Start in a bath house, end in a boat house. How divine, miss M.

i'd rather have the frontal labotamy

I stayed up too late last night watching Magnum P.I. (code for: drinking cheap wine, magnum being the size of the bottle, P.I. an acronym. You figure it out.) so I have little energy for anything more than a link to a contest.

My entry?
Mom: "I know you're only poking his shadow, but it still hurts his feelings. (gotta know Monk's mom to get that one.)

Because hating rich white girls is easy

You know what I'd rather see, more than this shit?, a made for TV movie about Slick Rick's deportation trial. Shot like an old-school MTV video, cameos by Cameo and the Sugar Hill Gang. One with a classic 80's ending culminating in a courtroom scene where, after the final arguments are had and Slick Rick is apparently defeated, the judge (played by Dee Snider) leans over and commands, "The court sees fit to deport you Mr. Rick, unless you can give me ONE GOOD REASON why I should let you stay in these, here United States!" The crowd would hush, the camera would scan the room, settle on a weeping fly girl, or a lone tear hanging off the end of a bereft Humpy Hump's nose. Slick Rick is done for. It's over. The camera pans over to a little girl sitting behind the defense attorney, she hands Slick a mic and whispers "Show him Slick...show him one good reason." Slick takes the mic, smiles (because he knows what he gots to do) jumps up on the table, and begins..."All I have to say judge, is...." at which point turntables appear from beneath the stenographers legs, colored lights fill the room, a beat and, " La-di-da-di, I like to party, I don't cause trouble I don't bother nobody, I'm just a rapper on the mic, and when I'm rockin on the mic I rock the mic RIGHT..." The bailiff, overcome by the groove, rips off her break-away uniform to reveal a thong bikini, starts shaking her thang in the face of the INS agents who had already commenced with the closed-fisted, to and fro swaying white guy dance. Camera cuts to the jury who have mysteriously changed into MC Hammer pants and begun doing the wap in unison. The judge, having totally lost control of the court, screams "Order! ORDER!" while whacking his gavel like a madman. But Slick got that party started quickly...right. He leaps up atop the bench and screams..."If you want me stay-- in the USA-- lemmie hear you say-- 'OH YEAH!'"
"OH YEAH!"
"And if you don't want-- to see me go-- lemmie hear you scream-- 'Hell No!'"
"HELL NO!"
The judge bangs away with the gavel, "Order! Order!" The stripper/bailiff is grinding on the prosecuting attorney, the stenographer is cutting wax like a candle-maker, the jury continue, as per their instructions, to wave their hands in the air like they just don't care. Inside the pandemonium a voice pierces the din "QUIIIIIIEEETTTTT!" A needle scratches across vinyl. Silence.
The judge: "Mister Rick. You have made a mockery of this court like I never see'd before (remember, it's Dee Snider). I have no other choice but to...." The crowd gasps, the room is still (maybe insert the actual sound effect of a pin dropping). Slick Rick stands and waits for what we are sure is his doom.
"but to...LET YOU STAY!!!"

"HORRRRRAYYYYY!" screams the crowd, the music resumes, the judge gets up to get down along side his fellow Americans (and one special one) who showed him a little something about democracy that day.

You know, something like that. Something uplifting.

(link to Slick's trial via Emma, who rocks the party pretty damn hard her own self.)

Generic plug for jonmc because nothing will endear a person to me more than quoting the Replacements.

Provocative journalist shocks nation

This just in: Men like to watch women kissing, think the female body is erotic.

Next off the wire: Bear feces found in wooded area.

she's crafty, and she's just my type

Hey, Maud's a big fibber! Said she didn't have no kinda Friday blogger and then WHAM! sneaks one in on us just like so. Go meet Terry Bain, who I hear is gonna come back around next Friday too.

creepatude

Have you felt it the past few days? When I got home the other night G took a look at my face and guessed "Hard day?" to which I replied, "No, not hard, more like...creepy."
"Creepy, huh?" he asked.
"Yeah..." His face grew a big 'WELL??' on it, I didn't know how to explain. "I dunno...it's like...have you ever woke up in the night convinced you heard something? A window being opened, a door, a crash, a burglar, whatever?
"Uh-huh."
"So you get up to investigate, turn on all the lights, check the whole apartment, open closets, all that, and when you see everything's fine and are convinced it was just your imagination, you go back to bed. But then you can't fall asleep because..."
"Now you're all creeped out?"
"Yes."
"Sure. I know what that's like."
"Well, it feels kinda like that."

Anyway, I don't know what creeped me out in the first place. I just know that everything suddenly has a Jacob's Ladder quality to it. Having pals nearly catch on fire isn't good. And the freaking picture up at Dong's place isn't helping matters much either (to that...will someone tell me when he takes it down so I can go read again? Oh, and suggest the sexy nun-vixen pic for me. I like that one the best.) According to Monk, Jupiter has a melanoma or something, and I've already started receiving cutesey Halloween emails from my family, all of which feature a pumpkin who appears to be throwing up.

turgid, indeed!

When he says you'll be tea bagged if it's your birthday today, does that include newborns? Because although a snapshot of that scene would be the hands-down favorite in the family album (right after baby's first trip to the Psychotherapist), I still have to say it's highly inappropriate.

Fashion update: Death certificate takes over the "Kelly" handbag as this fall's must have.

Also dead today, Jack Elam, and Rerun (tip-off via Vidiot)

And more, too.

well I think I'll be quiet now.

Singer Elliot Smith, dead at 34.

Soapbox? *check* Righteous Indignation? *check*

If that cup of Cafe Bustelo hasn't soured your stomach yet, reading over the morning news will, which is why I usually recommend avoiding both whenever possible (avoidance and/or denial being a time-honored tradition and mental health staple for the ol'Antigiest and like-minded sanity seekers everywhere). But not today kids. Today we have to pay attention.

The new abortion bill was passed in the senate yesterday and has been promised to be signed into law, with lightening speed, by our totalitarian-in-chief. I'll spare you the diatribe on how beyond disgusting and heinous it is for Republicans to use this particular issue to polarize their party for the upcoming election, what a bold-faced manipulation of a topic (everyone can agree) is bound to raise passions and produce knee-jerk reactions. I'll spare you that. But putting lives of thousands of women a year on the line for your fucking political gain?... you sicken me. You bastards.

How can we allow "a piece of legislation that for the first time in history bans a medical procedure without making any exception for the health of a woman"? --which, if you are unfamiliar, is the primary reason for the procedure to be performed in the first place. Yes, partial birth abortion is a horrifying thing. I cannot image being the mother, the father, the partner, or the doctor who is faced with the decision to (yes, I will say it) murder an unborn child. However thanks to modern medical advancements it is a decision that has to be made very rarely, a fact that seems to have been lost in this debate. Less than 0.2 of the abortions performed each year are partial birth, a tiny, tiny percentage of the whole; almost all of which are performed to keep the mother from dying due to complications during pregnancy or child birth. When you take that into account, and consider that we have existing viability laws on the books to prevent late-term abortions (and protect the living), this new legislation provides a shocking revelation: the Senate's opinion that a woman has no worth other than her ability to be an effective baby-making factory.

If this bill makes it past the Supreme Court I may have to shoot myself (one more useless female down, half the population to go!). My sincere wish is that all the motherless daughters who will be brought into the world because of this bill will be able to grow up proud knowing their country has legislated that her uterus, and it's contents, are infinitely more important than she is.

In lighter news, President Bush backs another bill which will give weathly special interests a well-deserved leg up. (Surprise, surprise!) There's no chance we unemployed and underemployed will get to see a doctor any time soon. And, who would have guessed, oil companies produce pollution and blame the infamous "Not Me" made popular by Family Circus.

there's a bad moon on the rise*

I should have known how my day was going to go after reading this: "Sagittarius: You will soon see the ass-end of something. Let's hope it's an ass."

I won't go into details about my horrible experience with a certain shelver at C-Town an hour ago, but I will say my horoscope was eerily accurate, and that the box-boy was a Pisces. What's in store for you today?

*admission: I was 25 years old when I learned the actual lyrics to CCR's Bad Moon Rising. Beforehand I understood that line to be "there's a bathroom on the right", which made contexual sense to a ten year old, a bathroom being a good place to hide..."don't go out tonight, it just might save your life, there's a bathroom on the right."

stockpiling for winter

I keep waiting for my love affair with fall to kick in. It's sunny and crisp today so maybe today is the day, which would be nice because I'm way behind schedule with the season's delights; leaping into piles of leaves, sipping hot apple cider from a hand-thrown mug, spending an entire Sunday listening to Mozart and baking bread, playing touch football in the park with the gang. Not that I actually do any of those things, good Lord no. I think about doing them, which in my world equals having done it (same goes for bill paying, toilet cleaning, sending birthday cards...). Without my imaginary fall activites, and the heady sense of accomplishment they bring, I could never gain the momentum necessary to think a delightful holiday season into reality. It's a process, see.

[Post-Walk Update: If you should decide to 'jump start' your fall love affair by gayly tromping through the piles of leaves that have gathered along the bottom of the fence by the park, try to remember they may not have been placed there by the whim of the wind as much as are stuck to the heaping piles of dog shit underneath.]

The 'Boys of Summer' is a Don Henley song, right?

I surfed my way over to the end of the Yankees/Sox game last night and was totally drawn in. For like a whole minute. Okay I guess that's not 'drawn in', but since a scant glimpse of a bat or a helmet or a ball or a puck makes my remote finger go into hyper-click, a full minute was like a religious conversion. The scene was an intoxicating puzzle. I know absolutely nothing about the sport or either team (other than one is from New York and the other is from Boston, which I learned by reading the bottom of the screen) but I could guess that something historical was going down based on all the yelling and cheering and spitting and scrotal sac investigations, and the fact that it was well past midnight, and still going strong. That much I got. My understanding ended there however, sent me packing to the Will & Grace rerun on channel 11.

My relationship with sports is strange, baseball in particular. I want to love it, honest. But when people try to explain their love of sports to me it sounds like parents trying to explain sex to the four year old who just caught them in the act. The kid can get over the notion that their parents turn into many-tentacled creatures who (as it seems through the wall) beat the fuck out of one another on a regular basis... that it instead has something to do with a feeling of connection and love and fun and joy. I mean, we understood that people 'did it' when we were little, we just couldn't understand why. It just seemed so messy and gross. Why would anyone choose to do something so awful... willingly? Yuck.

But I remain hopeful. I seemed to have grasped the whole 'why' of the sex thing pretty well (no comments please), so it only stands to reason that one day I'll be able to do the same with America's second favorite pastime, right?

Scalia decides to pledge his allegiance quietly at home.

"I think that was an amazingly courageous and upstanding thing for him to have done. He was right to do it. I didn't expect that he would," Newdow said.

You and me both pal. Miracles never cease, I reckon.

Okay, that's three...we're done right?

The ferry crash yesterday forced me out of my news boycott, sent me running back to that acronymic list in my bookmark folder, or The Big Sadness Generator as I call it. By this morning I was certain that if (by chance) it was not the content of the press and media that had caused my recent bout of depression, it sure as hell is now. But you can't run forever. Head gets hot all stuck in the sand, etc. Anyway a grown woman looks kinda silly with her hands over her ears shouting "I'm not listening! I'm not listening!" each time she passes a newsstand, or water-cooler conversation, or Ted Koppel on the TV.

So no more hiding for now. I'll get dressed, and then head into the city. Be very sad that we seem to have occasion to say "Did you lose anyone in the......?" more often than 'hello' or 'good morning' anymore.

Buckley breaks it down, Harvard stylie.

In an effort to assure us that his liver-spotted thumb is still firmly on the pulse, William F. Buckley Jr. weighs in on the P2P debate. His credentials as an expert? He admits that he has never heard of the Bee Gees (a winning new rock sensation all the kids are clamoring to download) but has written an entire book about Elvis Presley, the title of which he can't remember.

The most important thing about the op-ed piece is that Buckly finally admits he is an alien. Admits there are more. Which is the ONLY acceptable excuse for never having heard of Johnny Cash.

Still ignoring anything vaguely resembling 'news'.

You will swallow some tacks. You are a little
weird, maybe not so much in a good way. Buy a
yellow tie and wear it on your head.


What horrible Edward Gorey Death will you die?
brought to you by Quizilla

The children would be adorable. Or really, really ugly.

Somebody go tell Ceaser (or Huey) I know just the man for the job.

My favourite Twat

If any of you have ever had to explain to your lover/roommate/best friend (while they stand there with a look of utter disbelief that anyone [particulary you] could buy into such pure, unadulterated schlock) why you do, in fact, love The Smiths; just print this out and hand it to them. If they don't get it after that you'll just have to go back to listening to The Queen is Dead on your CD walkman and pretending it's Wilco.
Cus if they don't believe us now...will they ev'veer belieeeve us?

What part of 'cry for help' don't you understand?

Is it any wonder?

I'm in the middle of my "can't watch the news or even glance at a newspaper" place. It falls right after the "what the hell is wrong with people?" place, and right before the "we are all doomed" place. It's a cycle I revisit regularly. Fear, ignore, succumb; repeat.

So I called my Dad and asked if he thought I was depressed. Not sad, we all get sad, depressed, like in need of taking little pills and re-hashing my childhood for ninety dollars an hour to a corduroy wearing narcissist depressed. He said he didn't think so. He called me "wildly empathetic", said I'd always felt things strongly, my whole life, always took the injustices of the world particularly hard. I told him that didn't sound like a ringing endorsement of my mental health, it sounded more like something the parents of a serial killer would tell a jury. He laughed, "No, they always say they were 'quiet', 'kept to themselves', 'a 'loner'."
"Well I guess that rules me out."
"All I know is no one has ever accused you of being 'quiet'..."
"Um (giggling) ...no."
"Yeah, I think your in the clear."
"Okay, I'll never be a serial killer, but that doesn't mean I'm not depressed."
"Depressed? You know who's depressed? Serial killers. That's no way to live..."
"Dad! I'm being serious!"
"...find the people, kill the people, hide the bodies..."
"You're not going to answer my question are you?"
"...gotta wear those stupid glasses...live a lie under the cover of night...that'd bum a person out..."

Get a hanky, click the link.

Ashcroft sings his "torch song to America" with so much passion, he makes all the facists before him look like guidence counselors. I have to admit though, I got a little choked-up. Wait... *burp* forget it, it was only bile.

(via bottomdwelling, via Stupid Evil Bastard, who, you know, got it somewhere else.)

A question for my Catholic brothers and sisters...

Honestly you guys, what the hell is in that fucking holy water? I hear the pontiff is kicking it NYC (no pun intended)... maybe you could ask him to get the Big Guy to look into this shit, pronto.

[update 10/9: I repeat...what the fuck is in that holy water?]

Can you hear ol' Georgey O sniggering?

Imagine, just for a second, that you fell into a coma about five years ago. The last thing you remember is leaving your comfortable, $700 a month apartment (in a nice, family owned, rent stabilized building only two stops into Brooklyn on the L) to head off to your mid-level job in the city where you make a decent, livable wage, have great health benefits, and stellar job security. Bill Clinton is president, and despite the hubbub about whether or not he'd been getting his freak on in the Oval Office, you remember feeling secure that Democrats would triumph in the 2000 elections. (How could they lose? Booming economy, peace time, low unemployment, I mean an election would have to be fixed for the Republicans to win, right?) Then a noise, like a calliope being swallowed by quicksand, the letters M-I-S-T-E-R S-O-F... and then black.

Fast forward to this morning. Your eyes open for the first time, and as the hospital room slowly comes into focus you are greeted by the image of Arnold Schwarzenegger and wife amid a shower of confetti and balloons on the TV. Bold-type campaign slogans bob up and down in the audience while Arnold gives what appears to be an acceptance speech. "He must be making a movie about running for office" you think. "What stupid casting" you think. "The Terminator...a politician? Who'd buy that?" you think.

You try to guess the plot of the film. You decide it's a future movie. Near future. Post-Apocalyptic, no, the classic Orwellian tale, but with a fresh twist. Where a network of the country's most wealthy families form a secret alliance, you call them The Alliance, and in doing so, gain control of all the money and resources of the world. They quietly place one of their own into the presidency, like a former president Bush type, and in a stroke of nepotistic brilliance, install a unimpeachable defacto monarchy by assuring Alliance members and their heirs will 'inherit' the office in perpetuity. A totalitarian regime emerges, where the constant fear of war, poverty, and illness are used as weapons against the masses to distract them from their quickly diminishing civil and human rights. The middle class is obliterated. People who were once supporting their families begin to struggle, and then starve, and when they look to their government for reasons why so many jobs have evaporated, the Alliance comes up with a diabolical plan to blame the country's most defenseless and mutable, like the elderly, no, illegal immigrants. Sadly, a two-dollar-an-hour berry-picking job is worth coveting and fighting for at this point, so they are blamed. The people are distracted for awhile. When they begin to ask questions again The Alliance triples the broadcast of reality shows, more wars are waged, and advertising campaigns quadruple using images and music from a more prosperous past, evoking the idea that freedom still exists, that one's poverty is a choice. It works. The Alliance is then a mere stroke away from total control of the world. All that is left is replacing the last remaining vestiges of the former governing body with figureheads, powerful only in their ability to assuage the masses, but in fact puppets of the new regime -- they would hire actors to run against the incumbents, and afterward, turn Hollywood into the mother of all dog-wagging machines in charge of every ounce of public information (and in doing so be able to control and hide the identity of the Alliance forever). The film reaches it's crescendo with the first of these elections. The people, still in possession of their fate and able reverse the evil plan that has been set forth by the Alliance, are given a choice between several qualified leaders (who would fight Alliance takeover), and an Alliance-appointed actor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, played by himself.

You decide that the scene you woke up to, the ticker-tape and acceptance speech, would be the shocker ending: The people CHOSE their fate. You think that wouldn't be such a bad movie after all, even if it is a little far fetched.

I just want to thank my sponsors...

H: *rinnngg* Hello?
Me: Hey, you've gotta talk me off a ledge here.
H: Okay...
Me: I'm in the bathroom, I have the scissors in my hand.
H: No, wait...have you done it yet?
Me: Not yet, but I'm just about to.

H: You know it never works out.
Me: I know.
H: It never ends up how you think it's going to.
Me: I know, I know. But I just thought...
H: Okay...which are you going for, the pixie-chick, or the Gweneth Paltrow just on the eyebrows?
Me: I'm not sure, maybe mid-forehead?
H: Not with your hairline, you'll have to train them. Are you ready to blow-dry and gel and spray every single day...?
Me: I'll never do that.
H: ...OR wait two years for them to grow out?
(M enters the room where H is on the phone, he overhears)
M: Oh no....PMS bangs?...
H: (to M) Yep, full on.
M: (yelling in the background) NO! Did you do it?
Me: Tell him no.
H: No.
M: What is she thinking, remind her about the last time!
Me: I know.
H: (to M) She says she knows.
M: (walks away from H, voice trailing off)...tell her to just step away from the scissors, go take a walk...
(pause)
H: So...did you try pinning your hair up to see how it looks?
Me: Yeah, it looked stupid, but I thought...
H: ...that it was the pins? That somehow it would look better when you cut the hair?
Me: Yeah.
H: But you know that isn't true, right?
Me: *sigh* Yeah.
(pause)
H: Better?
Me: Yes, I am. Thanks.
H: Sure?
Me: Mmhmmm.
H: All right. Call us back if you need to.
Me: Next month.
H: *laughing*

Durga's revenge

Karma is not a car whose name ends with Ghia. Please quit your vein, war mongering, capitalistic exploits now... you assholes.

*stepping off of soap box*

Thank you.

Father of democracy? Heh, father of divorce...

Today marks the anniversary of the death of Aristotle, a grade-A windbag who, fittingly, died of indigestion this day 2,325 years ago, and who (if you are unfamiliar) is the grand-daddy of mind-games, manipulation, passive aggression, and everything else that's wrong with human relations be they legal, familial, or educational. I will illustrate.

A conversation with your girlfriend, 400 BC:
running time: thirty seconds

She: Honey?
He: Yes?
She: Before you come to bed, would you please please shut off the water and blow out the candles in the vomitorium?
He: Sure thing toots.
She: Thank you, dear.

A conversation with your girlfriend, 2003 AA:
running time: six hours

She: (in the kitchen) Honey?
He: (in the living-room) Yes?
She: Are you through with the milk?
He: What?
She: I said, are you through with the milk?
He: The milk....
She: Yes, the milk... sitting here...on the counter?
He: Oh...
She: Are you through with it?
He: What do you mean am I through with it... of course I'm through with it. I just forgot to put it away.
She: Well how would I know that? How could I possibly know that?
He: Because it was left out on the counter?...
She: All I know is A...
He: Oh Christ...
She: you are an intelligent person, of above average intelligence in fact, and B...
He: Do we have to...
She: ..you are well versed in the basic principles of refrigeration and spoilage...
He: I'm really, really, really sorry I left...
She: And C, that you fully understand that a dairy product left in an 80 degree kitchen for several hours would run the risk of being ruined and possibly dangerous to ingest..
He: Yes, sure. Yes.
She: So therefore, knowing you are a person who fully understands the reasons to refrigerate milk, and that it may be indeed dangerous to leave milk out in the heat, and knowing that you are a kind and decent person with no intentions of harming another human being ...why else would the carton of milk be on the counter other than you were not, in fact, DONE WITH IT?
He: Because I'm a useless piece of shit unworthy of life.
She: Bingo.
He: Couldn't you've just asked me to put the milk away?
She: I wasn't sure you were done with it.
He: Right....

Are your friends sexy AND Brilliant?

Well mine are. Go see for yourself.