TALES FROM THE THEATER: EL CHUPACABRA

The theater had a rat problem.
It was during the monumental Big Dig in Boston, and as construction workers tunnelled through downtown, they would stir up huge pockets of rats. Boston already had a rat problem. Walking through the Common at night you would see dark blurs the size of small cats scurrying around. Every building downtown had either rats or mice. You prayed for mice. A hundred years ago when they were filling in the swamp that became the Back Bay, they had to halt construction for days just to slaughter rats.
The rats won.
To this day, the alleys of Back Bay swarm with rats at night. The Big Dig had kicked this problem into overdrive, and the theater was no exception. As the giant tunnel diggers churned through earth a couple blocks away, the rat sightings exploded. There is nothing rats like more than big bags of grain, and the theater had hundreds of pounds of popcorn kernels stored in the back rooms at any given time. The rats were getting bolder and bolder too, coming out during daylight hours to feast on leftovers and garbage.
Customer complaints began to explode also. There were daily, and sometimes hourly, reports of rats in specific theaters. One customer reported hearing a sliding noise during the movie, only to look down and see a rat backing up, pulling a carboard tray of half-eaten chicken down the aisle with him. Another customer reached down to get some popcorn from their bucket on the ground, only the see a rat standing on it's hind legs with it's head in the bucket helping himself to a snack. People regularily reported rats running across their feet while they watched the latest piece of shit Hollywood blockbuster.
I like rats. I had a pet rat as a kid, and he was friendly and affectionate and smart. But even I was super creeped out by these sightings. These were filthy city rats, and I felt bad for the customers. For once, the customer was actually right. No amount of free child size sodas or even complimentary movie passes could make up for that horrible experience. During the height of the Big Dig, going to work became a real drag. Every customer that walked up to Guest Services was probably going to complain about a rat sighting. The exterminators were useless. They would come a couple of times a week, empty a trap or two, tell us we had a rat problem, and then hand us the bill. Thanks, guys. They didn't give a rat's ass about nailing rats asses.
The complaints became so frequent and predictable that we began playing little games just to break up the horrifying monotony of the situation. Sometimes, when somebody would complain about a rat sighting, I would say:
"You didn't make eye contact with the rat did you? Don't make eye contact! In their culture that is disrespectful and it sends them into a rage. Please tell me you didn't make eye contact...."
One time I told a lady that the rats were left over from the big world premiere of Willard that we hosted, but not to worry, they were trained Hollywood stunt rats and wouldn't harm anybody. She laughed, thank god. That could have easily ended with me sitting in my boss's office with a complaint letter in his hands. The joke was definitely worth the risk though.
One night I was closing up, and the night cleaning crew was just starting. Hilario was the best worker on the night crew. He was a really likable guy from El Salvador, and his wife worked with him sometimes when she wasn't watching their kids. Hilario was about 5' 2", but he was deceptively strong. I'd seen him scamper up a 30 foot ladder to change a light bulb, and I'd seen him haul 50 pound bags of popcorn two at a time.
On this night I was talking to him about a carpet cleaning project. Hilario didn't speak a word of English, but we could communicate with tone of voice and hand pantomime. Plus, I knew a little Spanish. While I was talking to him in the main lobby, something caught his eye, and he froze with slightly hunched shoulders. He then made a beeline for the escalators. When he got to the escalators, he made a sharp right and ran betwwen the up and down escalators. When he appeared on the other side he was still running full steam as he headed towards the vending machines. I couldn't tell what the hell was going on until I saw the blur come out from behind the soda machine. It was heading towards the first floor concession stand and Hilario was in hot pursuit. Just as the blur got to the floor board by the popcorn bin, Hilario dove head first through the air. It was like some shit out of Die Hard. Hilario hit the floor sliding, and grabbed something in the corner. I ran over and saw that he had ahold of something in the crack between the wall and the concession stand. He forcibly pulled on it, and slowly the huge haunches of the nastiest rat I had ever seen began to emerge. Hilario had it by the tail, and it was frantacily clawing and screeching as Hilario extracted him from the tiny crevice.
When the rat was about halfway out, Hilario reached into his pocket with his free hand and pulled out a switchblade. I'm not talking a pocket knife or even a Leatherman. I'm talking full out switchblade. The same knife that every drug dealer in every movie has used to test the kilo of coke during a drug deal. You know the one I'm talking about. Real Jets vs. Sharks shit. Old school. Hilario flicked the blade open and slowly and precisely gutted the rat up the middle. The rat died quickly, and Hilario pulled the carcass out of it's last hiding place.
The rat was huge. It's body was bigger than Hilario's forearm, and it's tail ran all the way up to his shoulder. The rat was almost hairless, like it had mange or something, and it's front teeth stuck way out of it's mouth. It was the ugliest beast I had ever seen. Hilario chucked it into an empty garbage bag he pulled from his back pocket, tied the bag off, and threw it on a pile of garbage by the storeroom. He wiped some blood off of his hands (I couldn't tell if it was his or the rat's) and resumed asking me where the extra carpet cleaning solution was.
I stood there staring at Hilario with my mouth agape. The whole incident didn't phase him at all. It was probably a nightly occurence and Hilario lived in Chelsea, so he probably had to use his switchblade regularily to protect himself. Business as usual in the big city.
Eventually the Big Dig moved on and we hired a new exterminator and got the rat problem under control. I'll never forget that night though. I wondered if I had witnessed the hunting and killing of a legendary Cupacabra, the mythical livestock killer native to Hilario's homeland. It's dull red eyes and hairless snarl are burned into my memory forever. It could have definitely won one of those "World's Ugliest Dog" contests, but it might have been too big to enter.
I'll tell you one thing, I had a newfound respect for Hilario. I'd always liked him and gave him whatever he needed, but after that night, I made sure to never cross him. I didn't want to end up in a garbage bag on a pile of trash in Chelsea.

MAINE: THE WAY LIFE SHOULD BE

This is where I walk almost every day. I'm begginning to think the state motto might be right.

BOOK REVIEW: DISHWASHER

Remember zines?
That's what blogs were called before blogs existed. Back in those dark ages before the internet, people with something to say would paste up sheets at home, take them to kinko's to be copied, then fold, staple, and sell them at indy record stores, bookstores, and hipster thrift shops all over the country. Most of the zines were music oriented, but there were a few that travelled off the beaten path. One particularly good zine was Murder Can Be Fun, which introduced me to some greusome serial killers, Mormon blood atonement, and the great Boston Molasses flood of 1919.
My hands down favorite zine though was Dishwasher. Pete "Dishwasherpete" Jordan wrote about his experiences working as a dishwasher all over the place. He reviewed books and movies that included dishwashers, he pondered line cooks' devotion to classic rock, and described the leftover foods he salvaged out of bus tubs. Through it all, he maintained the honesty and value of washing dishes in a society drunk with ambition and materialism. Occassionally Dishwasherpete was drunk too, but usually it was from shift beers and whatever half finished drinks the waitstaff would smuggle to him.
One of the greatest themes in the zine was Pete's refusal to be promoted to cook. He was a professional dishwasher, and wanted to remain so. Once the kitchen managers and owners figured out that he was a competent, intelligent person, they would invariably try to promote him to cook. They could never understand why anyone would want to stay a dishwasher. At this point, Pete would usually drop his apron and split, heading to the next job wherever that might be.
Eventually, Dishwasherpete set a goal to wash dishes in all 50 states, and that's the basis of the book Dishwasher. He tells his story in a linear narrative, unlike his zine which jumped all over the place. There are stories from a taquieria in Boston, a ski resort in Colorado, and a salmon cannery in Alaska, along with many others. Pete writes with a devilish wit and the eye of a keen observer. The book is a lot of fun to read, especially if you've ever spent any time in the dish pit. Like all good bohemian writers, Pete is now repairing bicycles in Europe, but I'm glad he took the time first to compile the story of his great American quest.

TALES FROM THE THEATER: THE GOLD TEETH

Here's another installment of my ongoing series of stories from my time served as a manager at a minimum security movie theater. This episode: The Gold Teeth.

When I went in to apply for a job at the theater, I was specifically looking to get out of the restaurant business, which I had worked in for 15 years. When the GM met me in the upstairs lobby for my interview he said "I see you have a lot of kitchen experience...."

Yeah, so? I was there to get away from kitchens, and that's why I applied to a place that couldn't possibly have one.

He then took me on a tour of the theater's two kitchens.

Ahhhh, just when I thought I was getting out, they sucked me back in. I was hired on the spot and spent the first four months in the kitchen, working my way up from grunt to manager.

The kitchen was a joke. Everything was portioned out, so nobody could screw things up. The fryers were even automated. You just pressed the button with a picture of fries, and the basket would lower into the grease, and then rise up when the timer went off. Somehow, a few of the Rhodes Scholars who worked in the kitchen still managed to screw that up. My dream was to train a crew of chimpanzees to operate the kitchen. I'd put beanies on them and have them roller skate around bringing food out to the customers. Now that would be an entertaining draw!

About three months into my tenure at the theater, I was in the kitchen as usual when a new employee came up to me and said:

"Are you Ernest?"

"Yes."

"Can I see your gold teeth?"

I was in the middle of having my teeth fixed after over a decade of neglect, and I had gotten a gold crown on one of my teeth the week before. It was on my upper right molar (#2 for those aspiring dentists out there keeping score at home) and I couldn't figure out how she could have known about it since it is completely hidden.

"What?" I said.

"Mr. Rob said you had gold teeth."

I only had one, and how the hell did Rob know I had a gold tooth? I hadn't told anybody about it....

"Ahh, ok, I guess" I said as I pulled my cheek way back and let her peer into my mouth.

"Oh yeah." she said, sounding a little disappointed.

I showed her what to do in the kitchen, but the mystery of how Rob knew about my dental work plagued me the whole shift. After work we all met up in the bar next to the theater. I asked Rob how he knew I had a gold tooth.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" was his confused response.

"Latonya said that you told her I had a gold tooth. When you sent her into the kitchen, she wanted to see it."

Rob looked puzzled for a minute, then burst out laughing.

"I told her to go find Ernest in the kitchen. I told her you were a big guy with a goatee."

Next episode: El Chupacabra.

WRITING CAN BE FUN

Writing is hard.

Anyone who has had to crank out a five page report on Catcher in the Rye knows that. And that's writing when you're almost trying to be boring and predictable. Entertaining fiction is a whole 'nuther ball of wax. I've tried just about every artistic endeavor. Yeah, I'm one of those types. I've played music, painted, acted, and done unintentional drunken performance pieces in bars all over the country, but writing is the toughest. I think movies are the greatest art form, because they combine all other artistic disciplines, but the writing is the toughest component. Notice that I'm not one of those pretentious fucks who insists on calling them films. Film is what you shoot the movie on. Film is what the hygienist scrapes off of your teeth at the dentist office. Movie is an endearing word which encompasses the entire experience.

Great art is a soul exposed. (And that is a registered trademark phrase, so if you use it, make sure you send me a royalty check or I'll have my phalanx of lawyers descend on your ass). What better way to expose your soul than alone in a room with a keyboard? Writing has the power to change lives, change attitudes, and even change history. We've all read those books that changed our lives, or at least the way we look at things. On the Road, Last Exit to Brooklyn, and Lolita are just a few of the books that have done that for me. They profoundly altered the way I thought about emotion, society, the psyche, and the way words are used.

But who knew that the process of writing could be enjoyable? I tend to picture tortured souls locked in a room writing these masterpieces with a fountain pen using their own blood as ink. That may be the case sometimes, and writing is a lonely pastime by nature, but I'm discovering that slapping words together is fun in and of itself. I'm going through a phase of self discovery and verbal experimentation that is very exciting and rewarding, and hopefully becoming a slightly better writer along the way.

Maybe I'm just going through a honeymoon period, but for now, writing can be fun.

GO TEAM VENTURE!

I recently started a series of fan art. They are characters from the show The Venture Brothers. If you haven't seen the show, what the hell are you waiting for??? It is a hilarious and cool beautifully animated show. Go check it out on Adult Swim......

Please forgive the quality of the photos. They were taken with a digital camera the size of a thermos, with duct tape holding the batteries in. They don't really do justice to the brilliant, vibrant, genius of these wonderful paintings. (cough cough)

R.I.P Henchman #24: 1969-2008

Dr. Killinger...............and his magic murder bag

Dr. Girlfriend (AKA Dr. Mrs. The Monarch)

Henchman #21

Master Billy Quizboy

h.E.L.P.e.R. Goes to a Sears Portrait Studio

To be continued.......???

TALES FROM THE THEATER: THE BLACK SOCKS

No, not those black sox. This is another installment from my series of stories from the movie theater where I did a tour of duty. This episode: THE BLACK SOCKS.

The quickest way to move up the ladder in a McCorporate environment like a national theater chain is to be a snitch and a suck up. That's why most of the bosses are insecure sniveling rats with questionable moral fortitude. They've all schlepped their way to the middle. It's just a fact of life in fast food mentality companies. The regional and national management team of the theater did not have a lot of Wharton Business School graduates, let's just say. The bosses tended to be people that really couldn't do anything else, so they had sucked ass, ratted others out, and generally towed the company line in exchange for their souls. As a result, they were a defensive , paranoid bunch without an original thought in their heads. They would steal the credit if you did something well, and were quick to blame others to cover their own asses. I think they were all beaten badly as children and are now trying to exact their impotent revenge.

The absolute epitome of this style of management was the Northeast Regional manager at my theater. We called him the Walrus because of his jowly, stocky build. He looked like he would smell like low tide too, but instead you just got a wall of cheap Walgreen's cologne that a college freshman would wear.

I mean no disrespect to Walruses. I like them, and I'm sure that anyone of them would have done a better job than this blob of a micro-manager. When our inneffectual but much loved general manager moved on to a better job at a different chain, the Walrus stepped in and decided to exert his mighty will on us. He brought in his little pet general manager to whip our theater into shape. I think the Walrus thought of him as a pit bull, but in reality he looked like a chihuahua. All shaky and watery eyed. It didn't help the obvious comparison that he was tiny too. If he was the Taco Bell dog, he would say: "Yo quero Napoleon compleciones." But that's another story.....

During this management revolution, the Walrus was at the theater more often than his usual two visits per year. On one of his surprise visits, he spotted one of our new managers with white socks. The dress code for managers was dress shoes, black socks, dress pants, a belt, dress shirt, tie, sports jacket, clean shaven, and neat hair. I happen to agree about the black socks. White socks look ridiculous. When you see someone with dress shoes and white socks, you think "Is this guy going to try and sell me some aluminum siding, or did he just get out of prison?" It's usually one or the other. Aside from the aesthetics though, it was representative of the slavish enforcement of lengthy corporate minutiae versus results. The new manager was a great employee. He was in college, but working full time as a manager at the theater too. He was very competent and a real go-getter. He was not going to be working at the theater for the rest of his life and I think upper management resented that. He represented everything they despised: intelligence, independence, good sense of humor, and confidence. He was well-raised in an affluent family, and so even though he knew better, I think he wore white socks just to piss off the mucky-mucks.

On the day of the surprise visit, the new manager was heading up the escalator when the Walrus saw his white socks. He told the house manager to go grab him. The Walrus was beaming. He was gloating over the opportunity to exert his pathetic iron fist in the little goldfish pond he ruled. All the managers were summoned for a meeting in the lobby. The Walrus was going to make an example of the new guy.

We made awkward, meaningless small talk as we waited for the last couple of managers to show up. When the house manager finally returned with the new manager in tow, the Walrus was ready for his show. He gave us a little speech about the importance of the mission statement and following all the rules. He proceeded to give us the "it's all a matter of customer perception" speech, and then he was ready for the grand finale. He asked the new manager to lift up his pants' legs. The new guy reluctantly lifted his cuffs to reveal.........black socks! The Walrus' jowls hit the floor. He sputtered and turned red. We all patiently stared at him waiting for his next pearls of wisdom. Eventually he said "oh" or "ah" and then told us to carry on or something to that effect. We were all trying to keep from laughing because we were in on the joke. The new manager realized that the Walrus had spotted his socks, so he ran down the back fire escape stairwell and over to Macy's to buy some black socks and pull them on as he headed back to the lobby for our meeting. That's the kind of quick thinking and ingenuity which proved he didn't belong in McCorporateland. He went on to leave the theater a few months later to accept a coveted internship at a computer development company, and by now he's probably running a Fortune 500 business, but not before he provided us with a hilarious moment at the Walrus' expense.

It's the small victories that are sometimes the sweetest.

BOOK REVIEW: LOST VEGAS

My copy of Lost Vegas arrived a couple of days ago. I hadn't eagerly anticipated receiving something in the mail that much since I waited for my ill-fated pslyocibin mushroom grow kit in college. Lost Vegas is the first book from Paul "Dr. Pauly" McGuire. It is a memoir of his years reporting on the World Series of Poker in Vegas. It covers the years of the poker boom, which has come and gone, and the blogosphere boom, which continues unabated. It is a must read for fans of Dr. Pauly's many entertaining blogs, but it would also appeal to people interested in the poker industry in general, and the WSOP in particular. It is not a gossipy, sordid tell-all. It is instead an unflinchingly honest story of one man's trip through the internet, media, and poker worlds.

Mr. McGuire carries on Hunter S. Thompson's proud legacy of gonzo journalism, debauchery, and pill-popping. It is no coincidence that they were both drawn to write about the same city. Mr. McGuire has a unique style of not simply describing things, but actually generating a visceral feel that you are there with him. You can almost smell the stripper perfume.

Like all great books, Lost Vegas is about people, not places or events. Some of the most endearing parts of the book are the stories of the wacky cast of characters that Mr. McGuire has met and befriended over the years. The stories of odd prop bets, random encounters, and bonding in the poker media trenches are humorous and revealing.

Lost Vegas also reminds me of one of my favorite books, Down and Out in Paris and London, by George Orwell. Both books are autobiographical journeys exposing the seemy underside of outwardly glamorous places. In Orwell's case, it is the fine eating establishments of Paris, and in Mr. McGuire's case it is the fine gambling establishments of Las Vegas. Both books offer heartfelt, insightful looks at what lurks below the surface. Lost Vegas particularly reminded me of Down and Out in the passages about the Redneck Riviera, the ultra sketchy, low rent motel Mr. McGuire lived in during his first summer in Vegas, which were my favorite parts of Lost Vegas.

Fans of the Tao of Poker, Mr. McGuire's poker blog, will recognize some of the stories in Lost Vegas, but the tales have a better flow and more of a permanence when read in a well designed book that you can actually hold in your hands. Call me old school I guess. Lost Vegas is self-published and available exclusively on Lulu.com. The books are printed per order, and Lulu seems like a great site that helps continue the democratization of the publishing world, and puts control and hopefully the lions share of profits where they belong: in the writer's hands.

Not exactly a love letter from Mr. McGuire to Sin City, Lost Vegas is more of a Dear John letter, but you come away with the feeling that they're going to get back together. In a way, it is also similar to a letter that an addict in a twelve step program has to write to their drug of choice. Sometimes it sounds like Mr. McGuire is trying to convince himself why he doesn't want to do Vegas anymore. But you just know he's going to relapse.

TALES FROM THE THEATER: JUNKY SPOON

I worked at a movie theater for a few years, and it was a blast. I don't want to name it here, so let's just say that it's in Boston and it's name rhymes with Roews Loston Gommon. I met some great friends there and learned a lot. After awhile the grind of constant turnover and angry-customer service in basically a glorified fast-food, corporate environment got to be a drag, so I quit after four years or so. It was one of the funniest places I've ever worked, and I had a few celebrity meetings, minor adventures, and some stories to tell. This episode: JUNKY SPOON.

It had been a long night.

From customers bitching about no parking and not liking their $9 chicken tenders, to employees drinking in the storage room, I was fed up. We had closed out the day, and were just waiting for the last few movies to end. As I came out of the managers office, I saw some movement down in the cafe, which was closed. I walked along the concession stand, and as I got near the cafe, somebody came hurriedly walking around the corner acting weird. Everything about him was weird. He was rail thin, had stained jeans, and pseudo dreads. He smelled bad even from 15 feet away. There is a large homeless shelter around the corner from the theater, so I was used to throwing drunk homeless guys out all day. I was really happy when CVS came out with a generic orange flavored mouthwash. The hardcore drunks smelled a lot better when I would escort them on their circuitous drunken stumble to the front doors. It was a long walk and I preferred the citrus smell to cool mint. But they usually weren't around after sundown. The shelter closes it's doors at 9pm and all that.

Back to the story. When I got to the cafe, the ice cream case was open and the butter pecan top was off. I turned and headed after my scruffy friend who was making a beeline for one of the theater entrances. It looked like he was trying to covertly hide something very unsuccessfully. I yelled for him to stop. He sped up. I yelled again in my bouncer voice and this time he stopped by the condiment station. He still had his back to me. I asked him what he had there, and he clearly shoved something down the front of his pants and quickly turned around and flourished his hands like he was David fucking Copperfield doing a trick. I asked him what he shoved down his pants. Nothing. Of course it was nothing. I told him to cut the bullshit or I would call the detail cop. Begrudgingly, he slowly pulled out an uncovered, dripping paper cup of ice cream from his crotch.

Butter Pecan I presumed.

I couldn't believe it. I told him to throw it out. As he stepped towards the garbage can he pulled out a spoon and started furiously trying to eat as much as he could. Fortunately for him, I was standing behind the Guest Services desk. The annoyances of the day had taken their toll. I began to scream furiously for him to throw the fucking ice cream away. As he finally dropped the half empty cup in the garbage, he also dropped his spoon on the lobby floor. It clattered around a little and I got a good look at it. The handle was completely bent and the spoon itself was charred black. Hmmh. That's a familiar configuration. It still had a few remnants of Butter Pecan on it. The picture was starting to get clearer. That's why there hadn't been a scoop in the ice cream case.... he brought his own utensils.

I started to lose it for real at this point. Luckily, the other manager Willie had come out of the office by now and was holding me back.

Get the fuck out of here, I blistered.

Why? he has the nerve to ask.

Because I have to throw out a three gallon container of ice cream you lowlife.

Why? he has the gall to ask again.

BECAUSE YOU STUCK YOUR FILTHY FUCKING JUNKY SPOON IN IT YOU ASSHOLE!

It was clean! he says in a plaintive voice, as if I had offended his sensibilities by insinuating that he would be carrying a dirty junky spoon.

That's when I started laughing.

It was all too absurd. He was genuinely insulted that I had disparaged his works, and that cracked me the hell up. The whole day had built to the point where I needed a good laugh, and this clown certainly provided it. The people who had made their way out of the theaters after their movies had ended seemed to find it pretty amusing too.

The closing usher was notorious for eating left over popcorn and half eaten candy when he cleaned the theaters. As I handed him the barely touched but unsellable container of Bryer's Butter Pecan I thought: at least this job has perks. Free laughs and sometimes free ice cream.

BYE BYE BRON BRON

Free agency has destroyed sports for the fans. Remember the good old days when a team pretty much owned a player outright? I guess it's nice that Curt Flood and Catfish Hunter broke through the unfair contracts in baseball, but we're not talking about coal miners who work in incredibly dangerous conditions for criminal wages, we're talking about spoiled athletes who were lucky enough to be blessed with a unique (but otherwise useless) talent, and play a game for a living. They're not teachers, or scientists, or cops, or any of the people who actually contribute to society.

And that brings us to 2010 and the all too typical case of LeBron James. Here's a kid from Ohio who grew up to see all his dreams come true. He's the best player in the NBA, and he plays for his hometown team. What could be better? Well, I guess the lure of South Beach could be better. If LeBron had stayed in Cleveland, he probably would have won a championship eventually, but more importantly, he could have become one of those rare modern athletes who plays his whole career for one team. And his hometown team to boot! Now that's a legacy! But instead, LeBron chose to make it all about him. As if winning a championship would legitimize that he is a great basketball player? He chose to break the hearts of all the fans in his home state. For what? A little more money? He already has more money than God. All his real money comes from endorsements, so it doesn't matter where he plays. He chose to go play second fiddle to Dwayne Wade, because if the Heat do win a championship, it will always be Wade's team. He chose glamorous Miami over hard working Cleveland crying all the way that no NBA players wanted to play there. I guess LeBron isn't such a draw for his peers after all. Since apparently winning a championship is everything, I guess all those players were casting a vote of no confidence in LeBron's ability to ever win a title. Maybe "King James'" head has gotten too swollen for the crown to ever fit. How can he stand at that press conference and say with a straight face that "Miami has a welcoming organization, and it's all about family for me?" Ask a kid in Akron if he believes that. What a self-centered hypocrite.

The sad truth is that it would have been more shocking if LeBron had stayed in Cleveland. These days all that matters is money, media attention, and merchandising. Tell that to all the broken hearted Cav fans as they look at the millions of dusty #23 jerseys in their closets years from now. I hope they have a big bonfire and burn 'em all. Hasn't Cleveland suffered enough? They were already the victims of one of the most heartless betrayals in sports history when Art Moddell moved the Browns to Baltimore because the Cleveland taxpayers wouldn't cough up $100 million to build him a new stadium. All they ever did was sell out every home game and rabidly cheer for one of the worst franchise's in football. Is there no decency and loyalty left in sports?

Possibly.

My favorite modern sports moment came when the Patriots chose to be announced as a team before the Super Bowl. It was a small gesture that still gives me goosebumps to this day. And this year, Joe Mauer could have left the Twins and played anywhere else for a boatload of money. Instead, he chose to re-sign with his hometown Twins, and continue his path to the Hall of Fame proudly wearing a Minnesota jersey. I love the Twins not only because I'm loyal to my state, but because they are the scrappy underdogs, who make the playoffs even though they are a small market team with a minuscule payroll. They are the antithesis to teams like the Yankees and Red Sox who just throw money at championships. The Twins succeed because of good coaching, team play, and a solid farm system. That is a rarity in these days.

I hope Lebron goes on to great unsuccesses. I hope he never gets his championship. I hope the Miami fans eventually feel as cheated as the Cleveland fans. As much of a sports fan as I am, I realize that it's just a business, and things like loyalty and pride are outdated notions.

I guess Jerry Seinfeld was right: we're just rooting for a bunch of laundry.

ARRRRRRGH

A couple weeks ago, I openly mocked the iPad on Facebook. Four days later, my trusty five year old laptop fried out. F U Jobs, you evil cyber-Sith overlord!

Ahhh, it's a remarkable technological age we live in. Computers are amazing. They enable us to do things instantly that we only dreamed of years ago. When they crash however, we are aggravatingly plunged back into the dark ages. It could not have happened at a worse time. I'm unemployed and trying to save money for a move. What little work I have is telecommuting jobs that require a computer and the internet. My communication, entertainment, gambling, research, finances, gaming, writing, and job/apt. searches are all done online. How can I depend so much on something that barely existed 15 years ago?!? I may have to resort to talking to people and maybe reading a book. Yikes.

I don't think my laptop is completely dead, but it is on life support. Unfortunately, I don't have a reliable person to take a look at it. What I don't know about computer maintenance and repair could fill books. I'll keep you abreast as I work on a solution. My posts may be even more sporadic than usual for a little while....

The real reason I am even writing about this is as a cautionary tale. For all my fellow writers out there; get a flash drive, or a disc, or a Husker Du or whatever and SAVE YOUR WORK NOW AND OFTEN. Fortunately, I have most of my work on disc, but I lost a few items and everything I was currently working on. Hopefully all my files will be salvageable from my hard drive, but that's an uncertain, nerve wracking boat to be in right now. I have Webroot virus protection and online back-up, but the catch is that they don't give you enough space to save a bundt cake recipe. You have to upgrade to the "premium package" for that. I despise sale tactics like that, but it seems like a smart investment from where I sit now.

So check your back-ups, print out hard copies, and save your shit. When everything is fine, we take computers for granted, but when they conk out we really appreciate everything they do for us.

Hug your computer you lucky bastards, and I'll write more when I can.

NERD HAJJ

As we approached the large yellow building, I began to get some butterflies in my stomach. Was I really here? It had taken 10 hours on a bus, and then another two hours in a car, but I had finally made it. The place had an electricity as I passed through the doors where so many greats had walked. As I entered, I was hit by those old familiar smells and sounds. The place was pretty empty because it was the middle of the afternoon, but there was still the faint droning of the bells and whistles of happiness.

I walked upstairs to the third level and headed to the back corner. As I turned down the last aisle, I finally saw it sitting there, waiting for me exactly as I had dreamt about it. I pulled a chair down the deserted aisle and took a deep breath as I sat down. So far I had come over 500 miles to get here, but now I was about to travel 30 years back in time. I pulled out a quarter and slid it into the machine. It wasn’t a Victor Hugo-like time machine that I was sitting in front of, it was a mint condition Donkey Kong, and I had arrived at nerd Mecca.

Funspot, in Laconia, NH, is the largest arcade in the world. It also has the most rhetorical slogan of all time “Funspot……the spot for fun!” Their mascot is a crudely drawn dragon named Topsnuf. Get it? Funspot backwards. I’m glad I clarified that he is a drawing. I wouldn’t want you to get the impression that they had a real live dragon roaming around the place. Funspot is huge. There is a pizza joint appropriately called the Braggin’ Dragon. There is a bar, a bowling alley, indoor and outdoor mini-golf, skee ball, pinball, bumper cars, air hockey, and of course, hundreds of video games. The real jewel is the third level where the American Classic Arcade Museum houses every game from the glory days of arcades in the early 80’s. ACAM hosts tournaments, has a wall of fame for high scores, and is the arcade of record for serious gamers.

But you already knew that if you’ve seen The King of Kong: A Fistfull of Quarters, the outstanding documentary about one man’s quest to set the all time high score. Now here I was. Sitting in front of the same Donkey Kong in the same empty aisle just like Steve Wiebe did in the movie. Ahhh, nerd dreams do come true. Playing Kong at Funspot immediately transported me back to 7^th grade and Schlotsky’s sub shop in Dinkytown, Minneapolis playing video games after school. We also used to go around the corner to Valli’s pizza to play Missile Command after chess team practice (yeah I know. You’re dealing with an uber-nerd here).

After I got my Kong fix, I moved on to the holy grail of arcade games: Pac-Man. To be playing the same machine that Billy Mitchell had gotten a perfect game on was truly like reaching out and touching the Kaaba. At one point, I was playing Pac-Man while Pac-Man Fever blared through the sound system. Time traveler kismet. After wandering through the rows and rows of electronic memories, I decided it was time for some pinball. But first, a little pre-game was needed. I headed to one of the immaculate bathrooms by the indoor mini-golf, and took a few one-hitters of White Widow. I exhaled the last little remnants of smoke after holding my breath all the way back to the Addams Family game. Oh, sweet, sweet Addams Family. Quite simply the single greatest pinball game ever created. Very rarely is one thing accepted as the absolute, undisputed best. Addams Family is the ’57 Chevy of pinball. A timeless classic. It is audio visual heroin. All other pinball games pale in comparison after you get your first taste of Addams Family. It is Wayne Gretzky, Michael Jordan, and Tiger Woods all rolled into one. Simply the best.

High as fuck, I was in the zone. I had become one with the machine. I scored over 162 million and became a “Family Member” on the board with the third highest score. Putting my initials in that Addams Family was the crowning jewel on my gaming scepter. As Twin Galaxy video game referee Walter Day says, “putting up a live score in a sanctioned venue like Funspot is what it’s all about.” I can die happy now.

As we walked away from Funspot for the last time on Sunday, we looked back and there was a rainbow going directly down behind the building. A fucking rainbow. I couldn't make this shit up. I imagined a big pot of tokens at the end of that rainbow....

After the weekend was over, I realized that we had created a new kind of tourism. You’ve heard of narco-tourism in Amsterdam, or sex-tourism in Bankok, well we had created Kongo-tourism in Laconia. My friend, Skunk-Fu, re-watched The King of Kong when he got home and realized that we had even rented the exact cabin shown as “Brian Kuh’s cabin” in the movie! (You can see the cabin in the first minute of this video)

Come to Laconia! Touch the joystick touched by Billy Mitchell! Try and beat Mr. Awesome’s Missile Command score! Admire the Wall of Fame photos of all the gamers you love to hate! Try and set a world record on Mappy! Listen to Kajagoogoo as you go Bezerk! Stay in Brian Kuh’s Cabin!

Now that’s a pilgrimage I can really get behind.

MIRANDA MIRANDA MIRANDA!

The Brattle is a wonderful non-profit theater in Cambridge, MA. It plays restored classics, indies, rare, local, and recent movies. Their schedule is a constantly rotating playlist for movie lovers. When I first moved to Boston and didn’t know anybody, or have any money to spend, I’d go to the Brattle every Monday for a pint of Jack and a double feature. Monday Noirs. What a great series. I saw some of my favorite classic black and white movies there for the first time during those Mondays. Night of the Hunter, Pick Up on South Street, and Gilda just to name a few. Some of their other series have included Coen Brothers retrospectives, Recent Raves, and Gangster classics.

Located in the shadow of Harvard University, the Brattle can be respectfully high brow (Citizen Kane every Christmas) to delightfully low brow (like their annual Shlock Around the Clock-- 24 straight hours of the most cringe inducing bad taste movies ever made). They have concerts and readings at the theater too. I’ve seen Oliver Sacks speak there, as well as seeing hundreds of great movies that had a profound impact on me like Ran (on a first date no less), Timecode, and Joe. The entire operation is run by volunteers, and the Brattle almost shut it’s doors a couple years ago until an eleventh hour donation saved them.

Four years ago, the Brattle announced a trailer contest. They would give everyone a movie title, and then you’d have about a month to come up with a two minute trailer. Since one of my friends works at a video production company, and a lot of our other friends are actors and playwrights, we decided to enter. The name they gave us: Miranda. We set to work for one of the funniest and most creative months I can remember. We did a grindcore/expoitation parody about a hooker with a heart of vengeance after a gang of thugs tries to silence her for seeing too much. The original we turned in was rated XXX by the judges, so Steve (our director/editor) had to beep out a ton of swears, and even blur something out for one scene. It’s even funnier with the censorship, so that was a happy accident.

Once all the entries were in, the Brattle held the First Annual Trailer Smackdown party, with BBQ food, PBR, and a screening of many great (and horribly great) trailers, including all the contest entries. Everyone in attendance got to vote, and much to our delight, we won. To see my own ugly mug up on that giant screen where I had watched so many beloved movies was an exhilarating, terrifying, humbling, and rewarding experience.

Between 2007-2009, we won two of the three Smackdowns, but Miranda will always be my favorite. Apparently the Brattle isn’t doing a trailer contest this year, which is a real shame because it was a creative and fun outlet for aspiring filmmakers and passionate amateurs alike, generating some truly entertaining and impressive fake trailers. It has also been the highlight of my past three summers.

And now, with no further ado, I give you………MIRANDA.

I'M LIKE A CHOCOHOLIC, BUT FOR BOOZE

I’m looking for a new town to move to, and since I’m an avid poker player, I was looking into Vegas. After the economic crash, I read some daunting stories about 600 people lining up for one open position at Dunkin’ Donuts in Vegas. The biggest boom towns quickly turn into the biggest bust towns during a fiscal collapse. If that wasn’t enough to scare me off, I read a funny warning on a poker forum about moving to Vegas. The comment said: “If you have a vice, Vegas will find it and destroy you.” Beautifully put. The thought of Vegas sending out little oompah-loompah/leprechaun hybrids to find vices among it’s residents and exploit them cracked me up. Since I’ve had just about every vice at one point or another, maybe Vegas isn’t the spot for me. If I was in the Navy, I would be a Vice Admiral. My favorite show from the 80’s was Miami Vice. My royal title would definitely be Viceroy. Vice grips are a tool I can really get behind. I’m the Vice President of Viceland. I like the word “advice” because it has a vice in it. I think you get the idea.

I used to say that everybody has at least one or two vices no matter who they are. Mark Twain said “I don’t have a particle of confidence in a man with no redeeming petty vices.” I’ve come to realize that it doesn’t necessarily have to be a vice per se, but everybody has at least one addiction. Something that you can’t, or wouldn’t want to, live without. Something that makes you happy. Something worth getting out of bed for in the morning. For some people that might be World of Warcraft. For others it might be making money, or shopping, or sex. For some people it might be crystal meth. My dad is the squarest guy you’ll ever meet, but his addiction is books. Reading ‘em, buying ‘em, reviewing ‘em, hoarding ‘em, which all makes sense because he is a professor and a writer. Nonetheless, he couldn’t quit them and wouldn’t want to. Everybody has something. Maybe it’s out in the open, or maybe it’s a secret, but everyone has that something that gives them that quickened heartbeat and that hand rubbing glee of anticipation. For me, at different times it’s been food, poker, alcohol, television, women, weed, whippets, chess, coke, writing…….

I guess you might say I have an addictive personality.

Maybe that’s why I love shows like Intervention so much. Well, the first half of the episode at least. When you get to see people using and behaving badly, and you hear the story of how they got so messed up. The second half is all touchy-feely when they get better. Boooorrrrrrrrring. Give me the meth head exhaling a huge cloud of tooth rotting smoke. Give me the kid smoking an OxyContin pills off of a sheet of foil. And give me the woman inhaling the aerosol cans used to clean keyboards. That’s right, you heard me right. They call it duster, and people go to Office Max and buy cans of keyboard cleaner air blowing cans. They suck the air right from the nozzle and get fucked up. The chemicals in the aerosol have the same affect as huffing paint or any one of the other brain-cell-genocide inhalants out there. The woman’s name is Allison, and if you get a chance to watch her episode, I highly recommend it.

What the hell was my point? Oh yeah, so everyone has that one thing that they can’t do without. The thing that makes a long shitty day at work bearable because you have a redeeming petty vice waiting for you at the end of it. What is yours?

"DON'T BECOME SOME BACKGROUND NOISE"

Years ago, I remember sitting in my friend Noah’s living room with a bunch of his friends ripping bongs and listening to Dark Side of the Moon. They were discovering the same beautiful, deep, and musically compelling album that I had discovered when I was their age. By the time I was first getting into Dark Side of the Moon, the album was already almost 15 years old. Another 15 years after that, a whole new generation was discovering it’s magic. Noah and his friends were all students at Berklee, and are great musicians themselves. They have since relocated to NYC, and the name of their band is The Dig if you want to check them out. It was a testament to the genius of Pink Floyd that these students of music would sit around and listen to that album over and over for days, just as I had with my friends when I was their age. Re listening to it with them was a wonderful circle of life moment and all that happy horseshit, but it was also amazing how fresh the album sounded after 30 plus years. As a side note, thank you Noah for burning me a copy of Dark Side of the Oz. Synching up the beginning of the album and the third MGM lion’s roar can be so tedious…..

Great music is timeless. It appeals to people of all ages and walks of life all over the world. Certain music seems to hit home at specific ages. I think everybody went through a Zeppelin phase in high school (although that “phase” has lasted a lifetime for me!). I don’t think I’ve ever been at, or near, a college keg party without hearing at least one Steve Miller song. And eventually everyone mellows out enough to realize the understated genius of Willie Nelson (if they have a scrap of good taste, that is).

Today I was reminded of the generational phenomenon of good music when I saw that my friend Sarah, who is in her mid 20’s, just clicked on facebook that she “liked” Queen. They are such a great band on so many levels, and it made me feel good that their music was living on in new generations. Queen’s performance at Live Aid in 1985 was one of the most intense live shows ever. In particular, Radio GaGa was a stand out. Lady GaGa took her name from that song, and I hope all her fans check out Freddy Mercury to see what an over-the-top rock star glam queen really looks like. Radio GaGa was written by Queen’s drummer as a tribute to radio, which was a dying medium in the early 80’s thanks in large part to MTV. It is extremely fitting that the first video ever played on MTV was “Video Killed the Radio Star.” Radio GaGa is a touching love song to sitting alone as a kid listening to radio and to musical inspiration in general. Hearing a man like Freddy Mercury belt it out is quite stunning considering the fact that his entire life he felt like an outsider and a misfit, until he found salvation in music. When he took the stage he was a rock god, and hearing 100,000+ people cheering and singing back and forth with him is spine tingling.

Freddy Mercury and all great music will live forever. Amen.

POKER IS BACK, BABY!

Like an on again, off again girlfriend, poker has re-entered my life, and the make up sex has been great! After a brief time off, I returned to poker playing exclusively sit-n-gos. I love them! It's like making the final table of a tourney everytime! I like that I can't get suddenly moved once I get a read on my opponents. I like the practice of playing 4 handed, 3 handed, and heads up. I like the payout and blinds structure. I've since moved on to playing cash games in preparation for a trip to Boston (my first live poker in months). I'm also going to Laconia NH for a couple days to visit the legendary Funspot for vintage arcade and pinball games (see: The King of Kong). Look for a post on that in a couple weeks. Until then, life is short- do what makes you happy!

START UP JUNKIES

God, I love bad TV. Absolutely love it. I enjoy nothing more than sitting around with a friend mocking some truly awful shows. For instance, I actually love Maury. There’s nothing better than hearing a woman say that she is “one thousand and ten percent sure” that some guy is the father of her kid, and then when Maury says “you are….NOT the father” and the woman runs backstage and collapses while the guy does the Itoldyouso dance, I don’t know, I just get a real kick out of that. Maybe I’m just a weirdo, or have really bad taste. I’d go on the A&E show Intervention for my addiction to bad TV, but that might be a conflict of interest.

Hulu.com has a bunch of great (and by great I mean terrible) TV shows from ALF to Airwolf (sorry- couldn’t find a truly bad show that started with Z). They have a bunch of MOJO network shows that are actually good, like Three Sheets (a travel/drinking show) and Wall St. Warriors., but the show I’ve been watching for the past few days is Start Up Junkies. There are only 8 episodes, but the unintentional humor is packed into every minute. A better name for this show would have been The Dumbest Guys in the Room.

Start Up Junkies chronicles the development of an internet company called Earth Class Mail. Yeah, pretty stupid name. An internet company that conjures up images of land lines and snail mail. It gets better. Earth Class Mail is a company that will reroute your postal mail to their warehouse, scan it, email it to you, then you choose what you want them to open, scan, and email to you again. OK, I’ll slow it down. You have all your mail sent to a corrugated hangar in Beaverton, OR. The people there sort it, and scan every piece of mail. They then email you all of those images. You then select which items you want them to open and scan. They then email that to you, and you, uh, I guess maybe read it? Then I think you choose for them to throw it away, or possibly have them store it indefinitely- I don’t really remember because by then my brain had shut down, or maybe I was laughing too loudly. You can choose to have them re-mail you something unopened, but that seems like a big costly waste of time and totally undermines the whole idea. Either way, since all bills, banking, shopping, and even receiving payments can be done electronically, I guess the business plan is to pay someone $20-$30 a month to throw out your junk mail. Seems like a shitload of steps to supposedly “simplify” something, and possibly not such a great money maker for the company that has to receive, sort, scan, and store millions of pieces of mail. Sounds like a lose-lose proposition to me. Of course, you also have to get a signed, notarized, postal form authorizing them to receive your mail in the first place. Does anyone else see the irony of an online company that intends to reduce the hassle of the already dying institution of snail mail, that involves buying millions of dollars of mail sorting equipment and a huge warehouse to store it all in?!? That infrastructure already exists. It’s called the fucking Post Office!

For a brief second, I thought it might be a good service for people who are away from home, but who gets snail mail at all anymore? You can always just have your mail held for awhile, and if I did happen to get something important in the mail, I wouldn’t want some junky in Portland making $8 an hour ripping it open and going through it! Besides, haven’t these people heard of the dotcom bubble burst? I couldn’t understand why everybody was gobbling up the load of bullshit the CEO (who looks like the fat kid from Head of the Class) was dropping on them. This start up seemed soooo 2004. Then I found out that the show was filmed in……2004! So it’s like a hilarious time capsule of a period when venture capitalists threw millions of dollars at any fledgling company with a website, and every nerd in Seattle with jeans, a blue shirt, and a foosball table in their office just assumed they were going to become billionaires. It’s so fun to listen to the employees toss around buzzwords like “scale up” and “ahead of the curve” and “customer conversion rate.” Oooooh, real impressive. Looks like somebody bought a copy of Start Up Jargon for Dummies.

The whole show looks like they filmed a special ed. class doing a Junior Business Achievers project, but it’s all real! These are people I wouldn’t give a computer driving simulator to, because they would somehow cause a very real 30 car pile up! I began to suspect that Christopher Guest was filming it, or maybe The Onion had something to do with it. But even they couldn’t make this shit up.

Needless to say, Earth Class Mail is not doing well since their only potential clients (big companies) have a cheaper system in place called a MAIL ROOM, and digital mail delivery already exists, it’s called E-MAIL. I guess the Seattle-tards didn’t do their due diligence on that one. They didn’t look into their crystal ball and see the writing on the dry erase board that snail mail is going to be extinct without any help from them. Oddly, there is no proactive synergy interface market for a process that makes things slower, more complicated, and costs millions and millions in infrastructure and payroll. Hmmmm, maybe they should have researched this “billion dollar idea” a little more thoroughly. Maybe they should have used a bigger focus group than a few of their spoiled Microsoft co-workers sitting around playing D&D who thought it was a good idea. Why am I complaining though? It’s so much fun to watch arrogant people fail on TV…….

PHONES USED TO HAVE CORDS

I’d like to start by thanking all the materialistic, hipster, cutting edge, keeping upwardly mobile with the Jones’, nerdy d-bags for now carrying around a 9”x7” plastic iBadge to make them more easily identifiable. As much fun as it is to laugh at these consumer sheep, the fact of the matter is that we will all probably have Max iPads within a few years. It reminds me of a Weekend Update joke on Saturday Night Live from the mid 90’s. Norm MacDonald said that scientists had determined that cell phones can cause brain cancer, but that was OK because nobody cared if people with cell phones got cancer. Who could have guessed back then that the whole cell phone thing was going to catch on? Technology has really exploded in the past decade. It has become more incredible, portable, and invasive than ever before. If you have ever heard “deleted” e-mails or cell phone records used in court cases, you know that nothing is private, and everything is traceable. GPS chips are both revolutionary and terrifying. Even George Orwell couldn’t have predicted that level of surveillance.

One of my favorite authors and pop culture commentators, Chuck Klosterman, tells a funny story about finding out that Michael Jackson had died. When he overheard somebody say something about Jackson on the street, he texted a friend and asked what had happened. His friend was flabbergasted that Klosterman hadn’t heard yet. Michael Jackson had died 20 minutes ago! That’s the age we live in. Everything is instantaneous. News, food, shopping, and communication. With Twitter, Facebook and texts, we live in a real time bubble no matter where we are. Everybody seems to know everything that is going on instantly.

Another funny anecdote comes from Gabe Caplan when he was about to play Chris Ferguson heads up at poker. When asked about Ferguson’s legendary intelligence, Mr. Kotter responded “He has two PhD’s in math, can calculate odds instantly, and can recite Pi to 17 places. I have access to the internet, so we’re even.” It’s true that every person with a computer has the entire accumulated knowledge of humanity at their fingertips, and now increasingly more portable. A technological collective consciousness that neither Emile Durkheim nor the most wacked out acid head from the last century could have ever hallucinated. All of these developments have led me to only one conclusion:

We are becoming the Borg.

I suppose I should clarify who the Borg is, seeing as Star Trek: The Next Generation was on TV 20 years ago, which is like four nano-generations ago by today’s accelerated pop culture half lives. The Borg float around in a huge cube silently communicating to each other on their grid. When you are assimilated to the Borg, you turn over your entire self to the Borg and become part of the whole. Kinda like being on a massive reality show, starring everyone and airing constantly (and with cool mono-goggles too).

Our grid is the internet, and the more info you put into it on social networks and other websites, the more you are assimilated. With the silly Bluetooth headsets, people even look like the Borg! I saw four people sit at a booth in a restaurant the other day and not say one word to each other. They were furiously surfing, blipping, flittering, gaming, and texting on hand held devices. We are becoming one big cube of humanity. Everybody is equally famous, and separately insignificant. There are no secrets from the Borg. Any one is everybody and everybody is no one. Resistance is futile.

MUSINGS III

I’m not morbid anymore. Just obese. Soon I’ll be just fat. And then someday, God willing, I’ll be out of shape. Oh, to be out of shape! What a dream…

Super gay gossip-tainment guys are always saying how hot Nicole Kidman is. That’s kinda like a vegetarian telling you where to get a good steak, isn’t it?

“I’ve been around for you- been up and down for you,

But I just can’t get any relief

I’ve swallowed my pride for you- lived and lied for you,

But you still make me feel like a thief.”

-William Shakespeare (or maybe REO Speedwagon- I can’t remember which)

Everyone looks so damn good in their facebook pictures, then you see them in person and you are disappointed. That’s why I pick the worst photo I can find for my profile, then people are pleasantly surprised when they meet me.

Never trust a skinny cook or a fat junkie.

Figure skating is gayer than Clay Aiken having sex with RuPaul while watching the Village people play badminton on Liberace’s piano with Elton John playing it. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Rooting for the Vikings is a lot like watching America’s Favorite Home Videos. It always ends with a swift kick to the nuts.

Anyone who says that Crispy Crème doughnuts are “better than sex” are clearly not fucking the right people.

Never stop believing that the inevitable doesn’t have to become reality.

I always hear guys bragging about their six-pack abs. Hell, I’ve got a whole keg, and it’s always ladies night at Club Ernest!

If you ever need to induce vomiting, just watch a few minutes of Millionaire Matchmaker. It is the most shallow, phony, pathetic, disgusting, hypocritical, materialistic, annoying, horrible plastic surgery mistake filled train wreck of a TV show that you will ever see. And I should know. I’ve seen every episode.

Hearing somebody else talk about a dream they had is like listening to them talk about masturbating. I’m sure it was vivid and exciting for them, but I really don’t want to hear about it.

Anything that is “not half bad” is half not good.

A MODEST PROPOSAL 2.0

America is at a crossroads. We must take action immediately, or we will lose our way of life. Elections have gotten out of control. Do you realize that some of the people who are voting are women, blacks, and poor people? Some people who vote didn’t even go to college, let alone an Ivy League school! How have we let this happen? First those pinko commies back in the 19th century made us give up our slave labor. OK, that was a minor setback, but then they started regulating businesses to prevent huge monopolies. How un-American is that?!? Then in the 20th century, the head socialist of them all, that communist manifesto thumping, Lenin loving, freak, FDR crammed a bunch of wacky legislation down America’s throat to protect “quality of life,” and “create jobs,” and provide a “system of security for old age.” What a crock. Why can’t they live off of their trust funds and corporate pensions like normal people? How despicable to push irresponsible bills through in a time of national fear and economic crisis. No wait, actually that’s a pretty good technique. I think we could use that to our advantage at some point..….
Let me get back on message, though. I propose that we offer every American who earns under $100,000 a year a $150 rebate to NOT vote. I’m sure they could use the money to buy breaded dough products or crunk cocaine or whatever it is that they do. My plan would actually save money by reducing the need for expensive negative campaign ads and alleviate the riff-raff congestion on Election Day.
America faces an even bigger challenge than the democratization of elections. Let us not ignore the giant elephant in the room (at least it’s better than a giant donkey in the room, am I right?). Health care has become an unavoidable inconvenience. Sure, we have manipulated, blackmailed, and railroaded the current bill into such a mangled mess that it will actually benefit our friends in the insurance business and decrease care, but I say we can do even better than that. Hear me out. Our friends at Halliburton’s division of Synthetic and Carbon Use Management (SCUM) have come up with some incredibly innovative breakthroughs in organic fuel and building material production. The wiz’s in their labs have perfected a process which can convert human blood into high octane jet and yacht fuel. They can also fabricate a material out of human bones that is strong enough to be suitable for mansion walls.
Here’s how we can put this technology to work.
Since insurance premiums are skyrocketing and general health is declining, we will have numerous uninsured people checking into hospitals. They would be evaluated by a fair and balanced committee, which would determine their best use. It seems like bad PR to call them “death panels,” so I propose we name them after a great American thinker and call them Palin Boards. Those deemed a bad financial risk, or simply not worth the effort, would be semi-humanely euthanized and their blood, bones, and organs would be harvested (I think we all know a few hard drinking CEO’s who could use a new liver, am I right?). These donors would be labeled Patriots, and would actually be contributing something to high society for the first time in their pathetic lives. It is a win win situation. We would reduce dependence on those horrid, evil, foreign countries for our essential luxury vehicle fuel, and also gain valuable building materials, since we may not be able to deforest the National Parks (thank you dirty hippie tree huggers).
I have great hope for this plan. It should be a breeze to get through congress (since there’s nothing cheaper to buy than a congressman, am I right?) Christ, my bank bought Sen. Dodd with a no interest loan and a job promise after he leaves congress! I’m always amazed at how cheaply they’ll sell their souls. Not that I’m complaining, mind you! Once we implement this modest proposal, we will be on the road to lower population, cheap resources, and less peasant resistance. We can make this country great again. Thank you for your time. God bless money, and may God bless (1% of) America!