor, uneducated and disenfranchised single mothers. You can read more about this and other theories in the book Freakonomics; I highly recommend it.

Whether it led to a decrease in crime or not, it's impossible to argue that all abortions are performed by women who don't want children, be it by rape, incest, accident or irresponsibility. Whatever the reason, most of these potential children wouldn't start out with a great hand in life, and a disproportionate number of them would turn out to be less than pillars of society. Fuck the rest of us that are already here having a rough enough time of it on this rock; we have to "save" the unborn.

When did it become fashionable to put the needs of the potential over the needs of the actual? You don't like abortions? Don't have one, okay? It's the woman's body, the baby couldn't live without it, ergo the woman has the choice of what she wants to do with her body while the fetus is still little more than something inside her that resembles a newt.

The real danger of this legislation in South Dakota is that the conservative Juggernaut in control of the country has finally found the means to make everyone else live by their moral code. Those of you more than just a touch concerned with the direction of the country can take heart in the fact that we have some mid-term elections coming up soon. I wouldn't be so brash as to recommend one party over the other, but on a completely unrelated note I heard that donkeys can spin straw into gold with their minds.

Somebody much better with words than I once said that selfishness is not living how you want, it's expecting everyone else to live the way you want.

All for Darfur

3/2/06

As American people, we're sort of uncomfortable with genocide. While we recognize the horrendous nature of the crime, it's too big for us to get our minds around. Except for the Holocaust; that one we get, but I wonder how much of that is honest outrage and how much is the attention that particularly huge extermination has received. It seems that aside from the atrocities of WWII, we're sort of fine with countries killing their own people. Maybe that's unfair; we're not fine with it, per se, but we don't seem to know what to do about it. I don't put the blame squarely on America's shoulders here; there aren't any countries that seem to know what to do when dealing with the big "G." But as the world's only remaining superpower (China's giving us a run for our money on that one) I think we can do better.

Africa has never been known as the mellowest place on the planet, second only to the Middle East. The popularity of films such as Sometimes in April and Hotel Rwanda, both very well done dramatizations of the massacre of nearly a million Tutsis and sympathetic Hutus in Rwanda by Hutu militias during 100 days from April 6th through July 1994, show that Americans are capable of understanding genocide, but only sort of after-the-fact. Our outrage is best expressed through a bizarre mutation of armchair activism where we watch Hollywood pictures and talk about "wasn't that just awful? Why didn't the government do anything to help them?" Put simply, because there was no support for such an action from the people of this country.

Darfur is a region in western Sudan bordered by Chad and Libya. Since February 2003 there has been an ongoing conflict between the Arabs and Africans of the region for what little resources the country can provide. And that conflict has blossomed into genocide.

The whole powder keg exploded when rebel African Muslims, frustrated with inequalities between Africans and the ruling Arab Muslims, struck out against the Khartoum (the capital of Sudan) government. Government militias, called "Janjaweed," retaliated against the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa groups in the country, killing men, stealing food and raping the women in some patently insane attempt to "breed out" their bloodlines. Since then it has been an on-again, off-again blood-letting with several cease-fires declared only to be broken. Both sides of the conflict have been accused of human rights violations.

The UN, which has taken its own sweet time in dealing with the problem, estimates some 180,000 dead, mostly due to starvation and the blockation of what little international aid has been thrown at the problem. Nearly 1.8 million people have been displaced from their homes, 200,000 of those fleeing to neighboring Chad, which is now being drawn into the conflict because of attacks on towns near their border.

The African Union (a baby, African version of the UN) has 7,000 troops in the area but staggeringly few resources and not enough manpower to even begin to quell the conflict. And…that's about all that's been done. The UN has looked at the problem, and on Christmas Eve Condie Rice requested Congress restore the $50 million in aid to the AU cut from the budget since November, but she was rejected. The United States took over the presidency of the United Nations Security Council for one month in February, putting forth a motion to send 12,000-20,000 more UN "peacekeepers" (soldiers) to Darfur, but those troops might not be in place for another year. By that time there might not be a reason to send them.

Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland was part of an eleven member, bipartisan congressional group (that is way too many words) who visited the region last month. The group is calling for sanctions against Sudan, cuts on diplomatic ties and freezing certain assets of the Sudan in this country. It's called "The Darfur Peace and Accountability Act," and it's a pretty good idea. It would have been a good idea 2 ½ years ago. But the White House is in a tough spot with Sudan, since the government has an intelligence sharing program with them in the war on terror. In short, they're a friendly. With friends like these…

So the UN and the US has been pussy-footing around this problem for three years while people systematically starve to death. It was the same thing in Rwanda, only we only had to look the other way for three months instead of years. The United States and the United Nations as a whole keeps "dealing" with these affronts to humanity in the same way and then acts surprised whenever nothing gets done. But organizations have a hard time rallying support whenever nobody in their respective countries seems to give a shit about brown people dying in a country they've never hear of…unless it has oil, of course. We can all do better.

If your liberal guilt is panging you, or you'd like to help or just want to know more please visit:

Save Darfur.org

Darfur: A Genocide We can Stop


Thank you for your kind attention, ladies and gentlemen.

The Twilight of Love

3/1/06

I was watching Boston Legal last night, as I am wont to do, whenever a commercial caught my attention. These days we are all familiar with medications being hawked on television and most of them are pretty vague about what they do. Usually you get to see some couple on a bicycle built for two tooling around a park or finger-painting in the rain or some bullshit and then "Try Zyloplex!" They're so vague, in fact, that you don't want to go asking your doctor about them, as they suggest, lest you look like a syphilitic sociopath with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

There are two exceptions to this formula, and they come in the form of medication for your hair and pills for your prick. These two are right in your face about it, and they're everywhere, which tells you precisely who's bankrolling the pharmaceutical companies; old, impotent bald men. I wouldn't be surprised if one day I just see a commercial with a chrome-domed, wrinkled old geezer, stark naked, flaccid penis dangling in the breeze, who pops a pill, grows a luxurious mane in seconds then lifts a dump truck with his erection.

The drug commercial that I saw was for Cialis. They make no bones about it; this pill is for your prick. I'm paraphrasing. What was really hilarious about it was the manner in which they go about showing this without actually filming two octogenarians humping on a stairwell. Enjoy:

First we're treated to some video of a nice looking, older couple. They're not spring chickens, but if you'd had a shot or two, you'd fuck 'em. Truth be told, I probably would have fucked the woman anyway, but I'm getting off point here. Within a few seconds it becomes clear the couple is ready for a little afternoon horizontal-tango as they nuzzle each other and turn toward the bedroom, all the while accompanied by the soothing baritone of the narrator explaining that "…with Cialis, you have up to 36 hours" within which you can get it up. I dunno, maybe it comes with a hand crank or something. Moving on!

Next there is a knock at the door and--oh no!--it's the kids and they've brought their youngin's over to visit grandma and grandpa! Looks like the silver-haired fox of a grandpa will have to wait to dip into grandma's willing honey pot.

There's more narration but by this point I'm so amused that I'm no longer listening. The couple spends the entire day entertaining the family, all the while casting lusty glances at each other and whispering surreptitiously whenever they think junior can't see them. I think I even saw a quick tit-grab.

FINALLY the goddamn family goes home and now you just know it's time for banging, yes? Well…no, not yet it seems, because despite the fact this couple was earlier prepared to do a little sweating upstairs, they've decided that's too nominal and want to get romantic.

They drive--I shit you not--they drive up the coast and where do they end up for this erstwhile tryst? A restaurant, a nice bed and breakfast? Nope. It's an ice cream stand by the side of the highway. Apparently Rocky Road and diesel fumes really lights grandpa's candle. I am confused. But it gets better.

This Magellan of husband and wife then proceed to take a leisurely stroll around a quaint old lighthouse, apparently enjoying the phallic imagery. Oh, by the way, it's sunset now, and that will be important later. Surely their next stop is a hotel or something. Wrong.

It's a walk in the sand by the beach! Okay, granted, this is pretty romantic. Nothin' strips off the panties faster than getting sand in your vagina. The sun's still setting.

The hike down a deserted beach that curiously had no needles or condoms on it completed, this commercial should be over. I think it is, because by this time the screen telling me all the horrific side effects I can look forward to in my quest for the perfect woody. "Explosion of testicles" might have been on there, but I can't be sure.

But wait, you didn't think they'd let us go without finding out what happened to grandma and grandpa, did you? Hell no! Did they fuck, or what? This might be a perfect place to put up a tasteful shot of two people lounging in bed, cuddled up in matching, fuzzy bath towels or something. The ad wizards for Cialis went another way. Beyond all reason and sanity, we now have a shot of the couple, still backlit by the sunset, laying inside claw-foot bathtubs filled with water and positioned on the goddamn beach looking out toward the ocean. I think my head may explode.

And then the commercial just ends! No explanation of whether these were abandoned bathtubs that just washed up, or if this clearly severely deranged old couple broke into a kitchen and bath store and dragged them onto the beach; nothin'! Where'd they get antique bathtubs?! More to the point, why are they inside two separate ones looking at the ocean instead of making the beast with two backs? And are they naked in there? You can't tell because of the sunset but which is crazier: lying naked inside a bathtub in public or fully clothed? I dunno because by this point my brain has liquefied and it's running out of my ears.

And what about the sunset? It perpetually looked as if it were just about to drop off the horizon this whole time! How long did they spend at each activity, thirty seconds? The only other explanation that doesn't involve complicated math is that we're three separate nights and now they've blown it because the pill only lasts for 36 hours. This couple wasn't horny; they were bat-shit insane!

Jesus, grandpa, just awkwardly hump her for forty seconds in bed before she wakes up like a decent human being and spare the rest of us your lunacy.

Oooooooh, MAN! I need a drink.

Any Port in a Storm

2/23/06

The announcement that operations in the ports of Baltimore, New Jersey, New Orleans, New York, Miami and Philadelphia will soon be managed by Dubai Ports World, a company owned by the Middle Eastern country of United Arab Emirates, (UAE) in a $6.8 billion deal makes a great many people nervous. It shouldn't, and it's rather hypocritical that it does, but it's also perfectly understandable. But we're missing the really interesting part of the story. Let's find out why.

Two of the 9/11 hijackers were from the UAE, and the country was previously a major base of financial and logistic operations for al Qaeda. (Now it's Iraq.) They also have a somewhat dodgy record on workers' rights, but they're a far cry better than some other nations that we deal with on a regular basis. (Saudi Arabia, I'm looking in your direction…)

It doesn't make matters any better that the deal was okayed by a hush-hush government panel (you know, the kind that meet in secret rooms lit only by one overhead lamp?) made up of representatives from the departments of Defense, Treasury, State and Homeland Security, among others. I bet there's a lot of cool, film-noir cigar smoke lazily curling through the air in their meetings.

Americans are notoriously mistrusting of committees and projects that are veiled in curtains of secrecy, but on the Oswald Meter, this one ranks a 2, just ahead of The Super Secret Society to Keep Pee-Wee Herman Down. You know, the SSSKPWH.

Frankly, this whole affair is a bit of an overreaction. Something like 30 percent of the ports in the US are foreign-managed and nobody seems to have kicked up much dander until now. Simply put it's different this time because it's a Middle Eastern country. UAE is one of the countries in the region who is a major supporter of America's efforts in the "war on terror," such that it is. In short, they're friendlies. It's at best hypocritical to say that we want fair trade and opportunities for the global economy and then get leery when one of those interests turns out to be from around the Fertile Crescent. At worst it's reactionary and mildly racist. Whether we want foreign interests managing our ports in the first place is another question entirely; it's in the same vein as whether we want the Japanese to continue to dominate the electronics and wide-eyed cartoon children market.

No security protocols are going to be managed by Dubai Ports World, and no workers are going to be displaced. Our ports will still be overseen by Homeland Security in the same piss-poor manner to which we have become accustomed. Only 5 percent of the cargo boxes will still be inspected and workers with access to sensitive areas still won't have to carry ID cards. We'll be just as unsafe after the UAE acquisition as we are now, but nobody seems to focus on that aspect of it.

No, ladies and gentlemen, the real reason this is garnering such a reaction is in direct correlation with the society of fear that the Bush administration has worked so hard to engender. If they wants to trot out the "war on terror," an arbitrary color alert system that no one understands, and the 9/11 pony to push through every policy, defend possibly illegal wiretaps, and justify the hemorrhaging national debt then they have no right to be surprised when the flipside blows up in their faces. (How many metaphors was that, three?)

Bush has made this country's citizens so piss-scared of a man in a turban popping out of their Cheerios with a pipe bomb strapped to his genitals that it's no wonder the country freaks out whenever a fairly mellow (mellow for the Middle East, anyway) company owned by UAE wants to purchase management over six of our busiest ports. Bush has made simple, dumbest-common-denominator answers the hallmark of his administration ("the terrorists hate our freedom!") and America has eaten it up with gusto. So don't fucking cry to me whenever America hears "Arab country buys American ports" and their knee-jerk reaction is to soil themselves.

And anther thing, Mr. President; get off your high horse of indignation about Congress wanting to hold meetings about blocking the purchase. They can ask whatever they want; it's their right. Remember how Congress used to have some power over the Executive Branch, Dubya?

I don't blame the uproar completely on the Bush administration. The Democrats have their hot little hands in this one, too. After spending five years as the Republican's whipping boy and with anorexic power bases in Congress, The Supreme Court and amongst themselves, the Democrats are going to latch onto anything that even remotely damages the president. I don't blame them, but it's unfortunate, because this is really a non-issue.

Whenever Bush sells the Statue of Liberty to Saudi Arabia in exchange for some of their sweet, sweet black gold, then you can get your panties in a twist. Until then just hold on as this roller coaster barrels out of control for another three years. I distract myself with liquor…and prostitutes.

And heroin…

The Vagina Monologues

2/19/06

Personally, whether it be in idle conversation or during sex, I prefer the word "pussy." Two syllables instead of the ungainly three, a strong popping consonant at its head, slight lisp in the middle and a flirty, almost whimsical upwards "E" to finish her off. Yep; for my money you can't beat "pussy" when describing the holiest of holies. Vagina and cunt are words I reserve for being cleverly clinical or despicably vulgar, respectively. But pussy; well pussy is everyone's friend, and I like 'em in all shapes, sizes, smells and colors. However, last night "vagina" was all the rage; it's right there in the title.

I, probably like most stalwart, heterosexual men, figured The Vagina Monologues was a showcase of self-righteous, feminist, anti-cock propaganda. It takes a big man to admit when he's wrong. I am not a big man, but I was wrong. That makes twice in my lifetime thus far. (I also thought Steve Guttenberg would be around forever.)

My reason for going to see the show was due entirely to the fact that my friend Hanni (pictured at right; pretty hot, huh?) was in the MSU production, giving a wonderfully dynamic performance as a woman touting the virtues of hair versus bald vagina. (I don't discriminate; as long as it has an entrance I find the doormat inconsequential.) Hanni had a short part in the play which combines essays, candid interviews, and the treatment of women worldwide into what was a hilarious, sobering, depressing and amusing conglomeration of conversation about pussy. My only disappointment of the night came whenever I asked Hanni about the quite fetching redhead who had possibly the best delivery in the cast, (Gayle Cox-Moffet) who turned out to be married, goddamnit.

I tell you what might have been the best part of the whole affair, and that was the fact that it was just nice to be around a large group of people listening to, laughing at, and actually using adult language, especially since I spend forty hours a week inside an office where we're all supposed to pretend like we don't know the word "fuck" or "cum."

I enjoyed all of the different segments (maybe I was a little biased about the ones the attractive redhead was in, for obvious reasons) but my favorites were a savagely sad one and, conversely, the lightest one of the show. The former is called "My Vagina Was My Village," and is the tale of a young woman who was repeatedly raped and victimized by a group of six soldiers, though what specific location in which this occurred escapes me at the moment. Quite movingly portrayed by Doran Schmidt, I have to admit I got more than a little misty there near the end. The image of a gun barrel being inserted into her vagina and that of part of her vagina coming off in her hand due to the brutality of the act will not soon leave my mind. Sometimes I wish I didn't have such a vivid imagination.

The other, infinitely lighter but equally attention-grabbing piece was entitled "The Woman Who Loved To Make Vaginas Happy." How can you lose with a title like that? I thought; I too love to make vaginas happy, and lesbians are just yummy...well...some of them. In this story the woman, who was formerly an attorney and now makes her trade as a sex worker giving women orgasms, tells about how she loves to hear women moan. Fucking A, who doesn't? (Sometimes I like to listen to women's tennis.) The funniest part is where the woman, played by Megan Keathley, gives us examples of different kinds of moans. The "Triple Orgasm Moan" is particularly nice. There's nothing so singularly surreal about sitting next to your friends' parents, surrounded by a lesbian-heavy audience and getting an erection. Very strange.

Ninety percent of the profits from the show went to The Regional Girl's Shelter, which provides residential care for adolescent girls who have been abandoned, suffered abuse or neglect. Ten percent was given to the International Beneficiary, which is an organization fighting the abuse of women worldwide, past and present. The nice part about this is that aside from seeing a pretty fucking funny play about my favorite subject, I get the added benefit of feeling all warm and fuzzy about helping a good cause without actually doing anything other than handing over a sawbuck. Ah, armchair activism.

At any rate, ladies and gentlemen, if you do get an opportunity to watch this production in some incarnation or other, I highly recommend you take it. It's not often we all get to talk about pussy without being labeled a pervert...though to be fair, I am one.

Burn, Baby, Burn!

2/16/05

Traditionally in these little correspondences, dear readers, I tend to stick to banal cataloguing of my life or news of a political nature that affects the whole of the country and thusly, the world. Today I break with that tradition in order to bring you a local story that caught my attention.

Fires ravaged Bilbaldo Rueda's Monett, Missouri home on Monday afternoon, destroying a shed, his garage and vehicle. Rueda suffered burns in a desperate effort to battle the flames with the fire-quenching power of a water hose and a bucket. Not a very interesting story, granted, until you realize that there were firefighters on hand who just stood there while Rueda's property and belongings rapidly incinerated into black ashes. They weren't there for his house, you see.

In rural Monett the firefighting association has this membership policy wherein if you don't pay dues to become a member, they show up and watch your house become smoldering embers. Afterwards they'll happily beat your puppies to death with a shovel, free of charge.

The Rural Fire Association's bravest were on hand to make sure the flames didn't spread to nearby paying member's houses, apparently missing the irony that the best way to ensure this would be to put out the goddamn fire.

Rueda has lived on the property for some 18 months now, blissfully unaware that he was supposed to be paying dues to prevent his property from being leveled by an inferno. Fire Chief Ronnie Myers defended the actions of his "firefighters," saying that if residents thought they would just show up and put out fires pro-bono nobody would pay their dues. Kinda sounds like the mob to me. Call me crazy, but I have a feeling that if a non-paying member had his home/car/shed/cat/plasma screen saved by firefighters, that person might be more than willing to pay dues from that point forward, yes? So they wouldn't really be out anything except the money that would have been paid before the firefighters actually did anything.

Chief Ronnie does admit, however, that it was particularly crass for the men to use the blaze to make S'mores (okay that didn't happen) but they would have intervened "without question" if they believed a life had been in danger. No questions asked, huh? Wow. I think we have a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize on our hands. Here's a tip, Ronnie; if you have to say "without question" that kind of implies you're such a prick that people might believe you'd just stand idly by, dripping hose in hand, while entire families roasted alive.

Ronnie admitted that the Association has effectively done diddly-squat in the vein of actually letting people know they have to pay these dues, especially if they are of the Hispanic persuasion. He might be racist, but at least he's right there in your face about it! Ronnie promised to work with "Hispanic leaders," whoever they are, to rectify the situation.

In between vain attempts to save his home, Rueda apparently even offered the firefighters…I'm sorry, fire-bystanders, dues right then and there if they would, say, turn their goddamn hoses on and point them in the general vicinity of the fire, but it's not their policy to take on-the-spot billing. What a bunch of assholes. Is it ironic for firemen to go to hell?


Sources:

Missouri firefighters watch man's garage go up in flames because he didn't pay

The Adult Prom

2/15/06

This past weekend your intrepid reporter attended an event that became affectionately known as "Adult Prom." I know what you're thinking and no, there was no nudity. That was my first thought as well; put "adult" into the title and visions of baby-oiled orgies dance through my head like sugar plums. Sugar plums with boobies. The Adult Prom was, in fact, an opportunity for people far out of high school to get gussied up in dresses and tuxedos without looking like mental patients, dance and imbibe alcohol amid amusingly ironic decorations with captions like "Don't Be Afraid To Bump And Grind." In short, it was a raucously good time.

The shindig was held at a friend's place of business downtown so we didn't have to rent a hall, seeing as how none of us have vocations you could call "successful." Yours truly cut a dashing figure in a genuine, vintage 70's, 100% polyester, powder blue tux complete with dark piping down the sides. And there was no shortage of eye candy about the place; all of the women I know are already attractive (what, I'm gonna hang out with ugly people?) and when the gowns and sweet, sweet perfumes were added on top of it, well…let's just say it was a pleasure overload for the dopamine center of my brain.

There was also a delightful amount of socially lubricated dirty dancing, you know the kind where the woman bends over and rubs her ass in your crotch? Yes…well done there.

I could go on and on about the virtues of the this event, including the ample amount of crotch shots due to a limbo contest and the fact that it was really nice to do something different on the weekend rather than just sitting alone in a semi-dark room and trying to drink until my heart stops. Much revelry was had by all. No, what you're really here for is how I embarrassed myself. I shant disappoint.

First of all, I broke my camera. I have (had) a very trendy 6.3 mega pixel digital camera which I dropped on the hardwood floor of the establishment, dislodging the lens so that it now dangles not unlike a flaccid penis from the chassis of the once mighty piece of technology. That's not the funny part…

Just like any self-respecting alcoholic, I have a heroic tolerance when it comes to spirituous liquors. It ranks somewhere between Liza Minnelli and Earnest Hemingway. This is great, so far as it goes, but if I do hit that threshold where I'm obviously drunk, I'm hovering around a 0.25 BAC. This only happens once every few months, but when it does occur it manifests itself in…odd ways. Like disappearing for long periods of time and sleeping in odd places for no damn reason. Once on a camping trip I ran a quarter mile through the woods and slept on the ground beside a pond. Another time, at a wedding reception I meandered away and slept for about two hours next to a lake. I don't know what it is with booze and bodies of water, but when inebriated they call to me like a homing beacon.

The Adult Prom started around 8pm and we after-partied at a friend's house. 'Round about 3am it would be safe to say I was hammered. Some booze-soaked toggle flipped in my head and I wandered off by myself. With no body of water handy I smoked a cigarette in the garage. Said garage contained a vehicle and at the time it seemed like a really good idea to take a little lay-down in the backseat. Forty five minutes later I decided that 1) It was about 4 degrees in the garage, and 2) Those big sun visors you put in your windshield aren't very insulating.

Staggering back inside I am greeted with a wall of darkness, as everyone has gone to sleep. No fewer than four and possibly five people are in the living room, safely ensconced inside blankets with their tender little heads rested on soft, comfortable pillows. That was, until I walk in and Allison wakes up and screams as if she's being accosted by Leatherface. Assuring her in my slurred speech that I was after neither her belongings nor her virtue, I went down the hall and belatedly realized there was nowhere to sleep. Wallowing in the car in the garage like the asshole I am I had missed that crucial handing out of bedrolls and assignment of quarters.

Rallying every ounce of my capacity for rational, 80-proof thought, I raided the bathroom where I found a total of two towels, and not beach towels, either; small, damp, used towels. Rolling one up underneath my head and draping the other over my frostbitten feet I curled up in the hallway and slept in ten minute increments permeated by long stretches of time in which I wished I was dead. Bear in mind I'm still clad in a polyester tuxedo…and I was still cold.

Fortunately I don't suffer from little to no sleep or hangovers, so I was glad to accompany everyone to lunch the next day at the local Thai house where I delighted all with my tall tale. I distinctly remember an old woman at the next table staring at me when I belted out the word "testicles" without using my indoor voice. I think I was still drunk.

The Most Dangerous Game

2/14/06

Alright, ladies and gentlemen, I tried to hold out as long as possible, but it seems as though even one as magnanimously patient as yours truly has his limits. So, the Vice President shot an old guy in the face. There. I said it. Even I, on quite embedded into liberal ideology can admit that this story has probably gotten overblown. As a strict news piece it’s barely worth the effort, but as strictly fucking funny it’s gold. So here we go!

Harry Whittington, one of Cheney’s friends and hunting buddies was “peppered” with buckshot over the weekend when he apparently crept up behind the Veep and tried to block Cheney’s sweeping shot of farm raised, purposely released quail (with all the wild intelligence of an egg beater) with the better part of his 78 year old face. The jokes practically write themselves. The funniest part of the whole affair is the fact that Cheney is so embarrassed about it that he has yet to personally make a statement concerning the accident, preferring to go through the time-honored tradition of letting the chick who’s farm you’re on release the story that the man who is second in command of the free world has just released a large amount of metal into his friend’s face.

But Cheney’s (first sitting VP to be involved in a shooting since Alexander Hamilton dueled with Aaron Burr!) not the one taking most of the flak (no pun intended) over the fiasco. The real whipping boy here is every reporter’s favorite chew-toy, White House Press Secretary Scott “Punching Bag” McClellen. Let’s look at some of the highlights from today:

Deb Orin of the New York Post wondered why “the vice president has failed in any way to stand up and say, ‘I made a mistake.’”

McClellen, probably wishing he had a shotgun himself, said, “He has commented through his spokeswoman.”

Bill Plante of CBS took up the reins with a one-two combo. “But why haven’t we heard from him?”

“I don’t think he had any public events scheduled,” McClellen said.

Plante, smelling blood in the water as Ryan mixes his metaphors, said, “He could schedule one. It would be easy. If he wanted to come over here, you’d probably let him. We would turn up.”

Now that’s fucking sarcasm! At this point McClellen, perhaps afraid he was about to be pantsed and thrown into a locker, retorted with his own witty banter. “Okay, then you can start running the vice president’s office, Bill.”

I bet he wished desperately the guy’s name had been “dick.” With that final statement, McClellen turned on his heels and walked away from the podium like a man in danger of making BM in his pants.

With news about this “man-peppering” saturating the 24-hour news networks, it’s nice to know that the media has finally found one story they’re willing to grow some balls for and really go after. Lord knows there hasn’t been much scandal in this administration to sink their teeth into.

But all kidding aside I know the VP is a busy man; he can’t be catering to the whim of a nation just looking for some semblance of human emotion from a man who makes Karl Rove look cuddly. Cheney just doesn’t have time to say he’s sorry. I mean look at what they were hunting; that which most hunters regard as the toughest of game; prearranged, pen raised, released birds with brains the size of chickpeas. He’s so busy protecting our country he doesn’t even have time to walk around looking for real wild birds, people, cut the man some slack! I don’t know why they don’t just stake the birds out on the ground and let the guys go up and blast ‘em point-blank. Better yet, they could pre-kill them then just kinda throw them onto the White House lawn where Cheney could explode them from his limo. It’s these kinds of freedoms we’re fighting to preserve in Iraq, people! Get on board!

It was a little odd that Cheney waited a full twenty four hours to inform the public (by way of some broad in a news interview beside a friggin’ highway) of the accident, but in his defense he did spend upwards of twenty minutes or so beside the hospital bed of the friend he had shot in the fucking face.