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GEOFFREY'S TOP TEN MOVIES OF 2011

2011-12-29T15:08:00.000-08:00

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It’s safe to say that 2011 was a terrible year for movies.

Wait, no, that’s not right. I mean…2011 was a terrible year for me to get out to SEE movies. Between work, allergies that might as well have raped me in prison and watching my brother’s toddler for the bulk of the Spring/Summer, I was and still am way behind on my typical viewing schedule.

By my count, I saw fewer than 75 of 2011’s movies. That is so God-awful that I can’t even begin to explain to you the feeling of my testicles retracting into my pelvis at seeing such a number. It’s revolting. It’s repugnant. It is WRONG. Usually I see double that, and perhaps even a few more. That in mind, you should take this list as the musing of a compromised, sad little cinematic. Among movies that I desperately wanted to see this year but didn’t (though a few I will get to in the next couple weeks): JANE EYRE, SUBMARINE, A BETTER LIFE, PROJECT NIM, WINNIE THE POOH, ATTACK THE BLOCK (attempted the other day but only got 20 minutes in), BELLFLOWER, TAKE SHELTER, BEING ELMO, THE ARTIST, SHAME, TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY, CORMAN’S WORLD, PARIAH, GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (which I’m seeing tonight). And then a whole bunch of others. Upon seeing them, this list could obviously change.

Onto the bullshit. As per normal, this is ranked not by movies I necessarily think are “best”, but by which ones I like the most/resonate with me. Also, I’m going to cheat ruthlessly:

HONORABLE MENTION:

CEDAR RAPIDS; RANGO; GREEN HORNET; LIMITLESS; SOURCE CODE; THOR; BRIDESMAIDS; HORRIBLE BOSSES; CAPTAIN AMERICA; SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS; FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS; RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES; THE DESCENDENTS; HUGO; THE MUPPETS; SENNA; MYTH OF THE AMERICAN SLEEPOVER; TURKEY BOWL

GEOFF’S TOP TEN OF 2011:

10 (tie): MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL and X-MEN: FIRST CLASS
Flat-out, MI:GP was the most fun I had at the movies this year. No question. Probably the most entertaining action film that I’ve seen in a while. It seems almost stupid to say that this was a coming-out party for Brad Bird, but for a lot of people who never recognized his work with Pixar, it will be. And I don’t care what anyone says – I love and will always love Tom Cruise. The man is a hero.

XM:FC might have ended up as my favorite comic book movie ever. It managed to combine a couple legitimately thrilling set pieces with a ton of heart, a particularly smart origin story and some cleverly-bent history to create a fantastically great time at the movies. Also, Zoe Kravitz. Purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…

9. THE IDES OF MARCH
You don’t get many political thrillers that are spent on the campaign trail, where the real seeds of corruption are filmy planted…if they’re not flowering out of control already. Long a much-loved unproduced script, this is the first entry on my list out of THREE that includes a performance by Ryan Gosling, who had as successful a year for an actor in terms of performance as I can ever remember. Special kudos go to Clooney for directing this twisty, turny affair with crisp grace, managing to leave us wondering still at the end – are there ANY good guys in this story?

Special mention: Clooney provided my favorite performance by a male actor this year in THE DESCENDENTS. Even though the film itself was strong, I had my issues with it. But Clooney was terrific as a subtly broken man who’d lost his way but managed to be a leader and role model anyway.

8. CONTAGION
Most post-apocalyptic films work for me just because I’m fascinated by the concept – the deserted, crumbling landscape, the emaciated walking corpses, the loss of hope. And CONTAGION isn’t quite apocalyptic, but it’s a movie that shows you just how close you can brush up against it, which it turns out is just as (if not somehow more) terrifying. This was the scariest film of the year in my estimation, and I don’t think there’s any doubt that Soderbergh is one of the modern masters at setting mood.

7. 50/50
My favorite Original Screenplay of the year and a movie that really worked on me because even if you had no idea that the script was based on the writer’s actual experiences, you would know that it was based on the writer’s actual experiences. It’s incredibly personal and unique in that it’s not JUST the writer laying bare everything – it’s the director, the actors, everyone involved as well. In a dramedy it’s almost impossible to not hit a false note somewhere, and this never does. Major props to JGL for pulling off a ridiculous performance after coming onto the film just weeks before it started shooting.

6. CRAZY STUPID LOVE
A lot of people liked this movie, but I found that most who did still had a lot of caveats. I suppose I understand that to some degree, but what I heard most was some form of, “It couldn’t decide what KIND of movie it wanted to be.” And though I disagree, there’s an element of truth to that – it’s alternately, slapsticky, observational, dramatic, sentimental, winsome, melancholy, etc. Well guess what? So is life. And I thought this film captured that perfectly, right down to the improbable-yet-entirely-possible set of coincidences that grace the third act. Loved every minute of this one, including the first act which moved a little more deliberately than the rest of the film.

5. MONEYBALL
My favorite Adapted Screenplay of the year – I mean, I know, a real fucking stretch considering it was Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin contributing. What really impressed me about this one was both how funny it was and the fact that it was built around a premise that is both somewhat of a failure and also open-ended, not to mention based on a work of staggering nonfiction…and yet it worked beautifully as a complete, three-act story. It’s one of those rare sports films that non-sports fans can appreciate and understand as well as hardcore sports fans, and it is so appreciable because it never tries talking down (or using copious amounts of exposition in explaining its intricacies) to the audience.

4. YOUNG ADULT
I’m a big fan of the anti-hero, but I was NOT prepared for how far Charlize Theron (in my favorite performance of the year by ANYONE) was about to beat that archetype into my skull with unrelenting fervency. I love, love, love, love, love love love love love that Reitman, Cody and company NEVER let up in the assault on the audience of this one terrible woman, who starts awful and finishes awful. Even better: this is not someone who is a broken person and is made bad by the world around her. This is someone who CHOOSES to be terrible. All the time. With no reluctance. And the result is a disturbing, dark, insanely painful and funny ride.

(FULL DISCLOSURE #1: Diablo is producing one of my films.)
(FULL DISCLOSURE #2: Go fuck yourself. This is still brilliant.)

3. DRIVE
The third movie featuring Ryan Gosling. A ton has already been said in praise of this one, from the directing to the acting to the writing to the score, and it’s all correct. I don’t want to add anything unnecessary, so I’ll just say this: this film pulled off a nigh-impossible task in simply being unabashedly, effortlessly cool. Many have tried. This one came through.

2. MELANCHOLIA
Here’s how much the second half of this movie knocked me off my feet: I could take or leave the bulk of the first half of the movie. I didn’t dislike it, per se, but after a few minutes I just didn’t care. She’s a manic-depressive; we get it. In fact, I spent the near-entirety of it (outside of the first ten minutes, which is peerless in its sheer visual beauty) convinced that I was going to be writing this off as a pretty, pretentious pile of shit.

Man, was I wrong. When we kick into the second half and the film’s vision of the perhaps-approaching apocalypse, I was RIVETED. This is the quietest film I’ve ever seen about the potential end of the world and also the loveliest in so many ways. In particular, the human struggle to fear the end of life as we know it while trying to balance the logic of those in a position of expertise to tell you that it’s not going to happen was fascinating. Trying to make the most of your time with your loved ones just in case while attempting to do perhaps the most human of things – pretend that nothing’s wrong. By the end, this movie had rocked me to my core and left me – legitimately – nearly breathless. If you haven’t yet, seek it out.

1B. TREE OF LIFE
I’m splitting up my #1 film into two films because there’s no other way to do it – they’re so impossibly different that I have no choice.

The first, to me, isn’t really a film so much as it’s a memory – the way it’s shot, the way it’s acted, the story it tells. An examination of what we as people share universally with the forces of nature and the very construction of our planet itself…I mean, look. If you hated this movie, I totally get it. This is one of those films that either locks into you on an extremely personal level or shuts you out with a heavy steel door. I will argue certain points about what the film does or says, but I can’t imagine a film that calls more to be personally absorbed or rejected outright.
And so there’s almost no constructive way to discuss it other than in personal terms. For me, it posed questions (with very few answers, which I found refreshing) that I have about life and the vastness that surrounds me while reminding me almost wholesale what it was like to be a burgeoning adolescent trying to find my place within my family, friends, and the world at large. Maybe the best compliment I can give it: I haven’t been able to bring myself to watch it again quite yet. All things considered, the “best” movie I saw this year.

1A. WARRIOR
Again, a seminally different film from co-#1 TREE OF LIFE, this is the film that hit me on all levels this year, the film that I saw the most times in a theater this year (4), and the film that I’ll probably rewatch the most in the future.
I’m a big-time MMA fan, and curiously, I think that might have actually been a slight detriment to my enjoyment of the film. If there was one problem I had with it, it’s that portions of the MMA action were overstaged, which converged on the realism for me to a degree. Still, it wasn’t anywhere near the transgression of the depiction of sport seen in the likes of the ROCKY series; it was enhanced properly to give a general audience a sense of the scale of what can or could happen in MMA, so it’s understandable.

But for me, this was first and foremost a movie about family. It played on familiar tropes and maladies and covered ground that many have charted previously. But you know what? It got it so, so, SO right. It’s all heart, the quintessential underdog story that sucks you in and smacks you around in all the right ways. I clapped at the end. Oh man, did I clap. Yes, you know from the very beginning of this thing that Joel Edgerton and Tom Hardy, playing estranged brothers, are going to be fighting for a title at the end. That’s never in question. What is in question is whether or not they’re ever going to heal from that fight – and that has nothing to do with broken bones or deep bruises. It’s exhilarating and moving and poignant and wonderful. And it’s my favorite movie of the year.

THE THINGS TO BE SAID WHEN THERE'S NOTHING LEFT TO SAY

2011-11-09T12:07:00.001-08:00

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As is the case with much of life, I didn't see the events of this week coming, wasn't even remotely prepared to deal with them, and have no clue exactly how I'm going to feel going forward. All I really do know is that I sat up all night thinking about this, and woke up this morning asking myself, "How the hell are you going to lose sleep over a football team?"

And of course, it's far more than just a football team. While many of you actually attended PSU, I didn't. However, I grew up with and at Penn State. It's kind of hard to avoid when your family has been season ticket holders since the 1960s and watching the games is part of a bonding experience that's indelibly burned into the very fiber of your being. It stopped being "just football" on more or less the day I was born 32 years ago and officially became "part of my life".

And as every event in the history of Penn State football, so are the events of this week a chapter in my life. Naturally, it's one chapter I'd just as soon rip out of the book and bury in the backyard as if it never happened. Sadly, there are no real pages, and there is no backyard.

To paraphrase Robert Frost, we have many, many miles to travel before the scandal that befell us this week is over and we can finally put it to rest. But there are a few things that I wanted - and need - to say, and no matter the outcome.

With Joe Paterno's own admission that he, in hindsight, wishes he would have done more about the Sandusky situation, I'm forced to change my tune in the way I've defended him this week. While we still don't know a significant portion of the details of what occurred between 2002 and this past week, Joe's own admission was that he failed the victims in this case. In that, he also failed the University, a concept that's almost impossible for me to reconcile considering how much he loved and gave to it his entire life. And as angry and upset as I am, there are parts of me that can understand - not condone, not forgive, not excuse, but UNDERSTAND - how it could have happened.

An infinitesimal few of us, thank God, can actually put ourselves in McQueary's or Joe's shoes. Oh sure, we can sit here, protected by the relative anonymity of message board avatars, and project from our own moral high ground. But if we're being honest with ourselves...what WOULD we really have done? If you're McQueary, maybe some of you run and tackle Sandusky and beat him to a pulp; we sure would all like to do that retroactively, no doubt. Maybe some of you run right and call the police. Maybe some of us are so shocked that we don't know HOW to act - having seen a mentor that we've known and respected for more than a decade commit one of the most abhorrent atrocities one could imagine. For myself...I have no clue. I'd like to think I'd be the hero of the situation, running in and separating this vile scumbag from his teeth. But I think there's just as good a chance I'd break down and call someone I trusted before I flat-out lost my mind. I don't excuse what Mike did. But I understand how he could have done it.

If you're Joe...how do you react to hearing THAT kind of news about one of your closest friends and colleagues of DECADES? How many of us could sit here and say that they'd immediately call the police on one of their best friends if they'd heard secondhand that he'd molested a child? Could you snap into action, or would you need some time to process the bomb that's been dropped on you and wrestle with doing the right thing...and even not being able to decide, on the snap of a finger, what the right thing really IS? Again, the answers seem so clear and easy when it's not you, when you weren't there, when you DIDN'T have to make that decision. I don't excuse what Joe did. But I understand how he could have done it.

I wrote a post a couple days ago detailing how it was the wrong move to thrust Joe into the center of this debate, and much of that I stand by. As Joe was, it seems, the ONLY one who fulfilled his legal obligation to the matter, I knew that pushing him to the forefront - making him the face of this tragedy just a he is the face of the University - was only going to cause more trouble than it had already. Sadly, I was right. Now the focus is squarely on Joe, and we're almost to the point of letting the REAL villains - Curley, Schultz, Spanier and, most importantly, Sandusky - get through the brunt of this unscathed. To me, that's the biggest shame in all of this. Paterno COULD and SHOULD have done more, but in the huge machine that is this travesty, he's a smaller cog. And he's essentially being sacrificed so the more nefarious players can continue hiding in the shadows for just a while longer. No one will ever remember most of those other names, but Joe? Sixty years of high character and impeccable graduation rates and accountability...to many, all gone. Now HE'S the target. And that is shameful.

And yet...you wonder how, for years, Paterno (again, we're assuming some information here, though it seems all too likely) could allow this monster to stay, for all intents and purposes, a part of the program. You wonder how any of them could. That's something I can't disengage from, and for whatever mistakes Joe has made in his life, I think it'd be safe to say this was the biggest. However, I'm also forced to recognize that he was NOT the only one, and the onus doesn't lie solely on him. Maybe not even mostly on him. And yet...he didn't do enough.

Where does this leave me now? I don't know. There's still too much to play out, too much to absorb, too much to consider. That said, I do know one thing:

This University is not any of these men. This University is the students, the athletes, the alumni, and the fans. And as sad and angry as I am at some of those who represented us, I will never turn my back on Penn State.

I am going to continue to be proud. I am going to continue to be proud of an idea, a place and a team, and no pathetic little cadre of corrupt deviants are going to change that.

I will continue to support PSU, win or lose against Nebraska this weekend. I will continue to support PSU for their two games following, and the potential Big Ten Championship, and the bowl game. I will continue to support them if they lose every single contest. Because that's not only what the players and the coaches and the program deserves - it's what I deserve as well.

I will continue to support PSU no matter who they hire as the new Head Coach. I will continue to support PSU if they clean house. I will continue to support PSU in a resurgence or a rebuilding. I will continue to support it no matter how good or bad the next ten, twenty, thirty years are.

Because The Pennsylvania State University stands for something to me. It is not this scandal. It is not this sadness. It is not Sandusky, or Curley, or Schultz or Spanier. It is not Joe Paterno.

Penn State is us. It is a wonderful, prideful, goodhearted community that can never and will never be broken. It is our friends and our family. It is our tradition.

The physical embodiment of that will not only be around televisions and in the stands on Saturday, but on the field.

I will be rooting for them then. I will be rooting for them always.

THE TOP TEN OF 2010

2010-12-23T12:22:00.000-08:00

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Typical Cliched Disclaimer: This is a list of MY FAVORITE movies of the year; that does not necessarily include the “best” movies of the year. That’s a different thing. If this was that list, stuff like BLACK SWAN would be on it, because the second hour of that movie was the best thing anyone on the planet has produced in probably fifteen years. But since I found the first hour of the movie listless and marginally uninteresting, it’s not one of my favorites.

Also, hey…maybe there were some films I didn’t get to see this year (“yet” or “because I just didn’t want to” – take your pick). But everyone says that. And what the hell do you know? Maybe I did see everything. So don’t be such a judger.

Honorable Mention: WOLFMAN (yes, seriously, the Blu-ray cut is really good), SHUTTER ISLAND, THE BOOK OF ELI, CLASH OF THE TITANS (I am unashamed), CROPSEY, JACKASS 3D, DESPICABLE ME, TOY STORY 3, THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT, GASLAND, RED, DUE DATE, MORNING GLORY, BLACK SWAN

So here we go:

10. (tie) KICK-ASS/SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD – I think a lot of people are going to lump these two movies in together thematically/stylistically, and I think that’s a big mistake. I’m not doing that here. I simply couldn’t decide which one I enjoyed more, having seen both in the theater twice and multiple times on Blu-ray at home. Hey, both were also criminally overlooked by audiences! See, I only lump movies together non-artistically, which I think is much cleaner.

9. HOT TUB TIME MACHINE – True, this movie was produced by a good friend of mine and written by a good friend of mine. That just means I have awesome friends. And I got to go on set for a day and meet Diora Baird and Billy Zabka, and the movie is fucking hilarious, so I’m now kind of surprised this isn’t higher on my list.

8. WAKING SLEEPING BEAUTY – Though I’m still not recovered from the sight of Tim Burton animating Disney films, this is one of the few movies this year that I walked into with high expectations (thanks to a truly dazzling trailer) and found them immediately exceeded. There’s been a rush to vilify Disney in the past couple decades – a lot in life which they have, largely, brought upon themselves – and even if the film was shot through a bit of an emotional vasoline lens, it was heartwarming to see this group of people that cared about quality and creativity above all else and were so unbelievably talented to boot. Also think it was a fantastic decision not to make this into a film with just talking heads; worked so well thematically in this instance.

7. THE TOWN – I know some people still vehemently hate Ben Affleck, but I don’t get it and I never have. OK, the guy took some questionable roles or whatever, but who hasn’t? Fact of the matter is that he’s a fine actor and he’s turning into a better-than-solid director. And as I said at the time…where the HELL did Blake Lively come from in this movie? As far as I’m concerned, she kind of stole the show, which is hard to do when you’re playing the Certified Everyday Boston Whore role that I’m pretty sure they stamp into your brain in most acting classes.

6. A-TEAM – I don’t care. I don’t care what you think. It was loud and dumb and ridiculous (because that’s what they specialize in) and I laughed and clapped and cheered and it was the best time I had at the movies in 2010.

5. INCEPTION – I don’t know that there’s a whole lot left to be said about this one. For the record, I think the top fell. And for the record, I don’t think that’s the point of the movie at all.

4. TRUE GRIT – Hailee Steinfeld deserves an Oscar, plain and simple. This is the first Coen movie in a long time that lacked their particular brand of quirky flourish – which, like just about everyone else, I’m in love with – and I think that fit perfectly within the context of the Western. This movie was also the scene of my greatest Unaided Actor Call-Out of the year; the prosecuting lawyer that grills The Dude in the courtroom scene plays a police officer in VARSITY BLUES. Boom.

3. EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP – I think too many people have pointed it out already, but what’s one more: this is the best long-con in feature filmmaking in decades. I don’t think it’s a documentary any more than I think the History Channel isn’t run by freaks who masturbate to quatrains and old Nazi footage. And it’s STILL an amazing chronicle of street art, and it’s so effective that it just made me pissed off that I’m not a street artist. I don’t want to get in shape or be healthy or anything like that, but all I want for myself in my 30s is to get chased by the cops for creating vandal art and then miraculously Parkour my way right out of their grasp. Also, the fact that Banksy has $1 million in fake British currency in cardboard boxes in his loft blows my goddamned mind.

2. THE SOCIAL NETWORK – Again, what is left to be said? Aaron Sorkin is a God. David Fincher is a God. I can immediately understand why a person WOULDN’T like this film. But I hope that person can also immediately understand why I would have no interest in anything about them. Side note, as I want this in print: I’m picking Armie Hammer in the Superman derby. If it’s not him, I think they’ve made a mistake.

1. I LOVE YOU, PHILLIP MORRIS – Yes, I realize this film was technically released last year, but the screener came THIS year, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s a film of 2010. And it’s the best film of 2010. I know the Academy and most “relevant” awards circuits have been ignoring the enormous talent of Jim Carrey for nigh on twenty years now, but he and Ewan McGregor do hero-level work in this movie. The film is funny and clever and dirty and sweet and heartbreaking and just full of unrelenting goodness and I was drawn into every scene of it. As a writer, I think the finest compliment you can give another writer(s) is to say that you wish YOU’D written their piece of material. Here, I’d take that a step further: I saw THE SOCIAL NETWORK this year, generally regarded as the academic height of screenwriting…and I’m jealous that I didn’t write I LOVE YOU, PHILLIP MORRIS.

As always, your slings and arrows are appreciated and considered, especially when you start attacking my inclusion of A-TEAM.

WATCH AS I STOP BEING A JACKASS FOR TEN SECONDS

2010-09-03T10:02:00.000-07:00

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Allow me to take a few moments to do as I so very, very rarely do. That’s right: I’m going to be serious here. Or mostly so, anyway. Yes, OK, I will probably make a dick joke.

You know me too well.

I would be lying if I said anything other than that the last 4-6 weeks have been a swirling, twirling, nigh-overwhelming little adventure for me. That’s not complaining – it’s been a hell of a fun ride seeing my very first movie come together, and I’ve tried to take it all in as much as possible. You only get one first movie, right? Some people only get that one. If they’re lucky.

Most get none, though. And that’s been the point that’s been so hard for me to reconcile. I got one. I really, actually, literally, somehow got one. And until recently, I didn’t know what to do with myself.

The first time I realized what was actually happening was the day the first GOING THE DISTANCE poster popped up on the Internet. It kind of blew me away. For the first time – even after having watched the movie in various forms on a dozen occasions – and with all apologies to Martin Lawrence, shit got real. But not even remotely in the same way as when the first trailer showed up not long after. All of a sudden, people who weren’t my parents and who didn’t work on the film knew that it existed.

A movie really isn’t a movie until portions of it are served up to the public, a baby bird nudged out of its nest by its wary, ever-attentive creators. For me, it was thrilling and nerve-wracking to see it happen, and once it did…I become completely aware of something:

No matter what happened next, my all-time, hands down, best-case-scenario dream was going to come true. A movie that I wrote was going to be released into theaters for (conceivably) the entire universe to see. And you know what? That’s scary on such a profound level that I almost can’t understand it. It’s a feeling that I think would be indescribable to anyone, the sense that everything you ever wanted has fallen into your lap…and now what? It’s all downhill from here, isn’t it? It won’t ever be this good again, will it? Those questions tumbled over and over and over in my mind the last couple of weeks, threatening to stomp all over the last vestiges of sanity I felt I might be clinging to. And there’s only one thing in the whole wide world that I want to say to all of you for putting me in that position:

Thank You.

Thank You if you had ANY hand at all in getting this movie made and/or out to the masses. I know some could use this sentiment as an obligatory throwaway, but I appreciate the effort every single last person put into this production. I don’t care if you were a producer or the director or the lighting guy or the guy who sawed shit or the caterer or the travel coordinator or an assistant…I just won’t be able to adequately express my gratitude. Whether you were one of the main cogs or the grease that allowed the entire mechanism to rattle to life, I could never hope to repay you.

Thank You if you’re any of my family or friends who constantly ladled upon me your undying and unyielding support. This is how impossibly awesome the people in my life are: I have had so many calls, texts, emails and messages that I absolutely cannot even begin to think of responding to all of them. Again, that’s not even me complaining the slightest. Even though I feel terrible that I haven’t been able to get back to each and every one of you…what kind of lucky bastard EVER has something that great happen to him? The meaningfulness of such is completely incalculable and I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever forget it as long as I live. Please know that if you sent me a word of encouragement, excitement or congratulations over the last few weeks, it has been received with a broad smile and a full heart, even if a reciprocated communiqué never precipitated.

I hear a lot of people who have “made it” talk about the hardships they faced, the people who didn’t believe in them, the assholes who spit in their face and told them they’d never make it, the roads that were blocked, the hardships they triumphed over. I don’t doubt that many of these stories are true. It’s just that I never had that experience. I never had anyone I love tell me that I couldn’t succeed. I never had anyone I cared about tell me I was an idiot for trying. I never had anyone who was important to me trying to knock me down.

If you ever want to get a look at the most fortunate guy in the entire world, come knock on my door someday.

Finally, Thank You if you go see this movie in a theater, or buy the DVD, or watch it on a plane, or catch half of it lazily on cable a year from now. Thank You for giving my little movie a chance. This has absolutely nothing to do with dollars and cents; if you saw it and hated it, hey, I’m not mad atcha. Thanks for giving it a look anyway. If you saw it and loved it, I’m glad I (and, obviously, everyone else who worked on the movie in any capacity) could bring a little extra light to your day. The goal of any artist in any medium – I don’t care what the cool kids say – is to get their work to be seen and then to be discussed. If we hit you in the breadbasket and you walked away with an emotional erection (there it is), I’m eternally giddy. If you walked away wanting your $10 back, I promise I’ll try to ensnare you the next time.

And so that dream, she’s come true. And it was over the last couple weeks that I mulled over what this meant, struggled with its implications, fought back the fear that found its way into my mind. And over the last couple days, I’ve realized that it’s this very kind of fear that is the perhaps the most inconsequential, mostly because I’d been looking at all that was going on around me in the wrong light. So here’s my final Thank You.

Thank You, all of you, for making me not only the Guy Whose Dream Came True, but also the Guy Who Now Has an Excuse to Make New Dreams.

Thank You for the best moment of my life.

MY FAVORITE MOVIES OF THE DECADE

2009-12-07T21:56:00.000-08:00

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Since everyone else is doing it, I will too. A lot of people knock these lists, but I think that's idiotic. They're terribly wonderful conversation pieces, they make for great nostalgia and I think they say something important about the person writing them. Does anyone care what I have to say about this decade's moving images? I don't fucking care. Don't read it if you're not interested. This is my space and you're being a jerk, you jerk.

I'm sure I missed something here or there, but for the most part, this is complete. Take to note that this is NOT a "Best Of" list; it's lacking (what I'm guessing are or are going to be) common staples like the LORD OF THE RINGS movies and NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN and SPIDER-MAN. It's not that I didn't dig those movies - I did - but for one reason or another they're not my favorites. Still, I know most of you, and if you think I'm a moron for missing something, well 1) you're probably right, 2) you shouldn't hesitate to point out a glaring omission and 3) YOU DON'T GET TO TELL ME WHAT TO DO.

Also allow for movies I just didn't get around to seeing, this year being a really bad example of that (ZOMBIELAND, THE HURT LOCKER, etc).
Before we get into it, some superlatives:

WORST MOVIE OF THE DECADE

GEORGIA RULE - I saw this movie with one of my best friends who's IN the movie, and I still had to get up and walk out. In fact, it was so bad that about twenty minutes in, I leaned over and said, "As soon as I see you onscreen, I'm congratulating you and I'm fucking leaving." And I did. Everything from the top on down was bad, but the writing...oh my God. It's tough to even fathom what could have happened in the development process for the writing to be this bad. One of only two movies I've ever walked out on; the other one was ARACHNOPHOBIA, and that's because I was fucking scared out of my fucking mind. I thought I could handle it. I could not.

Onto more positive things:

MY FAVORITE MOVIE MOMENT OF THE DECADE

While there was a lot of competition here, one moment stood to out to me over all the rest. Why this hit me so square I'm not sure, but I love it unconditionally.

In the movie THE LAST KISS, Zach Braff cheats on his fiancée with Rachel Bilson (probably because he's a thinking human). That causes her, understandably, to freak out, break up with him, and hole up in her parents' house. Zach goes to speak with her and ends up talking to Tom Wilkinson, who's playing her father. He asks Tom what he should do to get her back; Tom responds, "Whatever it takes."

Flash forward: as he's kicked out of the house, Zach decides to wait on the porch until his fiancée is ready to talk to him, let him apologize. He waits, literally, for days. One night, Tom drives by to check on the situation - he spots Zach slouched on the porch, leaned awkwardly up against the door, sleeping.

Tom looks at him, smiles triumphantly, and just drives away.

Writing about it, I've just found, is a total waste of time. But if you've seen the movie, you know exactly what I'm talking about - it's a small, beautiful, note-perfect moment that continues to make me unspeakably happy every time I think about it.

FAVORITE LINE OF THE DECADE

"I'm very sorry for your loss. Your mother was a terribly attractive woman." - THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS

THE BEST MOVIES OF THE DECADE THAT MOST OF YOU HAVE NEVER SEEN

A couple of you might have seen a few of these, but for the most part, you've never even heard of most of them. Seriously, seek them out, because they're all terrific in their own way:

THE RULES OF ATTRACTION; SWIMMING POOL; THIRTEEN; THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES; PRIMER; THE MACHINIST; RORY O'SHEA WAS HERE; EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED; LONESOME JIM; TRUST THE MAN; RIDING ALONE FOR THOUSANDS OF MILES; SHORTBUS; THE LOOKOUT; EAGLE VS. SHARK; SUNSHINE; THE TEN; THE ORPHANAGE; SNOW ANGELS; THE FALL; ROCKNROLLA; LET THE RIGHT ONE IN

THE ALL-DECADE TOTALLY, MADDENINGLY, REALLY FUCKING UNDERRATED/UNDERAPPRECIATED LIST

People ignore, blow off or just plain don't requisitely appreciate these movies all the time, usually without having seen them first. Give them a shot - they're better than you think and/or don't get the respect they deserve:

BOILER ROOM; SAVING SILVERMAN; AI: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE; SERENDIPITY; HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES; SECONDHAND LIONS; INTOLERABLE CRUELTY; EUROTRIP; STARSKY AND HUTCH; DAWN OF THE DEAD (remake); HAROLD AND KUMAR GO TO WHITE CASTLE; SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW; NATIONAL TREASURE; THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY; KINGDOM OF HEAVEN; A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE; JUST FRIENDS; HOSTEL; THE LAST KISS; THE HOLIDAY; BREACH; ZODIAC; HAIRSPRAY; HOT ROD; STARDUST; DEFINITELY, MAYBE; LEATHERHEADS; GHOST TOWN; ROLE MODELS

KICK-ASS DOCUMENTARIES

Documentaries, like the films mentioned above, seem criminally underrated and unappreciated to me. If you've never really been into them, watch a couple of these and see if you aren't converted:

BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE; JACKASS: THE MOVIE (yes, I consider this a doc); SPELLBOUND; SUPER-SIZE ME; FAHRENHEIT 9/11; THE YES MEN; ENRON: THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM; THE CORPORATION; MURDERBALL; THE ARISTOCRATS; THE COMEDIANS OF COMEDY; THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED; JONESTOWN: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF PEOPLE'S TEMPLE; FUCK; SICKO; MY KID COULD PAINT THAT; AMERICAN TEEN; DEAR ZACHARY: A LETTER TO A SON ABOUT HIS FATHER; ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL

THE "SO DAMN CLOSE" SUPER-HONORABLE MENTIONERS

These films were all in the running for the Top Twenty, but for one reason or another didn't crack it. Still, they're all fucking awesome, and I bet I could even add a few more to them:

UNBREAKABLE; MEMENTO; MADE; OLD SCHOOL; MONSTERS, INC.; ABOUT A BOY; SHAUN OF THE DEAD; SIN CITY; LAYER CAKE; ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW; WEDDING CRASHERS; THE 40 YEAR-OLD VIRGIN; LITTLE CHILDREN; THE FOUNTAIN; 300; ENCHANTED; KNOCKED UP; THE KING OF KONG; SUPERBAD; THIS CHRISTMAS; IRON MAN; WATCHMEN; ADVENTURELAND; INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS; UP IN THE AIR

MY TWENTY FAVORITE FILMS OF THE DECADE

20. ANCHORMAN (2004) - Will never forget seeing this for the first time, mostly because I cackled so hard and so often that my stomach and my throat hurt like hell upon leaving. Didn't think I would ever laugh that hard again...and then BORAT came along. All the same, ANCHORMAN was lightning in a bottle and has a rewatchability factor that BORAT doesn't quite muster. Possibly the most quotable movie of the decade to boot.

19. JESUS CAMP (2006) - My favorite documentary of the decade by a country mile, it more or less puts the disgusting backstage of organized religion on a platter and serves it up as a perfect example of everything I hate about the world. Most sickening: the outright (and comically conceited) way in which Evangelical Christian leaders indoctrinate - and often flat-out brainwash - impressionable kids into not just a religious mindset, but a connected POLITICAL ideology. You want a look at what's REALLY wrong with America? Watch JESUS CAMP.

18. THE DEPARTED (2006) - The quintessential "if it's on TV, I'm stopping whatever I'm doing to watch it" movie. Enough has been said about it, so I'll just keep it simple: it's fucking brilliant.

17. MEAN GIRLS (2004) - If it didn't land in the Top Twenty, it would have been at the head of the Underappreciated list. Tina Fey is a certified comic guru, and people have quickly forgotten that Lindsay Lohan used to be 1) really goddamn hot and 2) a pretty decent actress. The supporting characters really make this one - especially Tim Meadows, delivering every line with the dryness of midsummer California brush - and the humor is so smart that it almost makes me want to give up writing for fear that I'll never compare. That's what they call "healthy" jealousy.

16. BEST IN SHOW (2000) - Shares with THE OFFICE (the British version) the distinction of being the best example of mockumentary from head to foot. It is easily, I think, the best ensemble cast of the entire decade...which makes it so interesting that none of the efforts following it (A MIGHTY WIND, FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION) were nearly as good. Or maybe it just seemed that way since this was more or less perfect. Positively contains the best Fred Willard role ever, and that's saying something.

15. GLADIATOR (2000) - Don't think I was ever as excited to see a movie in theaters as I was to see this one...and holy Christ, did it ever come through. People love to retroactively crap on this since it won the Oscar for Best Picture and because they were disappointed to find out that Russell Crowe is a dick, but people are fucking stupid. Let me put it this way: I would gladly and immediately follow Maximus Decimus Meridius into battle, and I am a huge pussy.

14. IN BRUGES (2008) - Kind of a polarizing movie in that people who loved it really seemed to love it, and people who hated it wanted to kill those of us who loved it. I loved it. I thought the script was smart as hell and very well stylized, I thought Colin Farrell gave unquestionably his best performance ever, and it hit me with just enough twists and sucker-punches that I felt as though I was constantly reeling. Plus it features the most poetic, most gut-wrenchingly wonderful usage of one of my favorite songs, ON RAGLAN ROAD, that will likely ever be.

13. THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS (2001) - I'm a sucker for movies about family, and this is one of the best of those kind ever. Ever - and that's incredibly hard to pull off. You've got movies like this and THIS CHRISTMAS that really nail it; you've got movies that only get there halfway before pandering to the audience and crapping out with schmaltz (THE FAMILY STONE); and then you've got total crap (Tyler Perry). It makes me sad that this is Wes Anderson's best film so far, but I'm just glad it exists at all because it's amazing - funny, heartbreaking, and heartbreakingly funny.

12. (500) DAYS OF SUMMER (2009) - This year's only entry into the Top Twenty, but I think that's a factor of how incredible the early parts of the decade were rather than a sign of how lackluster the end has been. Speaking of being a sucker, I'm one again for movies that have something different to say about love or that find a different way to say it. The inability to do so is why most Romantic Comedies suck such a fat dick. This movie suffers from none of that. It's darkly funny and deceptively sweet and it thankfully manages something most "indie" movies can't: it allows for a quirky, interesting and appropriate soundtrack that ISN'T TRYING SO FUCKING HARD. If this doesn't win Best Original Screenplay this year I will start a riot and there will be murders.

11. OLDBOY (2003) - Outside of THE SIXTH SENSE and THE WICKER MAN (the original, please), perhaps the most shocking and wrongfully-satisfying ending of all time. Beyond that, I don't know how to express to you just how many asses this thing kicks without even trying or how many individual scenes you can discuss at length after seeing it; the hallway fight is the decade's best action sequence, hands down. It's mind-boggling in its technical and narrative mastery and is just a cinematic triumph. This is one of those movies that I will force someone to sit down and watch if they haven't seen it, which is just about everyone.

10. GREEN STREET HOOLIGANS (2005) - How this never got a wider release than 12.5 screens is the biggest mystery in the world to me, but suffice to say that I think someone made a big goddamned mistake in selling this one short. How great is a movie when it makes you want to walk straight out the doors and fight someone? How great is any movie that TURNS ELIJAH WOOD INTO A BADASS? Great commentary on loyalty, the idea of what "family" really is, and what it's like to be young and stupid before you realize you don't want to be old and stupid.

9. O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? (2000) - As Coen Brothers fans go, I'm probably a bad one. I'm a much bigger supporter of the movies their "real" fans seem to ignore, like this one. It's far and away my favorite of theirs. Really, it's not even close, and here's the reason: if you can find a way to make me love a musical, you are a magician. Plain and simple. This is not only my favorite Coen Brothers movie, but my favorite musical of all time, save perhaps for THE WIZARD OF OZ, which I don't really put in the "musical" category. Also, I find it most visually appealing. Still listen to the soundtrack all the time. Near-perfect, this one.

8. ALMOST FAMOUS (2000) - The first of two Cameron Crowe movies on this list, and if you know me, that shouldn't be a surprise in the slightest. Here's the thing about this one: the era of music this is predicated upon? Maybe my least favorite ever. I've never been into "Classic Rock", and I think most of the music of the 70s could disappear and I'd be more than OK. But when it comes to this movie...well, I'm actually sad that Stillwater wasn't a real band and that FEVER DOG isn't a real song. This movie also sparked the beginning of what is probably my #1 Mancrush of All Time, Billy Crudup. Am I jealous of his mustache? You're goddamned right I am.

7. HIGH FIDELITY (2000) - Um, is it just me or was the Year 2000 the best year for movies, like, in history? If you can adapt a Nick Hornby novel, the chances are that I'm going to attach to it like herpes to Tiger Woods. Again, it's a movie STEEPED in Classic Rock, and again I don't care. You gotta love Cusack. Breakout role for Jack Black. Catherine Zeta-Jones at her peak hotness. Classic writing. What else is there? Here's a sentiment: I rented this movie from Blockbuster (back when people still did that) and refused to give it back. Truth.

6. ONCE (2006) - I'll make you a guarantee: I could give you 17 days and $150,000 and there's no way in hell that you're going to make anything even remotely as wonderful as this. As far as I'm concerned, this is the standard to which all other indie movies should be judged. It's the benchmark. And then you have to consider that not only was it one of the best movies of the decade, but that it produced the two best movie SONGS of the decade in FALLING SLOWLY and SAY IT TO ME NOW (even though the latter was recorded years earlier by Glen Hansard's band The Frames). That's an accomplishment, kids. Take notes.

5. AMERICAN PSYCHO (2000) - Yeah, Christian Bale will always be known as Batman, but he'll never do anything better than Bateman - Patrick Bateman, that is. There is not a guy in the world - NOT A GUY IN THE WORLD - that doesn't want to pull off "The American Psycho": fucking a girl doggie style while you look on in a floor-length mirror and flex. Totally nailed the material aesthetic of the 80s and celebrated the genius of Phil Collins. This movie makes me bubble with more pure glee than perhaps anything that's not THE PRINCESS BRIDE. And yes, that puts AMERICAN PSYCHO and THE PRINCESS BRIDE in a shared category. I'm that awesome.

4. SNATCH (2000) - If this movie had nothing else, it has the only thing that matters: One-Punch Mickey the Pikey. You could call Brad Pitt's turn in 12 MONKEYS a great role, but he'll never do anything better than the Character of the Decade. Past that, I'm beyond impressed with Guy Ritchie's seemingly effortless ability to perfectly connect multiple complex characters and storylines. He also writes some of the best one-liners in the business. One of those movies that just makes me smile from beginning to end without fail. There's nothing about it that I don't like, and again, that's powered by one hell of an ensemble cast.

3. VANILLA SKY (2001) - One of my favorite things in the world is telling film snobs that I love this movie, only to have them roll their eyes and say, "Yeah, well why don't you see ABRE LOS OJOS," only to have me tell them that I have indeed seen it and that I don't think it's anywhere nearly as good as Cameron's Crowe's remake. Fact: I do NOT know a lot of people that like this movie. They either found it too long or too weird or too confusing or they just didn't like it. To each their own, but I always feel like I saw a different movie than everyone else. I find it sentimental in the best and most chilling way and I think that Tom Cruise, from here on out, should only be able to work with Cameron. This movie is one of those that I do think has faults, but the high points are so elevated and lovely that they render them innocuous.

2. LOVE, ACTUALLY (2003) - Richard Curtis might be my favorite writer working today, and I think this movie is absolutely perfectly conceived and executed from beginning to end. While it doesn't say much about love that's NEW, it takes the concept and lays it out brilliantly and in such a way that there's no misunderstanding the power of the most basic - and ultimately, sometimes the most fleeting - human connection. It SHOULD be simply the most-loved-girl-movie ever, but it's way, way more than that. Even if you were dumb enough to ignore the writing, the terrific cast, the spot-on observations and the fact that it makes you feel part of a London Christmas even if you've never been there, you can't possibly stay dry-eyed at the real-life footage of people happily, tearfully greeting loved ones at the airport. Such a bookend is a perfect example of the small details that make this not only one of my favorites of the decade, but of all time.

1. ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND (2004) - It's pretty much established that Charlie Kauffman is an uncommon genius, but I don't think there's a word to describe the level of particular originality that went into this script. I've spoken about it several times, but no one ever comes up with a new look at love anymore. Ever. It's not like there's fault - it's been written about and played about and talked about and ruminated about so often by everyone on the planet that there are simply no new ideas out there...until there are. There's not a one of us that hasn't secretly (or not-so-secretly) lamented the fact that we can't have a certain someone and all their vestiges scrubbed from our brain. But what if you could try? That's the simple premise to a complicated movie that unfolds in a manner that just makes you ache. It's a grief-stricken, it's haunting and it's beautiful. Jim Carrey gives a performance that is nothing short of staggering, Michel Gondry shot a film that uniquely toes the line between surreal and all-too-real, and Charlie Kauffman gives us a story that's at the same time ludicrous and so, so true. It's nothing short of a masterpiece in showing us that there's really no way to ever completely rid yourself of someone you were close to...and maybe, at the end of the day, that's a good thing.

So there it is. Now you have the rest of the year to think about how to tell me just how wrong I am.

THE ANALYZING YEARBOOKS SERIES: NINTH GRADE

2009-08-07T04:43:00.000-07:00

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NINTH GRADE – 1995 – Mechanicsburg Area Senior High

Fact: You are currently thinking, “Wait a second…what happened to Seventh Grade?” The funny thing is…good fucking question, because I’d like to know myself. As it stands, the yearbook from Seventh Grade is missing, dust in the wind at this particular moment. I can’t even speak as to how disappointing this is considering that this was the year Erin Cochran straight-up broke my heart, causing me to consider blowing my brains out (the seventh grade equivalent of which was locking myself in my room on a Friday night, turning the lights off, staring at the ceiling, and fast-forwarding/rewinding between I’D DIE WITHOUT YOU by PM Dawn and END OF THE ROAD by Boyz II Men on the BOOMERANG soundtrack on my Walkman for four hours.). So that’s a loss for everyone.

Now that that’s cleared up, you’re likely wondering, “OK…well, wait a second…what happened to Eighth Grade?” That, luckily, I have an answer for, and I was amazed how quickly I was able to recall the circumstances, which means I have enough brain cells left to keep drinking!

That yearbook is devoid of any inscription. Suffice to say 1994 was one of myriad years that Central Pennsylvania was beset by a massive blizzard in the month of March. This particular year’s was so severe that we actually missed close to two weeks of school. That fucked our yearbook deadlines (which I should know, having been on the staff…and yes, I’m currently breathing on my fingernails and buffing them on my shirt as if this were 1954 and I were an asshole), and when those deadlines went to pasture, so did any chances of getting our yearbooks by the time the school year ended. Thus, the books were delivered to our homes a couple of days after summer vacation started. And no douche would try to cart his yearbook around with him in the post-academic calendar just to collect his classmates’ ruminations.

Not that I would know anything about that douche. At all.

That brings us to the Ninth Grade Yearbook, where…yeah, you’re going to notice a lot of references to “DQ”. Because my first job was at Dairy Queen. Which was the fucking place to work back then, I might add. You’ll also notice the incredible number of references to my bad jokes; those of you that know me now will have your suspicions confirmed: I have not changed remotely since the age of 15.

The entries:

--“Hey Geoff! Art is my favorite class. Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha. Keep cooking! – Dave” (I literally have no frame of reference for this, don't know how cooking relates to art, and it scares me enough that I’m actually afraid to look through the pictures to find out which ‘Dave’ this was. That was fourteen ‘Ha’s’. ‘Dave’ was not fucking around.)

--“Geoff, [g-off] to a nice guy in my american studies class who i picked on – just kidding – you’re cool but you need to help pick on PO Sanker more well see ya next year. 697-XXXX Tara Kerstetter” (Tara was ahead of her time in a couple of ways. One, she eschewed both proper capitalization and punctuation, obviously indicating that she was a visionary who foresaw how Instant Messenging discourse would be developed years later. Two, she was the first girl to ever write her phone number in my yearbook; a girl giving her number to a ninth grade boy sets off something not unlike a parade in that boy’s pants, so it’s a big deal. Three, during one lunch period that year she got in a fight with a girl named Maureen O’Donnell. The scrap was broken up only after each girl had slapped the other, pulled hair, and torn the other's shirt. As I recall, Tara not only ripped clean through to annihilate Maureen’s bra but showed up in the aforementioned American Studies class later that afternoon with a clump of Maureen’s hair in her pocket. Four, she looked like Sydney from MELROSE PLACE, which was not a bad thing until Brian Kirsch started calling her “Sydney” every day until it became nomenclature leprosy. In any event, she won all over the place, so…take a bow, Kerstetter. Take a bow.)

--“Geoff, Hopefully we will have better luck with lunch next year. I’m glad you were in some of my classes & I got to know you better. Have a great summer! – Laura Vassey” (No one is going to fucking believe this, but I was one of a couple ninth graders who was moved a course ahead in math Freshman Year. That’s right, the guy who sometimes forgets how to use a calculator and can’t keep track of the points in a Horseballs game because he can’t add skipped a year in math. I’m as puzzled as you are. Anyway, because of when our Geometry…or was it Algebra II…FUCK I CAN’T EVEN REMEMBER THE CLASS!...was scheduled, like nine Freshmen, myself included, got stuck in Senior lunch. It was…less than fun. There was a kid named Raj who tried every goddamned day to give us Swirlies – what some of you might call “Bowling” or “The Boosh”. I’m having flashbacks. On an unrelated note, Laura and I both ended up at James Madison where we managed to ignore each other for over four years. Based on the obvious love inherent in her message to me, I’m sure that's a shocking revelation.)

--“Geoff, Before I started working at DQ, Barb warned me of a few people. Nic you can imagine was one of them. And she said, ‘Geoff, he’s a human hormone!’ But you’re a great guy a very funny. And by the way Barb was just kidding. You’re a great blizzard maker but I get the feeling you don’t really like drive thru, huh? Anyway I’ll wish you luck for the rest of the year and see you at DQ. – Becky” (So much going on in this one. While I have to admit that I don’t remember Becky just from this entry, that blabbermouth cunt Barb apparently cost me any shot of wooing her by declaring me a walking gland before I ever got the chance to make a first impression. And poor Nic…how bad is it that he’s the “obvious” one to get warned about when I was allegedly a sexual harasser who couldn’t wait to rub my crotch against the first thing that walked past me? I think we can assume that Nic either ended up in jail, dead by his own hand, or tragically, perpetually misunderstood. Fucking Barb.)

--“Geoff, I don’t know which is better, our deaf science teacher and his piece of s**t labs, or Laura Leedy wondering what the 7a corporation was. Oh well, maybe next year will be better. – Brian S.” (Brian was referring to Rock Martin, our Freshman Year science teacher who was indeed deaf and who was absolutely REVILED at Mechanicsburg Area High School. I didn’t think he was THAT bad, but he was sort of an old, cantankerous dick, and he WAS deaf as shit. Still, the stories people told about him…you would think he was a Nazi that went around assaulting the town’s grandmothers with a barbed dildo. He was just cranky. None of us understood why he had the reputation of Frankenstein’s Monster, but whatever. Also, is there a more ubiquitous Yearbook Standard than “Maybe next year will be better”? I think it’s right up there with, “Have a great summer” and “KIT”. Also, Laura Leedy is going to make an ominous comeback in a bit. Get ready for that.)

--“Geoff, Hola! Hope to see you at Dairy Queen again, soon. Have a terrific summer. Hasta Luego! – Bill Smith” (Apparently, Bill and I had Freshmen Spanish together and he was really fucking excited about it. In fact, he was so into the language that he actually put the upside-down exclamation points in front of both “Hola” and “Hasta Luego”. Also, it’s 2009 and I don’t fucking know how to recreate such a punctuation mark on my fucking supercomputer that’s fifty times smarter than I am. Bill went the extra mile on this too – on the inside front cover and the page next to it, there were silhouettes of faces. Bill drew a smoking joint in the mouth of one of them. That was probably his “thing” that year, his “theme”. Almost everyone had a Yearbook Theme; mine that year, I believe, was writing “Never pet a burning dog” in everyone’s yearbook, regardless of how much I liked/disliked them. I’m an absolute champion of diplomacy.)

--“LaTulippe, What a great name! I love it!! Meeting you at the DQ was fun. You great (yeah – right) jokes really made work more interesting. You’re a nice guy even if you are a freshman. Ha-Ha! Good luck next year and I know I’ll see you at work. – Barb” (Fuck off, Barb.)

--“Geoff, I’m glad I got to meet you this year. Have a great summer, see you next year. – Ryan Mackey” (OK, this one just isn’t fair. Ryan was a super nice kid, and one of the fellow Senior Lunch Freshman who lived under a blanket of constant fear thanks to Raj – more than myself, even, because he was the only other guy in the group and smaller than I was. There’s probably a whole breadth and depth to Mackey that I just never got to find out about, and this was fourteen-Christ-on-a-stick years ago, so I’m sure he’s fantastically interesting now. But I’ll just say this: in ninth grade, as a Freshman, he had a flattop haircut. He graduated as a Senior with the same flattop haircut. You draw your own conclusions.)

--“Geoff – Even though you sometimes piss me off, I guess I’m glad you were in my lunch & some of my classes. I hope you have a good summer & a normal lunch next year. – Amy” (First, a note: this was written around the page edges and the face of the opposite silhouette to Bill Smith’s stoner, which means Amy thought she was pretty fucking clever. Proceeding: I believe this was the infamous Amy Behel, the longtime middle school obsession of my best friend, Matt Martin. Mostly I was just going along with Matt, but this is another girl whom I’m sure knew that we were constantly looking down her shirt being that she was one of the first to “develop”, constantly wore open-necked garments, and didn’t ask questions when we flat-out refused to make eye contact with her towards the end of every class. Amy, you’ll be happy to know that not only are you not alone, but I have not since stopped pissing off the ladies. Or looking down their shirts. Perhaps it’s because of this that I’ve yet to touch a female breast. Let’s move on.)

--“Jeff, History was fun this year. Even though we went through how many teachers. It was fun having to put up with Sanker, Rowe, Kuhns and you (yeah right). Even though you hate me and I know you don’t want me to work at DQ. O well you’ll just have to put up with me. I’ll try not to be as annoying. Have a great summer. Good luck in all that you do. And try not to hate me. See-ya later. PS – Don’t take after Sanker and cut yourself while shaving your forehead (EDITOR’S NOTE: There is a cartoon drawing of a band-aid here.) – Laura “Laura” Leedy” (OK, this one nearly broke my fucking head on several different levels. First of all, there’s no way I disliked this poor girl nearly as much as she seems to have thought I did. In fact, she was really cute; she had that crimped, short blonde hair – like Madonna in her heyday – and back then I was WAY into that look in a girl. So I must have just been as much of a sonofabitch then as I am now. Second, we worked together, and I guess I was a sexual predator within the DQ walls, so I can only assume that I was working my newly pubescent musk…but I guess a burgeoning felon will go after anyone whether he really “likes” them or not. Third, she signed her name “Laura ‘Laura’ Leedy”, which doesn’t make any sense, so maybe I didn’t exactly think she was the greatest person ever. Fourth, you remember those pens that were really big, and like four pens in one, and you had black, blue, red and green ink at your disposal? Well Laura apparently had a goddamned aircraft carrier full of them at home, because she used one for this entry and actually bothered to ALTERNATE COLORS EVERY LINE. So maybe there was a reason to loathe this poor girl. Fifth, are you fucking kidding me about the quadracolor pen?)

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Just a warning: this next one is something of a book.)

--“Geoff – You’re my favorite freshman. Don’t ever forget that! It has been fun at the DQ & you know you will seriously miss all of my exciting love stories. Thanks for being such a great listener & for keeping that long secret of my marriage. I owe you one. Call me anytime for a ride. You know I’d be more than glad to give ya one – considered all you’ve done for me. I always looked forward to going to work when you’d be there to make me laugh or so I could update you on Paul. I really do appreciate you being the great friend that you are. You better not forget about me! EVER! I’ll come visit you only if you come visit me. Deal? Well – never forget all of our wonderful memories – there will be more to come just keep your seat belt fastened. You can hardly read this – sorry (EDITOR’S NOTE: The previous was to denote that she had run out of space on the white part of the paper and begun writing in the heather blue space. And she was correct – it is almost fucking impossible to read the writing there. I’m squinting like a goddamned moron as I transcribe this.)! I’ll talk to ya soon, I’m sure. We’re going out this summer. Call me 766-XXXX Love ya always, Kara – Good luck with the girls and all that ya do!” (I mean…I hate to make fun of such a nice effort, but holy shit, the girl must have thought I was going off to war or something. Kara, though, was great – she had one of the best bodies in the history of high school girl bodies AND, in a fact that may sway me as per the belief of a God in Heaven, she worked as a lifeguard at the Mechanicsburg pool. Later, she babysat my brothers, and I was usually so intimidated by her presence in my home that I refused to look directly at her and almost always left the house in a sprint once she arrived, more than likely to masturbate furiously somewhere in the shadows of the forest. Apparently at the DQ, though, I was no longer Geoff LaTulippe, Freshman Avoider, but Geoff LaTulippe, Best De-facto Gay Friend who listened to her stories about her older boyfriend Paul. Paul was described one day by our coworker Doug as “human slime”, and I really have nothing else to add to such an accurate statement. All that said, I have a feeling that most of you are laughing at the whole “you can call me for a ride whenever you want” section, as it proves that nothing ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever fucking changes.)

--“Geoff, I hope we’re in some classes together next year so you can tell me confusing jokes. Most of them are pretty dumb but they keep me busy during the boring hour of history oh well. Have a great summer and fun at DQ! Andrea, Jen and I will come visit you! Love ya, Kim – PS Good luck with the girls!” (I cannot for the life of me figure out who this “Kim” is – much less “Andrea” or “Jen” – and I’m struggling to comprehend why someone who was so obviously, terminally bored with me and my entire existence would bother to sign my yearbook. Also, how bad off was I that fucking everyone had to wish me good luck with the girls? Goddamnit. Evidently not one of those wishes was made with any kind of sincerity because I’m still fucking struggling.)

--“Geoff, You’re a good friend and a good lab partner but I am a better one. You were so lucky to have me for your lab partner & in your English class. Even though you talked a lot we still had a lot of fun. I do have big muscles. Have a good summer – Kate Gardner” (Three things we can learn from this entry: 1) Kate was jacked to the point where she could kick the shit out of me; 2) This made her conceited; 3) She was not only projecting but probably hiding her feelings in plain sight and desperately wanted to give me a handy under the bleachers. If she’d only known what a juvenile pederast I was, we could have had a pregnant ninth grader that year.

Fucking Barb.)

--“Geoff, I shouldn’t even be writing in your yearbook after what you wrote in my yearbook. But I will anyway because I’m (EDITOR'S NOTE: The next word here is illegible. Is it "amable"? I don't know. Just baffling.). Maybe I’ll see you over the summer. Maybe I won’t. But I can’t really talk about it. Lauren K. – PS Your jokes suck.” (Before I do anything else, I’d like to thank Janeane Garofalo for making an appearance in my yearbook under an assumed name. I loved you in BIG TROUBLE. But getting down to brass tacks: “Lauren K.”, please run, find your yearbook, and let me know what it was that I wrote in yours. I’m on pins and needles.)

--“Geoff, I’m sorry it take me a while to get your jokes but don’t take it personally because I don’t get anyone’s jokes Chris Gabela” (Chris is currently living in West Virginia and is in charge of operating a label maker that is dangerously low on battery power.)

--“Hi, DQ! (EDITOR’S NOTE: The name ‘Nikki’ is inexplicably written beneath this, even though it appears once again at the bottom of the entry. I’m left confused.) Well, what can I say (EDITOR’S NOTE: Your name twice, apparently. OK, sorry…)? U won’t tell me what to say so I’ll just say run forrest run (Lauren told me that) I never started it. I need stitches U R a good artist I know this ‘cause U R in my art class. I hope you have a good summer at DQ. – Nikki” (I’ve…I’ve got nothing. I don’t remember a Nikki and I have literally no clue what any of that is supposed to mean. Perhaps it bears mentioning that this entry was written upside-down on the page and that we had a large special education program at MASH.)

--“Geoff, You are a good friend. Thanx for all your interesting stories (mace at work), and hilarious jokes at lunch (especially the ones that your brother told). You’re nice, you’re funny, and gosh darn it people like you! – Judy Kim” (Reading this particular entry set off a lightbulb for me, and I’m pretty goddamned excited to share the revelation with you. Judy wrote me what appears to be a sincere expression of friendship, she was clearly the only person in my airspace who found me amusing, and she quoted an obscure SNL character to end her thoughts. Ladies and gentlemen…welcome to the moment my obsession with Asian woman was unearthed! Judy Kim, I have a LOT to thank you for.)

--“Geoff, Well its been fun working with you at Dairy Queen. I remember when I first came in here, you were the first person I met. You use to order me around…I still hate you for it. Just Kidding! Anyway, thanks for teaching me the ways. If you ever need a ride anywhere give me a call (considering you’ll never get yours)→ (license). Thank god this year is almost over. Next year I’ll be a big SENIOR . Don’t worry, I won’t push you around too much. Ha! Well, have a great summer and stay out of trouble (I won’t Ha!). Love always, Sarah J.” (Along with Kara and Lindsay Bollinger – who is still cute as hell but married and whom I ran into over Xmas at a bar in Harrisburg and like an idiot didn’t immediately remember and Jesus Fucking Christ I am never going to have even the most basic skills to ever procreate with a real woman – Sarah was one of the three Hot Older Girls from MASH that I worked with at Dairy Queen. However, all due respect to the other two ladies…Sarah was our “It” girl. She WAS our Kelly Kapowski in the best possible way, so you can imagine how overwhelmed I was that the girl even bothered to talk to me. Which is probably why I’m only now reading her entry as it was truly written, with a definite mental undercurrent of, “Oh my God, I have to deal with this kid again? Motherfucker is lucky I’m too nice to not sign his goddamn fucking yearbook. ‘…When I first came here,’ bullshit bullshit bullshit, ‘…year is almost over,’, bullshit bullshit. Remember to tell him he can call but don’t give him the number…check. Smile Sarah, smile…hand it back…pleasewalkawaypleasewalkawaypleasewalk…FUCK! Why are you still standing here? He’s going to ask me to give him a ride to ano…MOTHERFUCK.” I mean, damn, looking back on it…THAT IS AWESOME. Sarah signed my yearbook. Fuck the rest of you peons, I win.)

God, this is fun. The next feather in the cap of this series begins my adventures at Cedar Cliff High School…

THE ANALYZING YEARBOOKS SERIES: SIXTH GRADE

2009-08-07T01:18:00.000-07:00

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Alright, so…I was seriously in need of a fucking pick-me-up today, and I’m not nearly ready to write anything about John Hughes yet, so I figured it was the right time to crack open some newly-shipped boxes and drag out my yearbooks from grades 6 -12.

Rather than just talk about the yearbooks or their innate content, though, I felt like analyzing the things that people wrote inside them. If you think about it, your yearbook is basically like a Comments section on an Internet article that’s all about you. In other words, it’s the tangible, visceral version of three insightful, entertaining responses surrounded by total fucking idiocy, a couple errant advertisements, and one asshole who just writes “FIRST!” (which, in the yearbook world, equates to, “Cows go moo, ducks go quack, I was the first to sign your crack.”).

Allow me to say this: this is one of the best things I have ever done in my life. These have been locked in closet at my dad’s office since I graduated college over seven (holy crap) years ago, and God knows how long it was that I went through them before that. If this doesn’t knock you back, I don’t know what will. So here we go: the thoughts and dreams of my peers of anywhere from eleven (Jesus Christ) to seventeen (fuck my life) years ago. All misspellings, punctuation and grammar will be kept as-is for posterity.

And the answer to your question is yes – I have indeed sent upwards of 743 Facebook Friend Requests since earlier tonight.

SIXTH GRADE – 1992 – Mechanicsburg Area Intermediate School

Fact: I was the LAST person to get my yearbook this year due to a clerical mixup, so there’s not a lot here, as everyone was obviously tired of signing shit at the point I approached them. Also, it seems as though the sixth grade versions of ourselves merely wanted to scrawl down our names and nothing else. And apparently we learned to scrawl said names with those fat, retard-sized Crayolas because all the signatures look like hell.

--“Jeff, have fun over the summer with someone! like a girl” – Gabe Staub (I’m relatively sure that neither myself nor Gabe would have had the first clue how to have fun with a girl in any meaningful way over that summer, but clearly the kid was ahead of the curve in motivation.)

--“This year was so awesome it’s not funny! We had the best time with Mr. Marsh, we talked him into everything! Have an awesome summer! – Steve! (Mr. Marsh is still, to this day, my favorite teacher ever. I don’t exactly remember what we talked him into, but apparently it was worth some fucking exclamation.)

--“Geoff – Are you trying to hit it off with Katie (EDITOR’S NOTE: I took occasion to write directly next to this ‘Nope,’ which confirms that I was, indeed, trying to hit it off with Katie. Well played, Sixth Grade Geoff.)? Anyway, have a great summer, but your a total pain, but your not that bad looking. PS – Tell Steve cool act! – Briana!” (As the years roll on, I find that there are fewer and fewer references to my good looks in these musings. Draw your own conclusions. Also, the “cool act” refers to the end of the year Talent Show where Steve Martin and I did a lip-synch to JUMP by Kriss Kross. Don’t hate.)

--“Geoff, Have a great summer! Good luck next year! It’s been a fun year with you in my class! – Shannon” (This is written in PERFECT tween girl cursive. Shannon obviously spent her year perfecting this, refusing to worry about what she’d write in people’s yearbooks and absolutely not giving a shit about me.)

--“Geof, You’re the BEST! Good luck with the girls you’re a total babe! – Katie” (This is the infamous Katie that Briana mentioned above. You can tell by the CAPS and the exclamation points that she’s fighting off some seriously repressed, latent pre-sexual angst. The present-day equivalent to sixth grade Geoff LaTulippe and Katie Fuchs are Harry and Sally, the best friends who fight with each other but absolutely refuse to fuck out of mutual hate/admiration/principle/lack of puberty. To Katie’s credit, though…even if she couldn’t spell my goddamned name, she let me look down her bathing suit every day at the Mechanicsburg pool for three summers. I know she knew I was looking. She knew I knew she knew I was looking. On the plus side, I became a master at hiding erections while shirtless, an awesome skill rendered useless to this day because my fledgling penis hasn’t grown since I was twelve. I miss those days, Fuchs.)

--“Geoff, To a nice friend, have a nice summer. – TJ Larkin” (That was nice.)

--“Have a great summer! (PS my little sister thinks your cute) – Susan” (My first thought after reading this: “I wonder which Susan this was and if her sister still likes me.” Do I need professional help? I don’t not.)

--“Geoff, Have a great summer. See you next year! – Shawn Minnich (How Shawn and Shannon never got together is question worthy of its own UNSOLVED MYSTERIES episode.)

--“Have a kick ass summer – Sam” (I wish I could scan this so you could see how it was written – each word was written above and to the right of the word that came before it and the sentence floats across half a page. It should come as no surprise to anyone that Sam was the kid in sixth grade who everyone described as “probably on drugs” before we even knew what that looked like.)

--“Steve get some women this summer! – Wes Reohr” (This was a confusing time for Wes.)

--“Geoff, To a guy I have no idea who he is But Have a great summer. Love, Kerrie” (Naturally, this was written to me by the girl who I fawned over all fucking year. She really, honestly had no clue who I was, and I probably pissed myself a little bit just asking her to sign my book. Eventually, though, we did get to know each other. The summer after this, she took pity on me and, laughing, attempted to French kiss me in the Rakestraw’s parking lot. I was so terrified I never opened my teeth and just barely managed to not come in my Umbros.)

That was fun. On to Seventh Grade…

GIVE IT UP, CHRISTIANS: THE ISSUE OF SCHOOL PRAYER

2009-01-11T18:03:00.000-08:00

Alright, so I'm not much for religiosity. And if you know me, you know I don't mind telling people that. I don't mind talking about it. I don't mind engaging people who are curious about it or who want to "get me saved" because of it. The conversations often don't last long when they discover that, almost universally, I know more about the history and mechanisms of their chosen religions than they do. It's a gift.

And yet people still attempt to sway me. The attempt at the sway usually isn't so much centered around converting me to one particular religion, though when that happens it's always Evangelical Christianity. Evangelical Christians seem the world over to be the only people who - like a bad infomercial - won't be content until everyone is herded into buying their system. More, though, it comes in the form of trying to convince me that they're in some kind of misunderstood, persecuted, maligned little group that just wants to be left alone to do their own thing. Of course, if that were the case, I wouldn't be bothered to write what you're (hopefully) about to read.

A Christian friend with whom I've had an ongoing debate over the years just recently forwarded a version of the below essay to me. I did a little research on what I was sent and found that it had been a little bit edited and attributed to the wrong author, someone named Paul Harvey. I don't have a clue who Paul Harvey is, but the following was written by a sporstwriter for a Teas newspaper named Nick Gholson and is intended to be a defense for prayer in schools:

"Some people, it seems, get offended way too easily. I mean, isn't that what all this prayer hullabaloo is all about - people getting offended? At least that's what I hear the courts and the ACLU telling us. If you read Sound Off, you know I am not easily offended. Outside of getting run off the road by a Mack truck, nothing much offends me. Daddy and Mama gave little Nicky a sense of humor.

Some people, however, either weren't born with a sense of humor or they lost it in a crap game. These people are still in the minority, but those of us in the majority are always tippy-toeing around, trying to make sure we don't step on the toes or hurt the feelings of the sense of humorless. And you can bet there's a lawyer standing on every corner making sure we don't.

Take this prayer deal. It's absolutely ridiculous.

Some atheist goes to a high school football game, hears a kid say a short prayer before the game and gets offended. So he hires a lawyer and goes to court and asks somebody to pay him a whole bunch of money for all the damage done to him. You would have thought the kid kicked him in the crotch. Damaged for life by a 30-second prayer? Am I missing something here? I don't believe in Santa Claus, but I'm not going to sue somebody for singing a Ho-Ho-Ho song in December. I don't agree with Darwin, but I didn't go out and hire a lawyer when my high school teacher taught his theory of evolution. Life, liberty or your pursuit of happiness will not be endangered because someone says a 30-second prayer before a football game.

So what's the big deal?

It's not like somebody is up there reading the entire book of Acts. They're just talking to a God they believe in and asking him to grant safety to the players on the field and the fans going home from the game. ‘But it's a Christian prayer,’ some will argue. Yes, and this is the United States of America, a country founded on Christian principles. And we are in the Bible Belt. According to our very own phone book, Christian churches outnumber all others better than 200-to-1. So what would you expect - somebody chanting Hare Krishna? If I went to a football game in Jerusalem, I would expect to hear a Jewish prayer. If I went to a soccer game in Baghdad, I would expect to hear a Muslim prayer. If I went to a ping-pong match in China, I would expect to hear someone pray to Buddha. And I wouldn't be offended. It wouldn't bother me one bit. When in Rome . . .

‘But what about the atheists?’ is another argument. What about them? Nobody is asking them to be baptized. We're not going to pass the collection plate. Just humor us for 30 seconds. If that's asking too much, bring a Walkman or a pair of earplugs. Go to the bathroom. Visit the concession stand. Call your lawyer. Unfortunately, one or two will make that call. One or two will tell thousands what they can and cannot do.

I don't think a short prayer at a football game is going to shake the world's foundations. Nor do I believe that not praying will result in more serious injuries on the field or more fatal car crashes after the game. In fact, I'm not so sure God would even be at all these games if he didn't have to be. That's just one of the down sides of omnipresence. Do you think God Almighty himself would have watched Spearman beat Panhandle 50-0 Friday night if he didn't have to? If God really liked sports, the Russians would never have won a single gold medal, New York would never play in a World Series and Deion's toe would be healed by now.

Christians are just sick and tired of turning the other cheek while our courts strip us of all our rights. Our parents and grandparents taught us to pray before eating, to pray before we go to sleep. Our Bible tells us to pray without ceasing. Now a handful of people and their lawyers are telling us to cease praying. God, help us.

And if that last sentence offends you - well, just sue me."

Now I'm not going to comment very much on the specifics of Nick's article. I wasn't around for the 1999 football game Nick was talking about, and taking on most of his patently absurd points would be like trying to teach string theory to a retarded kid. To Nick, I'll only say this: thanks for sharing your opinion. Now stick to sports, because you're a daft fucking idiot when it comes to this issue.

Rather, I'd like to tackle the overall sentiment in the piece, especially since I got a laugh when my friend presented this to me in sort of a "Oh YEAH - take that, sucker!" type of moment, as if this statement nicely presented Christian opinion on the matter of prayer in school. If that's the case...you Christians up in arms over the matter are even less intelligent and aware than I've been giving you credit for. And I really haven't been giving you much credit at all.

OK, I'm going to say something, Christians, and this is going to come as a SEVERE shock to your delicate little systems, so please brace yourselves: no one wants to take away your right to pray. No one. Not the believers of other religions, not the agnostics like yours truly, not the atheists. No one. I can think of very few things I'd like to do less than take away your right to pray. Part of the reason for that is because I don’t give a big blue fuck what you do in your personal life. Another is because there is no way for any of us to do that. Are you surprised? Confused? Let me explain.

You have the ablity to pray anywhere and anytime you want to. Before school. After school. During school. At home. At work. In the car. At the movies. Before fucking. After fucking. During fucking. At sporting events. In libraries. In butcher shops. On top of a mountain. Literally anywhere and anytime you can think of, you should be able to pray. And you know what? You can. Are you reading this in school? Pray real quick. Seriously, do it. I'll wait.

(. . .)

Did you do it? Wow, congrats! No one came to tell you to stop? Do you feel like you did something bad, though? It's OK, because you know what? You didn't. Isn't that amazing? How do I know you didn't do something wrong? What? You think it's illegal to pray in school? Well that's positively silly. It is not now nor has it ever been illegal for you to pray in school. Seriously. No, I'm NOT joking with you.

I find it absolutely fucking hilarious when incompetent braindeads like Nick Gholson try to tell me that "courts strip (Christians) of all our rights". Do they really, Nick? Can you or anyone else please show me where law was passed that prohibits anyone of praying to any god they want to pray to at any time in a public school? Show me where that's happened. Anywhere. I would wait here for all of you, but then I'd be waiting for the rest of my life. Because that's never fucking happened.

You know what HAS happened? Because our government has set up the public school system to protect our children from promotion of ANY AND ALL religions - not just Christianity - the law states that a public school may not sponsor or conduct prayer. That's it. That's all it says. It does not prohibit a public school student from praying anytime or anywhere. During a math test, during lunch, during a football game. Any student. Literally anytime during school. So please, someone explain to me how, as a Christian, your rights are being stripped away by the government merely preventing schools from having to advocate one religion over other beliefs. I am DYING to hear this argument.

And yet you still bellow and caw because you “can't” pray in school. Since we've already established that such a belief is utter bullshit, let's ask a question: as a Christian or a Christian parent, would it sit well with you if your child went to school and, over the intercom or by a teacher, was engaged in Muslim prayer time? Or Jewish prayer time? Or Buddhist prayer time? No? Well then why should children of secular or non-Christian beliefs be engaged in Christian prayer?

Oh, right. You're going back to those two age-old tenets you love so much: that a) Christians make up a majority of the spiritual believers in this country and b) because the United States was founded on Christian principles. Right, I forgot about that. Only one problem there: these two heavily-armed points are worth exactly fuck-all. Are you surprised? Confused? Let me explain.

I can’t argue with you that Christians make up the religious majority of this country. I can’t argue that with you because it’s a fact. However, that being a fact has very little bearing in the scope of this issue. Why? Because the rules and laws governing this country simply don’t equate majority and right under the law. There’s really no simpler way of saying that. Sorry to bust your bubble. With that squashed, let’s tackle your other conceit: that this country was founded on Christian principles. This is only true in the most academic sense, and I would challenge anyone to pick up a copy of the Constitution and show me a facet of it that was designed specifically around Christianity. I would wait for you to do this again, but…well, you know the drill there.

In fact, what you’ll find, if you look closely enough, is that there is actually a specific section that deals with the separation of church and state, a concept that disassociates government from promoting one religion over another (broken record, I know, but you're really not getting it needs to be repeated at every opportunity). Now, call me crazy, but it sounds like that section firmly entrenches us in a base that’s NON-Christian by default. Oh, but right – the no killing, no stealing, etc, etc. Yeah yeah, got that. OK, so here’s this: not killing, not stealing, not infringing on the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness…those have kind of been basic tenets of every sustainable culture since the beginning of time. Half of the "Commandments" that make up the morality of Christianity are based on common sense. The other half aren't in the Constitution. So really, if our Constitution is based on Christian principles, it’s also based on Jewish principles, Muslim principles, Buddhist principles…I mean, you get the idea.

Oh fuck, right, I forgot – “one nation under God”. Well, as we’ve discussed before, Dwight Eisenhower added the “under God” part to the Pledge of Allegiance during his term as President in the 50s, so…there’s that. But yes, it does mention God several times in the Constitution. More often than that, it mentions a “Creator”. So you’ve got that. Although…and look, I’m just playing Devil’s Advocate here, but…it’s not really specific, is it? “Creator”? That could be, you know, a lot of things. And I’m just spitballing here, but the central figure in Christianity is Christ, right? So if the Constitution is based on the principles of Christianity…shouldn’t Jesus get some love in it somewhere? Be mentioned at some point? Because he kind of…you know, isn’t. Anywhere. At all. Is that just a big oversight? It seems like that would be akin to writing an article about the vaunted history of Microsoft and neglecting to mention Bill Gates.

Oh, I know the reason they didn’t mention Jesus in the Constitution – because it’s not fucking based on Christianity. In fact, many of the Founding Fathers who wrote it, developed it and put it together were in fact reformed Christians, more Deists than anything else, who were so turned off by the heavy-handed role of Christianity in England’s government that they excommunicated it from their lives altogether. And then they sought to make sure the exact same thing didn’t happen again in America. So they wrote our laws to ensure it wouldn’t, and this is the basis of what you find so fascist and inconvenient today: that the government doesn’t see Christianity as more special than any other religion. I mean, that’s what we’re really talking about here, right? You’re pissed because you're just just not getting a theological handjob from the folks in Washington DC.

And with that in mind, I guess I’d just have to ask…is your personal faith – or your religion itself – so weak that a simple declaration of governmental non-endorsement can set you off in such a panic? Because that’s what it looks like to me. You act as if the government has attempted to prevent you from practicing your religion, when in fact it’s done nothing of the sort. It’s merely stated that it and its employees and representatives cannot support or promote one religion over another. It says nothing of what you can do in your own head and heart. And actually – and maybe you just glossed over this part – it specifically guarantees you the right to practice your religion anywhere you want, anytime you want. It’s called Freedom of Religion. Still a little difficult to grasp? Maybe take a nap, relax yourself, and then dive back into it. I know the notion is a daunting one.

My advice to all you Christians who don’t understand our laws and how they work: take a course in civics and get a fucking life. You and I both know that this isn’t about rights or liberty or the Constitution: it’s about another chance for you to whore for attention. Fess up to that. How spineless are you if you think the government can take away your right to pray? It’s almost too stupid to even conceive of, and the Christian arrogance that people are out to get them – a lawyer on every corner to prevent them from praying – isn’t just a paranoid myth, it’s a belief that makes you look like lunatics. If you can’t conceive of the difference between someone not wanting you to pray and someone not wanting your faith imposed upon them, you’ve got a host of problems that I’m sure you’re not even aware of.

If Nick Gholson’s opinion is really the rallying cry for offended Christians, I hope I become the Pied Fucking Piper of people who shake their heads at such idiocy. And by all means, Evangelicals, keep judging us secularites and bawling that you're being taken to the cleaners by a government and a nation of people that are out to get you. I'll be right here to explain to you how the world actually works.

THE TOP TEN MOVIES OF 2008

2009-01-03T19:23:00.000-08:00

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Just for fun, here's what I think are the best movies of the year. Discuss. Dissect. Hurl insults in my general direction. Bottom line: I'm right, you're wrong. Why? Because fuck you, that's why.

THE TOP TEN MOVIES OF 2008

HONORABLE MENTION: CLOVERFIELD, DEFINITELY MAYBE, THE BANK JOB, SNOW ANGELS, THE INCREDIBLE HULK, TROPIC THUNDER, ROCK N ROLLA

10. (tie) THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON/THE DARK KNIGHT
9. FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL
8. RELIGULOUS
7. DEAR ZACHARY: A LETTER TO A SON FROM HIS FATHER
6. FROST/NIXON
5. WALL-E
4. ROLE MODELS
3. IRON MAN
2. THE WRESTLER
1. SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE

OF MOVING ON AND HAVING BEEN

2008-07-05T10:48:00.000-07:00

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There's this funny little routine you have to go through just to get in the room. They make you put on this hypoallergenic gown that feels roughly like fiberglass and latex gloves that seem snug enough to have been made for children only (which is saying a lot, something you know if you've ever seen my small freak-hands). If you leave the room, you have to trash them. When you come back, you have to go through the process all over again. I'm told it's to stop the spread of various viruses and bacteria that can easily be transmitted from patient to patient. Though for some reason, they don't make you tie the gown. I'm bothered by this, as it seems purpose-defeating.

But them's the rules at the rehab center that has become my grandfather's Last Big Stop. Well, they call it a "rehab center", though taking a look around…egh. Let's just say that most of the people here – strangely referred to as "patients", all in various stages of near-death – don't seem to be rehabbing so much as practicing to be corpses. This is less a "rehab center" and more of a "morgue pre-party".

I wasn't here last time. What my grandfather doesn't know is that this is the same exact rehab center where my grandmother died twelve years ago. He doesn't know because he didn't visit her there. We didn't know she'd be gone so quickly. No one's telling him, either. And that's a blessing – it would only make this worse.

Worse than this would be…pretty bad. I find my grandfather hunched over in his wheelchair, hands folded in his lap, staring at the ground. I can't decide if this is more or less heartbreaking than when I saw him two days prior, laying immobile in his bed. I decide on "more heartbreaking" and fight the first of the many urges I have to cry that afternoon. It's a struggle. He's breathing hard, even with the oxygen tank he's become a Siamese twin to ratcheted up to 11 (please go ahead and laugh at that small joke – if he'd ever seen the movie, he'd have appreciated it). His nose is running. His old-person tracksuit is coated with a smattering of goldfish cracker crumbs. Sadly, this is a good sign – it means he's eaten today. In the cache of euphemisms that have become the Mailey family's manifesto over the past few weeks, this could aptly be categorized as just above A Piece of Encouraging News and just below The Best We Can Hope for At This Point.

It's not until I sit down on the bed and touch his hand that he knows I'm there. I decide to blame this on his hearing (or lack thereof) rather than to congratulate myself on my ninja-like approach. He does his best to smile, and even though that's a failing proposition these days, I know he's glad to see me. I've brought him some Lotto scratch-off cards. Every day, wasting down to nothing faster and faster, he's still scratching off these goddamned Lotto cards. "Wouldn't it be something," he says dryly, "if I were to hit the big one at this point? That would be a laugh." Today it doesn't sound that funny.

He gets winded scratching off the first card and asks me for my help finishing it off. I do; it's not a winner. Best we go on to the second one, he says, and so I scratch that one too. This one produces a veritable treasure chest: $20. Look Pa, you're a winner!" He smiles again, then tells me to keep it. I make some joke about him using it to tip the nurses, and he mumbles something to the effect of their heads being designated for assignment in their asses. "Keep it. Buy yourself a drink in the airport this evening. What the hell am I going to do with it in here?" The last sentence is said without a hint of humor, and immediately following it, his gaze goes back to the faux marbled tile. It's clear there's not going to be a lot of conversation here today. So I hold his hand.

A minute or two later, I remember something I had forgotten to ask him about during my previous visit: "Hey Pa? I heard that (my cousin) Shawn came up to visit you the other day. Did you have a nice visit?"

He raises his head, "Yes, it was very nice. It was good to see him."

"I bet."

A few seconds pass, and before he puts his head down again: "Yeah, Shawn came to visit, your uncles are in here everyday, you came from California.…you'd think I was dying or somethin'." This time it's definitely intended to be a joke. I laugh, wonder how he even has the strength to bother, and fight the urge to cry once again.

**********

There are countless things I'd love to tell you about my grandfather, but most of them are personal stories that merely define him in my eyes and wouldn't necessarily in yours. But if there's one seminal item, one character-cementing thing that my grandfather did that would measure him up against anyone, it's this: he built his own house.

To me, that is…that is something. This man was not an architect. He had exactly zero training as a builder – of ANYTHING, much less houses. He was in the Navy. He studied business. He worked on the railroad. And then one day, he wanted a house for that he and his love, my Granny, could raise a family in. So he went out, read a few books, bought enough lumber to deforest a good chunk of Central Pennsylvania, and he fucking built that house.

Seriously. He had some help pouring the foundation and had friends in the trade help him with the plumbing and electric wiring. Beyond that, he built his house with his own two hands. Just him. My grandfather. Pa. Now, really...how many of you know anyone who's done that? How many of you know a man who wanted a house, read a book about building houses, built the house, and then proceeded to lord over the Great American Family within it for fifty years?

I know one.

My grandfather did what a man does – a fact that did not, I can tell you, go unnoticed by my grandmother. Granny once told a story: "You know, the day your grandfather got home from the War, I was waxing the floor in the kitchen. He opened the door, and I saw him standing there and nearly fainted. We didn't even move for a couple of minutes. We just stared at each other. And he looked so sexy in his uniform…" And just like that, she trailed off like an old woman does when she remembers fondly. I was younger at the time this tale was told, and curious, I asked what happened. Granny composed herself and said only, "Well, let's just say I had to wax the floor again."

Oddly enough, Pa's favorite thing to do in his house was contaminate it. For decades the man smoked 8 – EIGHT! – cigars per day. He remained adamant that it was not a bad habit because, much like even our finest Presidents, he "didn't inhale". Perhaps it wasn't on his mind, but the rest of us who had the privilege of staying there for any amount of time existed in an atmosphere that could only be described as brownish. The air in and around my grandparents' house was acrid, hefty and pervasive, coating everything from clothes to food to, perhaps, even a few souls. My grandfather's solution to this problem? He bought a ten-inch high air purifier and set it on his chairside table. As you might guess, that functioned about as well as a band-aid on the Titanic. Pa puffed away contently, undeterred, until one day, at a doctor's appointment, he was told that his smoking habit might be contributing to his heart disease.

Pa quit smoking that day and never had another pull off a cigar in his life. This left Pa with a dearth of ways to torture his beloved family. And that's about when he decided that if he couldn't ruin our lungs, he would ruin our vision.

One day, I walked into my grandparents' house to find that Pa had gone quite out of his head and had electric-blue carpet installed in his family room. And when I say "electric-blue", I want to be frank about just how electric it was: I became the only middle-schooler in a fifty-mile radius to have acid flashbacks. It was like sitting on top of an azure sun. Just being around it made your body temperature spike by ten degrees. It was garish. It was uncalled for. It was retina-searing. And my grandfather LOVED it. It was his favorite color. No one else understood. Chalk it up in the barrel full of things that Pa did that we didn't understand. Another of note, just for posterity: the man watched upwards of 10 hours of television per day, yet never sprung for cable or even a TV that had a working antenna. He traveled back and forth across his blue carpet dozens of times every day, manually changing the channel and then complaining when the reception sucked. All of this in an effort to watch an episode of M*A*S*H* that he'd only seen sixty times before.

There are enough stories like this to fill books. Maybe it would be a book you'd read, and maybe not. Just in case you're here for the condensed version, I'll leave you with this:

When my grandmother died, my grandfather sold that house. His house. The one that he built, by himself, for her. That house was iconic in my mind, a place of countless happy pastimes and life experiences. I was flabbergasted that he could part with it. Some of the family was outright angry. But to Pa, his house was no longer a home. Not without Granny. Now, it was just a structure fixed in place over everything he'd lost. Before he'd even moved out, it was a memory. The reason he got down on his hands and knees and created it from nothing was gone, and as far as he was concerned, the house had served its purpose. It was now obsolete, so he left it.

Like I said, my grandfather did what a man does.

**********

I sat with Pa that day, the last day I would ever see him, for a good forty-five minutes. Conversation, spotty and infrequent, took up a grand total of about thirty seconds of that visit. He mostly bowed his head and looked down, squeezing my fingers tightly in his, and God, I wished that I could do anything to make this stop for him. How is it that just at the point when the sum of your life's actions should be called upon to build your dignity to its highest level…it can be so unceremoniously and callously drained from you? Frail, diapered, runny-nosed, struggling. Miserable. Watching it is pure and unadulterated agony. I can't even imagine feeling it.

It was time to go. It was time to go, and I felt like I'd offered him little. I'd worried about this earlier, that there was nothing I could really do for him. My mother told me that just having me there would be a tremendous lift for him. He didn't look lifted. He looked just like he looked when I came in: broken. There was nothing I could fix. But knowing that and accepting that are two wholly different animals.

I stood up, kissed him on the head, hugged him, and said goodbye. Our last goodbye. I told myself how lucky I was to have this moment, that most people don't ever get to say goodbye for real. I didn't feel lucky. He hugged back as best he could, told me to be good. I walked to the trashcan, started to disavow myself of the gloves and gown. "This is it," my frustrated, scared brain screamed at me. "This is it! Don't you realize that? Tell him how much he means to you! Say something! Say something, you idiot!"

I turned and looked at him. "I'll be back at the end of August," I barely creaked. "It's my ten-year high school reunion. Can you believe it's been ten years?"

"Isn't that somethin'," he replied, trying to look up.

"So you hang on until, then, OK?"

"OK Geoffrey," he lied.

"I'll see you then," I lied right back. And I turned and walked for the door. I almost made it out.

"Geoffrey?"

I know I must have turned around instantly, but standing there, I felt like it took me half a minute to rotate.

"Yeah?"

He offered a sickly wave…and yet made it seem as though it was the grandest of gestures. "Thanks for coming all this way," he said. "To say goodbye to your old Pa."

The words hit like a wave. A Gibraltar-sized rock formed in my throat where my Adam's apple used to be and my knees all but buckled and gave out from under me. Somehow, for the last time that day, I successfully fought the tears back. It had nothing to do with projecting stoicism or feeling foolish or being a man. My grandfather had only four days left on this planet at that moment, and I sure as hell wasn't going to let his last memory of me be one with wet eyes. So I smiled.

"You got it."

I'm 28 years old; it was the first time in my life that I've ever felt like an adult. All I did was fly home, and that's the kind of man my grandfather was: when I could give him nothing, he turned it into everything. The old bastard.

A prophet much wiser than I once theorized that a man stumbles around most of his life confused and in various stages of inebriation, his vision clouded to one degree or another, except on two occasions: when he finds himself, and when he faces death. I've often thought that one can consider himself truly lucky if those events don't happen at the same time.

If someone had walked into that room with us at that point, they wouldn't have known that something was off, something was discordant. They would have just seen two men – one old, one young, one a grandfather, one a grandson – about to part one final time. They would have gone about their day and never questioned the fact that they were both wearing glasses. It shouldn't have seemed funny, shouldn't have seemed unnecessary, but it was.

Because…what did we need glasses for? At that moment, we were just a couple of lucky fellas with 20/20 vision.

I will miss you, old man. I will miss you.

THINKING IS DEAD; ABORTION AS AN EXAMPLE

2007-10-17T00:31:00.001-07:00

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Well…I haven't written anything in a while that would make someone hate me. It's been too long. So I'm going to kill that streak. Incidentally, are any of you aware how nice it is to have real opinions – things you actually believe and hold in your core to be steadfastly correct – that actually upset people to the point where they don't want to engage you in conversation? Let me tell you something: it's fantastic to be genuinely controversial and to know that you're not so simply to prod people into being reactionary. Whether you're liked or not, there's a fat piece of ego wedged in simply NOT being a talking head. I'll go so far as to say that I take pride in speaking openly about topics most people avoid and both refusing to bow to those who would rather not rock the boat and also accept any static I get in return. It's all part of the territory, but I'm downtrodden to find that it's territory traipsed by relatively few.

You should all remember a skit from SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE in 1975 that involved Chevy Chase, playing an HR rep, giving Richard Pryor a word association test during an employment interview. It starts off simple, with meaningless words being spit back and forth, until Chase decides to up the ante:

CHASE: White.
PRYOR: Black.
C: Bean.
P: Pod.
C: Negro.
(beat)
P: Whitey
C: Tarbaby.
(several beats)
P: What'd you say?
C: Tarbaby.

From this point on, the "test" devolves into a screaming match; soon, the two are openly bellowing their answers inches from each other's face:

CHASE: SPEARCHUCKER!
PRYOR: WHITE TRASH!
C: JUNGLE BUNNY!
P: HONKY!
C: SPADE!
P: HONKY HONKY!
C: NIGGER!
P: DEAD HONKY!

It wasn't just one of the funniest moments ever on TV, it was one of, if not THE, most politically incorrect moments ever on TV. It's a skit that no one would dare touch in this day and age, despite the fact that it was clearly mocking not only racism but white authority, employment discrimination and a slew of other social issues. The sad f*cking fact is that it's just not OK anymore to make certain kinds of statements – on TV, in a letter to the editor, in person – even if they're shrouded, for one reason or another, in a subversive or satirical context. It amazes me to this day that people still decry that skit as racist or mean or improper. Hearing someone say anything akin to the previous immediately tells me that A) they don't have a sense of humor, B) they don't/didn't understand a single thing about comedy's role in the Civil Rights Movement and C) they know absolutely nothing about what Richard Pryor – even a coked-out, paranoid, depressed and often delusional Richard Pryor – was all about. If you're a sentient being you have to realize that free speech is in danger not just because people are so afraid of offending someone else...but because the population at large is so much more ignorant than anyone (except myself, apparently) is willing to give them credit for.

So it blew my mind this afternoon when I read a letter that was published in the November 2007 issue of PLAYBOY that spoke out about the controversy and PC-ness that blatantly cloaks the abortion issue right now in this country. Not only am I amazed that someone had the balls to say it out loud – they're sure as HELL going to take some undue flak for their statements – but I'm more than a little disappointed that I didn't realize and state it somewhere MYSELF years go. I'm more than happy to admit that Brett McGinnis of West Chester, PA is not only my new hero, but that I'm resolutely envious of him right now:

"In the August READER RESPONSE Tim Johnson writes about the atrocity that has taken place with the Supreme Court's ruling on late-term abortion. I am so tired of this debate. First, both Pro-Lifers and Pro-Choicers are guilty of playing people. The issue is not 'choice' or 'life' – who would be anti-choice or anti-life? The issue at hand is abortion, specifically whether a fetus should be given the rights of an infant. It has nothing to do with women's rights. If we decided, through either a metaphysical argument or scientific evidence, that a fetus possessed the rights accorded a newborn, then abortion would be illegal regardless of the fact that a fetus occupies a woman's uterus. On the other hand, if we decided a fetus is nothing more than a cluster of cells, then by all means go ahead and remove it as you would a cancerous tumor. I cannot believe the debate has been allowed to go on this long with such shameful, slick rhetoric."

If you hear a rumbling, it can only be the collective sycophantic mewling of billions (or, in the case of my blog, tens) of self-important liberals/feminists who can't get past the sentence that reads, "It has nothing to do with women's rights." That rumbling is such a glorious noise because, if I'm on the mark in my reasoning for posting this entry, someone will go off the rails blasting Mr. McGinnis's opinion as a personal affront to the entirety of equality amongst men and women. If there's a God, some or all of those responses will be kind enough to label the fellow or – fingers crossed - myself a "sexist pig". Perhaps those with a clichéd vocabulary will go so far as to label one of us a "misogynist". When that happens, I'm going to laugh all the way to a back alley in Tijuana. Because their rancor will have distracted them from the very, very, very basic point of the argument.

Notice that McGinnis didn't bother to expose his opinion on the abortion issue. I won't either. There's a time and place for that, but it's not now and not in this argument. What he IS doing is pointing out that the REAL core of this debate is being ignored in favor of special interest groups who want to drag the all of us in one direction or another. It's feminism vs. religion, "progression" vs. "tradition", and most uniquely disgusting, Democrat vs. Republican. It's a bunch of people spitting in the face of the people across the aisle, blustering and shaking fists and feeling full of righteous vigor. They're like Chevy and Richard battling it out from across the desk except, unlike Chevy and Richard, they don't have a true meaning at either of their centers. All the bellyaching is now more about political clout and perceived respect and narcissism rather than anything that resembles truth. It's more about protracting the conflict than whether or not there are lives to be saved.

McGinnis's letter reminded me of an argument I made once in a high school paper that my female teacher ripped me a new assh*le for; it was, quite honestly, one of the last times I can remember where I got less than an A on a written assignment. Having seen what my own father went through in his divorce – being systematically ignored and rubber-stamped at every turn by a legal system that attempts to save time in determining custody and alimony by chronically siding with the mother rather than the most competent of the two parents on a case-by-case basis – I posited merely that there should be a DISCUSSION about the father having some rights in the event that the mother decides to terminate a pregnancy. Ceremoniously ignoring the point I was trying to make, the Teaching C*nt Who Shall Remain Nameless sketched on my paper:

"C – You do realize that women actually carry the babies, right?"

Thinking back to the burning, confrontational feeling that remark left me with, I shuddered as I began to wonder how many really stupid smart people must be walking around out there. And then I began to wonder what other issues – really important issues that are important for so many different reasons, both great and small – have been truly hijacked by causeheads and movements that are, at their darkest, just as corrupt and dangerous as any corporation or government installation. And then I really started to quake in my boots as I realized that my "teacher's" bastardized view of the world didn't have a lasting impact on me. It did nothing to change the way I thought about my platforms, why we fight for the things we fight for or how we go about fighting for them.

So at the end of the day the point to this stream of conscious isn't about racism or abortion or free speech – it's that I'm worried to the tits that the ability to think has been blown out the back of humanity's collective brain. At least on the grandest scale. Thankfully, I'm left with a sense of peace (and a small bruise from all the back-patting) that I'm not swallowed up enough in my own limited worldview to believe that I've got everything figured out.

All the same, to paraphrase and disjoint Oscar Wilde...I live in terror of not being politically incorrect.

FOR MY PIGMAN

2007-07-30T01:00:00.000-07:00

Someone had tried to name him "Buckshot".

Actually, that's a lie – someone HAD NAMED him Buckshot. Of course, that's not really a surprise. This was in a part of Virginia called the Blue Ridge, a rural area where one could find the highest (read: lowest) order of the redneck/mountain hick hybrid. People with more teeth than brain cells – thanks, generations of inbreeding! And at the short end of that inbred mindset was a fat little black and white dog; when I came upon him, he was in a 5x3 cage with an index card taped to the corner.

"Buckshot".

He was, as the classic denomination goes, a mutt. A something. A tweener. He had spots like a Dalmatian, a body like a sausage and a head…well, like something that didn't belong in either of those two categories. As soon as I approached the cage, he came right up to me, bounding and wagging his tail. Please, though, don't think this is going to be one of those "But the dog picked me!" kind of stories. That would be a lie. The truth is that this dog couldn't have cared less who approached him. He could just get worked up about anything. Squirrels. Cotton. Air. Any excuse to pretend like there was something to get excited about, he would take it.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: Back to that part about not knowing what kind of dog he was for a second. I remember specifically asking the lady at the SPCA what she thought he might have been. "He's a Jack Russell and something, probably," she chirped happily. When I tried to dig for more, she got just a little bit too serious for the moment, leaned in, and said, "Best not ask questions, lest you upset the lady-friend you got with ya." I'm not going to try to tell you that I have ever known what that meant, but thinking about it still nearly causes a bowel release out of pure fear. Remember: mountain redneck people. They're officially 1.5 times more dangerous than your ordinary white trash and infinitely more frightening. Sorry, carry on.)

Upon getting him back to my apartment, he had already started to grow on me. Cute little fella, that of the accidentally adorable breed. And squeaky. I didn't know it at the time, but he would never really bark that much. When he got jazzed about something – usually someone moving more than an inch or the fact that he'd just found his tail again – he'd just grunt and squeal a lot. Sounded more like a pig than a dog. My then-girlfriend Jenna and I decided that "Buckshot" wasn't going to f*cking cut it. And though my hyperadolescent mind could only conjure up the most unoriginal and pop-cultury name imaginable – I called him Jameson, after my favorite brand of whiskey – the name I'd utter most frequently more fit the bill: Pigman.

My Pigman. The two of us were a pretty good team. After Jenna and I parted ways we'd pick up chicks together (I have to believe that some or all of the one times I'd get laid in the period when we were on our own were mostly or directly due to his ability to positively smolder the human female's heart), watch movies together, roll around on the carpet together, sometimes vomit together after I tied on a few too many (his bile was sympathy bile). During a summer where I stayed in Harrisonburg, everyone else I knew was back at home. The area surrounding James Madison University was a ghost town.

The Pigman was all I had. It was that balmy triad of months when we really bonded the most. It was that time where my dog became my companion. If you're one of those people who thinks that you can't truly come to love an animal, to befriend a lesser mammal, to need a little stubby-legged ball of fur more than you need water and oxygen…well, maybe you can't. But I did. It no longer annoyed me that he dug into my crotch everyday at 7AM to be taken out, or that he somehow positioned his 20-inch body on the bed in such a way that he seemed to take over every square inch of mattress. I considered it – and still consider it – and honor to be at his service. How else could I have felt? When I was down, he'd instinctively jump onto my lap and lay his head on my chest. When I needed a laugh, he'd run headlong into the screen door. When I was sick, he wouldn't move an inch from my side.

How do you repay something that gives itself totally to you and asks nothing in return but your love and attention? That's simple: you never stop loving it, never stop attending.

The day that I had to give him away still was and will likely be, for a very long time, the worst day of my life. I was in transition. I didn't know where my next home would be. I didn't know what my next job would be. My life had become a scattershot of impracticality and improbability. But Jenna didn't have that problem. She was about to move to a new place. She knew where her adult life was starting, knew where she was laying down a foundation, and knew that it was going to be horrifying. But in this place she knew no one. Since Jameson loved her and since she loved him, it made perfect sense: he should hop a train (er, well, the backseat of Jenna's car) to Connecticut. It was time to let him go. Someone else needed a Summer Buddy.

Two years later, just about the time I was feeling less than devastated about the way things worked out, Jenna had moved back to Harrisburg, PA - our hometown - and brought Jameson with her. Now a bona-fide LA boy, I was back for a brief vacation and decided to pop in for a visit. I was hoping that he'd recognize me and react in his usual way: sprint fifteen times from the front of the apartment to the back, grunt in his piggly way, jump into my chest, knock me down, lick me too hard for far too long, then walk in a circle three times and nearly pass out on the floor, tuckered out from all the wildly unecessary excitement. But this reunion of sorts featured a melancholy ending to our story. He didn't recognize me, didn't squeal, didn't sprint, didn't remember. He whined when I tried to pick him up. I was unfamiliar. I had gone from companion to manhandler. Seeing him after that would have just been too hard. I remember him peeking out the window as a left, but it was more of a cautious observation than a longing send-off.

It was then that I was taught a rough lesson in human-pet relations: when you let a pet go – willingly or unwillingly – you never really let it go. Not if you have any kind of heart beating in your chest. But they let go of you.

Jameson, my Pigman, was put to sleep this Sunday afternoon. He fought a long, hard battle with a litany of illnesses and maladies, one of which was just too much for the little guy to handle. He was brave throughout, I'm told, trudging through countless medications, procedures, examinations and surgeries. He was never without a comforting presence. Jenna, redefining what it means to "have a pet", spent thousands of dollars over the last several years piggybacking him up one medical mountain and down the next, thousands of hours giving him the only thing he really needed: unconditional, unwavering love. His body may have failed him, but his keepers most certainly did not.

For a long time, I felt guilty – I felt as though I'd either forgotten or discounted one-half of that simple equation: never stop loving, never stop attending. I've always been bad with math, but never in my calculus class had botching a proof cost me the affection of a small dog that was the most important thing in the world to me. Only recently have I considered that, though I may have sputtered in my calculations, I arrived at the correct solution despite my best efforts to muck it up. By giving Jameson away, he got the best of everything – better than I could ever have given him. Jenna was his best-case scenario. I was a glorified kennel. My only hope now is that he's in a place where he remembers me not as a grabby stranger but as an again-familiar, unending source of happiness that was reluctant to let him go. Because of one thing, there is no question: I never stopped loving him.

Life sometimes works in mysterious ways, they say, but sometimes it's just good to know that life works.

Goodbye, friend. You had the head of a bat, the brain of an infant, the spirit of a pig and the heart of a lion. I fear that what I gave you amounted to so little, but I smile when I think of your eminent glee every time I came home, woke up, walked to the porch, rolled over, coughed, breathed or performed the lowest brain function possible. I will think of you every time I successfully stretch out in my bed. Being comfortable won't be so comfortable ever again. I guess that's my funny way of saying…I will miss you.

If there are squirrels in Heaven, don't let them rattle your cage.

GO FCK YOURSELVES, PETA CNTS! (VOL. 72)

2007-07-26T20:06:00.001-07:00

Oh, PETA. Poor misguided, mismanaged, disillusioned PETA. Like the scourge that is the Herpes, you just seem to irritate, go dormant, irritate, go dormant again…but never really go away.

According to PETA's own statistics, there are over 40,000 people in this country involved in the underground dogfighting industry. Forty thousand! How can the human brain even calculate such a sum? With that in mind, can I point out something that should be obvious to everyone who isn't retarded? I was never a math whiz, but with over 300,000,000 people in this country…that leaves, by my count, well over 299,960,000 people who aren't involved in the underground dogfighting industry.

But let's step out of our heads, give you a ton of credit – way more than you troglodytes should ever deserve for anything – and guesstimate that there might be 960,000 additional dogfighting supporters in this country, if not active participants. That would make, even with all of my flattering inflation, less than 1/300^th of this country dogfighting supporters. Of course, as with any sentient being, I can draw a conclusion from this: even at its worst case scenario generation, America doesn't support dogfighting.

It's a point that needs to be made, because PETA acts as if the general public is madly in love with watching dogs kill each other in a humid basement. Do you really need me to assert that dogfighting is barbaric? That it's unconscionable? That it's one of the lowest levels of mammalian degradation? That anyone guilty of practicing it should be thrown in a dark, violent prison? Does all that even need to be proffered in rational discourse?

Why then, PETA, are you trying to derail the Constitutionally-granted due process of an innocent man?

Make no mistake about it, you can't paint it any other way – Michael Vick, as of this very moment (and until the gavel comes down for the final time in his trial this November), is an innocent man as defined by the law. There's nothing else to be said about it. Of course Dan Shannon, who, as PETA's Assistant Director of Campaigns, is perhaps one of the biggest degenerates in the world, doesn't worry about things like the Bill of Rights or the judicial system.

On ESPNEWS today, Big Danny was asked the following…

ESPNEWS ANCHOR: "Dan, how do you balance a scheduled series of protests against the argument that Michael Vick hasn't been found guilty of any criminal charge?"

BIG DANNY SHANNON: "Uh, well, again, whatever happens in the court of law won't change the fact that these dogs were found on his property, they did have injuries consistent with dogfighting, and that there was all this illegal equipment. Uh, those facts aren't gonna change, and we feel that those facts speak for themselves. It's up to the courts to decide that he's guilty or innocent of a crime, but uh…everybody knows that somethin' wrong was goin' on at Michael Vick's property."

(EDITOR'S NOTE: That's an exact quote that I obtained with a tenuous level of patience and the help of my DVR. In other words, you're welcome.)

Now keep in mind PETA's MO over the past few weeks: though Michael Vick is an innocent man, they've petitioned/protested the NFL multiple times attempting to get Michael Vick banned from the NFL. They've done the same at the Nike HQ and will continue to do so in the coming weeks until Nike discontinues sales of all Michael Vick-related apparel and merchandise.

This tells me two really interesting things about PETA:

1. They are dropping an awful lot of money trying to destroy the life of someone who, until today, hadn't even seen the inside of a courthouse on the charges they're ramped up about. They're committing serious resources based on a presumption of guilt based on evidence that no one has seen.

2. They see themselves as above the law.

Whenever there's a rape accusation made in this country – especially if it's made against a noteworthy person or collection of persons – a similar rush to illegitimate irrationality occurs. The man is always convicted in the court of public opinion before he's even given the opportunity to sniff a jury of his peers. He's lambasted with hatred and vitriol by the entirety of the media and labeled by any citizen with a cursory knowledge of the situation as a monster. After all, rape is a terrible crime, is it not?

But that's not really the point, is it kids? The point is that, while rape may be of the most abhorrent acts in existence…no one is guilty of such a crime, legally, until they're convicted in court. Am I beating a dead horse here? Well, maybe PETA has an Equine Corpse Sensitivity Division. They're just going to have to come after me, because I think I'm the only one that gets this.

So what if an ACCUSED rapist, someone who hasn't been brought to trial, finds themselves convicted in the court of public opinion? What if they find themselves verbally and physically attacked on their way about their daily lives? What if they find people protesting them with signs everywhere they go, lies being spewed about the "facts" of their case so that an alleged-rape-victim-sympathetic public turns against them? What if they then find these same people are trying to cut off the means of their livelihood?

Weird. Because that happened. Last year. To almost (if not) every one of the Accused in the Duke Lacrosse Rape Scandal. What's funny about that – what's hilarious, really – is that the case against them was such a sham that the DA got fired for his negligence and later admitted that there wasn't nearly enough evidence to even charge them in the first place. He just knew the public would want blood after hearing the drugged-out stripper's story.

Funny how PETA is doing exactly the same thing to a man who, say "Thank You" again to the Constitution, is innocent of the charges brought against him. Except he's not even accused of raping anyone. He's accused of promoting dogfighting, a charge he steadfastly denies. That's neither here nor there to PETA. To them, it's clear that SOMETHING happened at Michael Vick's house. The facts of what that "Something" is, however, is really of laughable inconsequence to them. They've got a scapegoat, they've got a platform, and now they're going to try to ruin someone's life before he's even had the chance to defend it. In a world that's becoming increasingly Elementary School in the way terrorist organizations deal with perceived opposition – and trust me, they are nothing less than a terrorist organization – PETA is bringing an assault rifle to the rumored fistfight under the playground's old oak tree.

And like a Summer's Eve factory, PETA continues to churn out d*uchebags, like Big Danny Shannon, to sell their tainted product. In their America, the appearance of dogfighting is grounds enough to deny someone their liberty. In their America, protests happen and lives get ruined before lawful responsibility is determined. Because it would be impossible to just speak out against dogfighting in general, riding on the publicity of the case itself rather than laying the blame on the most famous person, and wait for the trial to be over to decry or excuse the man based on the evidence. And it would be wrong to le the public decide for themselves the "truth" after reviewing the evidence. Dogs are dead, that's the highest tragedy that could ever be, and some poor b*stard – really, any poor b*stard, but hopefully a high-profile b*stard with a ton of money – is going to pay.

Personally, I think most people involved in PETA just want to protect animals. They're either too stupid or too high to do some research and find out that the executive infrastructure of the cult is staffed by nutcases and social deviants. If you want to protect animals, do what I do: become an ASPCA Guardian. Here's a link to the donation site; put your f*cking money where your mouth is. If you'd rather spend all your time and means trying to sabotage football players who may or may not have done anything wrong, then you're just a f*cking joke. All I can do is pray to God that something furry kills you one day. Hopefully one day soon so this planet can get a little less deranged.

FOLLOW UP TO JERRY FALWELL BLOG; I'M AMAZING

2007-05-20T16:15:00.001-07:00

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First of all, if you haven't yet read my brutally honest piece on Jerry Falwell's death, please do so. It can only be good for you to think and, well...basically, we both know you need to think more.

When you've done that, read my good buddy Josh's blog here. What you'll find is an incredibly insightful, thoughtful and personal response to my blog - some of it in agreement, some of it contrary - from someone whom I have a lot of respect for.

Either way, can you bother yourself for a minute or two to join the f*cking debate, please? It's pretty friggin' important, perhaps even moreso than ultra-important things like boobs and Sour Patch Kids.

BY TALKING ABOUT JERRY, I'M REFUSING TO TALK ABOUT JERRY

2007-05-20T12:28:00.001-07:00

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Yeesh.

You know, after all these years of hating Jerry Falwell – hating him, literally filled with hate and not afraid to say it, as he was someone who so dearly deserved every bit of negative energy that could have thrown in his smug, sweating face – I was hoping this would feel different. I expected a little more jubilation on my part, as though some kind of mythical beast had been slain and a great battle had been won. Alas, I'm instead feeling something more akin to a major anticlimactic event. The knight who thrust sword into the terrifying dragon has come back to report that it was definitely imposing…but it was made merely of Paper Mache, popsicle sticks and Elmer's Glue-All.

Mostly, I feel as though I've wasted my time. I feel as though my anger and fervor has been directed, all the while, at a mirage. A scarecrow. That's not to say that Jerry Falwell wasn't a bad fellow – he was the worst of fellows. He was a greedy, ignorant, racist, sexist, anti-gay, anti-Semitic, anti-logical thought and anti-American bag of wind. He was – by the most specific, poignant and accurate meaning of the term – a motherfucking asshole.

But what of it? Now that he's gone, isn't another more racist, more ignorant, bigger motherfucking asshole going to take his place? Probably. Take your pick. Pat Robertson? You're a fucking lunatic – come on down!

And it was that realization this week that hit me so firmly and so quickly that I've been thinking about it ever since. Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Ted Haggard…these guys are dicks. They're veritable monsters, but in an ideological sense, they are (were), by themselves, just one person. They're not to blame for the scourging of liberty in this country. They're just the messengers. The auctioneers.

So I didn't spend this week being glad that Jerry Falwell keeled over. I spent this week being pissed off that so many mindless fools paid him credence for so long. That so many non-thinkers congregated and gave him power. And that, given the chance, they'll just up and do it again with someone else.

Jerry Falwell isn't to blame. You jackasses that supported – and, much worse, acted out his wishes – are. Yep, I'm looking dead at you, Evangelicals.

One of my good friends – an Evangelical himself, but one who, as far as I'm concerned, is in the minority as far as the application of the group's beliefs go – told me this week that I was predictable. That he knew I was going to go for the easy Falwell angle. He was probably expecting me to throw together some angry tirade full of vitriol and name-calling (which he got to an extent and which will continue to some degree – hey, I'm brash and unconcerned with decorum). To that end he's going to probably be a little disappointed in me, and there's no doubt I'm going to be repeating myself here, going over ground I've already footprinted rather heavily. However, with all due respect, I'm much less concerned with being predictable than I am with applying my stamp of disgust and disapproval to my small fraction of the Internets on an issue that concerns me deeply. What hasn't affected me yet, but has affected so many others, I fear is in serious danger of causing havoc in my life. In fact, I think the biggest mistake I could make is keeping quiet for fear of seeming a broken record.

Plain English: you, Evangelicals, you are fucking ruining my once-great country, and frankly I'm goddamned sick and tired of it.

Falwell was your poster boy, and rightfully so. Jerry may have been backwards and criminally uncultured, but what he wasn't was stupid. In the late 1970's/early 1980's this man had a finger on the pulse of the Evangelical nation, and what he saw was a group of people (uncoordinated sheep) that could be rallied (herded) under a common ideology (discriminatory fantasy of fear) and molded (brainwashed, manipulated and used) for the political (power mongering) and financial (tax-exempt) gain of the faith as a whole (authoritarian-level only). That in and of itself – while saying nothing about his organizational and charismatic skills – is a fucking impressive business and legislative feat.

Of course the whole ball of wax centered around a deistic theology that preaches hatred, exclusion and fear, but the worst part isn't that Falwell gave it to you. Oh no. The worst part is not only that you were dumb enough to listen, but stupid enough to buy into it and arrogant enough to try to force it on the rest of us. A motherfucking asshole with bad ideas and hateful rhetoric is just a motherfucking asshole; you can tune him out if you don't want to hear him. But 25 million motherfucking assholes practicing what that bag of shit preaches? That's a direct threat to the other innocent 275 million Americans.

And you know what, let's just get this out of the way right now: if you're going to come on here and try to spin my assertions as though I'm intolerant of your beliefs, you best pedal your Big Wheel and keep going. If we're talking about what people believe on a purely self-contained level…I don't really give a fuck. Seriously. I could absolutely not care less. Want to hate gay people? Hate them. Want to hate black people? Hate them. Want to think the world was created in six days 6,000 years ago? Have at it. Want to believe that abstinence-only sex education programs really work? Delude yourself. Have a goddamn ball! In fact, tell anyone who will listen EXACTLY what you think. Get a bullhorn and shout it from the rooftops. Make signs and slap up pictures of aborted fetuses on your AstroVan.

Because I don't care what you THINK. I don't care what you practice FOR YOURSELF. In fact, I will go to the end of the pier to make sure you have the right, every single day of your life, to your beliefs. I swear to you I will. Because as long as you don't infringe on my liberties or those of others, that's your right as defined by the Constitution. Be Evangelical. Revel in it. Assume that you're right and that you're going to Heaven and I'm not. I hope you enjoy the feeling. But forgive me if I stand in front of you, middle finger extended, and ask that you get fucked. Because while I and millions of other Americans extend you the courtesy of your full and unmitigated rights, you're sure as balls not willing to do the same, are you?

Because Evangelicals, as a political movement, are the only group that seem to have an almost preternatural need to step into other people's lives to tell them how they should live it – according to the Evangelical system. And I'm sorry, I know I'm recovering ground that I already covered a few times again and being cliché in the process, but I don't think you're getting the fucking point: that's not the way it works.

Why do you think everyone should live by your standards? Why? Because you're standards were written by "God"? Is that it? And the proof that you offer is a shabby, contradiction-infested book of fables written by men – not "God" – that has seen literally hundreds of different translations over a few thousand years? Really? Your basis for living your life is predicated upon a document that has all the historical authentication of a 16 year-old girl's Trapper Keeper-based rumor diary? That's funny. Really, it's hilarious. But wait, wait…I know where this is going to go again. America was founded as a Christian nation on Christian values, right?

I'm inclined to disagree. First of all, while many of the framers of the Constitution were indeed Christians, they approached the writing of the document with a solidly Deistic tone. They refer to a generic "God" and "Creator" in the document and in several other places so as to encompass a wealth of different beliefs; you'll find no mention of Christianity specifically as a basis, nor will you anywhere in any of the building democratic materials for this country find the word "Jesus". Anywhere.

And then the Ten Commandments. Oy. I hate to break it to you, fellas, but the Ten Commandments are little more than a laundry list of common sense and a few rules that the Constitution breaks specifically to keep everyone from HAVING to be influenced by Christian "values" (and you'll see me use those quotations a lot as per "values" – this is to denote that I see very little value in your "values"). Honor Mom and Dad, don't cheat, don't steal, don't lie, don't kill. A full ½ of your vaunted Pillar for Righteous Living (TM) is basic common sense, so you can't claim it as "Christian Ideology"…unless you want to try to tell me that, before the Ten Commandments, people didn't know that any of this was wrong. And even YOU guys don't have an excuse lined up for that.

The rest of the Constitution – save for "Don't be Jealous/Don't Covet", which is a whining dictation if I've ever heard one – falls under the "Honor God" emblem. Here's the rub – guess what? The Constitution is framed SPECIFICALLY to separate Church and State. In other words, the laws of our country instruct us that we have ZERO obligation to honor the Sabbath, not take God's name in vain, and worship the Christian God. Fuck – looks to me like the Founding Fathers were telling us that not only do we not have to live in a Christian Nation, but it would be BETTER if we didn't.

I guess this idea slipped past you guys at some point, because MAN…have you ever fucked this place up doing exactly what the Constitution was trying to guard against.

I know, I know…it's UNFATHOMABLE to think that two people of the same sex might find happiness in being married to one another. I get it – you think they're sinning. Understood. Must be hard for you to grasp. That being said…how is their sinning hurting you? Really, I'm dying to know this. Because that's the only reason you should try to stop them from being happy – if their happiness is causing a decline in the quality of your life or preventing you from living it to the fullest. Are you telling me that you care that much? Hey, look, I think you're a douchebag! I think it's sad and pathetic that you've spent a good portion of your life dictated by a mess of fairy tales and taking advice from an imaginary friend in the sky, but I'm not trying to stop you from going to Sunday School. You playing with diseased toys doesn't infect anyone else's sandbox, so why should I let it bother me? And last I checked, being gay wasn't illegal, much as you continue to mislabel the state of being as a "choice". So how it can be illegal to marry someone who's not being illegal?

You can't help but meddle, can you?

It's not enough to deny the gays the right to marry and/or share the same legal benefits of heterosexual couples. You also have to tout your abstinence-only public school sex education programs, because Abstinence is a contract that you make with God to keep yourself pure until you get married. This one REALLY gives me a laugh (when it doesn't make me want to vomit). There are two reasons for this, first and foremost being…you must all really have your heads jammed so far up your asses that the bile is burning your eyebrows. You think even the fear of God and Eternal Damnation has any chance of winning out in a battle of conscience against raging teenage hormones, critical-thinking immaturity and a house that's devoid of parents after school? I mean…come ON. Nothing can compete with that. Most of your teenagers that are keeping themselves sexually inactive? They're not, and if they tell you they are they're lying to you. Check the stats: abstinence-only programs are failing across the board.

And now you've stepped up and are trying to block PUBLIC school districts from giving young girls the HPV vaccine, a one-time medicinal treatment that could, down the line, kill their chances of developing cervical cancer. And why? Because everyone at the Evangelical Clown College has convinced themselves that it'll lead to teenagers abandoning their Abstinence Pledges (excuse me for a second while I chortle) and lining up to fuck in Math class. Let's not even suggest the idea that a woman could wait until marriage to have sex only to be HPV'd by a partner who was a little less than careful in their pre-matrimonial years, or be raped by someone with a similar affliction. We don't even need to bring that up – the idea that a kid would throw caution to the wind simply because they've been vaccinated against one particular STD is just outlandish.

And, come to think of it, doesn't it DIRECTLY contradict what you're supposedly teaching them so well? I mean, even if the shots DID encourage them to go out and have more sex…your abstinence-only doctrine is working, right? Do you don't even need to worry about it, right? Because they're listening to God, right? If God's love is powerful enough to make them abstain without the vaccination, it's still powerful enough to make them abstain with it, no?

The funniest thing about this entire premise is that the "don't tell them about sex and they'll never figure it out" is also in DIRECT OPPOSITION to another favorite Conservative (and let's be honest, Evangelicalism and Conservatism go hand-in-hand these days) station: gun control. For years I've listened to Liberals and Neo-Cons debate this issue, and the Liberals always say the same thing: teach your kids that, if they see a gun, they should leave it alone and run and tell an adult. Neo-Cons always answer back the same way: kids can't be trusted, as their curiosity gets the best of them; better to teach them how to handle a gun so they can safely disarm it, lest they pick it up with no previous reference and accidentally blow someone's head off. It's actually a great argument, and one I'm that seems totally valid to me. Unfortunately, it's also wildly contradictory to the sex education argument. I mean, let's get this straight: you're willing to teach kids gun safety, but not sex safety? Their blind, ignorant curiosity can't be trusted around a gun, but it can be trusted around a willing vagina/penis? Logic and knowledge can protect them from a bullet, but those same faculties can't be trusted with premarital intercourse, requiring them to have a Contract with God (TM)? Why can't God's love protect them from being shot?

(EDITOR'S NOTE: In proofreading this, I realized that I may have inadvertently conjured for you a disturbing hermaphroditic vision with the term "vagina/penis". Apologies across the board. I don't think that such a thing as a vagina/penis does exist, but if it did it would probably be more aptly written as "vagina-penis". OK, if you weren't thinking about that before you probably are now, so I'm going to stop incriminating myself.)

Sorry, I have to clear my head…because the arguments that ya'll are currently making are blowing my mind from a total fucking lack of sense. And, Christ…I haven't even gotten started on abortion. Or Creationism. Or State Personal Sex Laws. Or State Blue Laws. Or Christian Rock. Without breaching those topics I've said enough already, and I'm just now coming to my main point.

What's really frightening is that Evangelicals have bought into the idea that everyone else needs to be saved. We all need saved! Heathens, every last non-Evangelical man, woman and child! Abominations! On many individual personal levels, this is true. It's part of your agreement with God (there seem to be a lot of those floating around out there); if someone hasn't found Jesus, they need you to show them the way. Insane, but I can follow the flawed logic. Still, there are so many others that have lost that viewpoint – the genuinely caring, if misguided, notion that non-believers are in for an afterlife full of misery if they don't Go With God (TM). Most Evangelicals, I'm convinced, just don't want to be disagreed with. They have no faith – in other words, they don't BELIEVE in their religion. They instead assume that they're right, that they've found the ultimate truth...and really they just can't stand that someone disagrees with them. Of course on the highest corporate levels of religion, more followers "saving" more people means more parishioners which means more donations which means nothing but more revenue. If that idea comes as a shock and a blaspheme to you…well, you've got a HELL of a lot of catching up to do.

What's even MORE frightening is that, on an almost perfect level, Evangelicals are taught to believe that we're in the End Times. Armageddon and the Four Horsemen are at our doorstep and dying to get in to provoke a fiery bloodbath so apocalyptic that you would think Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer were the ones who ghost-wrote the Bible. And what's even MORE frightening than THAT is that these same people are electing officials to our government who believe the same thing. I've gotta tell you…that doesn't make me feel too fucking safe. We're sitting at the feet of a President who figures he's already got one foot out the door; it doesn't matter what he does in this life, because he believes in Jesus and he's going to skip through the Pearly Gates when it's all said and done. Forgive me again if this makes my bowels threaten to release on me, but I'm not tickled with the prospect of a LEFT BEHIND believer in the office.

I could go on and on and on and on and bring up countless examples of the ways you jokers are pissing in the sociopolitical pool, but I think I've made my point. Are you the only problem? Naw, but you're the damn biggest and most influential, that's for sure. And yeah, you absolutely fucking deserve to have the scope firmly set on you. I don't see Jews lobbying Congress to pass a bill stating that everyone has to keep kosher. I don't see Muslims trying to shove stone carvings of the Koran in front of courthouses. I don't see Indians harassing me to pay a tithe to a six-armed goddess. Most practitioners of other religions are content to keep their faith to themselves. Why can't you follow that lead? And let's let another cat out of the bag: if any of the representatives of these faiths even sniffed the idea of trying to pull something like that, you would scream discrimination and their intolerance like bloody fucking murder. Because Christianity is its own breathing double-standard in this country, a faith of demagogues and manifest destiny.

Shit, sorry, I forgot – you don't have "faith". I meant "simple fanaticism". My mistake.

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Lost in all of this, buried under an immense pile of public debate and back-and-forth positioning, are good, salt-of-the-earth, tolerant, moderate Christians. The ones who follow the REAL lesson of Christianity; the ones who understand that the religion, at its best, is meant to be about love and hope and inclusion, not divisiveness and terror and exclusion.

These are the people I feel truly bad for. To a degree.

Real Christians get lumped in with Evangelicals too often – as do Catholics, but that's a whole 'nother blog – and it's a shame because they're subject to persecution and ridicule from people who, like me, are on guard against tyranny but who, unlike me, can't delineate. These are the people who have REAL faith – they believe something unconditionally because their heart tells them they have to. It's that simple. And though I personally still think their religion is a joke – and not just Christianity, but ALL religion – I can't help but respect and admire that. They just want to believe and be left in peace.

In asking for that, though, it's my opinion that they've dropped the ball. These are exactly the people that should be standing up to the Wal-Martified McFaiths that Evangelicals are setting up all over this country and using as a pulpit to speak for the all of Christianity, which, in practice, has quite a varied set of sub-sects. By and large, real Christians are doing nothing to stop the plague of political Evangelicalism...and to me, that's guilt by association. It's like showing up at a bar with a drunk buddy who's not REALLY your friend, then making excuses for him as he aggressively hits on a girl and grabs her ass while her boyfriend is standing right there. The right thing to do is protect the kid from getting the piss beat out of him all the while denouncing him as an idiot. The wrong thing to do is pretend like it's not a big deal or blowing it off as "not my problem", therefore silently admitting that it's OK.

There are a lot of good Christians out there. It's time for them to stand up to the Evangelicals and be counted among those in dissent of their policies. It's time for them to take their drunken friend to the car, drive him home, and put him to bed. He's already become an annoyance, and pretty soon – if he continues on his way unchecked – he's going to get behind the wheel himself and really end up hurting someone.

And the chances that he's going to be deterred by a stranger aren't as good.

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This started out as a blog about the death of Jerry Falwell, one of my Five Least Favorite People on the Planet (TM) and it's going to end that way. But first, as governed by the laws of logic, I have to make an admission:

Everything Jerry Falwell said, everything he stood for, everything he claims to have believed…there's a chance he could be right about it. About every last thing. I have to recognize that or I've lost the structure necessary to have intelligent debate about it. That's the way it goes.

In making that admission, however, I'm prepared to follow it up with a statement. I said this once to a Christian believer; his immediate response was, "You don't mean that." The fact is that I do. I mean it as much as I've ever meant anything in my life, and as a free-thinking, caring, good-at-the-end-of-the-day person, here's what I'll say to make my peace with Reverend Falwell:

Maybe you were right, Jerry. Maybe gays are sinners and deviants. Maybe I should have kept my penis out of vaginas until I was married. Maybe the ACLU was responsible for 9/11. Maybe black people are inferior to white people. But know this: if you are right, and if the Heaven you so adamantly preached about exists, and if that Heaven is tainted enough to let a heinous cretin like you in…well, I don't want to ever get within a thousand esoteric miles of the place. I'll spend my time in Damnation content in the fact that I might be burning but that I wasn't enough of a coward to have such a brutally flawed God brainwashed into me, that I didn't let the idea of a hateful son of a bitch like that ruin my time on Earth – and that I didn't ruin anyone else's by proxy.

One of the Evangelical stalwart comebacks, upon finding out that someone is an Agnostic, is the conceited and fluff-filled, "Wow, it must be an empty feeling to not have something to believe in. Something to hope for." It always makes me feel good when someone attempts this thinly-disguised barb, because what they fail to recognize is that I've got all the hope in the world believing that they've got the universe so very, very wrong.

THE WEEK THAT WAS: SOMEONE CALM ME DOWN

2007-04-23T03:58:00.001-07:00

Well…this week past has been one for the books, no? Every day there was something new to talk about, but I was buried under mounds of awful paper held together with brass brackets, on the pages of which were printed words by people who can't write scripts to save their lives. So why are they writing scripts? Why? Anyway, no spare blogging time.

Can I tell you all something? Just for future reference? If you're an assh*le – and if you're reading this, you're probably an assh*le – don't write a Kid's movie about Xmas. Just don't. You can consider this the one favor I'll ever ask of a nameless, faceless patron of my blog. No Kid's Xmas scripts. Ever. In fact, I'd rather that you forget Xmas exists. Also, I'd like to make this guarantee: if you ever write a script and you think it's funny to have something that's not a car "pimped out" – you know, in the way Xzibit sees fit to destroy the fabric of the definition of "aesthetic" – in said script, be it a toaster or a desk chair or a Granny Smith apple, I will track you down, knock on your door, and knife the f*ck out of you when you open it.

I'm not kidding. I will f*ck you up.

Seriously, how can so many people be so appallingly unfunny in the same exact way? And how did so many brutally retarded motherf*ckers get their hands on a copy of Final Draft? It's madness! While you're forgetting Xmas, you mental little conceptually-challenged scriptwriters, just go ahead and forget English as well. Yes, I'm asking you to voluntarily become illiterate. Can one do such a thing? I'd hesitate to say one way or the other, but I'm told the human mind of capable of quite much. And based on medical research I'm making up as I write this, I'm told you have the capacity to pull it off.

Now that the previous useless rant is done with, here are yet even more useless rants:

-- The Virginia Tech thing. Wow.

There was something I wanted to write about this the day it happened, but I figured (even in light of my minuscule readership) that, for me, it was too soon to get on my soapbox. After watching sh*t on TV about this every day, though, I'm not staying quiet anymore.

I f*cking hate the news. All of it. Every cable news network, every national news show, every local news show, every newspaper, every magazine. I even hate the paperboys, the dealers of moral and ethical filth, and I hate their mothers for enabling the rascals by waking up at 4AM to drive them around so they can sling their inky rags, and beyond that I hate Huffy and BMX and Mongoose for fabricating the modes of transportation for the little c*nts whose mothers don't wake up to drive them, and beyond even that I hate God for blessing with feet the cretins who aren't driven and don't even have low-tech transit of their own. I f*cking hate them all. I'm no longer ashamed to get most of my news from THE DAILY SHOW. Sadly, John Stewart is probably the only one doing a credible job of reporting anything right now.

The coverage of the Tech shootings is just making me sick. I've never wanted to punch anyone more than I wanted to punch the bloated windbag corpse of Lou Dobbs last Tuesday, as his sat is his (compared to his rotund stature) tiny little swivel chair and barked at the camera, calling in his best faux-indignant voice for the University officials to be held accountable for not locking down the campus after the first shooting. You've got to be really, really, really insulated in your CNN-dictated fantasy world to not understand what a chore it is to lock down an entire major college campus. It's not as easy as posting a note on the door to the one-room schoolhouse; we're talking about a little town, for all intents and purposes, and 26,000 people to notify…most of whom don't share any kind of common, ready form of mass-communication.

So the pretend outrage is a little more than f*cking annoying, but it's exacerbated when we all know that you know that you don't have the first blunt notion as to what you're talking about. Does anyone else wonder what's going to happen when someone inevitably goes berserk and starts spraying bullets into a building that houses a major news network? How the hell do they cover that? Who are they going to point the finger at? How are they going to pass the buck? How will they drum up public outcry by negatively sensationalizing themselves?

And if that wasn't bad enough, they won't leave these f*cking kids alone. Jesus Christ you vultures, they've been through enough. What is so important, past the first day, that you have to report ON LOCATION? You can see all the same footage that we're seeing back in your cozy Manhattan (or Atlanta or whatever) high-rise. Why do you need to be right g*ddamn on top of them? It's not enough to hear about them crying, you actually have to see it? Tape it? Coax and stress them into doing it again?

You're soulless, all of you. And to all of you feeding off of it: you're just as bad because you eat in their diner. You should be ashamed. And yeah, I'm ashamed of myself.

Though far less important and upsetting than the loss of 33 lives, we're in for another big problem in the wake of this incident: local and state governments are going to spend way too much f*cking money to talk about and build and implement and fail at keeping us "safer". Because there's got to be some way to guard against this, right? Right? Spending enough money and scaring the sh*t out of every last man, woman and child will keep this from ever happening again, yes?

Wake the hell up. Are you really dumb enough to think that you'll ever be safe from the rampaging maniac who's lost the faculties to care about his actions? The one who's absolutely popped his gourd and feels like he has nothing to lose? You won't, and no matter how many metal detectors you prop up and how much of a police state you cordon off, the one emotional mess with a credit card and the will to down anyone he sees fit will down anyone he sees fit. The only person on the news last week with even a shred of credibility (outside of the VT community, that is) was some therapist and psychologist who was wily enough to sit in on an interview with the reprehensible Paula Zahn. He said one of the wisest and, at least I thought until this week, common sense things I'd ever heard: you can never stop someone from being troubled; you can only try to help them before they do something troubling.

So let's stop spending time dwelling on Plans of Action and Looking Back Ats and Dissecting the Mind of a Killers. Get the cameras out of their faces, stop trying to create an advertising-driven hysteria, and just let these people get the f*ck on with their lives. Don't worry – you'll still have a camera in front of you, and you'll still be fat, soulless, and useless.

-- Since I'm on a roll, I'm going to continue to dole out reprimands to people I hate Hall Monitor-style. Next to have their Locker Pass rescinded? Kirk Jimenez.

I hate this son of a b*tch. If you watch ESPNews he's the Hispanic d*ck who over-pronounces every single Hispanic name he can. Like…WAY over-pronounces, rolling R's like he's a stutterer with Parkinson's. He points out every Hispanic player he can, making sure we know he's Hispanic. "And here's AlbeRRRRRRRRt Puuuuuuuuujjjjjjols, a DOMINICANO!" "And here's Meeeeeguel Cabbbrrrrrerrrrrra, PUERTO RICANO!"

And twice – TWICE – I've caught him doing the unthinkable: he changes the names of American-born (or at least English-speaking-born) players. Like: "A great shot by Meeeeguel Bibby!" Or: "And Juanito Damon steals second base!" Are you kidding me? Me esta embromondo, Sr. Jimenez? I would love to call you up every day at your cubicle (probably adorned with all kinds of Corona promotional material, Enrique Iglesias pumping out of your Los iTunes – un Espanola!) and manipulate your first name to fit my unreasonable cultural obsession, but I don't have an unreasonable cultural obsession and you have the whitest white man's name EVER behind Chip and Winston.

Of course, he doesn't do this for athletes of other nationalities. He'd never stoop to pronounce Wladimir Klitschko's name with a thick Russian consideration (and he'd probably call him Wuh-ladimeer) or lend a Japanese pitch to Daisuke Matsuzaka's given tag, but he'll Sure as September strangle every last tongue-vibration out of every syllable in "Francisco Liriano". Why? Because he's Venezuelan, or whatever the f*ck country he's from.

What this is says to me is that Kirk Jimenez is a blatant, hardcore racist. I have to turn the channel or hit the mute button when he's on because he's so racist. I literally can't stand him. And I can't be alone on this. If you hate this b*stard as much as I do, let me know. Maybe we can create enough of a stir to get him deported or at least sent back to ESPN Deportes. If the last few weeks have taught me nothing, it's that racists lose their jobs in broadcasting. Since Kirk is a Nazi-level racist – he probably has the bodies of dead white people strewn about the back of his 1985 Subaru pickup truck – and a horrible broadcaster and I don't like him, shouldn't he be fired as well?

Hey, I'm all for ethnic pride and celebrating your heritage, but "celebratining" doesn't mean you have to light it on fire and throw it through your neighbor's window at four in the morning. I'm proud to have been raised with Irish overtones, but I don't don a green overcoat and suspenders, dye my hair red, and run around Compton handing out Lucky Charms.

-- Last (in order, but not in spirit) on this list of People I Hate the Most, though to anyone who knows me this isn't a surprise: Bjork.

What surprises me most is not that Bjork has a fanbase – even psychotic d*uchebags with negative levels of taste and hatred for their sense of hearing can band together – but that it's so unilaterally supportive of her. Look, I'm an Oasis fan, and I'll be an Oasis fan until I go the big ugly face-down in my favorite pint. But I'm not stupid enough to believe that everyone loves them, and I certainly understand the people that can't stand them. Then again, I'm f*cking awesome and I always know the how and the when, as it were.

But Christ, you dare to disparage Bjork to one of her fans and they turn into an irked baboon. "What? What are you saying about Bjork? No, you SHUT UP! SHE IS AN INNOVATOR! SHE IS CUTE AND HER MUSIC IS FULL OF LIGHT AND MAGIC AND SONG! YOU ARE WORTHLESS COMPARED TO HER AND YOU SHOULD GO TO HELL! SHE DANCES ON BUSES AND HER SCREAMING SOUNDS LIKE THE CHORUS OF ANGELS, AND I HOPE YOUR MOTHER DIES AT THE HANDS OF A RAPIST WITH A SPIKED C*CK, AND ON THE TIP OF EACH PENILE SPIKE IS POISON SO IT'S EVEN MORE PAINFUL!"

If you've made this mistake you know exactly what I'm talking about; they spit like a Bellevue lockup and stop just short of crapping into their hand and throwing it at you.

Anyway, Bjork showed up on SNL this weekend and, predictably, bounded around the stage like a mobile bobblehead doll and sang a tune that sounded like the combination of a stunted African tribal beat and a bawling Protestant hymn, a song that I can only imagine is the background score in the dreams of drunken jackals. It was atrocious, and yet somehow I guarantee music critics and methadone patients alike will hail it as a visionary musical achievement. I will hail it as a sign that Icelanders have cemented their station of Second in the World Batsh*t Crazy Rankings, just ahead of the Japanese but still well behind the British.

On a Bjork sidenote: I realize this is the same woman that once wore a dress to the Oscars that was made to look like a goose, but her envelope-inspired, color-shifting garb on SNL just scared the hell out of me. I really, really, really want to know how she got into my closet in 1994 and stole my Oakley chroma-sheen jacket.

-- OK, I don't hate ENTOURAGE, but let's put a few things on the table.

First of all, I think we can all recognize that the show's creators and writers screwed something up royally this year. Not only is the show significantly less funny than it used to be, but they made the unconscionable mistake of making Ari the crux of the show. Ari is brilliant in small doses, when he piping in from the background to make an important point in an important scene, or when he's verbally reaming his agent or his wife in a completely pointless scene.

But too much Ari is…too much Ari. The show stopped being interesting and relevant, fellas. You can start counting down to the Final Episodes now. Happens to every show – HAPPY DAYS really bit the dust when they brought Chachi to the forefront, and if you can't make viewers happy with Scott Baio, you just flat-out can't make viewers happy.

But what really pisses me off is that they probably know the ship is going down...and they're not taking any chances. Yes, OK, I'm talking about one obvious flaw specifically: there are eleventy-hundred hot girls on the show every week and there hasn't been even a HINT of f*cking nudity since the middle of last year. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? A show about the Hollywood star who's f*cking every female that falls at his feet and you can't show us their t*ts? Are you people mad? What the f*ck do we have to do to get some skin here? Jesus Christ, I feel like I'm trying to give medicine to a dead person. How am I not a writer for a TV show?

"Geoff, any ideas on how we could fix this scene?"

"Well, if it were up to me, I'd try t*tties."

Tell me I'm wrong.

THERE ARE NO RULES ON CABLE! F*CKING GOD, WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO TO GET YOU TO DO WHAT WE ALL KNOW IS RIGHT AND GOOD? Listen, HBO: you get Carla Gugino and Emmanuelle Chriqui disrobed by the end of this season or you are losing a viewer. And I will do everything I can to take my three readers with me.

-- I'm not mad about this at all, but this is something I had to bring up:

Did you ever look at lava – like, there's a car commercial out now that has real flowing lava in it, but anytime you were watching lava, whether on TV or in a movie or when you lived in Hawaii if you ever lived in Hawaii – and think you yourself, "F*ck – that is melted rock. Lava is MELTED F*CKING ROCK!"

I mean…WOW! Do any of you have any concept of how hard it would be to MELT ROCK? Lava is melted rock! It's rock that's melted! That's, like…superhero sh*t, isn't it? I know we all know about lava, but did you ever think about lava? IT'S MELTED ROCK! How does the earth DO that?

I'm just saying. Melted rock. Just think about it for a few minutes, seriously.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: I do not smoke pot. I realize that trying to believe such a thing could negate your belief in a benevolent God, but it's true. I don't know if that makes me a genius, an idiot, or someone to be carefully watched.)

-- I touched on this just briefly in my piece from last week, but it came up again and I needed to talk about it as though my blog is my own AA meeting:

There's a great TV station available to me on DirecTV called ION; I think it might be a local LA cable station, but I'm not positive. Its slate is mostly full of movies that no one watched before and wouldn't want to watch now, classics like DUNSTON CHECKS IN and JACK. But every weeknight from 7:00PM – 8:00PM PDT…there's magic.

ION is the only network I know of to show reruns of THE WONDER YEARS.

THE WONDER YEARS is, by far, my favorite TV show ever. I'm criminally impressed with any series that can accurately capture what it's like to be a kid, and to this day I'm convinced the writers had a whole class of eight-graders held at gunpoint in their breakroom to help them establish validity. Put it this way: if I needed to move out of LA for whatever reason and I found out that ION was only available in this area, I wouldn't be going anywhere. Seriously.

A big part of the WONDER YEARS magic is, of course, Winnie Cooper. She's my Kelly Kapowski, my Marsha Brady, my Chachi (and of course Scott Baio is also my Scott Baio, but that's a story for another day because I'm a little self-conscious that I've mentioned Scott Baio twice in the same entry. Scott Baio.) and, almost assuredly, the reason any relevant female in my life has to be short with dark hair. Typing – hell, even THINKING – about Winnie Cooper sends a little burst of joy into my heart. However, it's another little burst I want to examine.

Now before you get all up in arms, no. I haven't masturbated to Winnie Cooper since I was like 13. Still, if you have a female-du-jour at any point in your life, she's always going to be special (many guys my age can cop to this for Kathy Ireland, Christie Brinkley and Phoebe Cates as well). But what if she wasn't "of age" when you weren't "of age"?

I'm asking because the 13 year-old Winnie Cooper still turns on the 27 year-old me, and it's horrifying. My feelings and attachments are fourteen years on, but my gonads are very much right now. I scared the piss out of myself when, last week watching an episode, I muttered out loud, "Oh God, Winnie Cooper." In my defense, they had her dressed in a short skirt and bobby socks, a clear sign that these dudes knew exactly what they were doing; no kid has fantasies about a girl in a six-inch joke of sub-waist cover and knee-highs, but plenty of old men sure as hell do.

The thing is…I'm now the intended target of both fantasies, the Eager Young Man Fantasy and the Dirty Jail-Ready Pedophile Fantasy. Teenage Winnie Cooper still turns me on, even when I'm defiant in the face of what I know to be very, very wrong. But I can't TOTALLY blame myself, can I? Don't I get credit for one of one of my physiology's silent echoes? How do you erase something so iconic from your memory banks?

I just want someone to tell me that I'm not a bad person, really. Or…well, I can be a bad person, but just one that's not deserving of incarceration and/or several years of intense therapy.

I'd also like to issue a public apology to Danica McKellar for any unwanted attention you get from your work, whether it be from someone who feels a certain compulsion from my words or just the general unbalanced freak in the world at large who's been fascinated with you for the past 19 years.

Were I you, Ms. McKellar, I would run like hell from any man that approaches you. I would run like hell.

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Ok, enough thoughts out of me for the time being – I've got to barricade my door for the eventual appearance of the authorities. Have a good beginning to the week.

WHY DON IMUS HATES BLACK PEOPLE

2007-04-10T14:00:00.000-07:00

Well, here we find ourselves, delving into another episode of "Geoff Has to Explain to the World How to be More Smarter".

One of my firmer stances in life is a little ideology I like to call Pick Your Battles (TM). It's not only an important practical concept but a way to live your life – a mantra, if you will. There's a ton of sh*t floating around this chemical globe that's going to force you to react, whether it's with general annoyance or outright rage. In that, though, there's a decision to be made on each and every potentially reactable issue: how much of my time and energy do I devote to being pissed about this?

If you've followed the news at all, you know about the whole Don Imus thing. On his radio/TV show last week, comparing the Rutgers Women's Basketball team to the Tennessee Women's Basketball team, he called the former a bunch of "nappy-headed hos".

Roughly six seconds after the comment was made, all relevant life in the universe stood still. Water stopped running, rabbits stopped f*cking, and Al Sharpton fell out of his chair. Why? Because, all of a sudden, Don Imus was a vicious racist.

You ever listen to Don Imus? Don’t answer that – I know most of you don’t and never have. He’s old, he’s a bit out of touch with modern reality, he’s curmudgeonly, and he’s a blowhard…so…pretty much, he’s me in forty years. I don’t particularly like the guy and I think his show is crap. But there are two main differences between me and most of the people getting upset about his comments:

I think he has the right to say whatever he wants to say and make all the jokes he wants to make.

I actually listened to the ENTIRE segment surrounding the comments.

Did you? No, you probably didn’t, and IF you didn’t and IF you STILL felt that it was wise of you to form an opinion on the subject and then, God forbid, express it…well, you’re a f*cking idiot.

Look, I’m not going to come at this like I’m telling you how to feel about what Imus said, especially if you’re black. I have no point of reference to know what it’s like to be a black person. I have no idea what it’s like from a broad, generic standpoint or from a personal, individual standpoint. It’s not my place or anyone else’s place to even begin to think about possibly, maybe, telling you how to feel. But what an individual feels about the comments isn’t the issue here.

Human communication is all about context – that’s why there’s a law prohibiting us from falsely claiming fire in a crowded theater. The same exact phrase, repeated word-for-word, can have 100 different meanings and/or intended values in 100 different conversations. In this instance, does Don Imus calling the Rutgers Women nappy headed hos constitute an abject and repugnant racism? Hell, I don’t think so.

I make fun of black people just about every day. And Asians. And Hispanics. And Jews. And Indians – Dots and Feathers. I also make fun of myself. Why? Because I think all stereotypes – racial, religious, physical, mental, whatever – are absolutely f*cking hilarious. I think racial comedy is some of the highest comedy on the planet, mostly because it has all the right ingredients to get a rise out of people. And that’s what I live for.

A reaction.

And, f*ck, that’s what we got here, yeah? The problem we ran into this time is that people aren’t smart about the way they react.

Al Sharpton, one of the most pervasive hypocrites on the planet, has jumped all over this bullsh*t, media-fueled issue in yet another attempt to make sure he gets his sound byte and his absurd hair on TV. He’s calling for an Imus apology and for the man to be fired from his nationally-syndicated show. He torched and berated Imus for almost two hours on his own radio show the other day and presumes to tell the American public – and blacks in particular – not only how they should feel about the issue but how anyone in Imus’s position should be treated. Because Don Imus hates the black people. Malcolm X he’s not. Jerry McGuire’s antithesis he is.

Right? Right? Well, if you have half a brain…not f*cking really.

The fact of the matter here is something that’s at the core of American society, something I hate about the lazy, gelatinous denizens of this otherwise fine country: very few people who have already formed an opinion on this issue have actually HEARD any part of the Imus’s show from that day. They saw the quoted phrase on the ticker at the bottom of the screen during their daily news show – when, let’s be honest, they were waiting to hear about Britney’s latest crab infestation or the paternity of Anna Nicole’s baby – and immediately jumped to a conclusion.

Whether or not you thought the joke was particularly funny (and I didn’t – I thought it was way too easy and lacked a serious amount of originality and cleverness) isn’t the issue – the point is that the entire conversation was held in a satirical and tongue-in-cheek manner, just like the bulk of the Imus show. If you’re not smart enough to understand that – and really, I worry about more than a few of you – here it is: they were f*cking kidding. They were not being serious. Whether or not Don Imus believes the Rutgers Women are hos with nappy hair, the context in which he was making these remarks was not literal.

And that’s how he’s been trying to defend himself, and rightfully so. If you’ve ever gone to a comedy club or watched television or listened to Howard Stern you’ve heard ten times worse things said. What Imus said was comparatively tame – so why is he being held to a different standard? Because he’s old? Because he’s white? Because he’s on MSNBC? Why is he not given the same Free Speech and creative license parameters that other entertainment personalities are given?

This was not angry hate speech – this was a bad joke. Nothing more. But if you’re going to slap the “Racist” tag on Don Imus, you had better be consistent across the board. You’ve got to call Howard Stern a racist for the things his says to his co-host Robin Quivers about being black, “horribly racist” (if you can’t tell, the quotation marks are there to indicate my blatant, smarm-filled sarcasm) comments that he makes every day. You have to slap a “Racist” bracelet on Dave Chappelle, who suggests in his routine that white cops sprinkle crack rocks on black men they’ve just unnecessarily shot. Stern shouldn’t ever be allowed on the radio again and Chappelle should be banned from comedy clubs across the country.

Wait, what’s that you say? You can’t do that? Because we expect that from Stern and Chappelle? Because they’re performers and comedians (if you want to stretch the boundaries of the term for Stern)?

Then someone tell me why the f*ck Don Imus should be suspended (which he was, from his radio show, for two weeks) or fired because of what he said. Someone tell me, because I’m dying to know. I’m dying to know why Al Sharpton thinks that someone should be fired because they offended his delicate and highly-refined sensibilities. I’m dying to know why he thinks that, as he’s said a million times over in the last few days because he’s more of a parrot than a human being, that, “…We cannot tolerate the use of the airwaves for such blatant racism.”

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: if you see or hear something you don’t like, have the courage and the wherewithal to turn off your f*cking television or radio. That protest, simple in both action in message, is the most powerful tool of defiance that you have. After you turn off your media implement, tell everyone you know about what a flaccid d*ck the person you were watching/listening to really is. But trying to get the guy (or chick) fired, or, hell, even suggesting that this be the appropriate action? That is, plainly and simply, unAmerican.

The only entity in the world who has the right to make that kind of decision is Don Imus’s employer. And that entity should make that decision for none other than business reasons. If they feel like Imus has really breached the integrity of their company and that they’re going to lose revenue because of his comments and continued presence, he should be canned. But to fire him because he expressed, at worst, an unpopular opinion (which is, most likely, not even his REAL opinion)? Come on. Really? REALLY?

Pick you f*cking battles, people. This isn’t Rodney King. This isn’t Medgar Evers. This isn’t Emmett Till. This is an old, boring dude who made a bad joke and who is now burying himself because he’s even apologizing for it. So-the-f*ck-what if he offended the lot of you? He doesn’t owe any of you an apology for his comments because there’s not a single one of you out there who owes him your attention when his show comes on the air. If Imus consistently made himself out to be a racist like Rush Limbaugh or just an intolerant c*nt like Jerry Falwell I could better appreciate the anger…but he’d still deserve a place in the media. Because everyone has the right to express their opinions, even Falwell and Limbaugh, and if there’s someone out there with the technology, the means to make media public and the access to an audience that will listen, either in support or dissention, who are we to deny them that outlet because we have a different viewpoint?

I love racist jokes. I love them. I love joking that a black kid is getting my bike for Christmas or that my Asian girlfriend is a terror behind the wheel or that every 7-11 employee is Apu from THE SIMPSONS. Once I joked with a girl – who was Jewish and whom I had just met – that I liked living in a Jewish neighborhood because, if I forgot to do my taxes, I could throw a rock out my window on April 14^th and hit twenty felonious accountants. She laughed and asked me if I had a case of Jewish Jealousy. When I asked her what that was, she spit this back: “All gentiles want to be Jews, because they’d be exactly the same. Except not poor.”

Brilliant.

So am I a racist? Was she a racist? Do I think black people are scofflaws on Welfare? Do I think Jews are money-grubbing parasites? If you know me you know the answers to those questions, but if you don’t know me and took something I said as a joke to be literal – and therefore my worldview as per race qualities – maybe you should find out what I really think. It’s a common courtesy for us to not jump to conclusions about each other based on a statement or idea we agree or disagree with.

More than that, though, I think you all just need to chill the f*ck out and stop overreacting to every little thing that twists your nipples.

LET'S TALK ABOUT SANJAYA; LET'S TALK ABOUT YOU

2007-03-29T17:52:00.000-07:00

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It's been said before today, not just by people here but by a lot of people everywhere. We all watch AMERICAN IDOL. And we all agree that Sanjaya needs to go. It's not even up for debate anymore.

However, I'm going to take this a step further, and I hope that you all will aid me in getting the word out. So pass this along to whoever you think needs to hear it, because it needs to be heard.

I'm going to put this out there, and I'm going to put it out in bold, broad strokes:

If you are voting for Sanjaya, I not only want to punch you in the face, but I want you to be acutely aware of something: you are a cunt.

You are an awful, horrible, unfettered cunt with a black, diseased soul. Yes, I'm aware you are likely a 12-22 year old female. Yes, I'm aware that, in that age range, you make questionable decisions. Yes, I'm aware of your frail sense of self and that you're trying to find your place in the world. You're still a cunt. How can that be, you say? I will point this out to you: Hitler was once fourteen years old as well. Hitler? Big cunt, always was. You? Perhaps an even bigger cunt.

A warning to all current and potential Sanjaya voters: I am preemptively enacting a wish that all of you who vote for (or even think about voting for) Sanjaya next week die horrible, painful, public deaths. And I am going to wish for them to be so horrible, so painful, and so public that if you were to Wikipedia "horrible, painful, public death" that a picture of you immediately pops up, showing you dying horribly, painfully and publicly.

Don't get me wrong - I think Sanjaya is a nice, wholesome, good kid. He doesn't deserve any kind of backlash. But you do, Sanjaya voter. You most certainly do.

Because you're a vicious cunt.

Stay cuntly,

Geoff

(PS - Between "Sanjaya" and "cuntly" I think I have broken my spellcheck. Also - and I will mention this over and over until someone fixes it - "spellcheck" gets flagged as misspelled by spellcheck. And the universe continues to be a wondrous place...)

THE SHAME, THE HORROR, THE TEARS, AND MY ULTIMATE RECLUSION

2006-12-28T09:24:00.000-08:00

Today, friends, I uncovered something horrifying about my physicality. So damning was this find that I can scarcely remember ever feeling this deflated, this melancholy, this totally moribund. My discovery could cause me to banish myself to the far corners of my apartment, never to speak to anyone again, riddled with pure, unbridled shame.

In the shower, just seven or eight minutes ago, my mind drew (what I assume to be) an elongated blank. I can only guess that I had been distracted for about a minute, but when I snapped to, I found myself looking down at my chest.

I am not a naturally hirsute man. I have what one might consider normal hair growth on my legs, some sparse forearm hair, and some regular-pattern growth on my belly. I have no current back hair. What worries me to no end, however, is my chest hair.

It is, by all accounts, absolute crap. It's wispy, like the fuzz on a frightened puppy, and has a foundation that is completely devoid of any follicular strength. It curls at ungodly angles. Sometimes, for no apparent reason – and with zero provocation – it gets caught in the simplest of cotton t-shirts. It is, in a word, a nuisance. There's not a lot of it, but what's there seems to relish in making a living hell out of my waking life. If I had one physical defect that I would choose to redact, it would be my chest hair. Any of you who have actually seen me in the flesh and personally viewed this haggard, bloated, sad excuse for a corpus are now saying to yourselves, "Wow, he must be serious if THAT'S what he would change." Touché.

Here is what strikes me near to the point of throwing myself off the most proximate bridge:

Peering down at my upper torso I notice, for the very first time, that one side – the left – is abundantly hairier than the other. This in and of itself does not immediately throw me off…until I gaze at my nipples. On the hairy side, the nipple is rather absent of hair growth; a few baby sprouts abound, but nothing to write home about. As if possessed by some unseen force, however, I decide to immediately compare it to the other nipple – the one on the less-hairy side. I am shocked and disgusted to find that it is, by quick and accurate calculations, almost 75% hairier than its twin.

How in the annals of f*ck does this happen, I ask you?

I literally don't know what to do with this unwanted knowledge, but I've spent the past fifteen minutes contemplating the best way to suffocate myself – AFTER shaving my chest. Can you imagine showing up to a funeral home with unsymmetrical chest hair? People would speak of it for years! I'd be castigated post-mortem, laughed at posthumously, derided as an utter fool and a degenerate in children's nursery rhymes!

No, friends, the only thing left for me to do is to take myself and my disjointed nipples and bury the whole package in a 12x14 box of self-loathing otherwise known as my bedroom. I don't feel fit to be a part of society anymore; truly, my heart burns, as though the ties between my soul and the great pool of humanity have already been severed. I am disfigured. I am unnatural. I am a monster.

Fare thee well.

GOOSETOWN'S QUASI-ANNUAL YEAR END SUPERLATIVES

2006-12-28T07:39:00.000-08:00

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As I sit here on the evening of the Day After Xmas (the date slowly migrating into the Day After the Day After Xmas) in my not-so-comfy chair riddled with the worst allergy attack I've had since setting up shop in Southern California, I feel pressed into service. Before retiring for the rest of my ephemeral Winter Vacation to read several terrible novels – though also one quite good one, I might add, and at the same time I'll advise you to read BORN AGAIN by Kelly Kerney – and to strike out at yet another screenplay, I thought it apropos to lay rise to GooseTown's Quasi-Annual Year-End Superlatives.

Why Quasi, you ask? Well, as many of you have noted, I don't write entries too terribly often and I figure it's better to mark low and aim high. Lest this not become a yearly event, I mean.

I spent a good hour today going over Year in Review lists from several major online and tangible publications, singling out topics that struck me as pertinent. I'm sure I'm going to miss some things here that you would have added, but while I always appreciate the comments and the Messages and other aggregate responses to my writing, please note that, in the end, I don't really give a hopping f*ck what you think.

Onto the GTQAYES Awards!

(EDITOR'S NOTE: This is going to be long. Still, come with me.)

MOST ANNOYING AND/OR OVERUSED MOTIVATIONAL AND/OR INSPIRATIONAL EPIGRAPH AWARD

AND THE WINNER IS: The following idiotic saying:

"Shoot for the moon, because even if you fail, you'll be among the stars."

What kind of d*ckheaded, sh*t-for-brains parent, teacher, friend or loved one would EVER tell this to someone else? For those of you without even a hint of a working knowledge of the universe beyond your toaster oven, the moon is 238,857 miles from the Earth. So if you're shooting for the moon, you're already at a sizeable disadvantage. But even the closest star in the Sun, which is a mind-blowing 93,000,000 f*cking miles from the Earth. And the closest star after that is Proxima Centauri, a mere eleventy-kajillion (exact scientific terminology) miles from Earth. And those are the two closest stars in our galaxy…out of 100,000,000,000 f*cking stars. So when you say the above to someone, you're actually telling them, "Shoot for the moon, because even if you fail, you'll float dumbly and helplessly into an airless void that will suffocate you in less than 60 seconds way, way f*cking far away from anything resembling a star."

RUNNER UP: "Dance like no one's watching, sing like no one's listening, and love like it's the last f*cking guy who will ever talk to you."

Or however that one goes. This is actually the most annoying quote of the Young Century, because everyone with a vagina – especially if it's a sorority vagina – has driven this ditty into the ground and made it toxically intolerable. New Rule – you're only allowed to use this quote if you amend it in the following ways: "Dance like you're not perceived as a troglodyte, f*ck like there ain't no AIDS, and eat like you don't care about how fat you're getting."

BIGGEST D*UCHEBAG ON THE PLANET AWARD

ATWIS: Anyone who overuses any portion of online slang, specifically anyone who has ever used, is currently using, or has ever thought remotely about the possibility of using the term "pwning" in response to another's misfortune. Don't know what "pwning" is, though you're pretty sure you've seen it somewhere? That's what I thought about six months ago, so I read this to understand the fuss. Go ahead, check it out on your own. I'll grant a reprieve just for this.

You back? Good. Now…here we go…ARE YOU KIDDING ME? God, you Internet Assh*les are unreal in your nerditry. Your Loser Readings are off the f*cking charts, man. And don't even get me started about the whole "First" phenomenon, something else I had to look up to make it make sense, and even then it made less sense: on popular Internet Message Boards, certain fat, stupid, worthless trolls will sit at their console hitting Refresh until a new topic pops up, and then, without responding to what the post is actually about, simply type "FIRST!" and "claim" that #1 response as theirs. It's a badge of honor for anti-social geeks. Seriously, no one could make this stuff up. It's the equivalent of showing up at McDonald's every day at 4AM, waiting until they open at six, then running in and running out without buying anything – and still being a fat virgin.

RUNNERS-UP: All pedophiles. And just below them are all the Pittsburgh Steelers/Baltimore Ravens fans. But not far below.

LOUDEST, MOST INCORRECT WHINER AWARD

ATWIS: Every Mayan group who protested the opening of Mel Gibson's APOCALYPTO. In case you hadn't heard, at least two Mayan Advocacy Groups (try to diffuse your shock in finding out that modern Mayans have not just one but at least TWO advocacy groups) publicly, vocally expressed their displeasure with Mel Gibson. Not because he's a drunk. Not because he called a cop "sugar-t*ts". Not because he hates the Jews. No no, my friends. The Mayans hate Mel Gibson because – drumroll – he dared to depict the Mayans, at the tail-end of their aboriginal culture, as a group that might have once been capable of savagery.

Good Yum Cimil, say it ain't so! How dare that Aussie b*stard portray your people as bloodthirsty killers who participated in ritual human sacrifice and feuded with neighboring clans in gangland-style turfwars that so weakened your people as a whole that the Conquistadores bowled over you like Rockbiters. Blasphemer! In a related story, a group of modern, Anti-Reconstructionist Southern Rednecks have called for a ban on all DVD and VHS copies of ROOTS, claiming that it makes them appear to have once been slave owners.

RUNNER-UP: Any Christian who's still, for some indeterminate illogical reason, opposed to gay people getting hitched. Yeah, because two dudes wearing rings and f*cking in Martha's Vineyard are the reason your Emo son is addicted to cutting himself on Tuesdays.

HOTTEST FEMALE OF THE YEAR AWARD

ATWIS: This one was a close race, and God knows I have eclectic tastes in this realm. I vacillated heavily, I'll have you know, and plenty of chicks who didn't make the cut got serious consideration, Keeley Hazell (NSFW), Sarah Shahi and Elin Grindemyr being high on that list. But ultimately it came down to just three ladies…with Sophia Bush (she's the one in the middle, in case you're a moron) edging out Rachel Bilson (a little too skinny) and Marla Sokoloff (too many bad memories of THE PRACTICE). Adorable little Marla made it neck-and-neck down the stretch when she decided to grow out her hair and become full-on bangable, but Ms. Bush A) got rid of her loser husband via annulment and B) might as well be an exact, to-scale embodiment of My Type. So congratulations, Sophia – you've just won yourself the affection of a fat writer wannabe who never leaves his room!

RUNNERS-UP: Most Asians
SECOND RUNNERS-UP: Most half-Asians.

ALBUM OF THE YEAR AWARD

ATWIS: I don't care if you're a music elitist and you think I don't know what I'm talking about. The album I enjoyed the most this year was WHATEVER PEOPLE SAY I AM, THAT'S WHAT I'M NOT by the Arctic Monkeys. Not only are they great to listen to, but that's one of the Top Five Album Titles ever.

RUNNER-UP: Not f*cking Panic! At the Disco, I can tell you that f*cking much. My hatred and loathing for them are well documented and I could go on at length about just how much, but I found a way to circumvent such a repetitive diatribe so that all of you might understand, concisely, how deep my anathema for these cretins flows:

I hate them so much more then I ever dared to hate LFO.

Take it, print it, run with it, attribute it to me.

MOVIE OF THE YEAR AWARD

ATWIS: I dug the sh*t out of THE FOUNTAIN. I would love to talk more about it and dissect it down to its last celluloid nub, but it's absolutely pointless if you haven't seen it. Judging by the box office receipts none of you did, making you all total and irrevocable fools.

RUNNERS-UP: LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, THE DEPARTED, LITTLE CHILDREN, JESUS CAMP

WORST TREND AWARD

ATWIS: Just happened two days ago, and, Christ on a Cracker, was it annoying. If you did it you know who you are. I'm not going to call anyone out by name because the list would be long and damning, but I think you can all hang your heads in shame if you sent out a mass-"Merry Xmas" message to all your friends on the morning of 25 December. And not by email.

No, no. You, sirs and madams, are far bigger pr*cks than that: you sent out a motherf*cking mass-cell phone text.

I've never seen anything like it. Christmas morning, as I lay in sweet and uncompromised repose, my mobile starts going off like R2-D2 in a robotic brothel…and every time for a 100% forced, impersonal, two-word acknowledgment. Sure, I could have turned off my phone (as someone was dense enough to bring to my attention), but that's not the f*cking point, is it? Some of you I love dearly and I still want to strangle you until your windpipe buckles in my clenched palms. Don't f*cking do it again. That's a warning. That's a threat. That's a promise.

RUNNER-UP: Anyone under the age of 20 on MySpace. Please stop ruining this for me.

BEST NAME AWARD

ATWIS: DajLeon (Male) and Tschelinda (Female)

RUNNERS-UP: The names I've hand-picked in advance for my two children: Cuisinartimus (Male) and La'DishwallaTron (Gender Non-Specific).

(EDITOR'S NOTE: The Benadryl I've loaded up on has really kicked in at this point, so the likelihood that this already mediocre entry is headed downhill is…strong to quite strong. If you want to leave right now I understand, but I'm committed to this and I'm going to press on. A bad sign: I had to backspace and retype this paragraph nine times in total to bring it to just-barely-average grammatical standard. God Help Us.)

THE "SURE, I MIGHT HAVE KNOWN YOU WERE A MALE PROSTITUE AND BOUGHT DRUGS OFF OF YOU, BUT I FLUSHED THEM DOWN THE TOILET AND LEFT OUR SEEDY, SECLUDED MOTEL ROOM WHEN I REALIZED THIS WASN'T AN HONEST 'MASSAGE'" LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

ATWIS: Of course, Ted Haggard.
RUNNER-UP: Mark Foley
SECOND RUNNER-UP: Kevin Federline

BEST MOUTH-PISSER-INNER AWARD

ATWIS: R. Kelly.

What? Alright, so he didn't pee on anyone this year – and it's not that we know he didn't, because he very well could have, it's just that we don't have video evidence of the act – but I still have to give out this award, don't I? Look, if you're unhappy about it I see where you're coming from, but until Gnarls Barkley or Nelly takes occasion to crap violently on a hermaphroditic midget, he's on the hook.

RUNNER-UP: Thankfully there's only one Mr. R. Kelly.

THE FIGURE FROM MY CHILDHOOD WHO I'D LEAST LIKE TO SEE MAKE A HOMEMADE PORN AWARD

ATWIS: If we had held these awards last year Screech would have run with this in a landslide, but he had to go and f*ck that all up. Not only am I retroactively damaged psychologically, the last pieces of my fragile and ambiguous innocence stripped away, but it's always bad news when you watch porn and think, "Dude…I have a bigger d*ck than you." Especially when Screech was bold enough to claim on Howard Stern's show that it was a monster…and you know, honestly, that your zipper is not holding back a monster.

That in mind, I'm taking Jaleel White.

RUNNER-UP: Raven Symone. And not by much.

BEST HAIR AWARD

ATWIS: Tony Sirico, AKA Paulie Walnuts of THE SOPRANOS. Yeah, The Donald has an incredible coiffure, but I challenge you take a look at this picture closely and tell me how the f*ck Mr. Sirico gets his hair to stay like that. Seriously, look closely. YOU CAN SEE CLEAN THROUGH TO HIS SCALP! What kind of atomic f*cking hairspray is this guy on? He's taking, literally, the last 100 strands of hair on his head and turning them into a pompadour that would make Elvis soil his sequined bellbottoms. I can't be the only one to be totally enraptured with this phenomenon much less the only one who's noticed it. To be fair, it's less of a hairstyle and more a gravity-defying singularity that should be explored and studied during the next NASA mission. Preferably when the astronauts are shooting for the moon and realizing their wisecracking grandfathers lied to them about failing in the f*cking non-existent stars.

RUNNER-UP: THE Donald Trump. C'mon, obviously.

BEST SUGAR-FREE SOFT DRINK

ATWIS: Diet Sunkist. For those of you who are diabetic (or damn close, like myself), the battle to reconcile not only your sugar intake but internal sugar balance is a daily struggle. Plus…everything that has the sugar removed generally tastes like a cardboard facsimile of the genuine article. Diet Coke? B*tch, please. Pepsi One? Surely you jest, motherf*cker. And don't get me started on Tab, a failed 80's fluke that's somehow still alive and well. Don't believe me? Keep an eye peeled for six packs in your local Walgreen's. Oh yeah. They show up.

Fortunately, if you like orange soda, Diet Sunkist tastes almost exactly like the real thing. It's summarily wonderful in every way. Go out. Try it. You'll not only be surprised, you'll be pretty excited. However, soon after, depression will set in when you realize that A) you're excited to be drinking Diet Sunkist and B) that I got you excited about drinking Diet Sunkist.

What can I tell you? It's a dark, hollow world in which we live.

RUNNER-UP: Maybe I should kill myself.

And the Granddaddy of them all…

THE MOMENT OF THE YEAR AWARD

ATWIS: The Tigersuit Dancer at Amagi.

Though my year was filled with some pretty ominous low moments, I have to say that, as usual, all the good stuff ended up quelling the bad. At the top of the Good Stuff List is something that occurred one balmy April night at my favorite bar, Amagi.

A young man is called to the stage. He's pudgy. Casually dressed. Unassuming. However, he wins my attention immediately as I hear WALK THE DINOSAUR by Was (Not Was) begin to play – it's a song that takes me back in the day to when it was a closet favorite; I'd request that it be played during all skating parties at the local roller-rink. And just as all those fourth-grade memories start to flow back in…BAM!, the dude rips off his shirt and the tear-away windpants he's wearing.

This reveals a skintight, low-cut, Spandex tiger suit. Think Tigger without the Bill Cowher head – and with "GRRRRRR" written across the ass. Before we even have time to process what's happening, he's pelvic thrusting in the face of a girl in the front row, seeming to dare to hit her in the face with his undulating man-package. The laughter finally starts to spew out of us as he accosts more females, but somehow the best is yet to come.

During a four-count, solo drumbeat portion of the song, The Tigersuit Dancer smacks his crotch one…two…three times…and then, on the fourth and penultimate flog, perfectly in rhythm…a small red light begins to flash rapidly Right on his penis. Right on it. When the song ends, he gathers his clothes and runs for the door.

No one ever sees him again. It was over before it began, so fast that no one was able to react to the sight with any true clarity until about a week later, when we'd all convinced ourselves that, yes, it had actually happened. I wonder if he knows he succeeded in his mission, because here we are, still talking about him. Well, Tigersuit Dancer, if you're out there, take pride.

You're the Best of 2006. I don't know if someone or something will top you in 2007, but I'm betting that it's going to be a hell of a year if they do.

WATCH AS I NEED THINGS FROM YOU

2006-11-22T11:40:00.000-08:00

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Body: So I've been in LA for almost three years now. For almost all of that time I've been pretending to be a writer, and now I figure is the time to do something about that. So I'm going to stop pretending.

I'm staying in LA over Thanksgiving to little other than write. I will be writing a screenplay. It will be good. It will be twisted. And I need some help.

Have you ever been to a movie where two people in a relationship are having a fight, and you know that either of them could say one PERFECT thing that would win them the fight or make their point...and they never say it? I hate that. And I want to avoid it.

I want you to email me excerpts of fights you've had with your significant other. It doesn't have to be verbatim, and besides, no matter what you send me I'm going to shake it up and put my own spin on it anyway. One-liners, great insults, dropped bombs - anything that sticks out in your head as a really classic throw-down. But what I want even more than that is for you to tell me what you WISH you had said at the time, that one last "F*ck You" that would have won you the row, signed sealed and delivered.

Air it all out for me. I want the dirty laundry. Send your best to goosetown@gmail.com when you have a second this week. If your quip ends up in my screenplay you'll get nothing...but you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you finally told that b*tch/assh*le off.

PROBABLY NOT SAFE FOR WORK. BUT FUNNY.

2006-10-16T15:41:00.000-07:00

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So my good friend Sheyanne today dropped off my belated birthday gift. It's from her and another good friend, Fess. When I first heard that they had procured a joint gift for me, I should have been worried. I should have expected the worst.

I don't even know what to do with myself now, but I can tell you I am barricaded in my room and not about to step foot outside again.

Here's a picture of the gem that landed on my doorstep earlier this afternoon:

That's right, the ever sought-after Hustler Asian Fever Shanghai Nights Vibrating Cyberskin Anal Stroker (TM) is now in my house, marking not only my very first vibrator-based sexual toy, but my first sexual toy of any kind and the item with the longest product name ever produced anywhere in the world.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: I haven't yet looked, but my guess as to where this was made has come down to Hong Kong and Taiwan, though Thailand is clearly a darkhorse, right? If you'd like to place a bet with yourself as to its manufactured inception, do it now...

...

...

...

OK, checking...F*CK! China?!?!?!?!?! They're mass-producing a quaking synthetic anus in a Communist Dictatorship? Well...will wonders never cease.)

Look at that picture. Not only does it look like someone cut off a toddler's arm at the bicep, but the point of rectal origin looks like the sand monster in RETURN OF THE JEDI. And this is only the outset of the horror that is to befall you should you ever receive one. Eventually, looking at this thing, you get to the point where you HAVE to open it - just on pure, unbridled curiosity. I tell you this, friends: it is a move you will regret with the stunning, awful clarity that comes with the realization of the all poor choices you make in life.

Upon manual and optic inspection of the HAFSNVCAS, as I'm calling it, it's horrifying. It has an incredibly disturbing jellylike quality that instantly sent shivers up my spine. It looks and feels like something that dwells at the bottom of a deep, muddy lake, a cosmic joke that God decided to play on some poor, innocent creature. It smells like I can only assume that creature smells. And - though it doesn't seem to be inherently aqueous - it's slippery, like holding a marinated steak. Squeezing it even slightly produces a sound that's not unlike the flat packing thud your balls make when they accidentally slap against your thigh on a humid summer day.

I have an absolutely morbid desire to stick my finger inside it, as there's a diagram and illustration on the back of the box that claims it to be anatomically correct - shaped like the inside of the real Back Nine. However, the illustration used makes the orifice look like a series of engine pistons connected by an increasingly cone-shaped pole. This is not a pleasant image. And yet...I can't stop thinking about jamming my thumb in there. Just to find out.

The truth is, though, that - and I don't want to sound ungrateful here - I am scared to hell of this thing. Just absolutely terrified. I left it out in the living room, and I honestly don't think I can go back out there. I'm serious. Please don't think I'm joking. I am legitimately afraid. It's watching me. Judging. I'm pretty sure it knows all of my secrets.

So thanks, Sheyanne and Fess. Incidentally, if any of you want to know what it's like to have nightmares about squishy fake anuses chasing you down dark alleys, gimme a call tomorrow.

BREAKDANCE FIGHTING WITH EVERYTHINGLORI.COM

2006-10-02T14:00:00.000-07:00

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Glorious.

First of all, before you read this entry, make sure you're familiar with my GREY'S ANATOMY rant (which can be found a few posts below) and then head over to EverythingLori to read a recent response that my opinions generated.

While Lori makes some good points, she also makes some obvious observations that neither bolster her stance nor do much to detract from mine as intended. There's a little bit of overstatement in some of her exclamations, but I think it's more for aesthetic effect than it is actual belief...and clearly, I'm not one to shy away from exaggeration, so I'm not about to sit here so blackly and make claims against the kettle.

One of the things I want to point out immediately, though, is that everyone who read my initial post on the matter seems to have glossed over all of the glowing things I said about SEX AND THE CITY. Don't make the mistake of assuming that I in any way, shape or form put that show in the same category with GREY'S ANATOMY. It's not. SEX AND THE CITY was incredibly well-written and, as far as I can infer (being a male), insightful as to the manner in which it explored the female psyche and romance in general. GREY'S ANATOMY, on the other hand, sucks at everything in those realms. The only correlation I wished to draw between the two was that I don't want to hear about them. As good as SATC was and as talented as the writers appeared to be, the subject matter didn't interest me, so I didn't want to watch the show. And if I didn't want to watch the show - and that's exactly what I tell people when the topic is brought up - what makes you think I want to hear about why you liked it so much and, therefore, the reasons why my opinion is wrong?

I went back over that post three times to make sure I was clear about that. And I was clear about that. And yet somehow everyone who's "read" it doesn't seem to have actually "read" it. Strange, that.

Onto my thoughts on Lori's ruminations...

Look, for the most part I don't care what you ladies like. I'd love to be able to attach the most emotional parts of my soul to a generic ensemble drama. I would be infinitely happier if I wasn't hamstrung by this awful, discerning demon called "good taste". And I'm happy that Lori admits, for the general all of you, that you are manipulated by this material. Hey, if you get something out of it, that's the knees of the bee, and I'm being sincere when I say that you should take it and run with it.

But let's be honest here. A point was offered that there was an emotional connection made with the title character when her love interest dumps her for his wife in a certain scene from the show, and that this is somehow tantamount to the writers seeing into the very hearts of the female viewers.

I'll just go ahead and type through the act of throwing up in my mouth.

Look, every girl has been dumped, and most of the time it probably sucks. Many of you have been dumped by someone you cared about and it hurt. That's life, and I'm not knocking it. It's also something that has happened to just about everyone, and therefore it's not remarkable...so what's the big deal? You relate to this character on a level that makes some of you cry for hours because she got ditched? Hey, look, I don't like to shave, I'm a fan of drinking, and I've been on boats before, but that doesn't mean I relate to being a cop because I watched Colin Farrell in MIAMI VICE.

Just because someone took a common situation, applied general language to a fictional conversation and threw in some moody music doesn't mean this show is really that much like your life. Of course you relate to certain themes in the show. That's because the writers are writing not to create good drama, but to trick you into a false sense of validity because they've, miraculously, taken a situation that's applied to everyone and managed to melodramaticize it. And, congrats, you appear to buy it every time. The measuring stick for this show comes when you hear ten girls say how much they relate to the title character...and you realize that these ten girls are nothing alike, they just share common experiences like any other humans. It'd be the same thing if ten guys standing around in a bar all expressed the fact that they liked to play with boobs and then decided that, because of this astounding coincidence, they must be related.

But look, if you really want to believe that you have deep emotional and behavioral ties to Meredith Grey, I'm not here to tell you to stop doing so. By all means, grab your Kleenex every week and commiserate. But don't jump down my throat when I tell you that the show's writing sucks, because it sucks. And don't try to convert me. My overall point was that trying to talk to guys about either of these shows past the most basic stages is a waste of your f*cking time. Yes - almost every guy. It's not that we don't care about you, probably, but that we just don't care an iota about the drivel on TV that turns you into a babbling mouth-breather. Damn kids, I'm only trying to help here, and my charitable efforts are met with nothing but vitriol.

Yes, just so I can blatantly state what you're all going to harp on anyway, women are the people who keep most of the junk alive. Programs like GA along with serials like DAYS OF OUR LIVES and crap romantic comedies like FAILURE TO LAUNCH. I'm not blaming you for your poor choices in scripted fiction and I'm not telling you to stop watching. I'm just saying I don't want you to think that it's all somehow relevant or artistically sound just because it's popular, and I don't want you to think that I have any reason, as a logical, cognitive mammal, to agree with you.

I don't think Lori much cares for my writing - tone, subject matter, or both - and that's perfectly OK, since I'm guessing most people don't. Judging by my hit counter I'm irrelevant on a staggering scale, and Lori's readership dwarfs mine on an exponential level, I'm willing to bet. But she fired off a brief email to alert me to her latest post and, at the very beginning, included a thinly-veiled dig that said, "You didn't get the best response from my readers." It was followed by a quoted excerpt from one of - what I can only assume represents a veritable plethora of - her readers. It explained that they didn't like my writing and couldn't get through it. And that I seemed angry.

Now I certainly don't think it was meant to be insulting, but more of a gentle dig like, "That's right, tough guy. You're not as topical as you think, are you?" However, I submit this to you, my seven readers who come here each day with loyalty in your hearts: nothing could have made me happier. The way I figure it, if I'm laboring to make this wordsmything a career and I'm garnering lackadaisical apathy from fans of GREY'S ANATOMY...

I'm on the dead-right f*cking track. And I must be a better writer than I ever hoped!

RACIST SURVIVOR, EPISODE III: WHY YOU F*CK ME LIKE THAT?

2006-09-29T16:30:00.000-07:00

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(EDITOR'S NOTE: Hi, friend. If this is your first time to GooseTown and you haven't read any of the other Racist SURVIVOR entries...go back and read them. Specifically the first one. I'm all for hate mail - seriously, if you have a desire to send hate mail PLEASE follow through on it - but I'd prefer that it's in context and you have the first clue what you're talking about. It's all I ask. It's not much, really. Can we agree on that? Super. Enjoy yourself. Thanks.)

Well...g*ddamn you, CBS and Mark Burnett Productions. G*ddamn you straight to Hell.

All the hype. All the fabricated angst. All the bellyaching by whiney minority groups. Racist SURVIVOR could have been the best reality show ever. F*ck me running - it could have been the greatest TV show ever. Racial dysfunction. Societal chaos. And you had to go and tinker with it, you frightened little b*stards.

I AM ANGRY.

For those of you that didn't watch the show last night, here's the gist: the SURVIVOR Producers (hereafter to be known as the C*ckless Pack of Sonsab*tches), not satisfied with the most fantasticest setup ever for reality television and dead-set on ruining everything that was wonderful with the current incantation, decided to break the teams down. Instead of Whites, Blacks, Asians and Hispanics, there would now just be two tribes.

I'll let you guess how they split them up.

Did they have to split them up? NO! F*CK NO! G*DDAMNED YOU INBRED F*CKS!!!!!!! Jesus, if you're going to take away the very heart and soul of this section of my current masterpiece, at least do something intelligent like pair up the Asians and Blacks (the best and worst teams, respectively) and the Whites and Hispanics (the middlers). Then there could still be discord! There could still be strife! There could be the blatant opportunity for a contagious bout of ethnocentric squabbling! And I could reap the rewards! ALL OF THEM!!!!!!

Instead, the overly-delicate CPSs pandered to the very whims of the mouth-breathing d*uches who called for racial "justice" and had the teams divided into two astoundingly PC megatribes, Raro [Adam (W), Brad (A), Cristina (L), Jenny (A), JP (L), Nathan (B), Parvati (W), Rebecca (B) and Stephanie (B)] and Aitu [Becky (A), Candice (W), Cao Boi (A), Cecilia (L), Jessica (W), Jonathan (W), Ozzy (L), Sundra (B) and Yul (A)]. Aw, how f*cking cute - it's like that multi-ethnic high school that we're always supposed to believe existed because that's how they cast it on 7th HEAVEN!

Blow me, you spineless motherf*ckers. NOW YOU JUST HAVE REGULAR SURVIVOR, YOU WHORE HALFWITS!

What am I supposed to do now? Judge these people on the content of their character rather than the color of their skin? What f*cking fun is that? Now I'm actually going to have to WORK to push racial stereotypes down your throats. I can't pander to these d*ckfaced, hobo getups like the NAACP and...you know, whatever alliance the Mexicans have. It probably involves about 50 of them and a '72 Chevy Nova, but that's not the point!

At first I considered disbanding this entire subsection of my Blog, but then I steeled my resolve. These jerks can't break me down! They can't silence me by simply shifting positions! I am a man with fake-racist opinions and insights! My pretend-hate speech needs to be absorbed by the masses!

So I shall not give up on this show and I shall not give up on you, Dear Reader. I shall not give up on all Seven of you (up from my previous Three, proving that this Blog was making rather popular with the masses). Give me a week to collect my thoughts, regroup, stop crying, masturbate 214 times...and I'll be back with a vengeance.

Some notes on this week's "Episode":

--After being broken down into the two Tribes mentioned above, there was a very stupid Immunity Challenge easily won by Raro. It sucked, but on the upswing, it proved that the Women can't hang even close physically with the Men. Hopefully, this will become a running theme. Listen, chicks: until you can carry a measly fifteen pounds of sand without collapsing like a tent in a hurricane, best to avoid all of this bullsh*t "equality" talk, eh? We already made the mistake of letting you drive - how about you don't push your luck?

--If this season's goal is to provide us with some of the worst editing in TV history, Racist SURVIVOR is well on its way to a winner. Yes, I understand that we needed to know that Becky and Yul were going to try to work with Jonathan and Candice and Jessica/Flicka, but do we need to see them talk about it for five minutes? These are easily the two most boring people on the entire planet. Corpses have had more lively debate. The epitome of this comes when Yul tells Becky he has the Immunity Idol - the biggest Ace Up the Sleeve (TM) in all of SURVIVOR - and she barely cracks a smile.

This goes a long way towards proving my theory that the smaller your eyes get, the less interesting you are. Of course on the other end of the spectrum we've got Cao Boi and anyone involved in Korean Cinema, so this might take a little more research. Give me time.

--Jonathan is a penis. God, I hate this guy. He's proving a maxim that Colored People (TM) (and I'm not just going after the Blacks here, but anyone who's not perf...er, I mean...White) have known for ages: anyone that looks like Jean Reno and sounds like Alan Alda CANNOT be trusted under any circumstances. What a horribly unlikable human being. I just want everyone to know that not all writers suck on the level he does.

--Parvati is an enigma. Actually that's not true - she's pretty easy to figure out. When she's not smiling she's crazy hot, and when she is smiling she looks like she's yelling into a wind tunnel. You know what I mean? Like if you put a vacuum cleaner up to your face and the blast of air spreads your mouth out so you look all gums? Parvati is all gums, and MAN, is that a disturbing sight. Check out her bio on cbs.com - yikes! And that's only about half-power! You know the photographer was like, "Um, you know what? How about you don't look too happy, OK? I don't want to throw up in the middle of a shoot. Seriously. Dial it back a bit."

You sense it's bad when Nathan is constantly drawn towards her...right up until she smiles, and then he sails off in the other direction. And this is a guy that you just know has a least a Master's in Banging White Chicks.

--Oh, yeah...Candice was sent to Exile Island and Cecilia was hamstrung at Tribal Council and sent packing. Yay. Rah.

OK, so look...this was a down week for all of us. Let's regroup and meet back here late next Thursday night. This week I'm going to think up some new epithets, channel some good bigot energy, maybe have a double-feature Wednesday that includes TRIUMPH OF THE WILL and MALCOLM X.

I'll back stronger than ever, even if Racist SURVIVOR goes the way of the Dodo. And slavery.

Why must everything good die?

RACIST SURVIVOR, EPISODE II: MY PRIZE WAS HER

2006-09-22T02:35:00.001-07:00

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Before launching into an ethically-relevant tangent on this week's episode, I'd like to address two points from my last blog:

1) It's been pointed out to me that "Honky" is not spelled with an "e" before the "y". I have confirmed this via The Internets (TM). First, two things: I guess I had never seen "honky" typed out before, and I can't believe there's an English standard for "honky".

Nevertheless, the Black Folks will continue to be called TEAM ANTI-HONKEY, because, as we well know, "those people" can't spell. So what difference does it make?

2) Someone sent me an email to tell me that TEAM WHITEBREAD wasn't racist enough for my blog, especially considering the names I gave to other tribes. Upon review this seems to me to be entirely correct; I want to offend my people as equally as I offend all of "you people".

As such, TEAM WHITEBREAD will now be known as TEAM TRAILER PARK (because TEAM FUTURE SEX OFFENDER just didn't roll off the tongue/keyboard very well...and sounded too much like an awesome robotic superhero).

Onto the Episode II recap...

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--Still stewing after their first Immunity Challenge loss (but not over the loss of Sekou, really), Team Anti-Honkey heads back to their camp a little dejected, but with flint and metal to start a fire. It takes them roughly the length of an average Middle Passage to get it burning. Which begs the question...how is this possible?

You've got your flint, you've got your steel, you've got your kindling...and it takes you a day and a half to procure but one small flame? Yet, ten minutes after the NBA Finals concludes, you manage to set the nearest city on fire like it's f*cking Bastille Day. With nothing but a few empty Bic lighters and a warm case of Colt 45.

Someone explain this to me.

--Over at Team Tortilla, Cristina tries to tell everyone that was shot several times in the arm because she's a "cop".

And she may be a cop - though, I mean...c'mon, let's not get carried away here - but you know you were all thinking something WAY different when she was talking about being shot. I don't think I even have to say it.

But I will: "Cholo floozy!" Oh, aren't those Latinas bonitas ALWAYS standing around gabbing at drive-by primetime? Dios mio.

In an ongoing saga, Billy does nothing but lay around, expertly attempting to become the first SURVIVOR Castaway to gain weight on the show, and Cristina develops an ever-growing chip on her shoulder at Ozzy. How DARE that b*stard know how to do things and help out the entire team! I wouldn't trust that sonsab*tch either, Cristina. If I were you I would just watch him work, have fifteen babies and get a bad perm.

--In a turn of events that should come as no surprise, Yul builds Team Confucius a trap that catches THREE F*CKING CHICKENS AT THE SAME TIME. Jesus! He used a box and a coconut and a f*cking stick! Seriously, how dumb do these little jackals make you feel?

Think about this question as an American: is there ANY logical reason you can think of to NOT elect an Asian President? Any Asian. Or, OK, any Asian not associated with the Yakuza. Seriously, any reason? Think about the advantages: we'd kick other countries' asses in all academic fields; we'd rule the world with a quiet yet intimidating confidence; the chances of a nunchaku attack on the Queen of England skyrocket; our finances would be through the roof; perhaps most importantly, the President has his own personal driver, meaning there's one less Automotive Nuclear Disaster (TM) driving our streets.

Wait...no, this one is more important: every red-blooded American male of any other ethnicity can come home from the worst day of his life and rest comfortably, smiling, knowing that, at the very least, he has a bigger c*ck than the leader of the Free World.

Someone tell me I'm wrong.

--Meanwhile, Team Trailer Park argues what structure to sleep on and whether or not building it makes any sense. This riveting banter makes a three-minute scene feel like Moses' trek up Sinai and sends White people everywhere into self-conscious fits of, "Are we really all this f*cking boring?"

Minority friends: if I'm that base and vanilla...I mean, you would tell me, right? I'm starting to feel like the party starts only when we leave the room. Am I this droll? I'm starting to freak out. Holy sh*t, we gave the world CARROT TOP! Hey, I know, let's fight over wet sand and f*cking palm fronds. Good call, you pouting, self-loathing Casperites. God, I'm worried. I would so much rather be Red Foxx than Milton Berle. Someone want to trade with me?

Side Note #1: Jessica (Flicka) is f*cking turning me on. She's cute, she rocks the pigtails, and she's wearing g*ddamn thigh-highs all over the island. That's it, I tap out; she can have me.

Side Note #2: After getting in a totally p*ssified man-squabble with Adam that should have seen both parties donning white wigs and b*tch-slapping each other with prissy white gloves, Jonathan goes skulking down the beach to write the shortest book of all time: NEGROES I'VE MET WHILE YACHTING.

Onto the Immunity Challenge...

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--Each team is given a clue to the challenge that involves a cryptic note and a set of shackles.

(Wait for it...)

(Wait for it...)

BLACK PEOPLE HATE SHACKLES BECAUSE THEY WERE SLAVES!!!! After writing this episode, did the Producers just take the script over to Rosa Parks's grave, drop it on the ground, and piss on it while singing OLD MAN RIVER? HOLY GOD!!!!!!!!

(Sorry, I tried to be much more diplomatic than that. I'll try to control myse...)

COTTON COTTON ELI WHITNEY UNCLE TOM!!!!!!

(F*CK! I don't know where that came from.)

--Team Tortilla gets together before the challenge and decides that they're going to throw it so they can get Billy off their team. Everyone but - amazingly - Cristina, is onboard. What a peach, that one. But the team has the right idea. Ah, duping the fat Latino and then booting him off the show - what we're now retroactively calling the Lorne Michaels Secret Handshake (TM).

(EDITOR'S NOTE: Don't you EVER use the term "the Lorne Michaels Secret Handshake" in that context and not give me credit because that is f*cking GENIUS and I shall reap the rewards for it as such. Mark my words. GOD I am high on myself right now. If you don't know why this is funny, try to guess which castmember will be missing from SNL this season. I can't believe I just had to explain that to you. You make me sick.)

--The Immunity Challenge is a toweringly boring combination of fitting into (and through) cramped spaces and memorizing some bullsh*t about Captain Cook, whom no one has cared about ever. The entire explanation of the event is a protracted segue to an eventuality that can be summed up in one simple phrase: "The Asians are going to f*cking destroy the rest of you."

Incredibly, the Asians f*cking destroy the rest of them. Actually that's not entirely correct; Trailer Park technically "ties" Confucius, but you could tell the cat-eaters were in cruise control the whole way. Meanwhile, Team Tortilla doesn't even TRY to make it look like they're not throwing the competition, and Anti-Honkey still just barely beats them...and then celebrates like it's 1804 and they've made it to the North. Team Trailer Park scratches their collective heads, wondering why Accounting degrees don't translate into raw athleticism.

But the most important facet of the event comes as it ends and Billy looks over at the Trailer Parkers, announcing, "I'm next." Trying to console him, Candice replies, "Well...we love you!"

To which Billy, stunned into submission, barely eeks out, "I love you," then proceeds to suck in his neck and smile sinisterly like a White guy who lives in a van with no windows and just fingerbanged his daughter. And liked it.

--The Tortillas vote Confucius' Yul to Exile Island. Yul shows up on EI, looks around for four minutes, consults a portrait of Mr. Miyagi and immediately finds the Hidden Immunity Idol.

Christ, these guys are phenomenal at g*ddamned everything. The other Tribes are so f*cked right now it's not even funny. We might be changing Team Confucius' name next week to Team Foregone Conclusion.

Onto the Tribal Council...

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--Back at camp, Billy makes an ill-advised attempt to sway the votes of Cristina and Cece; it doesn't work and he's voted off. But that's not the story.

OK, OK, so...remember the thing from before where I told you that Candice told Billy, "We love you," ("We" being the operative word there) and Billy said, "I love you," back? Well, forget f*cking everything else about this episode, because this is the sh*t right here:

In an fit of unbelievable miscommunication and irresponsible assumption bordering on pure, unbridled lunacy, Billy believes that he and Candice sweetly spoke Those Three Words (TM) to each other. He announces that he's OK with leaving because his reward for being on the show was that he made "a love connection" with Candice. HE BELIEVES THAT SHE WAS TELLING HIM SHE WAS IN LOVE WITH HIM. In his own mongrel, misbegotten - out of NOWHERE! - words:

"My prize wasn't even the million dollars. My prize was that I fell..I...I...I fell...I fehh...I fell in love in this game. Love at first sight. Her name is Candice...that was my prize. My prize was her."

Dead, spinning shock from everyone on the panel, including Probst, who nearly falls off his log. The look on his face is the same as it must have been when the doctor told him that he contracted The Herpes from Jeri Ryan, except with WAY more surprise this time.

For those of you who don't watch the show, please understand this: these Tribes don't spend any time with each other. Any. Time. They're together for about 20 minutes every three days for the Immunity Challenge, and even then they're communicating almost solely with their own team. This is important to consider because this proves that Billy, while not only being lazy and moody, has totally lost his f*cking mind. He took a forced, manufactured, barely-meant-it overture from someone he didn't know at all and assumed she was in love with him.

MOTHERF*CK! What a way to end the show, man. I don't even need to make a racial joke here. Perhaps that's what we've learned this week: sticks and stones may break our bones, but f*cking crazy people trump racial profiling.

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WEEK TWO STANDINGS

FIRST PLACE - Team Confucius. Nowhere to go but down, and yet they'll probably design something to take them higher. I fear them and their bird flu.
SECOND PLACE - Team Trailer Park. Being in second means nothing; everyone is now vying for "First Loser" Status (TM). What a pathetic bunch. Dumb, feeble and boring; that 401K doesn't mean sh*t out in the wild, does it, you maladjusted pr*cks?
THIRD PLACE - Team Anti-Honkey. Eventually it's going to come out that the Producers intentionally gave them the worst team in SURVIVOR history, leading to something we're all waiting patiently to see unfold: the battle over Reality TV Reparations.
FOURTH PLACE - Team Tortilla. This whole Billy thing is going to drag them down like property values in the barrio. Can Ozzy save them?

Tune in next Friday when we'll be debuting a new weekly feature: The Pointless Ramblings of Dave "Evil Ways" Neustadter, Racist Half-Jew.

Until then...tally-ho.

TWO THINGS YOU FEMALES NEED TO STOP DOING - NOW

2006-09-18T17:58:00.000-07:00

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Yesterday was a bad day on several levels - the least of which was football, which just dug a spear in my side and continued to twist all day - and even though today is much better, there's some ancillary anger and frustration brewing.

What better reason, then, to write a short, boiling blog about two monumentally annoying behaviors that have spiked in popularity lately?

I'm pointing the finger at you, ladies, because you're almost always - at a rate of about 96% - the purveyors of these two acts. And don't look at this as me coming down on you; look at this as me trying to help. Because every time you do either of these two things, you look stupid. To me. To your friends. And to everyone that's within earshot. There's eye-rolling and mocking that you can't see or hear, but trust me...it's there. Half the time it's coming from females that do they exact same two things, but they're either too stupid or too self-deluded to realize the fact.

With that in mind, please do the following:

1) Stop Talking to Guys About GREY'S ANATOMY

None of us care. Not one of us. If a dude is actually listening to your bullsh*t story about "McDreamy" (seriously...that nickname should have been a red flag for you from the jump) and how the show "really speaks to you", he's doing so out of pity and/or trying to get laid. That's it. For Christ's sake, I have a guy friend who WORKS on the show and I don't think he even likes it. And he HAS to.

Let me go ahead and say something that should be pretty obvious to everyone now: chicks will watch any piece of crap put out there that's about relationships. Anything, no matter how bad it is. I've watched GREY'S ANATOMY. It's bad. It sucks quite a bit. But it follows an Obvious Female Maxim (TM): take a cliched, cookie-cutter female character (just to make every female viewer think her life applies in some way to that of the actor onscreen), put her in a love quandary (something that never REALLY happens to anyone - even though they believe it does) and set the story in a place where there's a high degree of sadness (Oh my Gosh! Like a hospital emergency room!).

Hook, line and sinker; somehow you fall for it every time.

I don't care if the show makes you cry every week. I don't want to hear the details. It's not bad to cry at shows; I myself cried at the last episode of SIX FEET UNDER. Even TV can get emotional. That's fine. But if you're calling your friends and crying three hours later, that's not good writing - you have a problem. And if this show is any indication...lots of you have problems. My suggestion? Go out and get some real, visceral life experience...because obviously something is lacking in that department for you.

Don't misunderstand me - there's good entertainment out there for women. SEX AND THE CITY was extremely well-written, if just too narrowly focused for most guys to enjoy. But even that show had a ceiling, and I hate it so for (one of the) exact same reason(s) I hate GA - women think that story somehow applies to their life.

Guess what? It doesn't. You're not a doctor. You don't have martinis every afternoon at 3PM with your three best girlfriends. And I know this hurts, but here's the truth: though some similar things may have happened to you in your life...this is make-believe. It's not great writing - you're just easily manipulated.

Some of you think that, because I'm a writer, I want to hear about the show. I don't. Not even a little bit. Not any more than I want to hear you quote the latest Tori Amos song (don't get me started on that) or gush about how much you love cheesecake. I don't bother you with Penn State and poker. So please seek to return the favor, if you could.

Luckily, I haven't heard anything about GA in the last few weeks. There hasn't been a single promo on TV. Really. I have no idea when the season premiere is. It could be Thursday, September 21st at 8/7 Central for all I know, but I can't verify that. Sandra Oh could be wearing red lingerie. I have no idea. And I don't, as a byproduct of all this, deeply loathe HOW TO SAVE A LIFE by The Fray. That song certainly doesn't make me want to shove knives into my ears!

2) Stop Using the Phrase "Bringing Sexy Back"

Stop it. Stop it now.

The first time someone used this phrase, apparently culled from a Justin Timberlake song that I've not yet heard, it might have been clever. It might have been relevant.

Whatever the case, the novelty was short-lived.

If you're applying this to ANYTHING right now - events, pictures, situations, people, etc. - you're a d*uche. It's not witty. It's not cute. It's just a vehicle used to showcase your lack of creativity and blindness to overconsumption. And most of you aren't sexy.

Hey, I like Justin Timberlake. I think most people, gun to their head, probably do. That's great. Why ruin what he's trying to put out there by being you? Maybe that's what I'm getting at - if you're so unoriginal as to use this phrase in any context, try not to be you. For the sake of the rest of us.

Wait, I know what you're going to say next:

"Well Geoff, I have to tell you that I DO know that the term has been overused as of late, and me using it is my reflexive way of being ironical. By saying it over and over I therefore recognize that its use has worn out and I am, in fact, being humorous."

The three things I would say to that are A) you're probably lying because I called you out and B) you have no idea how to be funny and C) I hate you to my very core.

Make it go away.

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I didn't write this rant for myself, people. Actually, that's a lie - I did You're all annoying me deeply. But in doing so I also speak for the male masses who would otherwise have no voice. Or would fail to use theirs. Because they're trying to get laid. Oh sure, they'll tell you I'm a sexist, I'm a misogynist, a bearer of untruths. But in their small, feeble hearts they'll be raising a fist to my words in admiration and shared pride.

All I do is tell you what's what - the reality of a world you don't want to believe exists outside of doctorly romances and neurosis. Consequences be damned. You know the timeless quote "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned"? Psssssh. Put a Scorned Woman up in a cage match against a Man Who Realizes He'll Likely Never Have Sex Again and see who has less to lose. Just in case you missed my metaphor...it would be the guy. And when you have nothing left to lose you have only what is and what isn't to express.

I am The Truth. I am The Light.

It's good to be back on top.

RACIST SURVIVOR, EPISODE I: KARMA IS A BIZZLE

2006-09-15T00:13:00.000-07:00

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First of all, if you are one of the people offended by the theme of the new season of SURVIVOR...please, ManJesus, f*ck off. It's television. And not even good television - it's sh*tty, manipulative reality television. It's a gimmick. Congratulations if you're pathetic enough to find it racially insensitive - you've just lowered yourself to a sub-human level.

It's for you people - and for my own personal amusement - that I give you my RACIST SURVIVOR BLOG SERIES.

In case you live under a rock (and that's a special rock if you've got Internet access - let's talk later), SURVIVOR made headlines this year because the show decided to divide the contestants up into four Tribes: Blacks, Asians, Hispanics, and Whiteys. A collection of reactions from various Ethnic Coalitions:

NAACP - "We don't like this! It's a new form of segregation!"
Hispanic Scholarship Fund - "There's no need to put our people through this again!"
National Asian Presbyterian Council - "Confucius say this outrage!"
White Cracker Board of Control - "We drive the Dodge Stratus!"

This show is a powderkeg. A potential microcosm of geopolitical and ethnocentric associations. A veritable smorgasbord for my satirical, apathetic mind. How could everything go so right?

My opinions on the first Episode:

--Within seconds of the Asians being first on their mangy raft, things are looking good. Team unity abounds. They're paddling like engineers should. Then, all of a sudden, Cao Boi (pronounced "Cowboy", something I couldn't possibly make up) starts cracking racial jokes. About Asians. Something about everyone being light and having strength from picking rice. One female teammate quips, "Stop being stereotypical."

She is even less enthused when, upon reaching shore, Cao Boi attempts to blindfold her with dental floss.

--Every team has at least one ripped, good-looking dude and one attractive (or semi-attractive...or at least huge-t*ttied) and athletic (or semi-athletic...or at least huge-t*ttied) female...except the black people.

Screwed. They've got one chick who might have been athletic a decade ago, two other girls who have seen their share of McDonald's, a quasi-fit big guy who seems at least half retarded, and a fat dude who took four naps on the opening day. I spent the entire Closing Credits sequence looking for David Duke's name under "Executive Producer".

Aaaaaaaaaaaand...they lost the first challenge. More on that in a minute.

--Billy, the fat representative of the Hispanic team, claims that his team has an advantage because their heritage is from the Caribbean and South America, making them well built for surviving and thriving in a tropical environment. One of his teammates is from Oakland. The other three are from Los Angeles.

Billy is a fat man from New York City.

I don't even have a joke here. That's like me saying, "Part of my family is from Germany centuries ago, so I'm built to eat the f*ck out of some bratwurst." I hate bratwurst.

Wait, I did have a joke there. Billy is stupid.

--It was cold the first night on the island, so the Whiteys huddled together and made what one female teammate called a "cuddle puddle". To preserve body heat. You might think that's a bit uncomfortable and a SuperCracker move, but consider what the other Tribes did: they slapped each other until they couldn't feel the cold anymore.

Because they're savages. They're not white. See?

OK, I made that last part up, but the cuddling thing is true. I'm still not sure why they didn't just all get in someone's Stratus.

--Three of the people on the Asian team are named Becky, Jenny, and Brad. There's a white girl named Parvati Shallow.

Soak that in for a second. Also, Becky the Asian is a lawyer. That bears mentioning. Because her name is Becky. And she's Asian. And a lawyer.

--Team Whitebread collected two chickens off the initial Survivor Boat. One of those chickens had a green tag on it...meaning it was for the Asian Team. Jonathan, not only the whitest guy on Team Whitebread but the Whitest SURVIVOR contestant ever, was the culprit. This will become important later.

In other news Jessica (who asked to be called "Flicka", her roller derby name) soon let both chickens go - accidentally - to run into the woods. Team Whitebread? Not happy. You don't f*ck with a white man's chickens, even if you're a white chick. Not cool.

--Cao Boi tried to rid teammate Brad of his headache by gouging his eyes and pulling a piece of skin (directly in the middle of his eyebrows) violently for about fifteen minutes. Brad's headache went away but he was left with a long, obvious red welt in between his eyes. From the busted blood vessels. The conversation afterwards went thusly:

BRAD: So...how long will this be here?
CAO BOI: You had a lot of bad wind in there, man. It will go away when you're completely healed.
B: Right. So...what is this supposed to be then?
C: (a few beats) It's an indicator.

Later, Brad - who says he's a fashion designer - proceeded to build a replica Shaolin Temple out of palm fronds and dead centipedes.

--Just like in real life, Team Anti-Honkey (The Blacks) and Team Tortilla (The Hispanics) were largely ignored during the show, as what they were doing was of little importance. Neither had the chance to attempt a drive-by shooting, though there is a rumor that a future luxury item in the show will be 10 cans of spray paint and a blank wall which they will have fifteen minutes to tag with gang symbols.

When they did show these teams...once was to show a Tortilla climbing a tree like a monkey and another was to show an Anti-Honkey sleeping.

Hey, I don't edit the show, I just tell you what was there.
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Onto the Immunity Challenge...

--The Challenge went as such: construct a five-person boat out of the puzzle pieces given, row out to a buoy that contains fire, light fire torch, row back to shore, put together a directional puzzle, place the pieces on the wall in their respective areas, climb wall, light fire.

TEAM WHITEBREAD
Pros: Pretty much OK at everything. Can do puzzles, can do some physical stuff, should finish middle of the pack. Like Trent Dilfer, we can manage a game.
Cons: Just OK at everything. Not going to blow anyone away. In fact...pretty mediocre.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: How are we not good at anything at all and still able to run the world? We don't even have NUMBERS anymore. Totally perplexing. Moving on...)

TEAM CONFUCIUS
Pros: Puzzle giants. Sure as hell could tell you the exact seaworthiness of the boat using advanced algorithms. Fast as greased lightning.
Cons: Probably not really good at constructing the boat. Small hands - can they climb?

TEAM TORTILLA
Pros: Can row the f*ck out of sh*t, which is how their families got here in the first place.
Cons: Well...I mean, outside of making chorizo...

TEAM ANTI-HONKEY
Pros: Obviously, they can climb. As if this was ever in question.
Cons: They have a fat guy who sleeps a lot. You do the math (or let Team Confucius do it for you).

--Surprisingly, Team Confucius throws their boat together lickedy-split and is off and running, totally killing everyone. Whitebread starts bickering about inane sh*t from the jump, leaving them trailing behind the Tortillas, who row like they've won the secret motorboat (Dave "Evil Ways" Neustadter's theory: "They told them they could keep the raft.").

Confucius and Tortilla blow everyone away. It's down Whitebread and Anti-Honkey. Anti-Honkey is blitzing after getting a late start, almost squashing the rumor that Black people don't like the water. Almost. Whitebread can't get going because the men have tiny penises, leaving their raft too light to navigate properly. Editing makes it look like it comes down to the wire, but Whitebread fixes up their puzzle all nice - and even has a chance to try to blow it by climbing the wall before they've set their pieces in it - and leaves the losers in the dust, finishing third.

That means our African friends have to vote someone off their team that evening. But wait! A secret twist! Probst reveals that the losers get to vote anyone on one of the other teams onto Exile Island, where they'll have to stay for two days and make no communication with their Tribe. Who might they send? One of the Alpha Males? One of the smart athletic chicks?

Nuh-uh. The males shut out the females in the group, electing to send to Exile Island...Jonathan. Whitey McCracker. The total non-threat who stole the f*cking chicken. Anti-Honkey Nathan announces:

"Karma is a bizzle."

Score one for the Asians, one for the Hispanics, a half-point for the Whites, and an extra thirty years of oppression for Hitler's master race as they somehow used their Jedi mindgames to trick Nathan into making one of the worst moves in SURVIVOR history. HE DIDN'T EVEN STEAL YOUR CHICKEN FOR CHRIST'S SAKE!!!!!!
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In a move that surprises no one, Team Anti-Honkey votes off Sekou (pronounced Say-koo) by a tally of 3-2. The naps were just too much.

In a fit of unintentional comedy, no one who votes for Sekou spells his name the same way. One gets it right, one opts for "Seko" (which, phonetically, sounds more like a cheap watchmaker than Say-koo), and yet another goes with "Seiku".

No one else will say it, so I'll just say it: black people have no idea what they're doing with names. No clue. Making sh*t up. I now have no problem believing that the same woman who wanted to name her child "Thomas" ended up with "Ta'Quan" purely on accident.
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WEEK ONE STANDINGS

FIRST PLACE - The Asians. Killing this sh*t like it's Math homework.
SECOND PLACE - The Hispanics. Probably temporary unless there's a lawncare competition.
THIRD PLACE - The Whites. So far totally unimpressive, which means they'll end up winning when one of their fathers buys the company that produces the show.
LAST PLACE - The Blacks. Things are looking up, though - right before being ousted, Sekou channeled the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Come back next week for more race-based hatred!

Geoff

A POST ABOUT SOMETHING

2006-09-11T15:11:00.000-07:00

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Sing a Sad Song
In a lonely place
And try to put a word in for me...

God, I hate this day.

Five years later and it's not any better. It should be. It should never have been as bad as it was. I don't know anyone that died on September 11th. I've been to New York City fewer times than I can count on two hands. I never saw Ground Zero. I never drove past the Pentagon. I never bothered to trek the hour and a half from Harrisburg to Shanksville. All I know, all I've got, is what I've seen on TV and read secondhand. I don't have any real right to feel the emotional sag that I feel today. Especially since the people that really lost something...really lost something.

I feel like a charlatan griever. Like a mourning opportunist. The tourist that takes pictures and tells people he's from there. But I guess...I guess at least I feel.

Maybe you've felt it too, these last five years, on this day that hits just as Summer breaks down. The change of seasons. Sailboat to driftwood. It's constant and it's irrevocable; we all know driftwood can't turn back into a sailboat.

The day always seems sunny, but nothing seems to shine. Walking to the corner store takes a little more effort. The birds sound less like the Disney characters we knew as kids and more like a very tangible, feather-based annoyance. You feel the weight in your shoulders. In your hands. In your stomach.

Oh sure, it's all psychological. We know that. The sun's pumping out UV rays at the same frequency as always. The pigeons never really sounded that chipper to begin with. Does it really make it any better knowing that? Help to gloss up a dull surface? Make the tension more palatable because it's just your mind working overtime on you? Maybe. Maybe it does. Better that than the pull of the voices from a few thousand lost lives floating in a nameless void.

But that's melodrama. That's hyperbole.

They're not calling me.

But if they did - if they could, if they would, if they might - what would they say?

A few years back I caught the film 9/11; I think they show it every year now. Two French documentarians - brothers - were following a rookie firefighter around New York City for a few months. They wanted to show a boy turning into a man in a harsh environment. They just happened to be filming on 11 September 2001. Long story short, one brother - onsite minutes after the attacks with FDNY - ran blindly as Tower Two collapsed. He eventually made it out into the street and barely escaped as One was falling. As he was pushed to the ground and covered by a firefighter who was trying to protect him, he had just three thoughts. One was that his brother was probably dead. Another was that he was about to join him. The last one I'll never forget as long as I live.

"I thought, 'If we make it out of this alive,'" he said, "'I'm going to be a better brother.'"

I always remember those words. I always forget the sentiment. On a day where a few complicit people killed more than a few innocent people, the ramifications for those directly affected have been profound. For myself...I've probably become more cynical. More aware of the world around me. A little jaded. A little weepy one extra day a year. But if I've learned anything...it's that I've learned nothing.

Too often when we experience loss we dwell on the negation rather than the affirmation. We think about what wasn't and not what was. What could have been and not what we'd made of it. But the cardinal sin to which we all suffer? We focus on what's no longer there rather than what's sitting right in front of us. It's gone. It's over. But we neglect to remember what was so great about it when it wasn't.

That which is granted shall be taken for granted. It's human nature.

Those people are gone. Loved ones lost, children outlived by parents, children outliving parents they'll never know. They're not coming back, and every year on this day we'll be reminded of that. So do we honor that notion by being defeatist? By holing up and closing off? Is flying a polyester flag as a lone act of patriotism and as a cover for an underlying depression, anger and fear the only answer that we can offer?

We should all do better. We have the potential. And we owe it to the people who had theirs revoked without a say in the matter.

Smile at a stranger. Lend someone five bucks and don't worry if you ever see it again. Sing in the shower. Make your best friend laugh. Make yourself laugh. Help an old lady across the street. Buy your boss lunch. Pet the dogs in the park. Throw a penny over your shoulder into a fountain. Throw yourself into a fountain. Eat ice cream until your head hurts. Thank the guy at the counter - and mean it. Let one more person merge on the highway. Cry at a movie. Make a stupid face at a kid in a stroller. Hold someone's hand when you'd rather slap it away. Call someone you love. Tell them you love them. Listen to them say it back.

Walk next to someone so they don't have to walk alone.

Be better at feeling. Take it all in, kids. You've got one token and it's good for a big, wistful, visceral round on a track. It's bumpy. The best tracks have a few bumps in them. Try to enjoy it.

Driftwood can't un-putrify. It can't get stronger. It can't regenerate and build itself back into a sailboat. But that doesn't really even matter, does it? Human beings aren't driftwood. We might break down, but we can snap back. And we make for vessels that are much better than sailboats.

I hate this day. I hated it last year, I hate it this year, and I'll hate it next year. But better days are coming, just as they've come before. The sun will shine and the birds will sing and all other timeless, affected cliches will come to fruition. I'm moving towards them. You should too.

C'mon. I'll walk with you.

WATCH AS THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT PISSES ME THE F*CK OFF

2006-07-18T14:12:00.000-07:00

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First of all, I just want to put out there that I know a lot of Christians who aren't crazy and who don't try to intrude into the lives of others and who aren't concerned about things that don't concern them; they just want to believe what they believe and leave it at that. To those of you who practice accordingly...well, you know I'm not coming after you.

Unfortunately, most of your Christian "leadership" is made up of the biggest collection of vacuous c*nts this side of a Dutch whorehouse.

Everyone read this article. It's quick and concise:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060718/ap_on_go_co/gay_marriage

Now I've ranted about this before, but in the last few days the issue has come to a head again and, frankly, I've just got to come out and say what I've been holding back all along:

I just don't think, by and large, that Christians are very intelligent people.

There. I said it.

Doesn't it bother anyone that the last election was won, basically, not because John Kerry was an idiot with no idea how to run a Presidential campaign (and trust me...he was an idiot), but because President Bush was able to convince his sheeptastic Christian fanbase that the real danger in this country wasn't terrorists who want to kill us or a rapidly devolving ecostructure or a flagging economy or the fact that his mismanagement of government and inane appointments are driving this country into the ground faster than a small Texas oil-grubbing outfit?

No, friends; the real evil in this country are a couple of dudes in Vermont who want to f*ck each other in the ass and get a break on their taxes while doing it. Gay Marriage: The Scourge That Shall Vanquish the Earth.

And you people were stupid enough to buy it.

In case you haven't been listening and the story linked above comes to you as a complete shock, our House of Representatives just NARROWLY defeated a bill that would have generated a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT defining gay marriage as unlawful because it isn't between a man and a woman. If that's not ridiculous and frightening enough, consider this excerpt:

>>One conservative group, the Traditional Values Coalition, said it was a "good thing for traditional marriage" that the measure was unlikely to pass because it wasn't clear enough in ruling out civil unions between gays.

"We have just won several important court decisions in the past few weeks," said the coalition's executive director, Andrea Lafferty, but the amendment's proponents "are still playing 'Let's make a deal' with the liberals and the homosexual lobby."<<

Now look, if you're a gay rights activist and you're pushing for legalizing gay marriage, I'm on your side. I don't understand why these morons think they have the right to tell you whom you can or can't marry just because they believe in a questionable book that wouldn't register within the most mundane of fairy tales. But I think you're fighting the wrong battle if you try to bludgeon the half-wits over semantics. Let them have the fact that "marriage" only exists between a man and a woman; let them have their little Scrabble championship so they can tell their kids that once they fought the Bad Men and won and now only straight people can tank the sanctity of marriage at a 56% clip (though I have a feeling that would be left out of the narrative).

But that's exactly what about the above quote scares and pisses me off the most, and that's exactly what makes this issue not about religious beliefs or moral values or Conservative Ethics: they don't think a Constitutional Amendment against gay marriage is enough; they want to take away their rights to civil unions as well. It's not about an assumed propriety or keeping children safe or keeping the family core; it is, purely and simply, about egomaniacal control.

Sorry, is anyone else bothered by the fact that these people think they have the right to barge in on someone else's set of life choices and start calling the shots? Am I the only one who's not just completely incensed by this, even at a purely logical level? Civil unions are non-religious in nature; they don't proclaim anything to God, they don't defile the divine nature of your traditions and practices, they don't infringe on your own personal rights whatsoever. All they do is allow gay unioned couples the right to file join tax returns and experience all the same LEGAL rights as a straight married couple.

So what about that is so upsetting to you people that you feel the need to try to take away someone's freedom of choice? You don't like the fact that people are gay? That's f*cking tough, pal. Guess what? I think your religion is a sham. I think people that believe in it don't fully understand the world around them, and I think that you must have some screw loose upstairs to believe in a book written by fallible men that can't be validated to any viable degree. I think it does far more harm than good. And, perhaps worst of all, I don't think that most of the people who claim to believe in your religion understand the first g*ddamn thing about its history; you rake in everything the guy at the pulpit tells you and you never bother to question it.

That said, there isn't a moment in time where I'd ever try to enact legislation to make it illegal to believe what you believe in, to practice it whenever you want, or to allow people to persecute you because of it. Why? Because I'm a sensible, logical human being. Most of you, apparently, don't think on my level.

Which is why it's even more unsettling that, for those of you who ARE Christians and ARE on my level...you're not doing anything to speak up against the people who are bastardizing your religion. More often than not you're making excuses for them. By all means, even if they're totally off their gourd, you NEVER question a fellow Christian. That would be unGodly. Christian leaders are untouchable and perfect and never wrong. Were I you guys, I would support them blindly to the hilt. In fact, give Robert Tilton some more of your money so he can upgrade to a bigger mansion. I think he needs it to properly do God's Work.

I'm disgusted with the lot of you on this issue (and on a host of others, but that's neither here nor there at the moment). How about enacting some personal responsibility by practicing your religion rather than trying to legislate it? You think you could do that for five minutes? As far as I'm concerned, ya'll have got a long way to go with your own issues before you can try to start riding others about theirs.

Like I said, I'm a logical person. Much as I don't like it, I have to admit that there's a cosmic chance that your God runs this universe and all others and that your Bible is right on track and that you've got the bead on everyone else. I certainly don't think that's the case, but I have to admit the possibility is out there.

That stated, if that's the case and your so-called "perfect" God really seeks to engender such bigotry, ignorance and stupidity, I'm pretty content in saying I don't want any part of your Heaven. Until that point comes, though, I hope there are enough people who try to make sure that you don't f*ck up Earth for everyone else while they're here.

I LIKE CAMPING; WE SHOULD ALL LIVE INTENSE

2006-05-03T17:24:00.000-07:00

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This is going to be a short - and ultimately meaningless, for many of you - post, but I just wanted to put this out there...

Was reading an article today where the writer actually typed the phrase "for all intensive purposes". Do people bother to stop and think about the things they're concocting for others to read? Hey, look...there have been several instances where I've had to stop myself after writing, for the first time, something I've been saying for years. I've always realized that I've never written it before...and then I check it out. Because it could be wrong. I could be misusing the language. It can happen. It might be important to no one else in the world to verify its accuracy (and, judging by the following, it isn't), but to me it's paramount.

What the f*ck is an "intensive purpose"? The phrase, dear people, is "for all inTENTs and purposes" - signifying desire and direction, not the amplitude of the direction's fervency.

Am I being a d*ck for calling this out? Am I a bitter, jackassed grammar nerd? Perhaps the answer to both of those questions is "yes", but I like to hold my fellow English-speaking peoples to a higher academic standard than most. Especially because there are worse crimes than this.

I've actually seen this typed before:

"I druther go to a movie."

Holy Flipping Christ. Want to know what's really sad about this assault on language? People are such mush-mouthed idiots that this butchering of preference is so common that it's derivative has actually BEEN MADE INTO A WORD THAT YOU CAN FIND IN THE DICTIONARY: "druther". Jesus sh*t, people. It's not "I druther", it's "I'D RATHER", as in "I would rather go to a movie". But so many people are too stupid and lazy to figure this out that Webster just plumb gave up on the notion of proper speech and said, "F*ck, you're all too stupid for me to fight. Here, have your word, you ebonic redneck motherf*ckers." Next up for admission into the lexicon is "usetacould", "mightcould" and a few other choice babblings that South Alabamans/North Floridians aren't simply satisfied with just speaking poorly. Well, Webster may give you c*nts a pass, but I'm not about to. The South has destroyed most good Northern Values; I'll not let it take the rest of the English language with it.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: The last two sentences were included purely for incendiary value. It worked well, yes? I feel positively jolly. Let's press on.)

Oh, but there's a worse one.

In the past few days, I've seen various textual versions of this verbal mishap. A few of my good friends have used it. I almost feel bad about calling it out. But then again...not really. At all.

"I'm kind've mad about it."

Sweet salavating succotash, are you f*cking with me? "Kind've"? You've contracted "kind of" and made it "kind have"? Really? Really? Somewhere Shakespeare, the Bard himself, is tossing and turning in his grave, feeling no more than an A-1 d*ckface. Oscar Wilde would be so upset that he might f*ck a woman. Cats and dogs...living together!

This has gone on long enough and I'm more worked up than a person should be over something like this. But please, people, think about the sh*t you write before you write it. As a person who uses words for a living...you're all f*cking killing me. Do it for Jesus or Buddha or Jewish God or Tom Cruise's aliens or whatthef*ckever, but just do it.

Discretion. Deference. Dilligence. It's like fending off a symantic STD. Let's all do our part.

You know what? Having typed all of that, I'm now worried that most of you are too stupid to be helped. Really. I thought about doing a short symposium on the differences between "Their", "They're" and "There" while throwing in "You're" and "Your" for free...and then I realized that 16 year-old girls all over the world already have a very well-planted and very stupid leg up on me. It's just not worth it. The global audience has moved on.

So type whatever you want. Just know that I weep for you.

WHAT A NIGHT IN HELL IS LIKE

2006-04-30T22:38:00.000-07:00

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This weekend myself, the Lung, Ryan and Nathan attended a bar crawl in lovely Hermosa Beach, California. Just like last year it was a hell of a day - drinking before 3:00 PM, wearing floral arrangements (including a headband), gesticulating wildly, general good times. I will save you the details of the crawl itself because we've all been on them and they're all pretty much the same. Nothing noteworthy happened that would surprise you, including my insistence of hitting only on girls in committed relationships or those who have extreme psychological problems. In fact, I've gone ahead and decided that my Official Future Issue (TM) is a married, bipolar dancer. So if you're out there and you fit that specification, contact me so we can just get it over with and I can move along.

What I do want to describe to you is what transpired after the bar crawl ended. Here's the setup:

After attempting to drive home last year post-fiasco - bad idea - we decided that the most prudent course of action would be to rent a hotel room in the area and cab it back once we were well-blasted. So earlier in the day we left Nathan's car at the Residence Inn in Manhattan Beach. We shall now fast-forward to Midnight.

We stumble into the room, all officially wounded, tired, and in a state that in no way mirrors sobriety. We find that the room is far nicer than anything we four idiots should expect for $99 - full kitchen, dining table, pull-out couch, Queen-sized bed. We have procured Taco Bell and begin eating. So far so good. As perhaps a harbinger of the night to come, Nathan and the Lung begin to fight over who officially has claim to the last taco. Nathan takes it from the Lung by force, only to open it and announce, in a sad-kitten voice, "It's empty." And it was - just a shell with nothing in it. Glorious.

Eventually we all make our way into our pre-conceived sleeping arrangement: the Lung and I on the Queen bed (no jokes about two dudes in a Queen bed, please), Ryan on the air mattress, Nathan on the pull-out couch that looks like it could have doubled as The Rack during the Spanish Inquisition. The Lung announces that he has to violently expunge his bowels, a tip that we all shrugged off as mere superfluous information at the time. Had we known the horror that was about to befall us we likely would have snapped out of our collective stupor and fought the situation tooth and nail. By the time the Lung makes it back to bed I'm passed out. The last piece of setup information that you need to know is that this is just around 12:30 AM - a full 11.5 hours before we're to check out.

1:30 AM - I wake up needing to move my own bowels. Badly. Incidentally, I should mention that the gastro-intestinal systems of four guys in their mid-20s, while likely at their respective functional peaks, are not built for days of heavy drinking followed by the consumption of questionable Mexican food; it's a recipe for disaster. The room sounds like a low-grade Taiwanese fireworks factory and smells like a swamp. I stumbled to the bathroom noting this, which I think is significant considering I'm still a little light in the head. I make it to the toilet only to notice - and thank Christ on a Stick that I noticed - that there was no water in the bowl. Before the small part of my brain that WAS clicking on its last synapse stopped my hand from moving I had already flushed the toilet.

Water begins to rise. Water does not stop rising.

The Lung, it seems, earlier crapped out an entire pygmy rhinoceros that, like a block of steel, has plugged up our only bathroom receptacle. Horrified, I rip the porcelain top off the commode and grab the ball, stopping the toilet from filling any further. Being an plumbing novice I have no idea how to disconnect the device so the water will stop running and, after several minutes of very, very hazy analysis, I come to the conclusion that I have no choice but to let the mechanism do what it may. I release the ball and watch in abject terror as the water fills right to the rim of the bowl...and then shuts off. We've skirted disaster as narrowly as a Catholic Schoolgirl on Ecstasy at a 50 Cent concert. Resigned to my fate, I grab a keycard and make my way to the main building where there's another bathroom. Silently, I've begun to rigidly hate my little Asian bedmate.

I get to the main building and find the bathroom; all goes according the plan, though the events of the last few minutes have left me with a decided stomach ache. Thinking it might be a good idea to get something light in my belly I use my last 75 cents to purchase a Sprite in the lobby. Like I'm in the middle of the most cliched movie in cinematic history, the machine jams and my beverage is stuck somewhere in the queue. The Night Manager informs me that he doesn't know how to unstick it and that I'll have to wait until the morning. Awesome. I amble back to the room convinced that there's little chance the night can get worse. Apparently, I have no sense of foreshadowing. Like a true diplomat, the Lung tells me that he's sorry for clogging the crapper and that he's already put a call in to Maintenance...which won't get there until noon the next day. Awesomer.

3:00 AM - I've barely slept and the situation in the room is getting worse. The Lung, who's advancing fast into Mariah Carey territory, has decided that the room is "hot as sh*t" and has turned up the air conditioning (though he denies it the next morning). Normally this wouldn't bother me, but it's significant in this situation for two reasons:

1. I have no blankets, as I'm laying on top of the covers so as not to violate the Guy Code that you don't both sleep under the them. So...it's f*cking cold.
2. The near-breaching water in the toilet is, to stay away from the graphic details, murky. The bathroom smells like gangrenous feet. The air conditioning vent is right by the bathroom door, and every time the unit kicks on - which is roughly every 9.6 seconds - it blows the stench from room into the sleeping area.

My eyes are starting to water from the smell. Apparently not wishing to help the situation, Ryan is asleep on the floor below me talking in his sleep. Of course it's all nonsense, but Ryan has the courtesy to also be as loud as possible. He's muttering gems like "waffle waffle toaster puppy" and "Hulk Hogan drives midgets to the beach". Just doing his equal part, Nathan is across the room on the sofa bed laughing indiscriminately at God knows what. He's not awake. I know that everyone has strange dreams and that you're not supposed to be afraid of your roommates...but at this point I'm afraid of my roommates. I'm beginning to feel that this night might never end and I know there's no chance I'm going back to sleep.

4:00 AM - Every time the air conditioner clicks on I'm convinced I'm going to die. The bathroom now smells like Chernobyl. I've been gifted with knowledge I never asked for or wanted: I can now tell you what a radioactively-charred Russian orphan smells like. I fully expect that, at any moment, one of those radiated deer is going to stumble into the room, but instead of having four legs it's growing a tire on its front quad and instead of antlers it has Donald Trump's hair. The fumes from the toilet are being wafted in at an incredible rate by the air conditioner that apparently is the same model they use to cool off the f*cking Superdome. I don't want to look at my hands for fear that I'll find that my fingernails are being peeled off.

In keeping with the theme of Prolific Modular Dream Night (TM), the Lung has begun to mumble and kick at me violently. Either he was a pommel horse specialist for the Chinese Olympic Gymnastics Team in another life or he's breakdance fighting with Hansel; I can't nail that one down. I always thought that with Asians dreaming was all karaoke and pandas and nightmares were ninjas forcing you to do white kids' math homework. I'm starting to think that maybe I was off on that.

Nathan, to his credit, has decided that he will do anything to get off the evil torture device that is the sofa bed. He wakes up and asks the Lung why the air conditioning is on. The Lung tells him that he's hot, and Nathan makes a bold attempt to improve his situation:

"Er...well, this sofa bed over here seems to be a cold spot in the room. If you want to trade."

Valiant effort. It resulted in mocking, but a valiant effort nonetheless.

I'm definitely not going back to sleep at this point.

5:00 AM - The Lung wakes up, plays around on his Blackberry (that he's very impressed with) and decides he's going to get some drinks. As soon as he leaves the air conditioner clicks on again.

Had you been a normal, conscious being - human or animal - that walked in to the room at this point, the scent would overwhelm you to the point that you'd almost certainly black out. Before hitting the ground, however, you would assume that, somewhere within the dwelling, one of us had collected a corpse, marinated it in vinegar, defecated on it, rubbed it in sulfur, let it sit in the sun for two to three days and then lit it on fire. The toxic fumes, I'm now convinced, have begun to wear away the enamel on my teeth. I'm afraid for a cell phone to ring, terrified that the tiny spark generated therein will be enough combustion to make the room explode.

Ryan is now snoring like a g*ddamned lumberjack sawing a log; he's officially chopping brocco-li. Fortunately, Nathan begins sucking loudly on the remains out of his Taco Bell cup (the contents of which, because of the fumes coursing through the room, would likely be quarantined and studied by the EPA), leading Ryan to mercifully wake up and initiate this exchange:

RYAN: Nathan.
NATHAN: (Ergh).
R: Nathan.
N: What?
R: What are you drinking?
N: What?
R: Out of your cup.
(Pause.)
N: Melted water.

The Lung comes back and hands out Gatorade. He inquires as to why the room smells. I pray for a nuclear holocaust and hope he dies last and in a lot of pain.

9:30 AM - I have not slept. However, I have procured some breakfast, so that's a plus. I go to the main building to check out so we can get the hell home. Everyone at the desk is very nice to me, clearly indicating that they know, somehow, what I've been through. The Night Manager was even thoughtful enough to leave my Sprite for me; the girl checking me out hands it over with a smile. It's a nice gesture, but I've already had some milk and the rest of my Gatorade, so I'm no longer thirsty. Thinking I'll be a nice guy, I hand it to the adorable little Indian girl standing next to me and playing with one of the zippers on the pocket of my cargo pants. She smiles.

Then her father comes rushing over, rips the soda out of her hands, slams it on the counter, asks me what I think I'm doing, and then admonishes the kid for taking something from a stranger. It takes just about the last shred of restraint my psyche is working with not to throw the can at his head and evoke some kind of defamation against Gandhi. I now wished I had force-fed the kid a hamburger.

In the end I just walked out to the car, and the first thing Ryan says to me is, "I can't wait to do this again next year."

I'm amazed by how quickly I'm inclined to - honestly - agree with him. I make a mental note, however, that I'll be getting my own room and sh*tting only in the bushes.

BECAUSE JEFF FARRELL IS A GENIUS

2006-03-19T14:59:00.000-08:00

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First of all, even though some of you (Rob) are annoying in noting that I haven't written anything in a while, it's nice to know there are people out there who want me to write stuff. And a double thanks to everyone who wrote or called to say nice things about my grandmother. She was a swell lady. In the interest of keeping everyone who cares current, I'm experiencing both a massive workload and a relative dearth of creativity, so for the time being, even though there's a lot that I could write about...I'm not going to.

Instead, I'd rather to introduce anyone who reads my blog to someone with so much talent that I'm often worried he's going to burst at the seams with it. I first met Jeff Farrell a few months into Freshman Year at JMU, and ever since then I've considered him one of the most clever and brilliant people I know. One night, perhaps Junior Year, Jeff and I (forming an unbeatable squad which we labeled Jeo(!)ff Squared) were up against my roommate Chris and a visiting brother of a friend also named Chris in a game of beer pong. I very commonly and unoriginally noted, "Hey, Geoff and Jeff versus Chris and Chris. Neat." Farrell thought for about a millisecond, pointed across the table and yelled, "Four people, two names, one game. GO!"

That should tell you we're dealing with an unbridled brain here.

Back to Farrell in a second - I need to make sure you know something up front here so you understand the potentcy of my convictions and the deep respect I have for this guy's work: I HATE most poetry. Hate it. I do not feel bad about applying the word "hate" to my feelings about most poetry. Either it's dull, distracted "classic" fodder or some pretentious d*uchebag trying to extrapolate simple ideas from his head, only turning them into thesaurus-level conglomerations of fake angst and depression. Remember that word "pretentious", because that's good enough to cover most poetry. It sucks. And I generally don't like poetry that doesn't rhyme. What's the point? If you're not going to rhyme, write it out in prose. Don't waste my time. Great poetry to me is Dr. Seuss.

And then there's Jeff Farrell.

Now mind you, I'm not just touting this guy because he's my friend. I have many friends - who shall all remain nameless - who write poetry that sucks. Just sucks - it's dead in that category of Most Poetry. Notice, then, that I'm not putting theirs on my blog. I think that should say something in itself, as I'm a writer, and like most (hopefully) good writers I have an ego the size of Grand Central Station; my blog is MY creative outlet where I'm trying to convince you that I'M a brilliant genius, not someone else. But Farrell...well, like I said, the man is a brilliant genius, and a more brilliant genius than I could ever hope to be, and there's something about his poetry that's not like the rest of the poetry out there. So I'm going to post it here for you.

There's something about his stuff that gets me. I don't know what it is, so I'm not going to bother to try to expound on that; rather, I'll let you read it and just silently bet that it grabs you the same way. Jeff's got a manner of not just finding the right words and not just stringing them together, but of starting with a simple concept, building upon that concept with simple analogies, metaphors and symbolism, and then finishing it with something so simple that it has to double back over complicated twice just to get there. Here's a great example, a passage from a poem of his that I decided not to use here:

I found myself
Following your footsteps in the sand
I lost my heart,
And found it in your outstretched hand

Do you see what he did there? He started with something simple, used a little bit of symbolism ("lost my heart") that anyone could (and that millions of lesser idiots have tried to) use, and then BOOM! The end hits you like a ton of bricks...even though, as just a line on its own, it's really no more complicated than the rest. Remember this in the very last poem, which flirts dangerously with slipping into Pretentious D*uchebag Territory (TM) before it smacks you in the face with what, in my opinion, are the two best lines of poetry I've ever read.

Needless to say, the following is Copyright - Jeff Farrell, 2006. Don't be surprised if in a few years you see a book with a few of these in it. If I have my way it'll steal a line from one of his poems and be titled Forever is a Word We'll Never Live to See.

Enjoy:

A Nickel

When we first met
each of your smiles cost me a nickel,
I spent all of my money that December,
do you remember,
we lay sprawled out on your rug
and the smoldering fire was the blazing sun
and we would touch, like whispers
and listen to the bathtub water run
and our sleepy kisses on the couch
drowned everything else out
and our laughter gained us new peace
and we didn't even have to speak,
our eyes said everything,
and we would bring the hammock inside
on those cold evenings
and lay in it for hours
listening to each other breathing,
and unwrap ourselves like slow secrets,
we always were so easy
and free with our dreams,
do you remember,
I spent all my money on your smile that December.

Can Never Be

I know it down deep
I know it in the emptiness of sleep
I'm a creep
and a freak
can't meet the eyes
that pass me on these streets
and what I want can never be

I can feel it steaming up
from the sidewalk's heat
whispered in the sewers of the city
you don't have to speak
I know I'm weak
a creep and a freak
the whole world has got me beat
car windows stuffed with eyes
glare at me
I stare at my feet

I just need a little peace of mind
a little fucking relief
once in a while
but my wanting needing doesn't sleep
even when I dream it bleeds
and I know down deep
I'm a creep
and a freak
I shy away from common speech
my laughter turns to broken screams
and what I want can never be

Mellow

I love the mellow
I love to bellow,
in silence
I love the hello
but not the goodbye
that lurks behind it
I hate to wake up
but I love to be blinded with sleep
head on a pillow
I love the billowing
smoke of my dreams

I let the tires go
I love to drive slow
stereo volume rising
I love the yellow
but hate the red light
that lurks behind it
I hate the brakes
I love the steady speed
eyes in the rear view
I love the two lanes of my past
as they fall away behind me

I love the mellow
I love to bellow,
in silence
I love the hello
but not the goodbye
that lurks behind it
I hate my knees
I love your elbow
and the sleeve that defines it
I hate to wake up
love to go blind with sleep
head on a pillow
you're the sill
supporting
my window panes of peace

Melancholy Nights

They were the most melancholy nights of my life
sipping on music and wine
thinking of you
and your future and mine
and the impossibility of them being tied
for very long
yet there I was falling in love with you
song after song
and I almost believed we could make it
by the time
my second bottle was gone

They were the most melancholy nights of my life
my shadow flickering
with the candle flames
that danced across the walls and wrote your name
and I wrote along
in despair over your future and mine
and the impossibility of them being tied
for very long
yet there I was falling in love with you
song after song
and I almost believed we'd beat forever
by the time
my second bottle was gone

I can't take my mind off of you

Sitting down
or laying in your room,
we talk in confidence
about the lives we used to choose,
wonder on the future
how it comes along so soon,
and all the scars that fade away
and the ones that never do,
and your mind, it's a maze
your smile sinks me gently down into,
and your eyes, they remind me
of everything beautiful and bruised

drove so many miles
just to wind up in this room,
so close the roads between us
like threads woven in a loom,
how far apart our pasts are
more than ocean and the moon,
yet still the pull between us now
is greater than those two,
and your mind, it's a maze
your presence pulls me gently down into,
and your eyes, they remind me
of everything beautiful and bruised.

I cannot scream

I cannot scream
I'd never stop screaming
ears would be ringing
eyes staring unblinking
but the screaming, the screaming
would never stop being
until the breathing, the breathing
until the air in my lungs
stopped coming and leaving
until the heart in my chest
stopped beating and beating,

The screams in my gut
have reasons and reasons
each one of them bloated
with secrets and demons
none of them easing
none happy
none pleasing and pleasing
they've been whispers and whispers
for too many seasons
their nature is yelling
and screaming, and screaming
from the winter winds freezing
to the summer sun beating and beating,

I cannot scream
I'd never stop screaming
until the air in my lungs
stopped coming and leaving,
until the heart in my chest
stopped drumming,
stopped running,
stopped beating and beating.

In the middle of the night

in the middle of the night
sometimes the backyard is better than the bedroom
i think the moon agrees,
and only she knows
that the hammock is swaying from our two bodies rocking
and not the breeze,
she brings our secrets to her grave
however pale or flush and enticing,
and all the while she's falling through the sky
the two of us are climbing

A Pause

I'm a comma,
a pause,
an abridged edition of living
polite applause,
a fool in the rain
a fool full of flaws,
totally lost sometimes
I'm a lost cause,

I'm a question mark,
a half-written card,
an abridged version of a person
spattered applause,
a lightning rod in rain
a freak full of flaws,
incredibly lost sometimes
I'm a lost cause

Thank You

I would burn everything I believe for you
I would break this heart in two
I would rip it out and hand it over
if you asked me to
die bleeding beneath your shadow
in the middle of the afternoon
and thank you for the shade

IN MEMORIAM

2006-02-13T02:55:00.000-08:00

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Dear Granny,

Can you believe it's soon going to be ten years? Ten years. It's a span of time that seems so wildly ridiculous to me. I've taken to believing that nothing that's ever happened in my life has occurred outside of the last two or three months. It's a bad habit. Think there's a connection to that and my dreams lately? The ones where I'm always just a little bit late. Just late by that much. What am I forgetting? Why can't I be on time? I've just missed something. Always late. I don't want to be late.

My last memory of you was that day I talked to you on the phone; you were calling from the hospital. You sounded great, actually. Like being in there was the silliest thing in the world. I have to think that you had no idea what was coming, that there wasn't much time left. But I also have to think that it was a little more than luck that I picked up the phone that afternoon. Mom and I got to be maybe the last two people who ever talked to you. It's sad to think about, but I do feel lucky.

The viewing was a joke to me. Not in a "Haha, this is funny" kind of way, but in the way that I was never quite sure if it was real or not. It didn't seem real. I don't want to imply that the people at the funeral home didn't do their job, but they didn't put your glasses on. It's my lasting memory of the day, which makes me laugh a little. Didn't they know? Couldn't someone have told them? Whatever the case, the effect of such was that I'll never go to another viewing of someone I care about. I won't let my last glance at someone I love be of what amounts to a canvas for some guy in a metal basement with clown makeup. You should have been wearing your glasses. Someone should have told them; I should have told them. Too late.

I don't talk about you enough anymore. Sure, when we get together at Christmas or Thanksgiving or whatever random Holiday I'm able to make it back East for the family all babbles on about you and we tell our favorite stories. But beyond that I haven't said much. I should say more. I should tell people. Even if they don't ask. But what would I tell them?

I could talk about the typical grandmother things: nice as a sunny Sunday afternoon, gave great hugs, cooked like a meth-fueled maniac (OK...that one might not be so typical...but neither were your tireless habits in the kitchen). They'd all be great and they'd all be true, but that wouldn't define you. That would just define what grandmotherdom is supposed to be. You were a lot more than that. So I think I would tell some stories.

I think I would tell people about the three summers we spent at your house with you and Pa; Justin, Kyle and I. We'd watch THE PRICE IS RIGHT every morning at 11AM - and then your shows would begin. Except you never watched "TV shows" - you watched "programs", and they weren't even programs. They were "progruhms", and you managed to defy modern physics of speech by somehow turning a two-syllable word into a one-syllable word - still one of my favorite magic tricks. Remember how angry you used to get at THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS? I think you might have externalized your inner monologue the one day you sat up in your chair and spouted at your innocent TV, "Oh! That Victoria is such a BITCH!"

I think I would tell people about the hours upon hours upon hours we used to spend playing Monopoly. I have to tell you, though, I've heard from just about every guy my age that they played Monopoly with their grandmother. Is this something they teach you at Grandmother Training? Sometimes we find that other people did the same things that were thought were special to us. There's a tendency to hurry and take the "Special" label off of them because it just so happened that those other people had a common idea. Maybe grandmothers use Monopoly as their go-to crutch. Hell, I don't know, but when I think back on it...it doesn't seem any less special. You know what they say about the difference between actuality and intent? I think I'll leave that label on for the time being.

I think I would tell people about the way you used to roll and salt my lunchmeat for me. I think I would tell them that your Steak-Ums, somehow, tasted better than any boxed, frozen meat should ever taste. I think I would tell them that you freaked the hell out if one of your Tupperware containers was taken out of the refrigerator and put back on a different shelf. Hey, look, I'm a believer in the "Everything has it's place" school of thought...but you were an Icebox Nazi. You probably know this by now, but it was me who moved the containers around in the refrigerator almost every day that one summer. I'd like to say I'm sorry for that, but...Jesus, it was really goddamned funny. I've never seen anyone get so twisted over the placement of pickles. Just thinking about it now makes me laugh. Even when you weren't trying to you made me smile.

There are a million things I could tell people about you, but I didn't even realize how great you were until you were already gone. Like most things you don't figure out until you're an adult, I think I took you for granted while you were here. I wish I hadn't done that. There it is again...too late.

The day after you died I walked into our kitchen to make a sandwich. I got out the bread, the ham, the mayonnaise, the lettuce; I made one hell of a sandwich. I had just taken it off the counter and made two steps towards the door, my back to the ingredients of said sandwich, and I realized I had left everything open: the bread bag, the lettuce container, the mayonnaise jar, the ham wrapper. I thought to myself, "You had better put that away - Granny would have a fit if you left it like that." Imagine my surprise when I turned around - after no more than three or four seconds had passed - to find the bread closed, the lettuce covered, the cap back on the mayonnaise jar and the ham wrapped and sealed. I was alone in the house. I never ate that sandwich; just didn't seem to have the stomach anymore. I don't tell many people that story. I feel like if I tell it too much the logic of the world will get to me. And then I'll no longer be able to think that you sent a special message that day. Just for me.

You used to wear this incredible perfume that smelled like vanilla. I'll never forget that smell as long as I live; it's ingrained in my memory like my name or the directions to my house. One night I was out somewhere with some friends and I walked past a girl that had the same perfume on. It stopped me in my tracks, a wave of memories sweeping over me in a candied wind. She must have noticed that I was staring at her with a strange smile on my face, because she asked me if I was OK. All I could get out was, "You smell like my grandmother." Now for a twentysomething girl...this can't exactly be taken as a compliment. I can't blame her for storming off in a huff, but had I been able to regain my composure quickly enough I would have told her that, for that brief moment in time, she gave me something that made me perfectly and completely happy. I should have told her all about you, all about what that specific scent meant to me and why it made me so temporarily goofy. But when I came to she had walked away. Dare I say it? I was just a little too late.

There was a song we used to have. It was a simple song but it's the most perfect song I've ever heard. The last time I heard it I was, again, probably too young to appreciate the message you were trying to convey with it. Now I can't hear that song without tears coming to my eyes.

I'm supposed to be a writer. When I'm at parties and I think I need a basis for myself and people ask me what I do, that's what I tell them: I'm a writer. Sometimes I'm convinced it's only half true; I write things, but lately I haven't written much of anything with meaning. It was this thought that worried me when I decided to write to you tonight. I was too late to ever tell you how important you were to me, how my world revolved around you and how I thought the sun and the moon rose and set in your eyes. And I worried most of all that even with my advanced vocabulary, with all the words I know and know how to use, with all of the flowery and unimportant adjectives I can conjure, I could never, ever tell you how much I love(d) you. I was worried they didn't make a word for that.

There's a lot about the world of which I'm still clueless. Some days I'm convinced it's a total myth, but on my better days I'd like to believe there's a Heaven. I don't know what it is or what's there. Maybe someday I'll find out. But you know what I want Heaven to be?

I want to be just big enough to be sitting on the blue carpet in your living room, my head barely reaching high enough to be eye-level with the television. I want you to pull out that big old Disney book you had and tell me you'll read to me. Pa will help me crawl up on your lap and then he'll go back to his burnt orange chair, light up a cigar, wiggle his toes a few times and then smile at me. I fit perfectly in between your hip and your shoulder, so I'll curl up in that nook as you narrate, for the millionth time, the story of Pinocchio. My eyes will get heavy and start to slowly close as soon as Pinocchio and his friend are turned into donkeys, but you'll keep reading anyway. A few minutes later Pa will wake me up on his way to bed, mess my hair, kiss me on the forehead and tell me goodnight. I'll be sleepy still, so you'll put the book down. You'll hug me tight. I'll close my eyes again. And you'll sing to me...

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine,
You make me happy...when skies are gray.
You'll never know dear, how much I love you.
Please don't take...my sunshine...away.

I know I don't have to worry: they don't make a word or a phrase to tell someone you love without any known depths how much you love them - you find a word or phrase that signifies that and you apply it. It's pretty simple, really, and now I know that your song to me was the purest form of love that exists in the world. Maybe I can't tell you how much I love you in one word or two words or three words or four words, but I can definitely do it in five:

You are my sunshine too.

The one thing I always tell a friend who's lost a love one is that, while there's time to be sad and grieve, the one thought that helps you get on better than anything is that, while it's sad that the person is gone and will be missed, it should be considered a pretty grand stroke of luck that you got to know such a wonderful soul while they were here. It's one thing to say and another thing to feel - and the tears seem to be set on "flow" tonight. I miss your jokes; I miss your laugh; I miss your applesauce; I miss your Frankenstein boots; I miss your Rocket Chair; I miss your Christmas stockings; I miss seeing you on bright summer mornings; I miss your hugs.

God, I miss you, and it compels me to promise you a promise that I promise to the God of Promises I will never break: I've got a long, winding road to travel and a long time to travel it, but though I won't see you any more in this life, I'll see you in the next.

I won't be late.

Still your sunshine,

Geoffrey

QUICK SHAMELESS PROMOTION

2005-12-31T00:04:00.000-08:00

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The creative geniuses at my residence - yes, the Bedford Street Mansion - have gone into business. Kind of.

Ryan and I (with what believe to be some kind of metaphysical, out-of-body, psychokinetic assistance from Nathan via Jacksonville) decided that we wanted the world to be wearing our t-shirts whereever they went. T-shirts that mean something. That stand for something. That gloriously rip off ideas so much better than anything we could have thought of ourselves.

We therefore humbly present to you...

Bedford Street Elite Clothing: T-shirts for People

We like them. Probably a lot more than you will. I can't vouch for the quality of the material used in the ringers, but I can vouch for the sheer humiliation you'll feel when wearing one of them. Plus you can feel free to swtich up colors, sizes and styles. It's like a free market economy in that regard.

I'll be back soon after the New Year to write something of worth.

(NOTE: Read the "Long Descriptions" for each of the shirts. I think they're funny. Yes I wrote them. Please humor me. Thanks.)

LET'S REVISIT AN OLD FAVORITE...SHALL WE?

2005-11-29T23:54:00.000-08:00

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OK, this isn't the serious post I was talking about - I'm still working on that - but a set of random circumstances led to me rereading an old post and I'm going to share it for those of you (which is actually...yeah, all of you) who haven't bothered to work back through the archives. But first, I want to bring up my new favorite word/term.

Previously, you knew my new favorite word to be "defenestrate", which means "to throw someone through a window" (thank you again, Jenny Kansas). However, this evening I was introduced to "formicophilia".

Formicophilia: to experience a state of sexual arousal by having small insects crawl over one's own genitals or the genitals of another.

Fan. Tastic.

Of course, the horribly perveted wheels in my messed-up little mind immediately started spinning and I began to think....

If you're a formicophiliac, and you get crabs...is that like the apex of your being? Could anything possibly turn you on more? Do you get that treated? It's literally a self-replicating, constant system of tiny insects crawling over your genitals. Do you just say "f*ck it", lock yourself in your room and consider the fact that you've topped out on life? I'm VERY interested to know about this. Personally, a swarm of tiny insects crawling on my penis is perhaps one of the Top Five Most Traumatizing Situations I Can Imagine (TM), but I'm dying to know if there are bug freaks out there actively trying to contract crabs in order to fill out their life's Master Plan.

If anyone knows, get back to me.

Naturally, thinking about Sexually Transmitted Diseases got me thinking about my buddies from college (If I were speaking live this is where the drummer's rim shot would come crashing in and I'd look like Johnny Carson. Heyo! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand...scene.). About two years ago - back when I was funny, clever, and relevant - I wrote a post about heading down to DC for a visit with said buddies. I refound it tonight and thought I'd reprint it here for your reading pleasure. It's long but it's worth it, if not for many points, for one moment in particular.

This post contains what is, hands down, the Greatest Comeback in the History of the World (TM). That's right, it's mine - I trademarked it, even though it was spoken by someone else. It's not just that it was a great comeback - it's the structure of the conversation. It went statement, dig, comeback, and then MASSIVE comeback topper. You'll know when you see it. And you'll agree. I want to make sure that everyone knows that the speed with which this conversation was conducted was lightning quick, an impressive feat because neither of the parties involved were very sober nor are they very intelligent.

Enjoy (Original Post Date: 21 January 2004):

THE NATION'S CAPITAL THREATENS TO END MY LIFE FUNCTIONS

I don't get to drink much anymore, so this Saturday's trip down to visit some buddies in D.C. was a nice change of pace.

The stage was set thusly: my buddy Loftus lives with our buddy Adam and my two former roommates Kyle and Louie. Kyle's girlfriend Ni...er, Karyn is basically the fifth roommate and house mascot in Arlington, VA (NOTE: I didn't notice at the time I wrote this - and no, I did not just intend for that to rhyme - that this last comment comes off as a dig against Karyn. It's not at all - you know I love you Karyn :) Back to the reproduced post.). Add to the mix that one Steven Perdue, Oil Magnate and General Ruby Burgoyne, Electrician are down for the weekend and, well...here we go...

--Ruby calls me as I hit I-95 on the way down. He informs me they will wait for me and that we are going to a strip club. Joy.

--I arrive to pleasantries and good cheer. Louie does not want to attend the strip club outing and Kyle and Adam are involved in a day-long Texas Hold 'Em tourney down the street. Ruby and Steve have looked up the strippers for Camelot on the Internet. I walk downstairs to find them spooning on Loftus's bed watching Good Will Hunting. Spooning. Ben and Matt would be proud.

By the way, Loftus is toiling at work on a Saturday after being out until roughly 3 AM the night before, hammered, watching an 80's cover band called Leg Warmer. Reports detail that Mr. Loftus was less than three-deep from the stage at all times, pumping his fists and singing along to every song all whilst exclaiming to all around, "THIS IS MY SH*T!!!!!" As my buddy Craig would note, Loftus is this morning likely performing his duties in an extreme haze, still thinking about Bananarama.

--Perdue, Ruby and I decide that the best way to get downtown to Camelot is by Metro. Heading for the subway, we park in a garage in Stafford Plaza. We ask a desk attendant in the building how to get to the Metro. He mumbles something in an non-English dialect and points to our left. We walk to our left. Two bathrooms and an Employee's Only closet. We head back, asking for the Metro. He grumbles louder and more unintelligibly and points us back. We go back. Two bathrooms, Employee's Only closet. We look at each other. Head back, ask for Metro. He gets up, physically leads us around the corner, where we FINALLY see...

Two bathrooms and a motherf*cking Employee's Only closet.

I'm laughing. Perdue is thinking. Ruby doesn't know where he is. After a moment of standing we walk back and Ruby says, "Look, there's nothing there, we just need to get to the Metro Station." The guy fold his hands and says, in perfectly broken English, "I apologize, I thought you said bathroom. Second Floor to left." Thanks.

Arriving at the station, Perdue and Ruby decide to share a card. Perdue puts his card through first, successfully. Ruby tries to follow him. Bupkus. Nada. See Station Manager. Remember this. They let Ruby through.

The train ride is filled with discussion about where we are going. We are to take the Orange Line from Ballston to Metro Center, where we pick up the Red Line and head to DuPont Circle. Easy. Ruby has it written down. Perdue has it in his head that there is no such thing as Metro Center, that every stop is a Metro Center. He convinces Ruby. For twenty minutes they ask back and forth, "Are we on the right train? Metro Center isn't even a stop. That was the metro center. Where are we going?" To break the monotony, Perdue offers Ruby $500 to drink an entire cup of his chew spit. Ruby refuses. This is the first thing in history I have ever seen to disgust Ruby.

--We arrive in Metro Center. Perdue says nothing. Ruby must see the Station Manager again. On the train to DuPont, Ruby tells us he'd like to fly on the President's Private Jet, Air One. Somewhere, Nelly's ears are burning for the all the wrong reasons.

--Exiting at DuPont Circle, I get to ride the tallest escalator I have ever seen. Upon hitting the street, we stand turning on the heels of our shoes for two minutes figuring out which way M Street is. Luckily, we begin walking the right direction, though Ruby is "suspicious" the entire time.

--We arrive at Camelot. There are a few things at work here.

First, I am sober. Going to a strip club sober is tough for me because I find the whole thing extremely funny. You can walk into any bar in the world and see bottles, beer, people, etc. But walking into a Gentleman's Establishment and seeing all that plus boobies...well, I think it's hysterical. Therefore, the second I enter one I have a big, goofy smile on my face, and immediately people think I'm some kind of pervert. They're not wrong, but I just don't want them thinking that in the first five minutes.

Second, it wasn't even bright daylight outside, but the inside of this place is f*cking DARK. I can't see a thing as I'm walking in and I'm banging into chairs all over the place. The bouncer must have sensed this and sat us as far away from The Pole as possible.

I have to say that I as wildly impressed by Camelot. For a Saturday afternoon in the dead of winter all of the performers were quite attractive, and what more can you ask for? Also wonderful was the fact that, while some of the ladies had rather robust mammary areas, not a single one had even a drop of Silicon in them. Lovely. And somehow, I'm keeping a (moderately) straight face. All is well. I am, however, pounding drinks. I'm on Mixed Drink One and Beer Two before Perdue and Ruby finish their first drink. Our waitress, Hot Jamie, keeps making sarcastic comments when I order such as, "Oh, did I forget to bring your drink last time?" Nice try, not going to help your tip. But let me state that the fact you are waitressing in your underpants will.

At least one stripper and the old chick behind the bar comment about how cute Ruby and his hair are, both asking if he's even old enough to be in the place. Ruby is 25 and the eldest of us all. He takes it in stride.

After each dance, if you haven't approached The Pole while they are dancing to offer a tip, they come to your table expecting to get one. This is fine. I just wanted to note that, when you first get there, you feel awkward and sheepish. You calmly slide your dollar in their garter belt and say only a quick thank you. Perdue can't even look them in their faces. He's actually just waving the dollar in the air and focusing on the cushion behind him. And if they make eye contact with you from the stage? F*cking forget it.

Then, as the day progresses and the drinks start flowing, your comments get better and better. Here are some of the ones I threw out personally, feeling the buzz:

"That was technically perfect."
"You were the best dancer of the group."
"Thanks for dancing to Coldplay, here's two." (EDITOR'S NOTE: You know you are in alcohol-related trouble when you start announcing how much you are tipping the strippers.)
"You were our favorite."
"Thank you for the entertainment." (Christ help me.)
"I enjoyed the shaking." (This one made me really afraid I was going to be thrown out by my neck.)

From Ruby:

"I liked that thing you did with your ass."

All in all, we spent about four hours and a hundred and fifty bucks there altogether. We get in touch with Loftus and we are headed to The ESPN Zone to meet him.

--On the cab ride to ESPN, Ruby calls his girlfriend. At the end of a conversation that was way too long, he gets roped into the "I love you". Guess who we made fun of the for the last five minutes? Nothing like watching one of your buddies squirm, especially when you're loaded.

--At ESPN Zone we concentrate on beer, Golf, Football, and Basketball. I'm not going to talk much about basketball, but you can figure that, since I'm the worst basketball player in history and I'm stupid drunk, I didn't do too well. I did establish the second-highest score of the day in football, however.

--Eating dinner at said Zone, Loftus says something clever. Ruby responds with, "Oh good one, that was a Widdly Tiddle." With Ruby you're never quite sure, but we think he was going for a "Witty Tidbit". Whatever he intended this becomes my official vote for our Fantasy Football Trophy: The Widdly Tiddle Cup. Mark it down.

--On the Metro back to the car, Ruby once again must see the Station Manager. She asks, "Are you trying to use the same Metro Card?" Ruby replies, "Yeah, but the damn thing doesn't work, and I've been having to see the Station Manager all day." She informs Ruby you can't use the same gate the person you are sharing with just used to come through. No sooner does she tell him this than he tries again to use the same gate. Later, as the train is approaching and we are waiting to board, Ruby nearly falls into the track and Loftus has to pull him back.

--During beer pong an hour or so later, Ruby and Perdue escalate their Your Mom Verbal Battle (TM).

(EDITOR'S NOTE: WARNING. The following exchange contains graphic, awful language and mental images. Please be warned. Seriously. This is a very serious warning.)

RUBY(makes a cup): Oooh, slippery when wet.
PERDUE: Yeah, your mom was pretty slippery when I f*cked her last night.
RUBY: That's because my dad's big c*ck stretched out her p*ssy for you.
PERDUE: I wasn't f*cking her p*ssy.

Gold.

--Loftus, Ruby, Perdue and myself head to a bar in Georgetown. Georgetown is beautiful, and a Georgetown bar can only rightfully be compared to what you might expect at a Hahvad Bah, complete with equations on the walls and sh*t. Every guy--repeat: EVERY GUY--was dressed in a sweater with a button-down underneath. Rock and Roll.

We head upstairs, where two things happen. First, I run into a friend of my ex-girlfriend. Kristina is a cool girl and lives in D.C. now, and we had a nice conversation. But I must explain the conversation we had. Here is an excerpt of our discussion:

K: So, I was told to go to your website and I did.
G: Great! What did you think.
K: Well, I want to know, do you really think you're smarter than everyone?
G: Yes.
K: Really? Because you went to JMU, and we all went to JMU, and you think you're smarter than people who went to JMU?

(EDITOR'S NOTE: At this point I'm only interested in avoiding a situation. I'm drunk, she's drunk, no reason to start anything when it's been such a good day.)

G: Let's just say I think I'm a better thinker and better able to express myself than others.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: Then she pisses me off.)

K: OK, because I was going to say, you misspell a lot of words.
G: Really? Like which ones?
K: Um, like...awkward.
G: A-W-K-W-A-R-D.
K: No, it's A-C-K-W-A-R-D.
G: Eh...I think you're wrong.
K: No I'm not.
G: OK, well you go spellcheck that Monday and get back to me OK. (And I love this...)Maybe you're right.

I change the subject and eventually we decide to go find our friends. People, I want to bring up a point. I know English. I don't misspell words, especially with the aid of spellcheck. My grammar is stellar. Every once in a while, I mistype a word, which is quite different. The lesson: don't come up to me anywhere at any time and criticize my work on a fact of which you are quite wrong. And people wonder why I think I'm smarter than most? Jesus.

A-W-K-W-A-R-D. Kristina, it was very nice talking to you, but that's how you spell it.

Later in the night, I am walking to the bathroom when I get bumped into an adorable little Asian girl. I turn around and put up my hand, and say, "Sorry about that." She's double-fisting, probably not thinking rightly, and she hip-checks me with surprising force. I look back, and she realizes what she's done. She flees, absolutely flees, and hides behind one of her friends who is laughing hysterically. On my way back, I see her again and walk up. She looks frightened. I apologize again, letting her know that someone had pushed me into her. Her friend speaks up in her defense, saying she is drunk and didn't mean it. I assure them that I'm not mad in the slightest, I just wanted her to know I didn't intend to jack her in the first place. So the adorable little Asian girl comes up to me and launches into a diatribe that went something like...

"Well, OK, if you say that it happened accidentally, then I believe you, but you still shouldn't bump into girls, I mean if you're a guy you're supposed to keep your balance and not do that, but it's OK, I mean as long as it was an accident..."

Her cell phone rings, and she holds it up.

Now I very, very rarely ever get to say anything clever. Usually I think about things I should have said afterward in a George Costanza-ish way. But this night, I finally had my glory. With Ruby and Perdue listening to the proceedings two feet away, and this girl's friends watching from just as close, I finally get my shot.

With everyone watching, she raises up her phone, and I say:

"No no, that's OK, I don't want your number."

I must have smiled as wide as the Mississippi. Perdue and Ruby lose it. Her friends lose it. She is speechless in a, "No, I wasn't, I mean I didn't..." manner as I walk away. For that ephemeral moment in time, I feel like a winner. It lasts for no more than four seconds, but still dammit, that's something.

--The night is capped off by myself and a sober Louie driving to the Silver Diner, one of my favorites. Everyone is drunk and ordering either breakfast or burgers. When I order the meatloaf, which is spectacular, the waiter looks at me like I have five heads. I later return to the house and pass out on a semi-damp couch.

You just don't get days like that very often.

Everyone have a Widdly Tiddle.

ASTROLOGY IS FOR C*NTS

2005-11-28T19:39:00.000-08:00

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[NOTE: I posted this just a little while ago as a Bulletin on MySpace. It got such a great reaction tht RyRy suggested I post it on my blog as well. So I'm doing that. I'll be back later in the week with a pretty serious entry - something I haven't really been able to write about yet but that I'm going to buck up and tackle. Until then, I hope anyone who thinks Astrology is a "science" or a "valid field of study" gets The Herpes (TM).]

OK, we've all seen that crap Astrology Bulletin that's going around trying to convince us all that we're wonderful people and that just because we were born on...apparently ANY...day of the year there's something great about us. We're all intelligent. We're all great in bed. Sometimes we're a leader, and sometimes we're shy. Yee haa.

Astrology is the world's oldest form of bullsh*t, around even before male cows began to deficate. It's trash, it's supersitition, and yet some people still follow it religiously because they can't figure out how to control their own lives - they have to figure that someone else is doing it for them. It's for these people that I present Goose's Real Astrology System (TM), and if you pass this on I expect full credit.

Learn your past, present and future below:

CAPRICORN
You're a dimwit. People try to talk to you and then seconds later realize they might as well converse with a pig that's rotating on a spit. You've been good at two things your entire life: standing and sitting, and you've even failed at that occasionally. Your future consists of being cloned to farm out organs to those who will make more of an impact on society. You really dig cheese. Jesus might love you, but everyone else thinks you're a c*nt.

AQUARIUS
You're smart, but only in a way that will never apply to anything legitimate, like being good at Cranium but only on Thursday mornings. You like to cook but you burn sh*t constantly because you can't pay attention to a g*ddamned thing. Your dog hates you (the only sign of the Zodiac to suffer this fate) and you write appalingly bad detective novels in your spare time. Occasionally you break out the Hugo Boss when you don't feel like taking a shower.

ARIES
You're oblivious to the fact that your sign was also the inspiration for one of the worst automobiles of all time (T. Rock, no angry emails); for years you've unknowlingly looked upon this as a compliment. You'd be one hell of a soccer player if you weren't fat and lazy. You're constantly making other people smile, but only because you resemble Corky from LIFE GOES ON. Don't bother calling your parents tomorrow - for weeks they've been telling their friends about the time they tried to leave you at the Four Corners on what was supposed to be a "Family Vacation".

TAURUS
Like all the horrific Aries specimens out there, car companies cannot resist naming a piece of plastic on wheels after your personal piece of the Zodiac (this particular model, of which, was far inferior to its cousin - the Mercury Cougar). Face the facts: if you're a male Taurus you've got a small c*ck and if you're a female you either have lopsided breasts or your vagina smells like Hydrocholoric Acid. If you've been laid it's been by mistake at a very dark, very drunk college party or for money in a third world country. Don't bother playing the lottery, even though you're sure that "your day" is about to come. It's not; more likely, you'll be hit by a bus.

LEO
Somehow the most inept of all Zodiac signs. On the Intelligence Scale of Life, the bottom being terra firma and the top being the Moon, you are the Marianas F*cking Trench. Scientists study you thinking Neanderthals have repopulated the planet in select herds. No one knows why you have excessive body hair, but it's the main goal of modern science to do something about it. Please stop approaching your neighbors; they just think you want to eat their children. Forming a Hitler Fan Club was not a good idea, and shame on you.

VIRGO
You think you're pretty great, and if you weren't such as assh*le you could be. If it's cool to drive a Porsche like a pretentious d*uchebag (and it isn't), you somehow make it less cool than driving a Miata with sparkly butterfly sitckers on the windshield. Destined to be Deputy Mayor of a small town who gets indicted for racketeering. You're not a virgin, but that's only because you've visited "exotic locales", which is fancy speak for "land with no sexual assault laws". It's not totally your fault - your drunk father DID piss all over your stuffed animals while you slept, so you get a permanent Hall Pass.

SCORPIO
Jesus Christ, how do you even live with yourself? Your mother was a wh*re and your father let her beat him - how does that even happen anymore? Sure, you're pretty and you can do fun things with your tongue, but did that ever stop anyone from throwing you under the truck? You ask too many questions, you don't listen to the answers, and even though you're physically appealing people are pretty damned sure you're borderline mentally retarded. You work at Fashion Bug if you're a girl and if you're a guy you masturbate on the side of the highway for thrills. No one is amused. Please get help.

GEMINI
Oooooooooh, your sign is the twin! Big f*cking deal - you can stop telling people this at any time, as if you'll convince them that you somehow got two signs for the price of one. It's not our fault that your nipples are inverted and that your third grade teacher touched you inappropriately. In fact, come to think of it, you touch yourself inappropriately. Stop the cycle. Sadly, the rest of the world thinks you're worthwhile because you're in a band or because you wrote a book about Asians in Crisis, and now you're some pop culture guru. But the stars know the truth: you have chlamydia. And that burning sensation when you pee doesn't mean you're "hot".

SAGITTARIUS
Your sign sounds like an new Sexually Transmitted Disease, but unlike your Gemini Brothers and sisters you don't have one yet (2008, Detroit, in the back of a conversion van - write it down). You seem to genuinely care about other people, and that's why you've been corrupted by some horrific rightist/leftist organization. No, no one in their right mind thinks that animals should be able to drive/black people should be put back into slavery. Everyone nods their head when you speak, pretending that they're moved by your fantatical claims, but really they're just wondering how to dial 9-1-1 on their cell phone without you dousing them with fake blood. You think Stove Top Stuffing is a food group and you drool when you talk too fast. You're a mouth-breather.

CANCER
Though you probably haven't realized it yet, your sign is an omen because it's actually TWO diseases in one: cancer (sorry chief), the icon of which is a crab (that's gotta hurt). You were either the star QB on your high school football team or the head cheerleader; now you're just a lonely b*stard lamenting your fate and unable to tell anyone you're actually a hermaphrodite (similarly, you've convinced yourself that "Hermaphrodite" is actually the Greek God of F*ckin' Chicks). You run stop signs without thinking twice and collect Care Bears in your spare time. That screenplay you're writing about the impending war between cafeteria workers and the Thundercats ain't comin' off too well, and your job at the Christmas Tree Lot is, well...seasonal. Good luck with your enflamed testicle/labia.

PISCES
You're a f*cking sea dweller - what else is there? Concurrently you have bad eyesight and resemble the Gorton's Fisherman, which is OK if you're a male but slightly awkward in the social arena if you're a female...and God knows there are plenty of you. You have a kind nature but all vestiges of that are lost in the fact that you seem to be unable to stop molesting your niece. Everyone wishes you would get a car because you leave a stain in the backseat of other's vehicles when you bum a ride. You're going to die alone, painfully, while watching the TBS marathon of A CHRISTMAS STORY on some December 24th. You know the year, you just won't admit it to yourself. Your greatest strength is your ability to ascertain and divulge someone's true nature; it's also your biggest weakness and the reason everyone refers to you as "F*cking Scary (Insert Your Name Here)".

LIBRA
Unlike everyone else, you're a winner. You constantly win. You're attractive and you smell good all the time, even after you've bathed in vinegar and dead babies. If you're a guy you've got a huge penis and if you're a female your t*ts sit up at full attention. Everyone envies you. You're going to be successful beyond reproach, causing everyone that hates you (which are only a very few) to spread rumors about you having genital warts, but you'll crush their spirits when you have them killed by the Yakuza. Don't ever worry about money - you're going to be so g*ddamn well-liked that people will literally throw themselves in front of a raging bull just to buy you a shot. Chicks? You f*ck 'em and don't even bother to take names (replace "chicks" with "ladies" if you're a female). Britney Spears blew you when she was hot but you wouldn't let her tell anyone because you didn't think she was cool enough.

***I hope you learned something valuable about yourselves. Now stop sending me bullsh*t Horoscopes because I'm too smart to believe that they have any basis in reality.

KEEP ALL HANDS AND FEET AWAY FROM THE GOOSE'S MOUTH

2005-11-14T22:31:00.000-08:00

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Sit down. Hang out. This one's gonna be a doozy.

Ah. Ha ha. My life. I think I may have alluded to this fact in previous posts, but let's go ahead and spell it out in plain English: the last, mmmmmm...3.5 months have been the most trying of my entire life. I'm not in pain. I'm not in anguish. I'm not sick, for about the first time ever. My life certainly doesn't suck. But it's been more than stressful. There are things going on around me that I haven't talked about to anyone - not even my beloved roommates or family members - and I'm pretty excited for the day when they either don't exist or cease to weigh on me like I do now.

But here's the thing - I haven't dealt with any of these things very well within myself. I haven't processed my emotions. I haven't made an outlet. I haven't made "me" time. I've tried to ignore them or, worse yet, pretend that they don't exist and that the world is an eternally sunny place. It's not. That's not a bad thing; in fact, it's quite a good thing, because without the sour, the sweet just ain't as sweet, right? I'm a big believer in that. What has happened, though, is that I've gone back to being someone I really, really hate. Someone that I tried to leave behind when I left home for college. Someone I literally despise with every fiber of my being.

I have re-become The Great Accomodater (TM).

Who is TGA? Oh, you know this guy pretty well. Always smiling, even when he has damn good reason not to. Always offering his services, not only when people don't need them but when he doesn't have them to offer. Always the gentleman, even when he should be telling people to fuck the fuck off. I loathe this guy, and you do too. But mostly I loathe him because he gets walked all over. Why would I become this guy? Maybe it's a subconscious belief in karma, that if I just try to be Mother Theresa and make everyone happy that some metaphysical power source will come and make the Bad Men stop dancing. And what does an attitude like that lead to? Oh...yeah, I already said that up there...it leads to me getting walked all over.

It would literally take me several hands on which to count the number of people I've let saunter, sashay and jig over my pathetic little carcass the last few moons. I've acquiesced. I've bequeathed. I've done other giving words that involve the usage of the letter "Q" to the point where I've become the Nice Guy That Finishes Last. And Sweet Holy Jesus Christ in Heaven, am I tired of that. Not only am I tired of that, I'm too fucking good to be that guy. And I owe it to myself to walk the hell away from him.

Here's a perfect example of what a pussy I've become. Now on a Problem Scale of 1-10, "1" being a non-factor in my daily life and "10" being soul-shattering to the point it nearly makes me weep at the thought (and trust me, my Issues run all numerals right now), this Issue is about a "5", so it's a perfect reference point. Backstory: I'm going to be vague on purpose, as I'm not trying to embarrass anyone or get sued for libel, but suffice to say this person was someone I cared about enough to want to protect/appease/make happy. In a situation that was not only foreign to me but unfair and eventually a burden, I bent over backwards to accomodate their...well, let's call them "erratic"...wishes. As time went on I didn't get any of the relatively meager things I was asking for (which was not without a lack of trying, I must admit) but I without fail continued to support these wishes. At the time of my most recent idiocy, I had not spoken to this person in about three weeks.

So I see this person out one night, and at first everything seemed cool. No bad blood (as there was no reason for such), no animosity, no apparent friction. Splendid. Sensing the mood was...human...I attempted to engage in normal conversation a few times. Nothing deep, nothing graphic - some what have you been up to's, how have you been's, the whole nine. The conversation sucked, but me, being The Great Accomodator, figured the distance was because of something I said or did. Was I holding my fork wrong? Was the song in the background bringing up bad vibes? When I thought about it later that night I was worried, feeling that perhaps I wasn't nice enough or that I didn't show enough enthusiasm for the subject matter or, worse yet, that I showed too much. So what should I do? What did I do?

Heyo, that's right - I called to apologize.

I. Called. To apologize.

Fast forward to the next morning. As I begin to recall the night previous's events, I started to notice a trend. I was civil, collected, and normal. I asked questions because I legitimately wanted to know the answers to them. I was, in a word, genuine. The problem was not on my end. Where I was genuine, this other person was fake. When they answered my question it was in something of a halting manner, a tone that one usually reserves for a hyperactive five year-old that won't stop asking questions during a movie. Where I just wanted to make a mends and keep a touchy situation at a decidedly non-awkward level (a situation which, I must admit, I didn't fuck up in the first place), this person wanted to get away from me like I had leprosy or The Herpes (TM). But the kicker - and holy shit, the three of you who read this blog will love this - was when, not once but TWICE, this person looked at someone else in the room, referencing me, with a motherfucking eye roll. A roll of the eyes. Twice. And, as The Great Accomodator, do you know what I thought at the time?

"What did I do wrong?"

No no no, you can stop laughing...I'm dead to the bone serious. This is the fool that I have become. The guy that, in order to try to keep his guard up, lets it down completely. In that, I have contributed to a situation where, over the course of a few weeks, my private life has been turned into little less than a gossip column, speculation has been made to my sanity, I've been lied to, had lies told about me, and have, as I have detailed, been walked over like a rug. Sometimes perhaps with good friends involved. It's amazing, to think about people you don't know (and maybe a few that you do) talking about how pathetic you are.

But it's devastating to realize that they're right. That you have become pathetic. That you're the World's Last Bastion of Jackassery.

That ends now.

If there's one thing I've learned the hard way - a few times, I'm a little embarrassed to admit - it's that you ain't getting anywhere on the road of life just by trying to make other people happy. Sometimes it's not your goddamn job. Sometimes it's out of your goddamn control. And a lot of times the person just isn't goddamn worth it, if only because they'll let you squirm knowing that they owe you only a modicum of opportunity - a minute of thier time to get shit straight.

Fuck these people, that's what I say. Fuck 'em all. Life's too short to sit around worrying about everyone else's feelings all the time. I'm not saying this and other events have soured me on people; quite the contrary, in fact - they make you appreciate the people in your life who would never do such a thing that much more. I'm not saying I'll be less compassioante, less caring, or less willing to help someone out; I'm gonna just be more careful deciding who those people are. I'm going to be cutting out some people who drag me down or make things more difficult for me. I'm gonna make November/December '05 official Geoff Be Gettin' Introspective and Deconstructive Time (TM).

I hope I never have to say anything like this for the rest of my life, really, but for the next couple weeks, whoever you might be...be careful about the way you approach me. I'm not a violent person, I don't hold grudges, and I don't stay mad long. But I can be rather blunt and forthright and, frankly, there's not gonna be much of a honeymoon period where I'll be worried about outing or embarrassing someone. Don't be the one that ends up on the short end of that stick, because everyone's got their little locked-away secrets, and it's bad, bad news to go up against someone who just doesn't care and doesn't have anything to lose.

You all know the Don Henley song...

>>What did I know?
Those days are gone forever
I should just let them go -
But...<< href="http://www.nowheresville.us/">here, so go figure.

--Remember a few months ago when I laid into PETA for being a terrorist organization? First of all, I'm pissed to have received not a SINGLE piece of hate mail for that - you people are g*ddamned lazy. But here's a great website that tracks nefarious organizations like PETA and tells you what they're really up to. Great read, great information, and they can back it up.

--Why are people so excited to see KING KONG? All the requisite film d*cuhes are freaking out in droves, thinking this is going to be the greatest thing ever. I'm not gonna see it, so I'm not gonna specualte as to whether or not it's going to be a good movie or not, but I think it says a lot about American film culture when so many losers (who think they know all there is to know about films but really know nothing) are so collectively agog over something so trivial.

Other movies I could care less about seeing this Holiday Season:

HARRY POTTER AND THE (INSERT THIRD INSTALLMENT SUBTITLE HERE BECAUSE I SURE AS HELL DON'T KNOW IT)
MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA
RENT (I hope the people who made this movie and the musical that spawned it choke to death, excluding Rosario Dawson, who is invited to marry me instead)
MATCH POINT (Woody Allen sucks)

And I'm sure a few others. JARHEAD was great, by the way.

--On the heels of movies, please please please go to CannedJam and read James's treatise on Serial Killer Movies - it's one of the funniest, most spot-on pieces I've ever read. Well done, Matarese.

--OK, so I'm a huge LAGUNA BEACH fan and I'm not afraid to admit it (and before you ask, I'm for LC, and Kristen sucks). That said...I have to talk about the episode where this Deiter kid had the benefit for the families whose houses got destroyed by the mudslide.

First of all, I don't want to make it seem like I'm coming down on the kids who did this fashion show/concert to raise money - it was a damn nice thing to do and, frankly, I'm not a good enough person to have even thought of comprehending doing something like that, much less in possession of the not-lazy gene required to actually put it into action. So Kudos on that end. However...I mean, ya'll realize it's f*cking Laguna Beach, right? That if you have a house there, it's not only for damn sure insured but you're not going to be begging in the street if something happens to it because you have enough money to live there in the first place, right? Wasn't there...I mean, c'mon, there's gotta be SOMETHING else...like, I don't know...anything else...that you can direct your enthusiasm towards?

"We're having a benefit for the Laguna Beach victims."

Just read that sentence a few times, and if you're not laughing your ass off by the third go-round, you're either dead or without a very basic sense of humor.

But then there's the Highest of the High Unintentional Comedy that is Talan singing. Wow. Wowee wow wow. This kid is currently persuing a music career in LA.

If you've seen it, you know what I mean, and if you haven't you need to see it. I suggest setting the volume very low, and you might want to, additionally, hide in a bunker in case of stray, shrapnel-like flat notes.

--I got to thinking the other day about how long it's been since I've been so excited about a girl that I assigned a song to her. Actually, it never happens like that - you get to that certain point with someone where you're all soupy about them or whatever and then BAM!, one day you hear a song and for the rest of your life you associate it with that Special Lady Friend (TM). Sometimes that song then becomes "Your Song" - actually, probably, most of the time. But isn't it weird what triggers such a thing?

The thought occured to me when I heard, randomly the other day, the first ever song that I associated with a girl I had a crush on - for whatever reason (I wracked my brain trying to think WHY this particular song made that particular impression but I couldn't) it happend to be "London" by Third Eye Blind.

(NOTE: I will NEVER apologize to anyone for liking Third Eye Blind. Apparently, in most social circles, being a guy and admitting to a fondness for this band is akin to admitting, "Yes, I like to watch male kiddie porn while reading Mein Kampf,", which is something I'll never understand and don't care to. Think I'm a p*ssy? F*ck you, I don't care.)

Anyway, after that I went back and plucked from my memory the songs I had applied to a few select females over the years, and here's what I came up with:

--"London", Third Eye Blind (I didn't even really like this girl that much, so I have no idea where this came from, but she was the first person to ever move me to orgasm without taking off a single piece of my clothing. It's a great story, and if you ever get to hear it that means I really, really like you. I think the fact that I can't remember the association is that I heard the song two years after the event happ...NO! Wait, I've got it! She was born in London! God, what a fantastic epiphone! That's never happened before in the middle of a post...)

--"Talk Tonight", Oasis (One of those that became "Our Song". It's amazing to think about how little I like her now and how much I complained about her at the time and then to consider that the good memories outweigh the bad like 75/25.)

--"Slide Away", Oasis (Another "Our Song". This one built up very slowly over a semester, then hit hard and was over in less than two months. But holy sh*t was it good while it lasted. Best nude body I have ever seen ever. Hands down. God college was great. And if you think you're noticing an Oasis pattern...well, there sort of was one, but it's over.)

--"She Will Be Loved", Maroon 5 (Hardcore heartbreak here, easily the worst I've experienced. Isn't it odd how fondly you look back on some of that stuff? If you had told me at the time that not only would I get over it within an acceptible amount of time but that I'd find myself better off for having gone through it, I would have punched you in the mouth and then cried while slightly drooling. You know when you do that, like you cry but your mouth hangs open and a little drool comes out? You know this thing?

Wow. No one can ruin a moment like I can.)

--"Cold Hard Bitch", Jet (Now this looks pretty bad, but trust me, there's a very positive connotation here. Aside from other qualities that I really dug, this girl had/has an amazing set of hips, so when we were kinda working through our thing that line "She was shakin' her hips/And that was all that I need" really stuck with me. That sound entirely superficial, and yeah, OK, it is, but I liked her well beyond that so just leave me to my memories.)

That last one was the most recent, and that was nearly two years ago. I've met girls that I've got on with since then, and quite well, but I guess not to a point where it was either emotionally impactful enough or during a point where I was listening to a lot of music. After a great mix CD the other night I'm in a pretty black and white Punk phase, so there's a chance that my next lucky infatuation gets associated with an All-American Classic like "C*nt-Kick My Crippled Mother and Sh*t On My Testes". Which is nice for everyone.

I'm curious to know what songs you've associated with certain girls in your lives, and beyond that I'm hypercurious to know what songs girls tag to guys. I'll leave you with that homework assignment - either leave a comment or email me. Until next time, I should just let it go -

But...

SO MUCH TO SAY

2005-10-25T13:03:00.000-07:00

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Alright, so look, I have been a busy little beaver lately. Lots of work, little else, which is annoying at times but also profitable, so you're not going to hear me complain. However, it leaves me little time to write - though a lot of time to think about writing - so there are, like, literally thousands of things (I've never exaggerated ever) that I've thought of to talk about that I haven't made a comment on. That's going to change this afternoon. Here are some things that I have pondered that I would now like you to ponder:

--Why is Lou Holtz allowed on television? Three or four times a week I'm subjected to his mush-mouthed, incoherent rambling on ESPNNews and it drives me insane. Look, it's fine to have an old coach sit there and try to pump up his old program, but there's only so much Notre Dame d*ck-sucking I'll tolerate. Instead of contributing some kind of insight that might be valuable from a former head coach's perspective he talks incessantly about Jesus's Team, most of the time unintelligibly, and then adds something crazy like, "Tony Fisher may have been the best college football running back in history." And yeah, maybe he didn't actually say that, but would anyone be surprised?

Today was my last straw with Lou, as he openly mocked the South Carolina football program just because he wasn't a good enough coach to do well there. You stay classy, Mr. Holtz. The worst part of this fiasco is that he's literally little more than a senile old man at this point. Putting him on TV is something ESPN should be ashamed of. Similarly, if I ever take a Down's kid, put a calculus book in front of him, tape the resulting primal struggle and broadcast it for millions, I expect someone to flog me relentlessly.

--Speaking of football...I mean, just try being a Penn St. fan AND a Cleveland Browns fan at the same time. Excrutiating on several levels.

The Nittany Lions are doing well this year, but what in the blue blazes of f*cking hell was the deal with the Michigan game? Between the phantom penalties, the referee's absolute refusal to give PSU an accurate first down spot, a similar refusal to review a play that clearly saw a Michigan receiver touch a heel out of bounds on a 15-yard pass play on the final drive and the collective balls to allow Lloyd Carr to pull an extra two seconds out of a hidden time bank in the outer cosmos...well, let's just say that I experienced several decades of heartbreak in less than ten minutes and probably shaved a good 5-6 years off my life. I will forever hate you, Lloyd Carr, and if you think I'll forget about this you're wrong.

Somehow the Browns, who are 2-4 and basically out of any postseason contention already, have made me happy this year. First of all they've been WAY more competitive than anyone expected, and aside from the first bomb against the much-improved Bengals there's no reason they couldn't be 5-1 if some key plays went a different way. Whatever happens the rest of the way the new management is taking this team in the right direction, Romeo Crennel is a genius, and even though I yell and try to skewer my eyes out with toothpicks every Sunday I'm confident in the future.

--Does anyone else here visit Ain't It Cool News? I do quite frequently - they've got a lot of spies that get information on upcoming films WAY before it gets filtered down to me through the studio - but I've just come to a point of exhaustion with all of these talkbackers.

I mean...what an absolutely, pathetic bunch of d*uchebags. Go read any of the posts on the website and then look at what thankless losers these people are that respond to them. Apparently there's some kind of d*uchebag honor in being the first to respond to a post, and as such there's always a rash of basement-dwelling morons in a rush to throw up their "FIRST!" exclamation with absolutely nothing else to offer. It's so sad that I actually feel bad making fun of these people for a millisecond.

But the worst part is how these people pick apart every film, script, idea and rumor that comes across the wire. Do you jackasses realize that, much as you complain and whine and let the snot bubbles form in your nose...you'll never get anywhere near the entertainment industry? Newsflash: you couldn't make a decent film if you had Kubrick on tap, so please, PLEASE shut the f*ck up. In fact, you're the same mental midgets - and I know this for a fact in several cases - that submit 100 pages of nothing to producers and then cry when you get bad notes. Hey, you're talentless, and that's no one's fault but your own. Please stop the blabbering.

These people have literally driven me up the wall on several occasions. Remember before when I talked about how much I hate music snobs? These people are of the same ilk but on a whole different level for me because I'm smarter than they are and I know more. I really hope they all die, because I can't take the stupidity anymore. There's always that old joke that's like, "Hey, move out of your parent's basement and get a life!" It's cliched, it's old, it's redundant, and it couldn't be more true.

On another note but still related, if I see one more music reviewer analyze guitar on a particular album as "crunchy" or describe the melodies as "luscious" I'm going to dig my testes out with a tuning fork. Music critics are bigger idiots than film critics.

--I can't believe no one has ever brought this up before, but I had this thought a few weeks ago and I can't shake it: did anyone ever consider Morgan Freeman's last name? Is there a more possibly-racist last name in existence for a black man? Does anyone know if there's a Kelvin Usedtobeaslave? Because I think that's the only way to eclipse this. Jesus, no wonder everyone hates white people.

--If you're on MySpace, join me in trying to get them to take away this whole Top 8 deal, because it's really going to ruin some friendships. If you don't know what I'm talking about it goes like this: on your MySpace profile (here's mine, just as an example) it shows eight people out of however many Friends you've accepted. It used to just be generated randomly for you, but now you get to pick the eight people, which as I see it - and based on the way some people have been acting - might lead to the destruction of all relationships as we know them.

People are freaking out. I won't name names, but I've - yes, we're talking about ME - been getting Messages from people losing their minds: "How come I'm not on your Top 8? You're on my Top 8!" Is there anything dumber than getting worked up about this? Anything? First of all, no one in their right mind should have me as one of their Top 8 friends, MySpace or no. Second of all, they should be even less concerned about being in MY Top 8...and frankly, let's be honest here, maybe you want to worry about the implications of Social Suicide (TM) if you are.

Please get a grip. I can no longer tolerate the lunacy.

In other MySpace news, there's this trend I've noticed recently of getting emails from porn fronts. They take a picture of a scantily-clad lady, send you a message saying that she's new in town and likes to get to know people, and that she doesn't check her MySpace Messages a lot but can be reached at hotcuntforu00985tnvdexzzzz@hotmail.com. Oh, and she has a webcam. Now I can't imagine that even the most novice Internet user might fall for this ruse, but apparently I am a very stupid idiot because I get like two per day.

Is there some chapter in the Porn Webmaster's Bible (TM) that denotes something about fat bearded guys being easy targets for poorly disguised adult-related spam? If there is, I'd like to protest it and possibly get it changed, because the next time a girl sends me a picture of her ass I'd just rather that she be a regular old whore from whom I can pick up syphilis the old-fashioned way.

--A lot of people have been writing to me asking for the significance of the I'M FOREVER BLOWING BUBBLES lyrics and where they came from. Well, the significance is that it's the team anthem for the West Ham football club in the English Premier League and was featured prominently in GREEN STREET HOOLIGANS, probably my favorite film this year. It can be found online by searching for the song's title and if you live in England you can even download it as a ringtone for your cell phone. For myself personally, it's the mantra I repeat every time I want to punch someone in the face, which has been quite often of late.

--Go here and scroll down to the post from 19 October 2005 about karaoke types. You al know my love for karaoke, and this guy has the featured players down to a science. It's f*cking funny and, fortunately or unfortunately, I can't tell, all so very true. Brandy swears this guy, Jason Mulgrew, is my brother, and if that's the case he's the successful talented brother that people pay attention to because his site is getting WAY more traffic than mine.

Incidentally, I bet he actually has to worry about his MySpace Top 8.

--This thing scares the absolute BeJesus out of me, but if they actually build I am going to have to go and experience it, because how could you not? I might need a therapist and some smelling salts on hand, but for me this will be the equivalent of a normal person who's not a complete p*ssy going skydiving.

--A big shoutout to my good friend Jen M., who I fully plan on sleeping with once I get back to Pennsylvania, finally ending my impossibly long tango with celibacy.

--This might be a little bit of a tease, but I'm planning big things for GooseTown's Blogspot location. And those big things are going to be a systematic cataloguing and reviewing of the finest softcore porn titles that Pay Cable (Showtime, The Movie Channel, and Skinemax) has to offer.

We've started watching a lot of softcore porn in this apartment, and there's several reasons for that:

1) We're drunk a lot.

2) There's nothing erotic or even remotely arousing about it, so it's not like watching porn with actual hot chicks where there's a good chance you'll drop some wood and embarrass yourself in front of your buddies.

3) The simulated sex is so poorly...well, simulated, I guess...that it's the highest of high comedy.

I'm thinking of several categories I'd like to cover in each analysis, but the one I'm most excited about is tracking the ratio of fake breasts to real breasts in each "film". Look, we've all talked about the fact that, in general, I hate implants. You have to agree with me that at LEAST 9 out of every 10 boob jobs end in complete failure, with the female looking like a Cereal Bowl Bug crawled underneath her skin and gave birth to two massive, frightening babies. However, it appears that there's no shortage of girls with distracted doctors auditioning for these things, and man I have I seen some doozies. The worst is when the scars around the nipples are still fresh enough that they puff out and look like rivers on a roadmap. And the really frustrating notion is that there was likely nothing wrong with their breasts before they went and got them done. I'm going to do you all a favor and clue you in to a secret here: while some guys really dig big, goofy implants (we like to refer to them as "Southern Rednecks") most guys are much happier with a smaller, perkier breast as opposed to something that appears swelled with anger and looks like it will try to beat you up if you don't attempt to float on it.

On the converse, a good implant done right (You females know that you can get the teardrop-shaped implant now, right? They tell you this kind of thing and give you a choice, yes?) can be a really, really wonderful thing and is worth noting. Especially since the balance of natural-breasted "beauties" in these films seem to have nipples the size of large puppies, and that's pretty much a disaster for everyone.

Anyway, this new section of GooseTown Blogspot is now in the works and, when the flow of scripts slows down, I'm going to get on it. For you. The reader.

--Before I go, my good friend Staci came back into town this past weekend, and at one point, drunk in her hotel room, we decided that what we needed were the vestiges of an awkward high school ritual: the Prom. The picture below is what followed. Minutes later, Staci offered me money and various sexual favors to get rid of the beard. I stood my ground. It lives on, and though one Ryan Quick may attempt to sully my reputation by claiming that he somehow has a more manly beard...that is folly, my friends.

IT'S NOT THAT EASY GUYS...EHHH, IT'S NOT THAT EASY...

2005-10-13T05:12:00.000-07:00

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Well this is pretty friggin' trite if you ask me.

I have just had...and I don't want to overstate this, so I'm not going to...the Week from Hell. And not because it was all bad, just because my brain and my emotions were so all over the board. There were so many rapid swings between "King of LA" and "Disgruntled Mental Basement Dweller" that I feel like a human home run derby. If I'm being honest the last 2-3 months have been like that, but this week was just magnified for some reason. That being said, I'd like to get a few things off my chest.

First, let's take a look at this word...

relationship
Pronunciation: sh&n-"ship
Function: noun
1) the state of being related or interrelated (studied the relationship between the variables)
2) the relation connecting or binding participants in a relationship: a) as KINSHIP: b) a specific instance or type of kinship
3) a state of affairs existing between those having relations or dealings (had a relationship with his family): a) a romantic or passionate attachment

This word came up (and was a major theme of, though in very different ways) in no less than three very serious dealings I've had in the last week - two on the phone and one in an absolutely catastrophically ridiculous email exchange. Now I'm not going to get into the specifics of those dealings, but I do want to focus on one specific part of the definition:

a state of affairs existing between those having relations or dealings

Can we just, as humans, all agree that this leaves the word open to a wide variety of meanings? I don't ask for much...just tell me that we're all on the same page here. Make an old man happy.

Man, I am f*cking tired of dealing with people. I really am. Actually that's not true - most people are fine. I'm tired of dealing with people that try to talk to me and then don't listen to what I say. Moreover, I'm tired of talking to people who listen to what I have to say but hear something else entirely - something they want or need to hear rather than the point I'm trying to convey. I'm tired of dealing with cocky, ignorant motherf*ckers who think they know something about everything and try to speak on said everything. I'm tired of dealing with people who ask me for advice and then complain when I'm honest with them. I'm probably tired of you. It's come to that point.

But you know what's great about this? See, I'm giving you the impression that I'm really upset now. I'm not at all - in fact, I couldn't be further from it. I'm rather content. Why? That's what's great about this. I just entered a previously-visited phase of my life where I get to apply my favorite phrase in the Universe to everything I do.

Fuck it.

Did you notice that I left the little asterisk out? Yeah, I did that on purpose. For effect. Because seriously...fuck it.

I'm sure I've written about this on here before, but a few years back I was in the hospital for a month or so, paralyzed from the chest down after a spinal infection. I never got scared, I never worried, I never stressed myself out because of one thing my father told me. It is, honest to God, the greatest thing I've ever heard in my life and it's something so liberating that I'm going to share it with all of you:

"Attempt to control only the things in life that you can control; if something is out of your control, you can't do anything about it...so why worry?"

It sounds simple, and we've all heard it before, but have you ever really HEARD it? Man, when you hear it...it's loud. I swear it frees you - not to a negligent degree, mind you - to let that which does not matter truly slide. Just one sentence. I hadn't thought about that at all in the past few weeks; it became one of my life's most important lessons that I forgot. I've had sh*t swirling up in my head for three months now that has been bothering me and eating at me and tearing me up and making me think and just generally filling my skull with doubt and worry. I haven't slept more than 4 hours in a night in 75 days...and yes, I've been counting.

But in one pure EUREKA! moment tonight...well, I just remembered that which I had forgotten and the world makes sense again.

There are two ways to stop caring. One is a conscious effort where you tell yourself, "Hey, I'm going to set this crap aside and not dwell on it; it's messing me up." You actually force yourself not to care. I've done that before. This is not the same thing. This is, "Hey...everything that I was just worried about is gone." It's like a switch is flipped and you don't care anymore, not because you think you don't have to but because your mind has washed all its windows. Holy sh*t, I just read back over all of that and man, does it sound like a copout. It's not - I know some of you can back me up on this. It's just that snap feeling you get when you realize everything that was holding you back mentally just isn't relevant anymore.

So perhaps my earlier incantation of "Fuck it" was only partially applicable in this situation. This is not me saying "piss off" to all the things in my life that bother me - that's not a healthy way to deal with your surroundings. I guess it's just more of a way of giving the finger to all of the things you thought you needed to control...but which you were just letting control you. That's my second veiled reference to FIGHT CLUB in this post, and I swear to you, my three readers, I did neither on purpose. I guess it's that period for me to sit down and deconstruct, and let everyone else unfold their own masterplan as they may.

My excess baggage my have kept me up tonight - again - but I bet you tomorrow I sleep like a f*cking rock. It's a fantastic, wonderful, slightly filthy feeling when you know your only emotional investment in the foreseeable future is a weekend of football. It's slightly more soothing, more relaxing than my previous idea: buy a pirated copy of GREEN STREET HOOLIGANS, watch it on a continuous loop for 48 hours, don a track jacket, and walk the streets of LA haphazardly knocking out the teeth of innocent pedestrians.

Should any of you need me, then, you can find me sitting around my living room, perhaps a frosty Country Club Malt Liquor (the Half Quart) in my hand, PSU or the Browns on the tube, and a big goddamn smile on my face.

I'm dreaming dreams,
I'm scheming schemes, I'm building castles high.
They're born anew, their days are few,
Just like a sweet butterfly.
And as the daylight is dawning,
They come again in the morning!

I'm forever blowing bubbles,
Pretty bubbles in the air,
They fly so high,
Nearly reach the sky,
Then like my dreams
They fade and die.
Fortune's always hiding,
I've looked everywhere,
I'm forever blowing bubbles,
Pretty bubbles in the air.

When shadows creep,
When I'm asleep,
To lands of hope I stray...

UPDATE (13 October 2005, 16:45): I was having the best day ever until my accountant decided that he wanted to ruin my life. I can now be found at the corner of Pico and Robertson throwing myself in front of one of those blue LA buses.

By a Show of Hands, How Glad Are You to See Me Again?

2005-10-03T23:50:00.000-07:00

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Holy sh*t, has it really been almost two months since I wrote anything? If the three of you out there who read this pile of junk are still with me…what the f*ck is wrong with you? You should have found something else! Don’t look at me, I’m HIDEOUS!!!

Now that I’ve curled up in the fetal position and wept softly and quietly…damn, do I have a lot to talk about.

The past two months have been on a Special Olympics level of retarded, hence my elongated absence from writing. I don’t know how to explain it other than this: when there’s too much going on – as has been the case – I get exasperated thinking about all the stuff I want to write about…and then I sort of implode. So that’s what I did; I just checked out for a while, but unlike Dave Chappelle I don’t have the luxury of going to detox in Africa. I took some time to think about the most important things on my mind, and here I present them for you. Or some of them, anyway.

--My buddy Kyle got married last month on September 3^rd. I was dreading this day – not because of who he was marrying or where it was, but just because I hate weddings. Creepy relatives. Watered-down drinks. Bad DJs. Desperate chicks. Ties. Suits. Blech – blech it all, that’s what I say. But Kyle’s a great friend and I figured I should be there on what would be the best day of his life.

I didn’t expect it to be one of the best days of mine. And none of the above nuisances reared their ugly head.

First of all, let me tell you that I am not using the appropriate words by just saying that this wedding was f*cking amazing looking. Think of the best wedding you’ve ever been to and multiply it by Long Island – this was mind-boggling. If you ever want to do a wedding right, do it this way: have drinks with the groom before the wedding at Hooters while he nearly throws up his steak and cheese thanks to nerves, sit around in a scalding hot church but have the Best Man’s Father (more on him in a second) get up right before the service starts and direct the massive fan right at your pew, kiss the bride, hug the groom, make the parental rounds, go for a pre-cocktail hour cocktail hour, go to cocktail hour, hit the reception. Because that’s what we did.

I couldn’t possibly hit all the highlights so I’m going to try to hand you the most salient ones in the order that I remember them:

1) A member of the wedding party – the kid’s name is Gugo (Googo? Guugo? I have no clue.) – dives off the inside hotel balcony three stories up into the pool the night before the wedding. THAT’S how you begin the ceremonies, folks, so I recommend you have someone named “Gugo” on hand for your next set of nuptials.

2) Direct quote: “Kyle and Karyn, when you were single, you went for it. To all the single people out there, I say to go for it yourselves. Find a nice young man or young lady and go for it – maybe tonight.” – The Minister during the actual marriage. C’mon, c’mon…the Minister TOLD US TO GO GET LAID! That man…he wins, that’s what he does, and we won just by being within fifty feet of him.

3) The Best Man’s father gets into a verbal sparring match with the Bride’s Crazy Cousin (who called him sexist for quoting a line from AS GOOD AS IT GETS) minutes into the pre-cocktail hour cocktail hour. Later, he proceeds to tip back a few glasses of fine champagne, don a fake afro that was being passed around, tie a glowing neon band to his belt strap so as to accentuate his crotch region, throw down some crazy dance moves, and dive into the splits on the dancefloor at the reception. I have known Mr. Krausz for seven years now, and not only had I previously heard him say less than six words in that entire timespan…I wasn’t even sure he was totally alive. But Mr. Krausz…you’re my new hero, and I have not stopped talking about your antics since that day. Again, sir…you win.

4) My good buddy QB Blake and I revert to being seventh graders towards the end of the reception. One of my good friends – and I don’t want to drop any names, so we’ll just call him Chris “Can’t Close the Deal” Loftus – is the guy in our group whom the girls fall all over but who makes a conscious decision never to capitalize on it. I could shoot an entire issue of PLAYBOY based just on the chicks I hooked up with in college that he cast off – we’re not talking Busch League skanks here. Anyway, as expected, he draws the attention of the hottest girl at the wedding, hangs with her all night, and then ditches her to go back to the hotel to drink crappy beers with the rest of us idiots. Said ditching was incredible, and if it had been done as part of a Shakespearean play, it might have gone something like this:

HOT GIRL: Willest thou accompany me back to my sleeping quarters?

LOFTUS: Nay, lady; f*ckest thou off so that I might rolleth with mine boys.

But that’s not the part of the story I want to tell. After about an hour and a half of cutting a rug with this young lady on the dancefloor, Loftus proceeds outside with her; no one sees him for a half hour. Meanwhile Blake and I are pasted out of our heads and decide to take a walk to the gazebo (stop there, because I know what you’re thinking…and yes, I was hoping he would try to kiss me, but I got nervous and left before anything happened) out on this little lake that surrounded the building. We see Loftus way on the other end of the lawn, sitting at a table with this girl, she perched firmly upon his lap. It was far away so I can’t say that I know EXACTLY what was going on, but one might describe it as “necking” or, if you’re British, “snogging”.

I point this out to Blake, Blake notices the rock in his hand, I encourage him to do what we’re both thinking…and Blake chucks the rock at them. It’s at least a fifty-yard throw, and MAN did it come close. Of course we’re giddy like schoolgirls, tittering all the way back into the reception, and then we tell everyone what happened like we just found the cure for Asian Bird Flu.

There’s something about being around your college buddies, watching one of your good men go down…I don’t know, it was just a blast. Kyle and Karyn, best wishes and enjoy the Dremel. And to my friends…what can I say? You guys are the best, and one of the few drawbacks to living on the West Coast is that I don’t have more access to you all. Can’t wait to see you all again at Louie’s first intervention.

--Had a birthday. Twenty-six. I thought it was going to be strange – four years from thirty – but it wasn’t nearly as disheartening as turning twenty-five. I think that’s partly due to the maturation process and partly due to the fact that I don’t remember 75% of the evening. I do know we went to Amagi. I do know that Steve “The Karaoke Ninja” T., by request from Brandy, sang WONDERWALL in my honor, a tribute the likes of which makes me weepy to think about.

The picture at the top of this post is from that un(forgettable) evening. I post it for a few reasons:

1) I don’t remember it being taken, what song we were singing, or what I was thinking.

2) Aviators.

3) With my beard at this level…well, I’ll just never look that f*cking cool again.

But seriously…one of the best birthdays ever. It’s the greatest feeling to have your friends call you the next day and say, “Dude, that was the most fun I ever had at a birthday party,” as you reply, “You f*cking showed up?”

Enjoy the picture. I know you did.

A few more random things that I have thought about in one way or another over the past two months that I could elaborate on but choose not to:

--Emmanuelle Chriqui: my new obsession. If you watch ENTOURAGE (all the cool kids do) she played Sloane, Malcolm McDowell’s daughter. I don’t have words for her past , so when you see her do your best to form something on your own.

--Go see both A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE and GREEN STREET HOOLIGANS. The former is one of the best films of the year (even though I’m paid to say that, it’s true) and the second…well, once you’ve seen it you’re welcome to join our firm. That’s all I have to say.

--Top Five NFL QBs ever, in order from Best to Almost the Best: John Elway, Dan Marino, Johnny Unitas, Otto Graham, Joe Montana (and yes, I still want to expound on this).

--I am not nearly as ashamed of my man crush on track jackets as I am of the fact that you’re fat and ugly.

--Everyone needs to give Ryan Gray, JMU Alumnus, a warm welcome to the Bedford Street Mansion. Tonight I watched him – with nary a hint of insecurity or self-awareness – sit in the leather chair in the living room, pull a sock off of one of his feet that he walked on all day, and smell it.

Stephanie, you can’t move back in fast enough. SAVE US. One Lung now has a key – this place is going to hell. You think I’m kidding? I’m walking around in circles, confused out of my mind, and Nathan has started peeing on his floor in strict defiance of natural instinct. Do you understand I watched our little RyRy smell his own sock? It can’t go on like this.

--Rob has a better beard than me, and this pisses me off because he’s been growing it for like two weeks, and f*ck you Rob.

--There’s someone I want to write about but don’t yet have the words for. I’m afraid I’ll say too much or not enough or something wrong or something right…so for now I’ll just say this:

When your (figurative) Head and your (figurative) Heart get into a war, you generally assume they’re going to set the field of battle somewhere deep inside your Mind, a place you don’t tell people about, to which even you have only the tiniest window to observe the fight. There they’ll head and duke it out, Head wielding sticks of You’re Not Thinking Clearly Logic and Heart countering with little more than the giddy smile of Potential Love at First Sight…but then the battlefield shifts. It’s a shock to find out that the war moves, like lightning, to your stomach – where it proceeds from sticks and stones to nuclear weaponry.

It’s an even bigger shock when you find out that, much to the chagrin of your Head…this means your Heart is winning.

--Last but not least, if you pray or meditate or think deeply or get Zen or whatever, think a good thought for my Uncle Marshall. Late last week he was diagnosed with kidney cancer and, though the prognosis is sunny…it never hurts to keep good people in mind. This guy’s got that rare gift of being able to light up a whole room with his laugh, always the man whose perpetual happiness is so contagious you can’t escape it.

We’re with ya, Uncle Moose.

Be back for more writing soon.

DO NOT TOUCH THE GENIUS! EVERYONE STEP AWAY FROM THE GENIUS!

2005-08-11T16:29:00.000-07:00

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I lost a whole f*cking huge post that I spent an hour on, even though I backed it up twice, because Blogger is a f*cking c*nt. Blogger, you're a f*cking c*nt. And I'm mad.

That said, I wanted to make everyone aware of two things (which I did at greater length and much better in my post that is now lost somewhere in a buried squence of 1s and 0s in my computer because Blogger is a f*cking c*nt):

1. Laurel Denise Designs -

I just found out this week that a friend from JMU, Laurel, has taken her art talents to the jewelry arena. Now if you know me you know I don't like jewlery. I don't wear it. It doesn't usually appeal to me, and if it's for women then forget about it. But I clicked on Laurel's IM link to her website a few days ago and was taken aback with what I saw.

I know about 15 people at this point who are trying to do something similar; usually, it's beading. Now I don't want to knock beading,but it just seems that it all looks the same. Laurel has beaded stuff and if you like it, have at it. But what I'm really impressed with is the very elegant way she's created some striking jewelry out of simple glass.

I think her designs are breathtaking. You all know I rarely endorse anything on here, and when I do I either believe in it or feel strongly about it; this is no exception. I think her pieces are amazing. I'm not going to describe them to you as I want you clicking on the link above to go there and see for yourself. I think you'll find them as wonderful as I do. And you should take it from me because, aside from being very smart, I'm also quite a good artist. Really. I'm kind of a big deal around here. I have many leather bound books and my apartment smells of rich mohogany.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: It's clear that Geoff is trying his best to get Laurel to marry him; this fact he makes no attempt to hide. He wants her to be his first wife very badly. However, that should not detract from the fact that he is being quite serious about how lovely these pieces are, and his honesty in divulging such information should not be taken as an attempt to "score points" or anything of such folly. The Editor simply wanted to claify this. All good? Let's move on.)

2. Family members and friends in faraway states have been begging for pictures of Marvin, the beard. Well here it is. This picture was taken a few weekends ago when Staci, the other person in the picture (just so there's no confusion...she's the one without the beard) and a good friend from JMU, was in town to visit her cousin. Incidentally, Staci hated Marvin and pretended she didn't know me for nearly two hours until I tricked her with whiskey.

That's it, but only because I lose my REAL post because Blogger is a f*cking c*nt. When I come back I'll rewrite my argument for why Joe Montana isn't the best NFL QB ever, an argument you'll know immediately is right.

To close, Blogger = f*cking c*nt.

UPDATE

2005-07-28T17:26:00.000-07:00

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Because every g*ddamned hit I get now is from sick, horny b*stards like yourself looking for pictures of this woman, I am going to help you out. That last link actually ended up being a link to a Playboy Cybersomethingorother that wanted to make you pay for pictures. I'll take the blame for that even though there was supposed to be a free preview, my apologies. However there is a new site that's hosting them totally free, so for the Diora Baird Playboy pictorial go here. And thanks to whoever that guy is.

This was funny, though. My meager little blog, which sees about 50 hits on a good day, was picked up by everyone who had the capacity to type "Diora Baird Playboy pictures" into a search engine and resulted in my hit counter topping 300/day for like four days. Of course I doubt anyone stayed very long; nonetheless it was exciting.

That's all - it's my roommate Rainbow's (don't ask) 25th B-day this weekend and Staci from JMU is visiting so hopefully there should be some shenanigans to post about next week...and hopefully they'll involve the Karaoke Ninja.