A Perfectly Cromulent Blog

Thanks

Thank you to both of my grandfathers, for taking it to the Germans and the Japanese.

Thanks to my cousin Gery and my Uncle Mark, for keeping watch during the Cold War.

Finally, thanks to all my friends who served their country in order to ensure a slack-ass dipshit like myself can continue to write about utter nonsense whenever the mood strikes.

He was a crook

Some 20,000 pages of telephone transcripts from the Nixon White House were released earlier this week, including a segment where Henry Kissinger describes how President Nixon was once too drunk to take a call from British Prime Minister Edward Heath at the height of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. Now MSNBC has some more excerpts from the transcripts here. I've included a few of my favorites:

"You know what happened to the Greeks? Homosexuality destroyed them. Sure, Aristotle was a homo, we all know that, so was Socrates. [...] Do you know what happened to the Romans? The last six Roman emperors were fags. [...] You know what happened to the popes? It's all right that popes were laying the nuns. That's been going on for years—centuries." —Nixon in May 1971

"I can't shake hands with anybody from San Francisco."
—Nixon in May 1971 declaring the Northern Californian city "is the most faggy god----ed thing you could ever imagine"

"We're going to [put] more of these little Negro bastards on the welfare rolls at $2,400 a family—let people like [New York Sen.] Pat Moynihan ... believe in all that crap. But I don’t believe in it. Work, work—throw 'em off the rolls. That's the key ... I have the greatest affection for [blacks], but I know they're not going to make it for 500 years. They aren't. You know it, too. The Mexicans are a different cup of tea. They have a heritage. At the present time they steal, they're dishonest, but they do have some concept of family life. They don't live like a bunch of dogs, which the Negroes do live like."
—Nixon in May 1971

"You know, it's a funny thing, every one of the bastards that are out for legalizing marijuana is Jewish. What the Christ is the matter with the Jews, Bob? What is the matter with them? I suppose it is because most of them are psychiatrists."
—Nixon to H. R. (Bob) Haldeman in May 1971

But, you know, he went to China.

I can't help but shake my head whenever someone pops up with some revisionist bullshit about what a Great President Nixon was. This delusion was particularly prevalent in the days immediately following his death, but for my money, Hunter S. Thompson penned the best eulogy:

If the right people had been in charge of Nixon's funeral, his casket would have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning. Even his funeral was illegal. He was queer in the deepest way. His body should have been burned in a trash bin.
...
Let there be no mistake in the history books about that. Richard Nixon was an evil man -- evil in a way that only those who believe in the physical reality of the Devil can understand it. He was utterly without ethics or morals or any bedrock sense of decency. Nobody trusted him -- except maybe the Stalinist Chinese, and honest historians will remember him mainly as a rat who kept scrambling to get back on the ship.
...
Kissinger made the Gang of Four complete: Agnew, Hoover, Kissinger and Nixon. A group photo of these perverts would say all we need to know about the Age of Nixon.

Just think of the new transcripts as sprinkles on top of the whole fetid banana split of the Nixon presidency.

Happy anniversary, Norby
Got you on my miiind.

Today's Little River Band moment is brought to you in honor of Norbizness, whose Happy Furry Puppy Story Time celebrates one year of existence today.

Which means I have about a month and a half to equal his daily hit counts before I start feeling inadequate.

Happy weekend thoughts

Retired CENTCOM Commander General Anthony Zinni was on NPR today, discussing his scathing criticism of the Iraq War and his new book. Listening to him got me wondering: on the heels of public statements by former Administration officials Paul O'Neill, David Kay, Larry Lindsey, and Richard Clarke (among others), and in the context of rising criticism from Republican Senators and former conservatice Bush supporters like George Will and Dick Armey, I just have to wonder: what's the over/under on how many ex-employees and former allies have to expose the utter bankruptcy of the Iraqi military strategy before the Administration realizes/admits their failure?

Never mind, I guess it's more of a rhetorical question.

And we're not talking about attacks by the "loony left" or "Dim-o-crats" or whatever hee-larious play on words the far right is using this week: Zinni is a 39-year Marine Corps veteran and Bush's former Middle East envoy. Senator Chuck Hagel is the second highest ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. These guys are hardly the lunatic fringe.

And earlier today we got word of Bush and Co.'s latest federal budget, one that may well will demonstrate the folly behind his compassionate conservatism once and for all:

According to a report in Thursday's Washington Post, the White House budget office recently issued guidelines to federal agencies currently planning for the 2006 budget. Those guidelines require substantial spending cuts for almost all domestic programs aside from homeland security, although that supposed Republican priority will be cut as well. Spending on education, so often promoted by Bush as the hallmark of his domestic agenda, would nearly eliminate last year's $1.7 billion increase. The highly successful Women, Infants, and Children nutrition program would lose more than $100 million, leaving many poor families without assistance. Head Start, another successful program that provides early childhood education to deprived children, is slated to lose $177 million, or 2.5 percent of its total budget.

With the cool cynicism that is their trademark, however, Bush and members of his Cabinet pretend to support such "compassionate" programs on the campaign trail even as they continue to attempt to cut those same budget items. As the New York Times noted on May 19, "many administration officials are taking credit for spreading largess through programs that President Bush tried to eliminate or to cut sharply."

But at least Bush is looking out for our fighting men and women, right?

This year, the administration increased spending on veterans by $519 million. In 2006, under the budget plan obtained by the Washington Post, it will cut that amount by $910 million -- clawing back the previous increase and almost $400 million more.

When thinking of another four years of Bush/Cheney, I'm reminded of those roadside DWI warning signs in Texas that read "You can't afford it."

No comment on the other DWI connections.

"Looks like we got ourselves a natural disaster."

My review for this week's big-ass studio release, The Day After Tomorrow, is up at Film Threat. I gave it three stars, owing mostly to the quite gnarly disaster footage. The dialogue's cheesy, the acting passable, and the premise just this side of ludicrous, but man do I love some gratuitous carnage.

"Is it me? It's him, isn't it?"

Halle Berry's man trouble continues:

Halle Berry has a new stalker concern after a former Navy SEAL made threats against her life and those of her manager and publicist. The actress has won a restraining order against Greg Broussard, who insists he's destined to marry Berry. Legal papers obtained by American scandal show Celebrity Justice outline a history of harassment, targeting the actress and her manager Vincent Cirrincione. The documents claim the Louisiana man even showed up at Cirrincione's office to threaten him verbally, and state, "Mr Broussard has stated that he intends to become betrothed to Ms Berry, and incorrectly believes that Mr Cirrincione is Ms Berry's father." The statement continues, "He has stated repeatedly that, while 'he does not want to hurt anybody, ' he will not be prevented from meeting with Ms Berry and Mr Cirrincione." Given Broussard's military background and erratic behavior, the plaintiffs have been advised to treat this stalker incident more seriously than any other.

I guess. Far be it from me to make fun of a stalker situation, especially when the guy in question is probably proficient in 43 forms of unarmed combat and could pull out your heart and show it to you before you died. With his tongue. But it's even worse when you realize how seriously deranged Broussard must be.

Consider the facts: it's possible (even likely) that David Justice was in the habit of cruising hookers in Cracktown before he married Berry. And while I've never personally known anyone suffering from sex addiction, I guess (second husband) Eric Benet must've had it bad if he needed to cheat - repeatedly - on a woman widely regarded as one of the most beautiful in the world (or the parts where Revlon commercials regularly air, anyway).

My hypothesis, however, is that close proximity to Halle Berry causes normal men to lose their minds. Not in the generally harmless, Tex Avery bug-eyed wolf kind of way, but in the 28 Days Later "rage" kind of way. Could be she's too much of a ditz, could be she nags incessantly, or it could be her men are driven insane with jealousy over her success and public adoration. All I know is, you'd have to be a little unhinged to want to voulntarily enter into matrimony with that. Given this evidence, I wouldn't get a restraining order against Broussard, I'd put him down like a dog.

"Become wrath."

"Because I envy your normal life."

If Gore had made that face a little more often in 2000, he might've mobilized a few more voters.

Bush, on the other hand, has been making that face since his Harken days, why should he stop now?

Everybody knows

Reading about last weekend's tribute concert reminded me of a conversation from several years ago that took place between a friend and myself after a particularly...miserable day.

Friend: Christ, I'm packing it in.
Myself: Yep. Gonna be one of those nights.
Friend: What kind of night is that?
Myself: One of those lie on the couch with all the lights off and a bottle of wine while listening to Leonard Cohen kind of nights.
Friend: Ew.

No really, I'm quite the fan.

Music at the concert -- the final event of the month-long Brighton Festival -- was provided by some of the finest jazz and folk players, with voices by famous names from the world of rock like Nick Cave and Jarvis Cocker as well as folk stars like Beth Orton, Laurie Anderson and the McGarrigle sisters.

Cohen's former backing singers Julie Christensen and Perla Batalla gave faithful renditions of iconic songs such as "Bird on the Wire," while Cave's upbeat version of "Diamonds in the Mine" and Cocker's duet with Orton on "Death of a Ladies' Man" proved there was more to Cohen's work's than melancholy.

Heh. I would very much like to have heard Nick Cave singing "Diamonds in the Mine."

Can you dig it?

Let's get down to it, boppers:

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Rival street gangs the Crips and Bloods have agreed to a truce in Newark, New Jersey, aimed at stemming the violence that has plagued the city and gone too far for even the gang members, officials said Tuesday.

The peace agreement, reached over the weekend, involved 150 members from several gang factions and laid out a 10-point plan including an immediate cease-fire.

Leaving a huge power vacuum for the Gramercy Riffs to occupy. And don't count out the Baseball Furies or the Turnbull A.C.s.

"Our mutual distrust and hatred of hippies has united us in a common cause!"

Just to get it out in the open, I'm not a fan of jam bands. I saw the Grateful Dead once, but somehow managed to avoid the strange brain ailment that seized several of my college buddies, causing them to follow the band throughout the state, hunt obsessively for bootlegs, and play naught else on the stereo (my roommate Jim and I had to tag-team the CD changer my sophomore year in order to keep roommate #3 - Vince - from putting "Aoxomoxoa" on repeat for an entire evening). Growing up in the '70s, I had enough mellow gold to last me a lifetime, thanks. I know bands like the Dead, and String Cheese Incident, and Check Out My Alpaca Baja Jacket (or whatever) have/had insanely loyal legions of fans, and that one man's meat is another man's "Is this the same song they were playing 17 minutes ago, or was that guitar solo a segue into the next tune?" Whatever.

That said, it is with a not so heavy heart that I inform you Phish are breaking up:

NEW YORK (AP) -- Phish, the Vermont-based jam band whose legions of dedicated fans made them one of the United States' top touring acts, announced Tuesday that they were breaking up.

The surprise announcement came as the band prepared to release a new album, "Undermind," on June 15 and embark on a summer tour, which will kick off June 17 at Coney Island in Brooklyn, a borough of New York City.
...
The quartet, which includes [Trey] Anastasio, Jon Fishman, Mike Gordon and Page McConnell, was formed in 1983. The band drew thousands of fans to their concerts with marathon performances and long, experimental jams that melded every type of music, from bluegrass to electronica.

Some shows drew up to 80,000 fans, and for many of them, the band became the center of their universe. Much like the fans of the Grateful Dead before them, fans would follow the band from show to show. Phish's encouragement of the taping of their concerts also endeared them to their audiences.

The more I think about it, the more I have to admit that Phish's music isn't really the problem. Granted, the phrase "long, experimental jam" gives me hives, but most of the "music" you hear on your friendly, neighborhood Clear Channel marketing wavelength is a thousand times more obnoxious. From what I've heard, the band has some serious chops. And by all accounts they were very good about going outside the music industry to sell tickets and copies of their live shows, and allowing taping, which I'm told is quite important if you want to relive the same 3 hours of your life over and over.

No, my gripe is with the Phish fans I've encountered over the years. The ones who simply wouldn't shut up about how I just didn't "get" their music and how those who choose to ignore the band's genius were somehow ignorant Philistines. I know, I know, you could say the same about fans of just about any non-mainstream act, but the Phish contingent always seemed more...vehement. And I've never understood the mentality of someone who robotically follows a band around for weeks, months, or even years. Sure, every show is different, but it's the same band. Fans of Phish and SCI and ther ilk love to trumpet their superior musical savvy, but listening to one genre isn't appreciation, it's myopia.

Oh well, Widespread Panic and Leftover Salmon will get some more fans and the cycle of black market acid dealing will continue more or less uninterrupted. College dropouts and early retirees will once again have a community, and the public at large will remain more or less unaware of the scene until they make the mistake of taking the kids to the park on concert day or the news runs a short blurb about how 50 hippies were beaten senseless by a dozen KMFDM fans. World without end. Amen.

"This old nightclub / stole my youth"

The Meridian opened to little fanfare here in Houston last month, but two things about the place stand out to me. First, it has a capacity of 1,000 people, which hopefully means less time spent by yours truly rubbing up against other sweaty old bastards. Second, the building was formerly used to store frozen fish, meaning the A/C may actually work. Having attended more than my share of July and August shows in Houston, I can't tell you what a relief that is to hear. If I'd ended up at many more clubs with no air conditioning (the old upstairs of Fitzgerald's) or where management chose not to turn it on (the Continental Club), I'd be left showing up in a jock and pasties, and nobody wants that.

Even at $18 a pop, I'll probably end up seeing the Old 97s. Hearing "Curtain Calls" or "Barrier Reef" live can make up for "Murder or a Heart Attack" or any of Rhett Miller's solo crap. And if the downloads from their new album (Drag It Up - in stores July 27) available on their web site are any indication, it might not be a bad show. What's more interesting to me, however, is the fact that the 97s recently signed with New West Records. You know who else is on New West? Slobberbone, baby. Now, there's no opening act listed for the Old 97s gig yet, and I imagine the 'bone is raring to go after an eight month hiatus. That would be a wang dang doodle dandy of a show.

And so will these, I predict:

June 20 - Lars Frederiksen and the Bastards -- Lars and Tim from Rancid, and others
June 23 - DKT/MC5 -- Wayne Kramer, Dennis Thompson, and Michael Davis of the original MC5 with guests Marshall Crenshaw, Mark Arm (Mudhoney), and...uh, Evan Dando (Lemonheads)
July 20 - They Might be Giants
July 23 - Midget Wrestling Tour

That's a cornucopia of delights, that is.

Texas Tuesdays

Chuck, Greg, and a number of other Texas political bloggers have put together a site called Texas Tuesdays, which spotlights a different progressive Texas congressional or legislative candidate each week. This time around, it's Max Sandlin, a redistricted former Congressman who's running in the 1st CD against Louie Gohmert.

"Who run Bartertown?"

There was an article on CNN yesterday about a University of Louisville professor attempting to keep the Ku Klux Klan off campus by claiming they're a terrorist organization. An interesting strategy, but what got me was the picture of the KKK's man in Louisville, Jim Kennedy:

Pretty appetizing, I agree. But I was immediately struck to his resemblance by a character in a certain post-apocalyptic Australian movie series. As futile as it might be for us Mad Max fans to speculate on the lives the characters led before the Oil Wars, I think we've solved the mystery of The Collector's past:

Taint misbehavin'

With apologies to Alan Moore.

Rorschach's Journal. October 12th, 1985

The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout "Save us!"

And I'll look down and whisper "no."

The plot to the seaon finale of C.S.I.? No! It's merely the funk of fabulous Las Vegas:

Las Vegas officials are worried the stench of rotting garbage may drive tourists away from the downtown area.

There's also the problem of human waste.

Officials indicate some people are doing number-one and -two in alleys.

City officials are trying a chemical attack against the noxious odors.

City crews are spraying an odor-eating enzyme in the problem areas.

"Number-one and -two in alleys?" Where do these people think they are, New Orleans? The Vatican?

Unless you're an octagenerian who's just collapsed of a heart attack in front of the Mirage, you're not going to spend more than ten minutes outside in Vegas anyway. If you restrict travel to New York, New York and Excalibur, you never have to leave the underground tunnel system. Play your cards right, and you won't breathe outside air at all.

It is for this beautiful freedom that al-Qaeda wants to kill us all.

Ratings gold

Bittersweet as it is that the Calgary Flames made the Stanley Cup Finals - becoming the first Canadian team to do so in ten years - ABC has to be sweating bullets over Calgary's matchup against first-time finalists Tampa Bay. They'll be airing the Finals from Game 3 on, and probably wondering the whole time how they got stuck with two small market teams in the NHL championship...and a non-U.S. one to (a)boot.

How exactly do you market hockey in Florida? NASCAR's in full swing, after all, and it's offseason for all those Yankee tourists. I guess the Lightning could always do like the old movie theaters used to and advertise their air-conditioning.

Or just play the games at Hooters, where I understand many Floridians spend their free time.

Bad TV Ponderings - The Nick and Jessica Variety Hour

Bad TV Ponderings is an infrequent look at low quality television. Fortunately, it will never lack for material.

For everyone who looks back fondly on the salad days of the television variety show...you're all idiots. The reason there were no entries during the day on Sunday was because my synapses had been completely shorted out attempting to watch The Nick and Jessica Variety Hour on Saturday night and I spent the better part of yesterday trying to get them refiring.

The variety show doesn't need to return from the dead. One of the reasons we can all agree the '70s were crap was the constant presence of people like Sonny, Cher, and Tim Conway on our televisions. Why ABC saw fit to return to this particular format would seem a real head-scratcher, except that this is the same network that showcases Jim Belushi as a marquee star and saw fit to run Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? 5 nights a week. In that light, it makes sense that they'd trot out something that makes The Simpson Family Smile-Time Variety Hour seem like a good idea.

Jessica Simpson plays a fine Booberella, showcasing her impressive cleavage in order to distract us from the odd fits she has when performing. Hanger-on husband Nick Lachey performs as if visualizing his future lounge act at the Rumpus Room in the Poland, Ohio Ramada. Jewel emerges to sing a duet with Simpson, proving that ABC execs know the best way to distract us from bad music is by keeping the mammaries coming, while Lachey is shown up by both Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds and KITT, the car from Knight Rider (you heard me) in their musical numbers. '70s stalwarts Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy are trotted out for a nonsensical segment, and Johnny Bench further embarrases himself in a sketch celebrating Simpson's ability to kill with thrown bats. In between are jokes that would've drawn jeers on Hee Haw...and more boobs, of course.

Last Saturday's airing was apparently a repeat of the show's debut perfromance in April. Ratings were apparently sufficient the first time around to warrant another run, but I can't believe they'll hold up after the initial freak interest factor. Call me an optimist, but even the American public can't be so stupid as to make this show a hit.

Can it?

Rusch, Rusch

I really couldn't get too cheesed about the Cubs win over the Cardinals today, since Glendon Rusch did such a great job (I can take Jim Edmonds to task for striking out three times, twice looking). He had great control and made most of the Cards hitters look pretty bad. It's hardly fair that, even with Prior and Wood out, the rest of the NL Central still have to deal with this caliber of pitching.

On a slightly unrelated note, the game ended in 2 hours and 15 minutes, so Fox cut over to the Dodgers and Braves. Nothing demonstrates the difference between Midwestern and Southeast Coast fans than the attitude in the stands at Wrigley versus the lethargy in Atlanta. I know the Braves were losing 7-0, but talk about not even trying to get a rally going.

Okay, back to fixing the toilet.

"Show some respect for Judge Reinhold!"

Courtesy of the IMDB, here are some of today's celebrity birthdays.

Mr. T - role model (52)

Kevin Shields - curmudgeonly founder of My Bloody Valentine (38)

Fairuza Balk - steadfastly refused to answer yours truly's fan letters (30)

Judge Reinhold - "Hey, you guys had shirts on when you came in here." (47)

Briana Banks - Star of Where the Boys Aren't 14 - 17 (26)

Al Franken - Used to be on SNL or something (53)

Leo Sayer - Loves us more than he can say (56)

and Fats Waller, who is still dead

He assumed they were hanging around because of his mad conversational skillz

At least tell me there was a "happy ending:"

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York insurance executive slapped an upscale strip club with a lawsuit after it charged him $28,000 for a night of champagne and partying with a dozen exotic dancers.

Mitchell Blaser, who is the Chief Financial Officer of the Americas division of insurer Swiss Re, filed suit on Tuesday demanding that strip club Scores pay back the $28,000 because that does not accurately reflect his spending at the Manhattan nightspot.

But a Scores spokesman said that, during his December visit, Blaser ordered five magnums of the club's most expensive champagne, a 1990 Krug Clos du Mesnil, for $3,200 each. He also spent $7,000 for lap dances and the company of 12 girls who surrounded him for hours.

You could count the amount of time this dingus has left with Swiss Re on an egg timer. Can't be good publicity when the Chief Freaking Financial Officer of your company claims he was unaware that lap dances cost money and, gawrsh, so does champagne. Hell, a bottle of Miller Lite will run you $6 at a mid-range club, much less an "upscale gentleman's club" like Scores.

Or so I've heard.

[Scores spokesman Lonnie] Hanover called the suit "frivolous" and said Scores has three signed receipts from Blaser over the course of the night. He said American Express investigated the matter and found the charges were valid and paid the $28,000.

In his lawsuit filed with the Supreme Court in Manhattan, Blaser said he and his friend were intimidated into signing an invoice for $8,615 by Scores' staff, which threatened to keep his credit card. Scores then tacked on an additional $4,000 gratuity without his signature, the suit said. It also said Blaser promptly complained to American Express.

Having added gratuities to checks in my day, I can tell you no bartender/server worth a damn would be so stupid as to put a 50% tip on a tab that big without verification from the person signing the receipt. Blaser's probably sweating because he put the whole thing on his corporate card which, I can tell you from personal experience, is not a good idea.

Of course, I was a first year consultant, not a Chief Freaking Financial Officer.

"F*ckin' every now and then I fall apart"

Who are you to deny Bonnie Tyler's importance as a cultural icon? Nobody, that's who. Just in the past year, we've had a profane version of "Total Eclipse of the Heart" (featured in last year's Old School) and Jennifer Saunders' cover of "Holding Out For a Hero" in Shrek 2 (it ain't Footloose, but it'll have to do). Personally, I can't tell you how relieved I was to learn she isn't dead.

She seems rather...well-preserved for 50 years and 15(!) albums (and by "well-preserved" I mean "surgically altered"). Her last CD was only released in France, and like Hasselhoff, she seems to be big in Germany. I can't be the only one who sees how easily this demonstrates her cross-cultural appeal. Perhaps if the Welsh-born Ms. Tyler had been around in 1940, we could've avoided a global conflagration.

I remember when "Total Eclipse of the Heart" was on infinite loop on MTV in the early '80s. The video was typical for its vintage, which is to say utterly nonsensical (I seem to recall horses, lots of shirtless guys, and a table being upended for no reason a la "Hungry Like the Wolf"). Dismissing the cultural significance of such a piece would be foolhardy, however. Those were heady times, when Cold War fears and the inability to Safety Dance could cause even the most level-headed of us to toss furniture around like the Tasmanian Devil. She offered us catharsis.

Could a Golden Age of Bonnie be forthcoming? Can her Jim Steinman-penned odes to heroes and solar-cardiac phenomena calm our troubled world? Will she tour with Quarterflash?

We can only hope.

That sucking sound

Children of the night, shut up (via Fark):

PORTLAND -- You've seen them in scary movies, comic books and maybe even in your nightmares, but have you ever seen a vampire in real life?

You probably have if you live in Portland.

"Generally a vampire is anything that feeds off the energy of others," says 19-year old art student and vampire, Raven.
...
Raven claims she's a psyonic, or psychic vampire.

Psychic vampire? Except for her age, she sounds like every girl I dated from 1990-92.

I actually had more that I was planning on saying about this, but really, what teenager hasn't claimed they were a vampire/Wiccan/Andy Warhol at some point?

In fact, the phrase "19-year old art student" says more than I ever could.

Anorexics for Bush

Can Calista Flockhart and Jennifer Connelly be far behind?

Representatives for George W. Bush are hoping to recruit actress Lara Flynn Boyle for campaigning duties, after she publicly declared her support for the American President. The former star of The Practice, 34, has gone against the grain of a large number of her Hollywood counterparts to pledge her support for the Republican leader. She says, "I'm Irish Catholic, so a Democrat by blood. But I'm 100 per cent for Bush. I want my president to be like my agent: not afraid of people, but wants my best interest." And a Bush spokesman has welcomed the news, telling Us Weekly, "If she's amenable, obviously we would try to find something interesting and useful for her to do."

If Bush was really "like your agent," he would've created a Cabinet position for you. Might I suggest Secretary of Eat a Goddamn Pork Chop?

That Republican convention's gonna be one hell of a barn burner this year. They've got Boyle - who'll play Le Marche Militaire on her ribcage, Bruce Willis (can a Bruno and the Heaters reunion be in the offing?), Tom Selleck will offer free moustache rides to the Bush twins, and Mel Gibson will kick things off in the blockbuster opening, featuring the Rockettes performing their Passion of the Christ-inspired "Go-Go Golgotha."

I'll be glued to the TV, let me tell you.

"Thank you Mr. President, I had forgotten how crushingly dull these ceremonies are."

Via Andante, John Stewart's commencement address to William and Mary's class of 2004.

A brief sampling:

We declared war on terror. We declared war on terror—it’s not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I’m sure we’ll take on that bastard ennui.
...
I was not exceptional here, and am not now. I was mediocre here. And I’m not saying aim low. Not everybody can wander around in an alcoholic haze and then at 40 just, you know, decide to be president. You’ve got to really work hard to try to…I was actually referring to my father.

Having not yet emerged from my alcoholic haze, I am unsure about my future Presidential plans. I'll keep you posted,

"In high school, I used to drink a hundred cans of Cola a week, right up to my third heart attack."

Alert the media: Jackass is off the air and high school kids are still doing stupid shit:

A West Texas youth who drank a chemical from a high school lab on a dare from another student is in improving condition at a hospital.

The unidentified victim, a junior at Odessa High School, was upgraded Monday from critical to satisfactory condition at University Medical Center in Lubbock.

The student drank the unidentified chemical, described as a poison, on "a bet" at the school. Nancy Smith, a UMC supervisor, said he took another student's $2 bet before drinking the chemical.

That's some savvy wagering. Much as I'd like to make fun of this kid, I'm no stranger to drinking strange liquids for dumb reasons. Sometimes for money, more often than not just because someone insisted I couldn't do it. For example:

+ A glass of water collected from the bottom of a hot dog steamer that had been running for six hours - $15
+ A coffee mug of Everclear with a brown crayon in it (a variation on the old Peanuts hot chocolate gag) - $5
+ A chocolate Yoo-Hoo that had been sitting in the cargo area of our bus for three days - dare
+ A "bar mat deluxe:" drain the runoff from an evening's bartending into a glass and drink - lost a bet...more than once (these were popular forms of punishment at the various bars/restaurants in which I used to work)
+ Corona - only when it was free
+ New Coke - Oh, like you've never bought into a massive marketing blitz

I never drank anything clearly marked as "poison," however.

Well, except for the Corona.

It's a joke that never gets old

But somehow, I managed to get through my entire review of Shrek 2 without referring to it as "Drek."

Anyway, don't listen to that blowhard at CNN (who calls it the "best comedy of the year"), listen to me and my equally useless and arbitrary opinions.

There was some discussion last night about the dangers of my coming across as a crank with my reviews, and while I see how that might be assumed, I'd also point out that the spring months - in which I so wisely chose to make my critical debut - are traditionally the dumping ground for movies deemed too uneven for summer release (The Punisher), continuously delayed (The Alamo), or borderline straight-to-video projects (Envy).

This isn't too say this summer is chock full of cinema classics (can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to Catwoman), but it can't be as bad as the last few months.

Can it?

Fooled by the rocks that she got

Since it doesn't look like Jennifer Lopez is going to be able to match Elizabeth Taylor's Oscar wins (2 - though Lopez still has plenty of time to pass that in Razzies), she may be setting her sights on Taylor's marriage total (8):

Jennifer Lopez's new lover Marc Anthony has put the singer's former fiance Ben Affleck to shame, by buying her a ring even bigger and shinier than her $1.2 million six carat pink diamond engagement band. J.Lo has been spotted out in New York showing off a new eight carat clear diamond on the middle finger of her left hand, a present from her new Latin chart star beau Anthony. Although pals insist the new band isn't another engagement ring, they claim Anthony was determined to give the twice-married star a bigger ring than Affleck. A source says, "This (ring) is to tell the other guys, 'Yo step off. She's spoken for.' Jen and Marc didn't want any of that colored diamond bulls**t. That doesn't match half her outfits."

Yeah, fuck that colored diamond bullshit. J to tha L O obviously takes matrimony seriously, and nothing demonstrated Affleck's lack of committment to the endeavor like that chincy pink diamond. $1.2 million? She should have slapped his face when he whipped out that gumball machine reject.

I wonder, which guys do you suppose Anthony's trying to warn off? All those legions of men who would otherwise line up to spend the rest of their lives with a twice-married control freak with a sputtering career and an apparent insistence on progressively larger rocks from her boyfriends? She's every man's dream, that one.

Perhaps this is the best match for Lopez right now. The cadaverous Anthony looks like he's got one foot in the grave already, which should free J-Lo up in a relatively short time for her next jewelry donor.

Fix it again, Tony

I don't care how cool your new police cars are, all you Italian porn spammers need to piss right off out of my comments section.

As if subjecting the rest of the world to Roberto Benigni wasn't bad enough.

I knew there had to be some reason for Jessica Simpson's popularity

Turns out many of her juvenile fans are hopped up on goofballs:

As more children take pills for attention-deficit and other behavior disorders, new figures show that spending on those drugs has for the first time edged above the cost of antibiotics and asthma medications for kids.

A 49 percent rise in the use of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder drugs by children younger than 5 in the last three years contributed to a 23 percent increase in usage for all children, according to an annual analysis of drug-use trends by Medco Health Solutions Inc.

"Behavioral medicines have eclipsed the other categories this year," said Dr. Robert Epstein, Medco's chief medical officer. "It certainly reflects the concern of parents that their children do as well as they can."

Of course, it might also reflect the success of pharmaceutical companies in convincing doctors and parents that their kids will be irrevocably screwed up if they don't get on the latest wonder pill.

Antidepressant use rose 21 percent, and use of drugs for autism and other behavior disorders jumped 71 percent, compared with a 4.3 percent rise in antibiotics.

So the good news would appear to be that our children's immune systems are faring better than their personalities. The bad news is that parents are rushing to medicate their kids for every "syndrome" physicians and drug companies come up with, like that "Asperger's" nonsense.

"It's not necessarily a bad thing that these medicines are being used more," said Dr. James McGough, associate professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of California Los Angeles' Neuropsychiatric Institute.

McGough said kids on attention-deficit drugs tend to avoid substance abuse and other problems and do better in school.

However, McGough said rising use of antidepressants among adolescents is a concern, because there's little proof they work in young people and evidence has surfaced that they may increase suicidal tendencies.

The "ironing" is delicious.

Why aren't these kids self-medicating with Olympia Gold like the red-blodded American boys and girls of my youth?

Overall, 5.3 percent of children took some type of behavioral medicine in 2003, including 3.4 percent on attention-deficit medicines and 2.3 percent on antidepressants, according to the study. Some children are on both types of drugs. That compares with 44 percent who used antibiotics at some point, 13 percent on asthma medicines and 11 percent who used allergy drugs.

Frankly, I don't think these percentages are high enough for today's slack-ass kids. Modern parents are busy coping with the pressures of erectile dysfunction and worrying about how to afford gas for their SUVs, and now we're supposed to pay attention to every little niggling problem are offspring are whining about this week? Screw that. Keep the little bastards doped up until they're 18, then send them off to college or, more likely, whatever war we're currently fighting. Nothing helps with withdrawal from anti-depressants like military grade weaponry.

If you're the betting type

I'd lay money of Smarty Jones winning the Triple Crown, Ian McShane winning the Best Actor Emmy for the role of Al Swearengen on Deadwood, and me getting fired from my reviewing gig if I have to sit through more crap like Shrek 2.

Feeling a little horse

I may be the only one hoping that Smarty Jones doesn't win the Belmont Stakes. After his victory in yesterday's Preakness, I'm convinced wheelchair-bound, oxygen tank-toting owner Roy Chapman is going to drop dead of a heart attack if his horse wins the Triple Crown.

It'd be good TV, though.

Making "Zowie Bowie" look like a reasonable alternative

Gwyneth Paltrow has given birth to a daughter, and saddled her with a rather unfortunate name:

LONDON - Hollywood actress Gwyneth Paltrow has given birth to her first child, a daughter called Apple, a spokesman said today.

Paltrow, 31, and her British husband Chris Martin, 27, lead singer of the band Coldplay, said they were "ecstatic" after the baby was delivered on Friday following a long labor at a London hospital.

I don't know how much input Martin had in the naming process, but something expecting fathers should always take into consideration is a moniker other kids can't easily make fun of. The youngest Paltrow can look forward to "Crapple," "Rotten Apple," "Fritter," and whatever else her cruel classmates can come up with.

Which will be ten times worse if she ends up going to one of those snotty British private schools.

"We are 900 miles over the moon," the couple said in a statement released by Martin's spokesman Murray Chalmers.

Chalrmers quickly followed up this statement with, "And due to the parents' sudden death from lack of oxygen, the now orphaned child will be raised by her maternal grandmother."

"900 miles over the moon?" That's just silly.

Praise the Lord and pass the quarterly earnings statement

Today's Houston Chronicle has an article about how Southern Baptists are drawing criticism for holding millions of dollars of stock in a cruise line that sponsors a gay excursion. It had some great quotes:

"The Baptists don't believe in gambling, liquor or pornography, or gays," said Don Allmon, a deacon at First Baptist Church of Dyer, Tenn.

But, they believe in you, Don.

"When I say that, we love gays, but we don't like their lifestyle."

Also known as, "love the sinner, hate the sin as long as we can make (you'll pardon the expression, Lord) assloads of money off of it."

The Baptist board owns about 26,200 shares of Carnival in its Equity Index Fund and 337,600 shares in its Value Index Fund as of Dec. 31, together valued at $14.5 million, according to the Associated Baptist Press, an independent Baptist news service. The board also has holdings in satellite and cable TV companies that provide on-demand or premium-priced pornographic programming.

According to the board's statement, its guidelines prohibit investments in any company publicly recognized "as being in the liquor, tobacco, gambling, pornography or abortion industries." Between 300 and 400 companies are on the board's restricted list, the statement said.

Sorry to break it you guys, but if you hold stock in any satellite, cable, or telecom company, you're investing in a company "publicly recognized" as being in the pornography industry. Phone sex was a $1 billion dollar business way back in 1996, and pay-per-view porn (broadcast by companies like AT&T) was a mere $750 million. Seems like the righteous thing to do would be to divest from such companies. Money can't be that important to the saved, right?

Right.

And yet, just because Carnival sponsors one big, gay boat ride every year hardly makes it a porn business. If the Baptists want to boycott a cruise company for immoral and tasteless behavior, they should go after Pacific Princess. That Love Boat was, hands down, some of the most disgusting TV I've ever seen.

Focus, people

Figures, the one time networks don't listen to a focus group, we get 10 years of yuppie crapola:

The Smoking Gun website has posted a copy of an NBC internal report distributed to program executives in 1994 showing that the pilot for Friends received poor marks in audience tests. The show received 41 out of 100 points and was graded "weak," according to the research. "Overall reactions to this pilot were not very favorable," the report began. "Most viewers felt the show was not very entertaining, clever, or original," the report continued and said that "viewing intentions for a series based on this pilot were not encouraging." While teens and young adults "seemed to connect slightly better with the individual characters," older adults found them to be "smug, superficial, and self-absorbed ... and felt they were not really like people they would want to know."

"Not really like people I would want to know" sounds like just about every character on television. NBC was jonesing pretty hard for another hit in 1994, though, even a show that presented the simian David Schwimmer as a romantic lead.

Several years ago (1997), I was in Las Vegas attending a Baptist convention with some friends. We were wandering around, looking for some way to kill time between our morning tipple and our late afternoon binge drunk, and were pulled into a focus screening of a comedy CBS was trying to retool. I'd never heard of it, but gave my helpful feedack anyway. Most of it consisted of comments like, "Sarcastic mother-in-law? Brilliant!" and "Let me commend CBS on yet another sitcom featuring a clueless goof of a husband and an occasionally annoyed but ultimately forgiving wife. This should play well to all three of the Laotian mountain tribes that have yet to sit through something similar."

Of course, I wrote "Clergy" in the space on the form asking for my occupation, so they might not have taken my comments very seriously.

Anyway, that sitcom was Everybody Loves Raymond. I have no idea how much of my advice was taken to heart as I have yet to see an episode. In any event, I apologize for whatever part I played in its continued survival.

Trojan Man

Only one big studio release this week (no, I didn't see Breaking All the Rules), and that, of course, is Troy. My Film Threat review can be found here.

Short version: Bana, Cox, Bean, and O'Toole are great. Bloom is good. Pitt is in over his head. Runs a little long, but has some great fight scenes. And though I was toying with giving it 2 1/2 stars, I ended up giving it 3 out of 5.

I think I was just happy to see something that didn't totally blow.

Triumph in the face of adversity - NBA style

ESPN's Jason Whitlock puts all the hooplah around Kobe Bryant's performance in the NBA playoffs into perspective:

You'll hear all about it tonight on ABC as the Lakers and Spurs resume a series that's deadlocked at 2-2. You'll see the footage of Kobe Bryant in business attire, entering a not-guilty plea. You'll see him get into a chauffeured SUV, get whisked to an airport, enter another chauffeured vehicle and emerge at the Staples Center dressed as RamKo. All the while, several narrators and commentators will gush about RamKo's mental strength.

No one will comment about the absurdity and the stupidity of the situation.

Not once will you hear anyone speak this truth: "Man, it's a damn shame that Kobe Bryant is putting himself, his teammates, his fans and his family through all of this crap. Wow. As good as he played Tuesday, just think: If the idiot hadn't stepped out on his wife and slept with a teenage woman he didn't know, he might have been even better Tuesday night. Or maybe the Lakers would be winning this series and wouldn't find themselves in so much turmoil. But these are the dangers of a high-profile, married man sleeping with a teenager he's only known for 30 minutes. You might catch a case and wind up on national TV looking like Boo-Boo the Fool."

Someone on the local sports radio station remarked how tough it was that Kobe had to get up at 4:30 AM on game day to make it to Colorado. I guess I never stopped to consider how difficult it is to nap on a private jet.

The use of the "hero" appellation is something that's been touched on here before, and however you want to throw it around, it never applied to Bryant. If being accused of a crime makes one a hero, half the NBA would be lining up for citations.

That captures the sad reality of RamKo's existence. RamKo isn't Martin Luther King Jr. writing a letter from an Alabama jail. RamKo isn't a victim. His teammates are victims. His fans are victims. Hell, I feel like a victim myself, being forced to listen to and read the glowing accounts of RamKo's heroism.

RamKo is not Pat Tillman. There's nothing heroic about fighting rape allegations by day and playing basketball by night. Nothing.

Well, if he played for the Clippers, maybe.

I'm just sick of the way the media is manipulating this story for ratings and attention. Mark Cuban predicted this. He said the Kobe case would be good for NBA business. Cuban said it would be an amazing reality TV show. We ridiculed Cuban at the time. We said he was stupid and insensitive. But Cuban was right. RamKo is developing into the summer blockbuster for which NBA execs had been hoping.

Cuban, annoying as he can be, is no idiot. Still, he didn't have to be Mesmero the Mentalist to predict that the media would seize upon this like pit bulls on an unattended toddler.

Which is one of the many reasons I want the Spurs to win.

You can't spell "catastrophe" without "cat"

I just realized there's less than a month to go before I have to sit through this, and my heart grew cold as a winter's frost.

The story, or what I've gleaned from the thirty seconds I spent on the web site, seems to involve Garfield wearing sunglasses, dancing to Bob Seger's "Old Time Rock and Roll," and engaging in other "extreme" and wacky antics.

And no Odie.

Where's my Eltingville Fan Club movie?

"There appears to be a frog in my bidet."

Spring and summer are frog season in these parts, and while not exactly on the same decibel level as cicadas, the little bastards can be loud. When we moved into out first non-apartment housing several years ago, I began hunting around for solutions to the racket that sprang up outside our bedroom window every night.

The following conversation - between myself and a Houston Garden Center employee - actually took place and is, to the best of my memory, accurate:

PVH: What did you say these things are called again?
HGCE: Rio Grande chirping frogs. They're a Houston-specific variant.
PVH: Gotcha.
HGCE: What were you looking for, exactly?
PVH: I just want something to make them avoid the area right under my bedroom window, if you've got anything like that.
HGCE: Uh huh.
PVH: I don't want to kill them, necessarily, but something that..I don't know...drives them into the neighbor's yard would be fine.
HGCE: Have you tried rotenone?
PVH: No, what's that?
HGCE: Well, adding it to any standing water will essentially make the water unlivable, which will drive the frogs out.
PVH: I see.
HGCE: Did you ever see the movie Creature from the Black Lagoon?
PVH: [blinking] Uh yes, actually.
HGCE: Well, they used rotenone to capture the Creature.
PVH: ...
HGCE: And he was an amphibian.
PVH: I'll take it.

It worked, too. Who would've suspected that all the answers to modern man's pest control problems could be found in 1950's horror movies?

If only there was something to help me with my mantis infestation...

Video nasties

MTV did a show several years ago (which I've mentioned here before) called "25 Lame," in which Denis Leary, Jon Stewart, Janeane Garofalo, and Chris Kattan counted down the 25 worst videos of all time. It ended with "Heartbeat" by Don Johnson, and the top 10 were actually destroyed, so that they would never air on the channel again.

You know a band's marketing appeal has been well and truly milked dry when MTV abandons it, but something always bugged me about their list. "Heartbeat" is a horrible song, but the video wasn't any worse than typical '80s fare. The same could be said for "Hold On" by Wilson Phillips, or "Ice Ice Baby," or "Rush Rush," also included in the list of 25. These videos were nothing I'd actually sit and watch, but they were merely visual accompaniment to some truly atrocious music. As videos, they were fine, and I think it's poor trivia management to make a list of bad videos that's little more than a list of bad songs that happen to have movie clips to go along with it.

I also don't agree that lousy production values necessarily make a bad music video. In the early 1980s, with MTV still an unknown quantity, labels weren't exactly bending over backwards to throw lots of money at what was at the time a pretty experimental format.

For these reasons, and in keeping with my own philosophy of useless list-mongering, I've made my own.

Don't get me wrong, not all the videos on the "25 Lame" program were undeserving of inclusion, and a few are repeated here. When there's such a wealth of televisual crapitude out there, it just takes a little more work, is all.

Click "More" to bring the pain (the video's ranking on "25 Lame" is included in parentheses if applicable):

20. Hangin' Tough - NKOTB -- This one almost seems like a joke, until you realize the band is deadly serious. It would've been famously received had blink-182 actually released it.

I'd have been more impressed if the band, instead of bopping around a deserted warehouse district, would have shown up unannounced in Compton, or East L.A., or (where are they from, Boston?) Southie and left without any limbs broken.

19. Someday - Nickelback -- The New Angst. Fear it.

18. Electric Youth - Debbie Gibson (#10) -- Like 17-year cicadas, the last parasitic horde of pop princesses descended upon us in the mid-1980s. Of these, Gibson was generally regarded as the least untalented: she wrote her own songs, and was, by all account, in greater control of her career than the other bubblegum bimbos. That makes the hellish ordeal that is "Electric Youth" that much more offensive, because as much as Nancy Reagan might have liked to believe otherwise, this video didn't represent the face of '80s young people.
And it provides definitive evidence that kids who spend a lot time singing don't have much time for dance lessons, as the spastic young Ms. Gibson is sadly outclassed by the professional hoofers around her.

17. November Rain - Guns 'n Roses -- It took me the longest time to actually sit through this entire video, which plays like something out of the later years of Dynasty, if they'd filmed the show on Sunset Blvd. "November Rain" is the apex of Axl's self-indulgence, depicting his unlikely marriage to then-girlfriend Stephanie Seymour, the foreshadowing of the rained-out marriage reception (I knew rain on your wedding day was "ironic," but I didn't know it meant someone would die), and the nonsensical funeral scene.

Oh, and if you're trying to avoid getting your suit wet, is jumping through the wedding cake really the best way to go about it?

16. Jenny From the Block - Jennifer Lopez -- I'm confused, which lyric was supposed to go with those shots of The Affleck rubbing lotion on your ample behind while the two of you cavort on a yacht: "Put God first and can't forget to stay real," or "Even if you take the good route can't count the hood out?"

15. Simply Irresistable - Robert Palmer -- One video with identically clad and made-up models undulating in the background is original and mildly ironic. Twice is - possibly - a wry comment on the original. Three times is just lazy.

14. Do You Wanna Touch Me - Joan Jett and the Blackhearts -- I have a great deal of respect for Joan Jett, and I'm a fan of her stuff with the Runaways, but this particular clip - ironic or no - featuring perennially slouch-shouldered Jett in a bikini and performing for a disturbing assemblage of (what look like) carnies and bikers played hell with my burgeoning sense of gender dynamics.

13. Hot For Teacher - Van Halen -- Coming in a close second on the Disturb-O-Meter to the sight of glorified pole dancers shaking their wares for a quartet of ogling pre-teen boys is watching Alex Van Halen's attempts at dancing. For a drummer, he's possibly the most uncoordinated guy I've ever seen.
"Plenty of metal and hip-hop videos feature scantily-clad, barely legal gyrating women, but Van Halen was the first band to turn invert the whole statutory rape aspect. Kudos.

12. Bring Me to Life - Evanescence -- hey guys, maybe it's just me, but is it that hard to stop playing your frigging instruments for ten seconds so you can help your buddy keep the pretty girl from plunging to her death?

11. anything by Creed -- For a guy who writes songs about the beauty of his child's birth, Scott Stapp sure seems like a tool, and a startlingly megalomaniacal one at that. Stapp's knack for striking crucifixion poses ("With Arms Wide Open") and getting the CGI angel treatment ("Bullets") drove a stake into whatever irony and humor may once have remained in FM radio.
It would appear someone took Soundgarden's "Jesus Christ Pose" a little too seriously.

10. Baby I Love Your Way - Will to Power -- "Is that Peter fucking Frampton?"
I forget when this came out, which is good news, since it means my selective memory programming is finally starting to kick in. The Nietzschean concept of the superman obviously meant little more to this mulletheaded side of beef than enormous pecs, which he flexes admirably while singing falsetto on some Southern California coastline with his bottle blonde companion.

Whoever helmed this makes the guy who directs the Creed videos look like Darren Aronofsky.

9. Rock Me Tonight - Billy Squier (#21) -- Plenty of early videos featured bad dancing (it may have launched Courtney Cox onto the world, but don't ask The Boss to mimic his steps from the "Dancing in the Dark" video), but few could honestly be said to have ended a career. Such is the case with "Rock Me Tonight."
Billy Squier's "Don't Say No"-era videos were unremarkable - except for the obvious fact that dude wasn't wearing any underwear - but "Rock Me Tonight" is simply frightening. Squier dances around like Molly Ringwald in a pink half-shirt, not tearing the offending garment from his chest until he's bled himself of any "rock" cred he may have once possessed. A little suspect? His fans seemed to think so, and his career sank like big, pink brick.

8. Wake Me Up Before Yo Go-Go - Wham! (#11) -- If you saw this video back in the day and were honestly surprised at George Michael's Beverly Hills toilet bust, you need to lay off the glue. Seriously.
The creepy day-glo face painting in the video is bad enough, but "Wake Me Up" deserves special censure for introducing those moronic "Choose Life" t-shirts to American youth. Although between them and "Frankie Say Relax," I always had something to spit on in high school.

7. Obsession - Animotion -- I could easily substitute any of a gazillion inexplicable early '80s efforts for this one, but "Obsession" came out during the period between when videos were weird for weirdness' sake and when they started trying to depict actual narratives. "Obsession," therefore, exists in a nether region where the laws of logic and good taste have no meaning.

I've always speculated that the band's massive costume budget for the clip necessitated their filming in a friend's back yard.

6. The Warrior - Scandal -- It must've been worrying/annoying to the members of Scandal when they started seeing "featuring Patty Smyth" appended to their record covers. In the case of the video for "The Warrior," I like to believe they felt somewhat vindicated. Among his many other sins, Michael Jackson deserves to be strung up for forcing every band in the 1980s to include dancing in their videos, even those that couldn't (see also "Hot for Teacher"). Patty Smyth is quite attractive and has a great set of pipes, but you tend to forget all that while watching her jump around in a lamé kimono with war paint on her face.

5. Queen of the Broken Hearts - Loverboy -- This was lead singer Mike Reno's first video after he was finally able to afford dental surgery, and he never lets us forget it. Every syllable is sung through a rictus of gleaming white, which is almost enough to distract us from the cheesy Road Warrior knockoff costumes the band is wearing.
You want more? How about the Solid Gold dancers as the Amazonian tribe in pursuit of our heroes? What about supremely unimpressed MTV contest winner Bridget Magnesi dutifully inserted as a computer operator into the clip?
Loverboy has any number of gag-inducing videos that could qualify for my list, this is simply the most egregious.

4. Balls to the Wall - Accept -- In the early '80s, metal acts often used the strategy of repeating a certain refrain of a song ad infinitum, usually while pumping their fists and grimacing in manly fashion. Bonus points could be garnered by wearing camouflage or other military paraphernalia.

In this regard, Accept aren't any different from Grim Reaper or a hundred other marginally talented wannabe Sabbaths. What sets them apart, however, is lead singer Udo Dirkscheider (admittedly, a great name) and the group's inexplicable penchant for putting this stumpy homunculus front and center in their videos.

3. Separate Ways - Journey (#13) -- Remember when you didn't have to be good looking to appear on MTV? Journey does, and you can bet they were hating those Duran Duran pretty boys around the time "Separate Ways" hit. Still, I don't care if the band consisted of Rob Lowe, Jon-Erik Hexum, Rick Springfield, and Tom Cruise, this wharfside exercise in hilarious air guitar poses and constipated/tough guy faces would still merit inclusion.

"Separate Ways" also marked the last time band members were told to "just make it up as you go" for a video.

2. Black or White - Michael Jackson -- Jacko was feeling the heat by the time "Dangerous" came out in 1991. "Bad," while selling millions, had fallen far short of "Thriller" numbers, and whispers about his nose job had evolved into hysterical laughter and pointing at his freakish appearance. In an effort to maintain his envelope of unreality, and also to show he was truly a man for all people, he made this.

It lacks the choreographed ground-humping of "The Way You Make Me Feel," but "Black or White" instead gives us the creepy rap stylings of Macauley Culkin, a belated cry for help/tesosterone (personified by Jackson's ill-advised car bashing), and a strained plea for racial harmony from a guy who couldn't decide what color he wanted to be in the first place.

1. After the Rain - Nelson (#4) -- I can sympathize with our protagonist: a dumpy adolescent, living in a trailer with parents who fight all the time and force him to wear stupid headbands. Then again, I knew guys in high school with similar domestic situations, and not a one listened to crap like Nelson.
This would've been a good concept for a video by Megadeth, or Overkill or maybe Public Enemy, but Nelson? People who listened to Nelson didn't have any problems, they were all in Young Life, attended "lock-ins," and ratted out guys they saw reading National Lampoon in Chemistry class.
Bastards.
Leaving that aside, what kind of message is this video sending? "Hey. we can't give you any advice on how to change your shitty life or offer any opportunity to improve your situation, but come watch us play this lousy song with a bunch of hot chick extras in the audience who, frankly, you have no chance with. Mind the Indian."

"This word you keep using, I do not think it means what you think it means."

Melanie at delicate flower discusses the furor over Oprah's recent show about teen sex and offers a link to a representative sampling of e-mails collected by The Smoking Gun from outraged viewers who were obviously too stricken with horror to turn the channel.

Her favorite is the e-mail containing the line, "It was so offensive that my child's head literally exploded." While I can only pause to consider the mess that poor woman had to clean up, I personally can't decide if I prefer the e-mail from a person claiming to belong to an organization called Citizens against Unclean Network Trash (mind the acronym), or the helpful citizen who also offers a (sadly blacked out) list of books that should be removed from public libraries.

I'm surprised Oprah viewers are allowed to read anything not sanctioned by Her Royal Winfreyness in the first place.

"Springfield A&M? That's a cow college."
"You're just saying that because it was founded by a cow."

This story fills me with all sorts of tingly goodness:

WASHINGTON -- At least 28 senior-level federal employees in eight agencies have bogus college degrees, including three managers at the office that oversees nuclear weapons safety, congressional investigators have found.

The problem is likely even bigger, mainly because the government has no uniform way to check whether employees' alma maters are "diploma mills" that require little, if any, academic work, the General Accounting Office reported.

Naturally, because checking an application for errors and fabrications would require someone to take responsibility for possibly rejecting that application. And accountability, as we've all come to learn, is un-American.

Among those with bogus degrees in the GAO review were three workers with emergency operations roles and security clearances at the National Nuclear Security Administration, part of the Department of Energy.
...
Other senior government employees with bogus degrees worked for the departments of Education, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Transportation and Veterans Affairs, as well as the Small Business Administration and the Office of Personnel Management.

The irony that some of these jagoffs work for the Department of Homeland Security would make me laugh if I wasn't so busy trembling in the icy talons of dread.

Under law, the federal government may only pay tuition for academic degree training at schools sanctioned by a recognized accrediting body.

In contacting representatives of three diploma mills, an undercover GAO investigator found they would not permit enrolling in individual courses. Yet they were willing to change their billing practices to receive federal money, dividing the flat fee they charged by the number of courses a student needed to appear as if a per-course fee was charged.

The number of bogus degrees and the amount of tax dollars spent on them are likely understated across the government because of incomplete records and verifications, the GAO said.

"Seven years of college down the drain." But on the plus side, I now know how to get work to pay for my MBA.

Because I'm all about forgiveness, I'm willing to wipe the slate clean if the Department of Education takes care of my student loans. They shouldn't have a problem with that, seeing as how I actually attended the schools in question.

All aboard the rumor train

Go West, young horror fan (via Dark Horizons):

"Glen Morgan and James Wong are already attached to adapt Sammy Corp.'s sci-fi Western "Darkwatch: Curse of the West" into a film. The writing-directing-producing duo behind "Final Destination," have developed a pitch, based on the vidgame's plot and action sequences, and are now in the midst of penning a script. "Darkwatch" revolves around a secret organization dedicated to fighting the forces of evil. Game will take place in the Wild West, focusing on a cowboy/train robber named Jericho Cross who is recruited by the org to battle a horde of vampires and other supernatural creatures..."

"A secret organization dedicated to fighting the forces of evil?" Haven't heard that one before. And "Jericho Cross???" Why not "Pariah O'Martyr?" Or "Grim Starkweather?" Or...heh..."Jacob Dusty Blood?"

Sorry, I just love that story.

Darkwatch hasn't even been released as a game yet. They better hope this isn't another Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness waiting to happen.

Romero's