PACHINKO

RNC Files Trademark Claim Against Carnival Cruises

2012-01-17T10:14:00.000-08:00

Legal counsel for the Republican National Committee have filed an injunction against Carnival Cruises for unlawful use of the RNC's image of a listing luxury liner. "It's diluting our trademark image of a sterling silver enterprise, an image that the public identifies with our party," said House Speaker John Boehner. "We're not taking this lying down."

Carnival's crippled cruise ship, the Costa Concordia, hit a reef and ran aground off the coast of Tuscany last Friday, leading to the death of 11 passengers and leaving 25 unaccounted for. The party's attorneys have been accused of bad timing in the suit.

"Sure, it's sad that there's a loss of life," said Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum, applying his trademark logic. "But no one complains about that when it's the pro-choice people talking."

Candidate Newt Gingrich, campaigning with other contenders in South Carolina, said that the cruise ship industry has been in turmoil ever since President Obama took office. "We can't stand by and watch perfectly good luxury liners run aground. It's time for a change."

The Democratic National Committee, which adopted the photo of the 2007 implosion of the Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas as its 2012 logo, had no comment on the RNC's actions.

15 Reasons Why Bugs Bunny Should Be President in 2012

2011-11-20T15:42:00.001-08:00

Portrait by Harry Sabin and Alan Bodner

While an anxious and thoroughly disgusted citizenry waits forsomething to happen with the federal government (somebody blink, please) andwatches the Kardashian-rivaling real-time freak show known as the RepublicanCandidates Debate (“Who Will Survive This Week?”), a nagging question arises:Can anyone lead America?

The answer is yes. He’s been under our noses for decades, only now we need him more thanever. Desperately. Please consider if you will the onehope for the U.S. presidency in 2012: independent candidate BugsBunny.

You are already nodding your heads in agreement. See? Think about it—there are at least a dozen reasons why BugsBunny would be the perfect leader of the free world.

1. Whodoesn’t like Bugs Bunny?

2. He’ssmart. He can quote just about anybodyif he wanted to, he just doesn’t want to. He’s got street smarts galore, and calls things as he sees them. When he speaks, people listen.

3. He’san outsider. He’s never actuallyheld an office, although he’s run for office a couple of times just to drivethe opposition crazy. He’snever stuck his nose into public policy and never had an ear for beltwayjargon. He just wants a comfy,clean place to live, a few carrots, and for people to leave him alone.

4. He’sresourceful. He can turn around adiscussion with the mere shift of a pronoun. He thinks on his feet and useswhatever’s available. He makes light objects heavy and heavy objects light(think anvil). He’s always got a new idea, and italways works. He never doubts thathe’ll get to a solution if he keeps trying.

5. He’sfearless. That doesn’t mean he’sunafraid, it just means that he doesn’t let his fear stop him from doingsomething. He’s secure, and hedoesn’t have anything to prove. After facing down and leveling the Tasmanian Devil, an orangemonster in tennis shoes, an invading Martian bent on Earth’s destruction,Yosemite Sam, boxers, bullies, hillbillies, predators, and Adolf Hitler, it’s apretty safe bet he can handle Eric Cantor and Mitch McConnell.

6. He’s achampion of the underdog. WithBugs Bunny, fair is fair. He hasdemonstrated that the weakest among us should be protected—watching out forlittle bunnies, lost penguins and old ladies. It doesn’t have to be written as law—it’s just the rightthing to do. Even if it’s inconvenient and not politically expedient.

7. DuringWorld War II, he sold millions of war bonds, helping bring victory on twofronts.

8. He’s amilitary hero, and holds the rank of sergeant in the Marine Corps.

9. He’sgot charisma to burn. Men are inawe of him. Chicks dig him.

10. He’smusical and artistic, and a wonderful dancer.

11. He’s strong and impervious to natural laws like physicsand gravity. And grammar.

Bugs stylings by Chuck Jones.

12. He doesn’t care that people know he likes to dress ingirls’ clothes. People don’tcare. You’ll have to dig upsomething else.

13. He’s already gotten “celebrity” out of his system. He’s starred in hundreds of cartoons,several feature films, a current hit TV show, and has won an AcademyAward. He’s been on a first-classpostage stamp and played basketball with Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, andPatrick Ewing and held his own on the court.

14. He never throws the first punch—but he alwaysgets in the last one.

15. He's funny. Intentionally.

It should be pretty clear that Bugs is the one candidatewith savvy and stamina. And heworks cheap.

“But,” you say, “Bugs Bunny is just a one-dimensionalcartoon character.” Stop splittin’hares. That’s the onlything he has in common with the rest of the candidates, Doc.

Penn State Adopts New Image in Wake of Scandal

2011-11-14T08:43:00.001-08:00

After the exposure of a covered up child sex scandal and its ensuing public relations nightmare after the firing of football legend Joe Paterno, Penn State University's athletic department has quickly acted to replace its "We Are Penn State" cheer with the more contemporary "WTF." The Nittany Lion mascot has also been replaced to reflect the new tone of Penn State's students and administration, with three chimpanzees representing the school athletic program's "determination, dignity, and dedication."

"We think this new metaphor is far more powerful than the lion," said university spokesman Marshall Overton. "Chimps are smart, strong, and adorable, and the trio is a metaphor for the three prongs of our new focus."

Penn State is in the vortex of widespread criticism after Paterno's longtime assistant coach Jerry Sandusky, who retired in 1999, was arrested and charged with 40 counts of sexual abuse of young boys, some of the molestations allegedly taking place in the campus's athletic facilities. While most reactions have been horrified disbelief that no one who was aware of the assaults (several of them witnessed) told police, many students were more perturbed that Sandusky's behavior resulted in the firing of Paterno. "Hey, it's sad and everything, but this crap cost us a game to Nebraska," said Ben Ostenkowiscitzki, a junior. "Joe didn't touch those kids."

"This is a set-up," said senior Alice Kendricks. "Our athletic department bends over backwards to work with young people and look what they get for thanks. It's media rape. Although the chimp t-shirts and mugs are really cute."

The new "WTF" cheer will debut at next Saturday's game with Ohio State. The school's marching band has already dedicated its rendition of "You Can't Touch This" to "the healing of a lot of hurt feelings around JoePa's firing," said band director Curt Scrum. Just how "WTF" will be worked into a cheer is the subject of much excited speculation on campus.

"We're taking the moral high ground here and not rushing to judgment," said Marcia Rodd, a culinary arts major. "You know how cruel kids can be. All the information's not out yet. Those 'boys' they keep referring to are men now and should know better than to drum up the past when a whole football program is at stake."

"It's a university's duty to make its football team proud," said assistant coach Bob Shishka. "And this is an epic fail."

Wisconsin Woman Claims Cain Never Groped Her

2011-11-11T10:46:00.001-08:00

A Wisconsin woman who was an executive assistant at the National Restaurant Association in the 1990's has come forward to state that presidential candidate Herman Cain didn't touch her.

"He never put a hand on me, and I worked with him for years," said Marta Kinsley, 48, of Waukesha. "If he had, I'd of smacked the s@#t out of him. Put his ass in the hospital. And I don't need money to shut my yap. They'd be payin' me to stop beatin' on him."

Kinsley, who runs a non-profit group called Bitch, Stand Up For Yourself, claims to have heard rumors that Cain had "an eye for the ladies" but never actually saw him do anything that would constitute harassment. "If I had, he'd be nursing two black eyes.

"Oh, I saw him flash that crocodile smile at the assistants and the women vendors, but 'player' he ain't. He's as transparent as a goddam piece of Saran Wrap. Any woman falls for that needs to get her sorry ass back to Dating 101."

As for claims by five women that they had received a settlement from the association to keep silent about the complaints, Kinsley was circumspect. "You'd 'a had to pay me to let Herman put his arm around me and not use his head for a speedbag," she said. "And I don't need no Gloria All Wet --I can take care of my own business, thank you."

FDA Okays Licensing Deals Between Big Pharma, Snack Makers

2011-10-24T23:13:00.000-07:00

A collective of major pharmaceutical companies has struck innovative branding deals with companies like Frito-Lay, PEZ candies and Hartz pet products to reinvent their soon-to-be generic medications. The new marketing and distribution plan will extend the value of the drugs for the parent companies as their patents expire. The FDA has granted its approval to the deal.

Pfizer’s Lipitor, the mammoth selling ($10 billion in 2010 alone) blood pressure regulating drug coming off patent next month, will be available in generic form and a new, pork-flavored Hartz chew toy for humans. One “LipStick” will deliver the same dosage as four of the tablets. Test groups have enthusiastically received the new versions of their favorite prescription drugs.

Likewise, PEZ versions of antidepressants Paxil, Prozac, and Abilify will hit the market in the spring, with multiple licensed “character” dispensers of Patrick Dempsey and Edie Falco (Nurse Jackie). Alfred Malcamper, a publicist for GlaxoSmithKline, calls the company’s deal “the best thing to happen since pill cutters.”

“People will love [PEZ medications] and they’re a real conversation starter,” Malcamper said. “Consumers will be willing to forego the generic stuff and go full-pop for a McDreamy [Patrick Dempsey’s character on the medical show Grey’s Anatomy], y’know?” When asked of the dangers of such high-potency drugs being marketed as candy and snacks, Malcamper called the question “irrelevant.” “Consumers are savvy enough to know best how to control and administer their prescriptions,” he said. “I don’t see the problem.”

Ed Freedlow of the Consumer Protection Agency has called the deal “irresponsible.” “I don’t know what the FDA was thinking,” he said. “Here we have all these restrictions and protections, and all the FDA has to say is that they think it’s really cute.” Several unnamed celebrities have already been signed as national spokespeople for the new products, which will “hopefully have a longer shelf life than the celebrities” Freedlow said.

The children’s hyperactivity medication Ritalin is set to arrive in markets as a SpongeBob Squarepants PEZ candy as well as a Lay's cheese and cracker snack called Git Alongs, and PEZ versions of Dilaudid and Xanax are in the planning stages. Hartz is also testing a human version of a birdcage treat, the “Prozac Lick,” designed to hang on a towel rack, which the company says will easily deliver a regulated dose for people too lethargic to open a bottle. Media giant NewsCorp and internet entertainment company Netflix have already ordered thousands of the sticks for their companies' break rooms and cubicles.

Malcamper calls a pending deal between Purdue Pharma’s Oxycontin and Proctor and Gamble’s own Pringles, “the Holy Grail” of cross-marketed medications. “It’s a good time to be in the prescription drug business,” he said with a laugh. “Ask your doctor if Kansas City Barbecue Flavor Oxy is for you.”

Lohan Community Service Restructured to Include Vegas, Cannes

2011-10-19T23:24:00.000-07:00

Lohan tries Propovodka, a mixture of Stoli and Propofol,
while performing community service hours at Skybar

While Los Angeles city prosecutors demand jail time forLindsay Lohan after she allegedly violated the terms of her probation, Lohan’slegal team has presented a revised probation plan to the court. The request was made as the once-promising actress was taken into custody this morning in a pairof custom-made Michael Kors handcuffs on order of the judge whohad sentenced her.

Lohan attorney Karl Magma, acknowledging that the actresshad been booted from a program at the Downtown Women’s Center after hernecklace theft conviction, is prepared to present a “fully restructured,compassionate re-thinking” of her probation. Lohan has ignored completing hundreds of required hours of serviceat a women’s shelter and the L.A. coroner’s office.

“We want Lindsay to do her service where it’s going to doher and the public the most good,” Magma said. The new plan allows a venue change for her hours at thewomen’s center in downtown Los Angeles, instead requiring her to perform “intensive poolsideexchanges” at the Venetian in Las Vegas. “She’ll put in 350 hours like that,”Magma said, snapping his fingers. He also cited less congestion around the courthouse and better photoopportunities for TMZ. Theattorney rolled his eyes when asked if the setting might not jeopardize hercontinuing recovery from drug, alcohol, and shoplifting problems. “Her only problem is a brokenjustice system. Enough said.”

Ed Heffernan, a spokesman for the city attorney, declaredthat Lohan has reneged on every term of her probation. “This new arrangement requested by herattorney is just a smokescreen,” he said, “so she doesn’t have to go to aregular jail and end up with some ‘street surgery’ when she runs her Hollywoodroyalty act on the other girls.”

Heffernan said other concessions being run past the court are that Lohan be given credit for London Fashion Week and grantedan extension on her service hours at the coroner’s office by attending the CannesFilm Festival next year, where she can work with elderly producers andfinanciers who are “going to die pretty soon anyway.” She’s also agreed to house arrest, but only in theDubai apartment of a Saudi sheik. Asfor going back to jail, Lohan has said she’ll “play along” if she’s assuredthat celebrity chef Gordon Ramsey will create her meals.

“I don’t think this is the spirit in which [L.A. SuperiorCourt] Judge Sautner issued the order,” Heffernan said. The young actress’spattern of shrugging off court orders is seen as a patent disregard for rulesand contempt for the judicial system. “We’re done letting her piss in the court’s cornflakes, pardon myFrench, Gordon Ramsey notwithstanding,” said Heffernan.

Lohan, who dressed for Wednesday’s hearing thinking it was abusiness meeting with Vera Wang, ordered her driver to take her to Yamashiro when word got to the back of her limothat they were actually at the courthouse. Her attorney was “flabbergasted” at the deception.

“In the American tradition of civil disobedience, Lindsay isexercising her right to protest an enormous miscarriage of justice,” Magmaexplained. “She’s doing this for allthe starlets not yet born—for the special, the misunderstood, the overrated…allvictims of bad breaks, misunderstandings, and the media.”

Slower, Simpler Jitterbug 5s Senior Phone Unveiled

2011-10-05T14:33:00.000-07:00

Ridgefield Park, NJ -- Samsung on Tuesday unveiled a new, pared down Jitterbug phone. Designed especially for “technoclastic” senior citizens, the Jitterbug5s significantly slows down the calling experience for the phone’s coveted58-95 year old market. Thereinvigorated phone comes after complaints that the last version contained toomany confusing options like caller ID, instant redial, and a choice ofcolors.

The revolutionary new phone was introduced in Samsung's crowded community room by British musician KeithRichards, stepping in for retired Jitterbug spokesman Andy Rooney who bowed outlast week, claiming he “didn’t work for 70 years to be in a suit and tie at 10a.m.” It’s believed thatRichards was brought on board to appeal to aging baby boomers who haveoverwhelmingly rejected the sophisticated iPhone and are Jitterbug-ready.

Richards, greeted with a quasi-standing ovation, lurchedaround the stage waving the phone, chain-smoking, speaking in partialsentences, and laughing at some secret commentary in his head.

“[Expletive] Here is…some like…cobalt. Jitter 5s rejiggin’ [expletive]…party-ready…phone…[expletive] calls…” Richards announced to hoots from a fewmembers of the audience who could understand him. A dozen or so other people walked out of the presentationshortly after Richards took the stage. Eventually, TV personality Alan Thicke took over as translator forRichards.

“Keith’s excited about the new features—how about you?”Thicke hollered, whipping up the crowd’s excitement. “A few buttons. Thumb-sized numbers! Yes/Noprompts! No apps! No music! No Internet! In red and grey!”

“If they want me they know how to get me,” said Ernie Ramos,a 66-year-old retired business owner from Taft, California. “Why should I have to call?”

“Why red?” asked Marleen Tucker, 78. The Fairfield, VA widow found the colorred “way too racy, especially when you’re using it out of doors. I don’t know if I want somebody to seeme on a red phone…” she said. Several attendees echoed the concern. Others were frustrated that there was no version of AngryBirds or Office Zombie available for the Jitterbug. For the majority, though, the new phone was “an awakening.”

“It’s really nice,” said Earl Krenmore, a retired plumberfrom Morristown, Pennsylvania. “The buttons mean what they mean—there’s no secret code you have tolearn, except when companies use those goddamn spelling out names that you’vegot to figure out on the numbers. I hate that.”

“I have sensible shoes, and now a sensible phone,” said RubyOnstad 91, of Minneapolis. “It justmakes sense. Skip all that YouTooth and MyFacestuff. Not for me.”

“They’re so cheap I have three of them,” said ElaineWatanabe from San Jose, California. “One in my car, one in my purse, and one in the nightstand. They’re like sunglasses—I neverknow where I left them.”

The Jitterbug, which sells for $79.00, is available in one,two, and five megabyte versions, with up to 60 minutes per month on plansavailable for less than $10 through virtually any carrier. “Who can kick about a deal like that?”Thicke exclaimed as a section of elderly women from the same bus tour pumpedtheir fists in the air.

New features:

Rotarysound when buttons are pushed.
A small address book attached tothe Jitterbug with a simple, replaceable rubber band
Sophisticated “Holla-Back” featurethat answers to “Where’s the damn phone?” with a reply of “Over here!”
A personal assistant, called“Operator,” summoned at the push of the “0” button.
Repeat-a-Greet feature that repeatsthe calling party’s “Hello” three times in successively louder volume.
Singlebutton alert for police, paramedics, and coroner.

“I might get one, I mightnot. I’m not much for phone calling,”said Polly Walling, a retired elementary school teacher from Des Moines. Walling, 83, brushed off a question pressing her for afeature that might convince her to purchase the new Jitterbug. “I’m meeting some of the girls forlunch at Costco. Ask somebodyelse.”

20 Common Deathbed Regrets and Revelations

2011-08-24T21:01:00.000-07:00

Betty Tibbetts, a grandmotherly type who for the past 30 years has worked as a nurse for the dying, has written her memoirs, entitled This is Where I Get Off. The book will be published by Morte Bella Press in the fall.

One chapter titled, "Some Final Thoughts," is Tibbetts' collection of anecdotes about patients' late-life regrets and lessons, mostly the joys of old friends, laments about wasted time, unspoken words, and thwarted desires. She compiled a list of the most common thoughts patients have voiced on their deathbeds, which Pachinko has excerpted here.

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live my life more boldly rather than subordinate myself to others.

2. I wish that I had allowed myself to be happier.

3. I wish I'd signed up for zumba.

4. I never liked sushi--why did I eat it?

5. Finally, a way to get away from those 1-800-Get-Thin ads.

6. Wow. I would never have picked Lance Bass as the gay one.

7. Is that white light an Energy Saver?

8. In the "plus" column, I'll get to see the Ramones reunion.

9. I wonder if I should have given Tiger more time to work out his marriage problems.

10. 25 bucks a month more and I could've had the 52" hi-def.

11. Resume? Reverend Collins never mentioned a resume.

12. Why did I waste all that time flossing?

13. Over there, beckoning me into the light...shit, it's Spiro Agnew.

14. Interesting--heaven looks just like the Extended Stay America in Lawrence, Kansas.

15. Why didn't I ever think to look up the real lyrics to "Louie, Louie"?

16. In just a short while I'll find out why God bothered making Adam Sandler.

17. Life's a bitch and then you die. And?

18. What the hell is a "compote"?

19. What are the odds I'd get a crush on the hospice nurse?

20. I'm really going to miss bacon.

Montel Williams Stuns Republicans, Joins 2012 Race Vowing to Clear Debt

2011-08-16T00:52:00.000-07:00

Talk show host Montel Williams has thrown the race for the Republican presidential nomination into turmoil by announcing his candidacy as an Independent.

Williams, a left-leaning and highly decorated 22-year Marine Corps veteran who is best known for hosting The Montel Williams Show, promised to clear the entire national debt “with one phone call” to Money Mutual, an online advance payday lender for which he is a prominent spokesman. “Forget Standard & Poor’s downgrade,” Williams said during his announcement. “Lousy credit is no problem, and the interest rate of 168% is comparable to what we’re getting from China.”

Republican reaction, on the heels of a celebratory straw poll weekend in Iowa, was swift and blistering. “He’s not a leader—he’s a hustler and a snake oil salesman,” said Texas governor Rick Perry, who announced his own candidacy on Sunday. “We’ve got that market cornered already.”

Williams’ dashing camera-friendly persona, high profile TV “Q” score, military record, and history of speaking eloquently on behalf of the nation’s weakest citizens makes him a formidable opponent.

“If elected, I’ll take care of the nation’s international debt burden without having to waste time battling congress,” Williams declared. “Ring-ring, done. Then we can get to work on the real problems in this country like wasteful military interventions, job creation, expanding health care to the poor, a fair tax system, and why Fox Network eight-balled my show for no reason.” A source inside the Williams camp said he is considering fellow host Ricki Lake as a running mate, though that is still in the negotiation phase. Still, his stated goals failed to impress the Republican lineup.

“I simply don’t trust the guy,” said popular congressman Ron Paul. “He’s about as inauthentic as Romney, who's got the same dimensions as a picture of a candidate.”

Straw poll winner Michele Bachmann came out swinging, attacking Williams’ lack of experience at a hastily called press conference. “I don’t think being a Marine, a symbol for healthy living, and a fine looking Black man qualify him for anything,” she declared. “He smokes marijuana, advocates playing poker on the Internet, and looks totally hot in earrings and a leather jacket, which limits his appeal to only about 80% of the American people. Correct me if I’m wrong.”

Non-candidate Sarah Palin remained silent on the newest candidate for the presidency, but a post on her daughter Bristol’s Facebook page described Williams as “the shit.”

“I don’t see how he adds up to anything,” Tweeted candidate Rick Santorum, dismissing Williams as being “out of touch.” “He’s big on ideology but I don’t see how that applies to the intelligent design necessary to run a government. Besides, it would be very hard for an African-American to get elected president in the kind of climate we’ve created.”

Candidate Newt Gingrich quickly demanded that Williams produce his birth certificate. “I suspect that his claim to being born in Baltimore is questionable at best. Baltimore is known for harboring terrorist cells. And who says it’s the same Baltimore as the one in Maryland? There are other Baltimores, right? And his family values are execrable. He’s been married three times, for God’s sake. Think, people.”

Standard & Poor’s Downgrades Kanye West

2011-08-11T01:13:00.000-07:00

Acting on the momentum from its downgrade of the United States AAA credit rating, Standard & Poor’s said Tuesday that it was downgrading hip-hop artist Kanye West.

The announcement came after West’s rant at England’s Big Chill music festival last Saturday. The rapper, who took the stage a half hour late, complained of being misunderstood and underappreciated, with people looking at him “like I’m Hitler.” He also compared his place in hip hop to Michael Jordan’s impact on basketball, claiming to stand up against “so much shit going on in music right now” and vowing to be the one to “make a [freaking] difference.” The audience’s reaction was mixed. At press time there have been no responses from either Jordan or Hitler spokespersons.

Standard & Poor’s media spokesman Ned Kibble said its decision to drop West’s status from the coveted AAA to an A- was based on an analysis of the “five pillars” in S&P’s Hip Hop Rating Framework. Standard & Poor’s’ executives said the downgrade’s timing was “unfortunate” given this week’s release of West’s and Jay-Z’s collaborative effort Watch the Throne, but has nothing to do with the music.

“It’s no diss,” said Kibble, “it’s just that the quality of his fronts has been sliding for the past few years, and we threw down where he’s at.” Kibble cited Standard & Poor’s five pillars—“Frontin’ (boasting),” “Trippin’ (creative flights of beats and flow),” “Fiendin’ (thematic obsessions),” “Representin’ (standing up for truth),” and an ephemeral quality known among the top three ratings bureaus as “crunk”—as being, in Kibble's words, "necessary for a balance in achieving an overall alignment in the cultural pantheon. Just sayin.”

In order to achieve the coveted AAA rating, rappers must maintain at least four of the five pillars or risk a rating review. Temporary failings can be overlooked over the long haul but, according to S&P, West has been losing his touch. “Certainly, his trippin’ and representin’ are highly finessed,” said an S&P ratings expert, “but we’re looking most closely at his fronts and fiendin’, which ultimately weakens his crunk.”

West’s downgrade stemmed not only from the impact of a hungry, crowded field of innovative rap artists but also the expectation that one of hip-hop’s top draws should be able to get past tens of millions of dollars, the fawning attention of nubile young women, and almost universal critical praise to come up with a complaint more original than the Hitler and Michael Jordan comparisons. “If that’s where he's taking it, we’re not down for what the future holds in Kanye’s public appearances, and we’re afraid it's sapping his beats. He can do better. That’s why he’s kickin’ with a minus,” Kibble said.

“His frontin’ skills are slabbin’,” Kibble continued, using urban jargon for low-hanging pants. “When you front, you don’t stunt—you get out and bust it.” Standard & Poor’s first took notice in 2005 when West, on a televised post-Hurricane Katrina benefit concert, accused then-president George W. Bush of not caring about black people. Bush, a longtime fan of street rap whose own Lil Wayne mixtapes collection is comprehensive, was crushed by the criticism. West later backpedaled, saying he was speaking of the government in general.

Later, West had warned of trouble if his Late Registration didn’t win the 2006 Grammy for Album of the Year. When he lost to Justice and Simian, he took the stage to protest, apologizing for that outburst as well. “This really tore his ‘Frontin’” pillar a new one,” Kibble explained. “Frontin’” is an essential part of rap and hip-hop, a clever boast of superiority over other rappers and a centerpiece to S&P’s rating criteria. “Shootin’ from the lip is not frontin’. He’s got the stuff to back it up, but this ‘I’m like Michael Jordan’ shiz gotta stop. Quick.”

After losing a VMA the next year to Britney Spears, West faulted racism. “He’s fiendin’ over all the wrong shit,” a Standard & Poor’s executive wrote in an internal memo, “and it’s puttin’ a 187 on his crunk,” the executive said, placing West on a ratings “watch” list alongside other downgraded artists like Mariah Carey and Axl Rose, adding, “he can save that shit for the WWF.”

His most notorious public ratings fiasco came when he stormed the VMA stage in 2009 to snatch the microphone from Taylor Swift to protest her win over Beyonce. West later apologized, apologized again, re-apologized, wrote her a song and, as Kibble says, “did everything but send the bitch a basket of muffins” for his rudeness. “He could’ve got up and busted free style with Taylor, which would’ve been cool. All the ‘I’m sorry’ stuff did nothin’ but cap his own ass.”

“At least now Jay-Z’s got his back, who’s a married man and a father who sings about subjects that aren’t all [messed] up. You won’t catch him playin’ this Saint Kanye bullshit,” Kibble said with some disdain. “Hell, the brother’s done everything but buy himself a crib in Bethlehem.”

David Kestler, who heads Standard & Poor’s sovereign credit rating unit, says West has yet to demonstrate his capacity and commitment to change. “We do not foresee under anything but the most optimistic forecasts will Kanye’s delusional self-pity and misunderstood artist complex abate enough to return him to the swagger associated with someone of his creative stature. For now, Kestler claims, “his offstage brand is starting to look as authentic as Levi Johnston’s.”

One chance for West to restore his AAA rating rests in the political arena. Reports are that Republican candidates and Tea Partyers are playing West’s “Jesus Walks” at rallies before the Iowa straw poll, and “everyone’s holding their breath waiting for Kanye to take the bait and show up on a podium in Ames,” Kestler said. “That could raise him up or sink him. We’ve watched a lot of hope fizzle lately, but we’ll see how he represents. Never count Kanye out.”

2012 Election Held 16 Months Early; New Federal Govt. Established in Kansas City

2011-08-09T16:01:00.000-07:00

In a stunning show of pluck, defiance, cooperation, and electoral muscle, American citizens quietly held the 2012 election this past Wednesday, transferring all government operations to Kansas City, Missouri. All operations of the new federal government opened smoothly Monday morning in a small, converted factory in a suburb of this most central of U.S. cities, hours before squabbling Washington politicians were aware of the turn of events. A heavily guarded 20-foot electric fence was installed around the District of Columbia, where some of the more stubborn members of the previous government will be allowed to pretend they still run the country “until the species dies off.” The Smithsonian Institute will subsume the District of Columbia as a new National History Exhibit.

The United States Constitution, Bill of Rights, and all other governing documents remain the law of the land, and the Supreme Court, with the exception of Justice Clarence Thomas, will stay on. Groundbreaking comedian and social activist Bill Cosby, conscripted to the court by national acclaim, has agreed to replace Thomas, who typically had no opinion on the change.

“It took some organizing, but pretty much everybody was on board with it,” said new congressman Sam Hurley (R-Westminster), a small business owner from California. “We sent reverse 9-1-1 phone messages and email blasts to every registered voter in the country, told them where the polls would be, and got an 87% turnout,” Charbonneau said. Locals donated ballots and polling booths,” Hurly said. “Here in Westminster it was Bev and Harold Mays. They’ve got a stationery store in Seal Beach. Every city in America had someone who kicked in,” keeping the cost of the entire election down to $175,000.

“It was a highly organized grassroots approach to the process,” said newly elected U.S. President Janet Whitcomb, a single mother from Atlanta. “The PTA was a big help getting people up to speed by sending new voter registration packets home with kids and letting everyone know this was going to happen, but it was kind of hush-hush.” Six candidates had submitted detailed plans for putting America back on its feet as well as their qualifications to achieve them. A Facebook page with over 63 million “likes” kept the public abreast of the plans. The remaining candidates have thrown their support behind the new president.

“We’re all taxpayers, parents, and workers who believe in a forceful but peaceful change of government, and it’s clearly articulated in the Declaration of Independence. So we just got to work,” said presidential candidate Carl Morrison of Madison, Wisconsin. “Mrs. Whitcomb is a committed and organized leader who believes that American citizens are more than just life support for a bunch of good ol' boys with bad haircuts. So here we are, sleeves rolled up and happy to help.”

“Listen, we tried to get the Feds in Washington to pay attention,” said Vice-President-elect Stan Hackett, “but they were so busy blowing their horns about deficits, tax roll-backs, and whatever they think constitutes marriage that they never got back to us.” Hackett, an unemployed welder who described himself as “fed up” with national politics in general, knew President Whitcomb from their days at Pittsburgh’s Maynard Keynes High School. “We kind of re-connected through Facebook and thought this would be a great idea. I had no idea it would snowball like this, but it seems to be a smooth transition. Everybody was real nice.”

Washington lobbyists were placed on a “no-fly—no interstate” list and forbidden to go any farther west than Cleveland. Eyewitnesses reported that several dozen lobbyists had drowned trying to swim across the Mississippi River near St. Louis.

Whitcomb has already put together a broad-based cabinet of small business owners, engineers, artists, entrepreneurs, teachers, philanthropists, and foreign policy experts. She and Hackett immediately presented a thoroughly balanced budget to members of the 468-seat New Congress that factors in an overhaul of the nation’s infrastructure and electrical grid, an equitable tax rate for all citizens, sustainable Social Security and Medicare programs, a renewable energy program that will be implemented by a panel of NASA and Cal Tech engineers, and a huge U.S. manufacturing base that unites union and non-union workers, providing fair pay and benefits.

An entirely new comprehensive health system, created by a non-partisan legion of general practice physicians, urban hospitals, and holistic medicine practitioners, is being fine tuned. Whitcomb and Hackett are already holding meetings with their European, Latin America, and Asian counterparts at a local community center in Kilroy, a Kansas City suburb.

Funding for the new administration, while complicated, received a full endorsement from the Internal Revenue Service and the GAO. All four branches of the military pledged to transfer their allegiance to American citizens rather than lobbyists and “people who want us to get shot at protecting oil wells,” said General David Petraeus. “The citizens approached us with their plan over the past few weeks, and I think everyone—from the brass to the boots—gave it a unanimous “Hell, yeah!”

PTA collections, gift-wrap sales, and local craft fairs provided funding for the election. “Everyone knew weeks ago that this was going to happen—the ground rules and everything,” said election coordinator Earl Pemberton, a retired U.S. Postal Service mail carrier. “A panel of federal judges made sure that everything was within the legal bounds of the U.S. Constitution, so it’s pretty much a lock.”

“You may be in a ‘party,’” said newly elected senator Wendy Mickelson (D-Fairfield, CT), “but keep it to yourself. We’re going for solutions. If you aren’t, then you’re not invited to our party.”

The shock wave from the new election hit almost immediately, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropping 500 points in two hours, then correcting for a 900-point gain at Wednesday’s closing bell. But since most citizens’ mutual fund holdings and home equity were wiped out three years ago, “no one much gives a shit,” said a passerby who had voted early in the new election. Bank of America, Chase, and Citibank have already filed for government protection, but with the government now in Kansas, the filings were simply boxed up and left for recycling.

Pink slips were drawn up in advance for all officials, who received them within four hours of the election. Newly unemployed national leaders, met by U.S. Capitol security and closely watched as they packed, were stunned silent by the turn of events. At the same time, the American Citizens Election Committee (ACE) took quick action to foreclose on the incumbents’ property and revoke their health care insurance. Most were given two weeks’ severance pay and “job transition counseling” much like what has been offered to 90% of Americans who have lost their jobs since 2007.

One PAC, The Mother’s Milk Coalition, which opposes a woman’s right to choose in all circumstances “including not being pregnant,” was outraged at the “underhanded” approach to the election, which thwarted the group’s plans to throw heavy dollars into attack ads against many incumbent Republican moderates and liberals.

“This is an outrage—elections aren’t supposed to be held until 2012, so we were robbed of months of ugly partisan smears,” complained one former incumbent member of the House, who was given a box and three hours to “clear the [heck] out.”

Thousands of Tea Party members, who had gathered on the National Mall for a daytime reenactment of Paul Revere’s ride on ATV’s, seemed oblivious to the change that had taken place. “Let ‘em play,” said one local man who had hosted a polling place in his living room. “We’ve got things to do.”

Other now-defunct congressional leaders as well as 2012 presidential hopefuls such as Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann, and Rick Perry have vowed to fight the election in court. A planned rally in Des Moines, organized by the trio and dubbed “A Day of Reckoning: God’s New Plan,” was abandoned when eleven people showed up. Perry commented that, “God never mentioned this.”

The Democratic National Committee, clearly caught off guard, announced that it was searching for new symbols to explain the election. Former President Barack Obama urged a wait-and-see response to the event.

Volunteers of all political affiliations set up polling places in less than 40 minutes throughout the nation Tuesday night. By nightfall, lines of voters had already begun to form outside every polling place from Seattle to Miami, but when the media arrived to cover the story they were told only that it was a local audition for the next season of “Glee.”

The idea to re-establish the nation’s capitol in Missouri was reached by popular consensus. A secured Internet site, apparently overlooked by pollsters and media alike, allowed citizens to register and vote, and Kansas City received a simple majority. Everyone agreed with the choice without argument, with one man declaring that, “we couldn’t wait another year and a half for somebody to start governing instead of arguing, so we stepped in to move things along.”

“No one could stand the idea of another marathon bullshit cycle,” explained vote counter Kyle Williams of Williams IT Systems (WITS) in nearby Randall, Kansas. “Dave Tulley and I, who don’t agree on a damn thing, still managed to get everything wrapped up in about 12 hours. This isn’t about parties and ideology—it’s about Americans taking a stand on behalf of the next ten generations. We want to get back to work and back into the world.”

“Most Americans aren’t partisan,” said Mark Ellison, whose circuit board manufacturing job was “right-shored” two years ago. “We just want leaders. I think people would agree that many 7^th graders would do a better job of resolving our problems than the people in office now. In fact, one new senator from California is a sophomore from Modesto Community College, who’s got some great ideas about fiscal responsibility, job creation, accountability, taxation, and reversing deficits. We’re delighted.”

Americans went about business as usual Monday morning as new private sector job growth rose by 2 percent within 12 hours of the announcement, which came just as Pachinko awakened from this most pleasant and reassuring dream.

Seven New Time-Busters for SmartPhone Owners

2011-07-25T15:30:00.000-07:00

Forget planking and owling—they’re so last Friday. There are several new, don’t-miss explorations in the abuse of time looming on the Internet horizon. For the next 18 months, you’ll be seeing more of these nascent trends. Photograph them and post them on your favorite social networking page, and ready yourself for the avalanche of “likes” you’ll get!

Sporking: Standing with mouth open and three fingers extended behind one’s head (or hair gelled into three tines) like a dork, looking for all intents and purposes like a spork. Extra points for being photographed doing it posed on a highway, but exercise caution. An errant spork in front of a large truck becomes "Spatuling."

Skyping: Making a hilariously funny or coolly detached expression or exposing a body part best left seen only by the coroner, while framing it with your fingers and thumbs like a small screen. Ironic low tech.

Cudding: To be differentiated from “cuddling”--the familiar interaction (usually under duress) of one partner achieving a benign physicality with the other. "Cudding," however is the act of being photographed while eating, or pretending to eat, or pretending to re-digest, grass or shrubbery. Often the prelude to “horking,” which is the final stage of the "cudding" process and puts to the test the miming (or concentration) skills of the horker (Note: to cuddle with a horker is repugnant).

Sidelonging: To locate an unwary soul and pose directly behind them (but not touching), doing something rude, insulting, or dangerous without them knowing it while a confederate snaps a photo of the two of you in profile. Note that if one is caught by said person while sidelonging, it results in a humiliating and rigorously physical trend called “Dislodging.”

Adhering: One or more people in shorts sprint across a street, drop to their knees, and slide bare-skinned on the tarmac. See who picks up the most gravel, twigs, and living organisms, and photograph the results. Can be made competitive, but probably won't catch on except in certain reptilian camps.

Gas-lamping: The expulsion of gas by a person in a plank position is photographed at the moment it meets a source of ignition. Popular among teens. Recommended only while wearing fire retardant pajama bottoms. A "gas lamp" gone awry is called Bruckheiming.

Wanking: Photographing yourself or another for the purpose of an attention-getting post on a webpage; poring over more than three such photos.

Ten Rational Responses to the Casey Anthony Verdict

2011-07-06T12:10:00.000-07:00

We will not be punished for our anger; we will be punished by our anger. --Buddha

You can't believe it. The American system of justice is broken. The country has gone to hell. You can get away with murder if you're pretty and white. People are stupid. Hang the jury. Fry the bitch. Lawyers are lying manipulators. Florida should secede. What about...Caylee?

Certainly, the Casey Anthony "not guilty" verdict Tuesday in the murder of her child is bewildering, and if you've been glued to the TV, which I haven't, and have invested hours of your time getting to know the entire sick lot of Anthonys and studying Casey's post-disappearance party photos, then it's an outrage. Your team lost the championship. Which cars can we set ablaze to show how dissatisfied and vindictive we are?

Trust me--I understand. I ate from the reaction buffet as well. But it occurred to me that it was an endless, all-you-can-eat hogfest. And it made me sick.

Several people (count me in) suggested to a Facebook "friend" yesterday that her frothing (and repetitive) cries for vengeance were hurting no one but herself, and that she really has no way to know what darkness that woman's eternal soul faces once she is "free." She deleted all our comments (we were accused of being pot-smoking no-brain hippies) and continued on with bloviating fury until I think even she was getting a whiff of herself. She pleaded to "think of Caylee," the dead child, as if she had been her babysitter. She, like a lot of us, allowed another person's evil to ignite her own hatred, and we all know where festering hatred leads. And yesterday it was as if Groupon had offered a free pass to be a "hater" on the Internet.

Welcome to America, the Land of Overwrought Response.

Is there a way around it? A way to make such a blatantly unfair decision in Florida have some meaning in my own life?

If you will indulge me for just a moment, I'd like to suggest a few humble and dry-eyed things to do to get the taste of outrage out of your mouth. In the end, you may feel something entirely different from the caustic spew emanating from people who have anointed Nancy Grace as their surrogate conscience.

1. Forget all that nonsense about porch lights. That's not a tribute. It's like promising to buckle your seatbelt or flush the toilet when you're finished in memory of a child you never knew. Of course you're going to do it. It is meaningless, but it's easy (even pedophiles turn on their porch lights). Here are some real things that require a commitment, not a promise.

2. For a couple of days, read the newspaper instead of watching the TV. The Anthony story was on page five of the L.A. Times this morning, where it belonged. It did not get a special section. Think about it.

3. Go to Target (or wherever you can buy a toy) and buy a new doll and a new toy car. Bring them to your local hospital emergency room, and tell the nurse that you'd like to donate them for a kid who might be traumatized by a trip to the ER, either as a patient or a relative. I did that with excess gifts one Christmas morning, and a very happy nurse said it was a perfect way to calm a terrified, hurt kid.

4. Donate $25.00 to the Association of Hole-in-the-Wall Camps, for kids with serious medical conditions. The great actor and philanthropist Paul Newman created this organization and it was closest to his heart. It's pure love in action. https://www.holeinthewallcamps.org/SSLPage.aspx?pid=425. If you're really in the spirit, do it anonymously.

5. Donate $25.00 to the Los Angeles Times Family Fund Summer Camps for kids. http://www.latimes.com/extras/familyfund/.

6. Call a mom with a toddler and tell her you'll watch her child for a couple of hours so she can go somewhere and decompress. She will never forget you, and you will love her and her children for a whole new reason. I don't know what that reason is, but you'll discover it on your own. You can also do it for a single dad who could use a break.

7. Be more attentive to your own kids and grandkids. Take them out to buy a book for themselves, then go for frozen yogurt. Put your arms around them even while they're struggling to get away. Don't let them off too easily.

8. Volunteer to read at an elementary school library. All you need is a current TB test and a simple Megan's Law background check. I guarantee you will remember their expectant and curious faces, and no matter what their home life is like they'll see and remember a grownup who took a half-hour a week to care.

9. No man can say that he has truly lived until he has been a full-costume Santa Claus at least once.

10. My mother taught me that to say you hate someone means that you wish them death. I have excised "hate" from my vocabulary (except as relates to rodents and Black Widows), and have explained to my kids why hating is something that only hurts the hater. There are a few other ways to work out anger. It would be a double tragedy for a crime, committed by and against people I don't know, to eat at my own soul through my seemingly bottomless reservoir of orphaned rage.

If you did all ten suggestions, it would cost you at most $75.00, which is less than the price of one hour with a counselor, and the benefits are less self-involved and actually radiant. I won't tell you which (if any) of the above I have tried, but I hope that you will make a choice to lean into goodness and let me know what you find.

I promise next week's blog will be funny. I just had something I had to work through. Join me?

20 People You Don’t Want to Be: The Short List

2011-06-28T02:43:00.000-07:00

Imagine a world without these types of people, and how bright and less aggravating it would be. There’s still time to change. We can do this.

Sidewalk bicycle riders: The root word is “walk.” Sidewalks are for pedestrians and kids learning to ride bikes. If you are over 12, then helmet-up and get in the street where you belong.

Old Boys: An extension of what was once called the “Peter Pan Syndrome,” wherein fully-grown males dress like a child with a soul patch, desperately hoping to look cool enough to get high with their 14-year-old sons or seem cute to teenage girls. If your mother had meant for you to wear clothes with Ed Hardy’s name on them, she would have named you Ed Hardy.

The Overdeveloped

Physically: The person who loves his/her abs and glutes and buys $300 sneakers or a $3000 bike to serve them can never fully love another person. Livestrong? Keep it to yourself.

Intellectually: For eight years of college and a $200,000 student loan, you should be able to lord it over somebody, I guess.

Spiritually: It’s all “Namaste” and “First Things First” till someone suggests you don’t know your ass from ajari, then it gets nasty, fast.

Consensus builders: Annoying browbeaters who think that joining the PTA or being president of the homeowners association is their Patrick Henry moment. And stop using our name every fourth word.

Native Sons: You’ve never been to Ireland, Africa, Cuba, or any part of Asia, have you? So lose the shamrock tattoo, dashiki, and congas and stop over-identifying, already.

The “Back-in” Parker: In the name of God, do the math. I mean, honestly, what is the advantage in spending three minutes struggling to back your car into a space in order to save 11 seconds driving straight out and going the wrong way? We’re waiting. All seven cars of us.

The Starbucks Executive: You’ve set up shop on a table for four—laptop, iPad, screenwriting books, maybe a small printer, right? Great. But unless you’re actually getting your mail here, please don’t look at us like we failed to check in with your receptionist. All we want is a cup of black coffee. To go.

The Starbucks Coffee Aficionado: Really? It takes that long to order a cup of coffee to your impeccable standards? Double-shot-non-fat-half-caff-soy-fair-trade-African beans with a steamed top? The entire math load for the Manhattan Project was less complicated. Phone it in, pick it up, and be done with it. Or grab a V-8. Thanks.

Indecisive drivers, shoppers, and walkers: Lead, follow, or pull the damn cart over.

People who over-occupy their space: A primary law of physics says that two pieces of matter cannot occupy the same space at the same time. Absorb this. And you who tailgate: do you actually believe that we can go faster than the car in front of us?

Handwash Skippers: Please. In the name of human decency, wash your hands. You know what you touched. No one else wants to touch it. No one. Hot water, a little soap, 30 seconds. Do it. Even dogs clean their paws. No one should have to post a sign to remind you.

The School of Smug: Hipsters, reactionaries, and snarkers: Passive bullies by any other name.

Tofus: Ordinarily unoriginal types who take on the flavor of the last NPR or Fox News story they heard, or the last bumper sticker they read.

Life Coaches (or any kind of coach without an actual team): Those who can, do. Those who can, and want to share it, teach. Those who can’t do either charge big money to give suggestions to the rest of us. Please. Enough.

“Fun” Freaks: Not everything has to be made “fun.” Some things are just not fun. It’s okay. Life is a learning experience that defies fun most of the time, so enough with the “edu-tainment.” Traffic school should feel like a shitty waste of time.

People to whom God speaks directly: We’re not making eye contact for a reason.

Rehabaholics: People who have converted all of their personal failings and character flaws into pharmaceutical-ready or responsibility absolving “conditions” always in the “process” of being treated. It’s the Build-a-Bear approach to self-improvement, cheered on by hundreds of entrepreneurs who know a self-absorbed sucker when they see one. Swallow your pride, change, and don’t tell anybody. That’s character. Shame is good. Really.

Evergreen Students: 47 years old, 38semesters, 11 majors, winner of PELL Grant “Applicant of the Year” since 1982. Enough said. Rent a cap and gown and get on with it.

NFL’s: Nobody…Listens. No matter how clearly you articulate your food order, explain your problem to the call center representative, or answer the receptionist’s questions, they will always ask you more questions that force you to repeat what you've already said as if you never said it in the first place. So PFA: Pay…Attention. I’m only going to say it once.

Ranters: Self-righteous types who only see the need to change in others, although we can’t think of any specific examples at the moment. We’ll get back to you.

E-books That Nobody Reads Outselling Print Books Nobody Reads 3-to-1

2011-06-22T01:12:00.000-07:00

Bookseller Barnes & Noble announced Monday that market share for digital books has increased 27 percent over the same period last year, outdistancing its sales of physical books for the same period. And sales of its Nook e-reader and other Nook-related products have enjoyed a sharp rise in sales. But marketing surveys show that no one is actually reading the books that the devices were created for, which is promising news for a struggling publishing industry.

“The devices are marvelous,” said B & N CEO William Lynch, “and what makes it even better is that no one is reading anything they’re buying, so there’s no lag time between the purchase of one book to the next.”

“It used to be you’d buy a book, take a month to read it, then keep it to read again or lend to a friend,” Lynch said. “Now, since no one’s actually reading anything anymore, the gap between purchases is measured in days. The device itself is the symbol; the book is more like the ink you buy for your printer.” Comments from consumers who refer to themselves as “readers” seem to bear this out.

“I download a bestseller about every 48 hours,” said Mandy Pickett, a career woman from Milwaukee who has downloaded over 300 e-books from iTunes. “It makes me feel less pretentious, not having so many unread books lying around my living room for people to draw conclusions from about me. Now I’ve got everything I can possibly ignore in my [Amazon] Kindle, which frees up my nightstand for snacks. I only buy books anymore when I’m redecorating—just like throw pillows.”

“Kindle, Nook, iPad—I don’t care really, said a Los Angeles reader who identified himself only as Smack . “I think the last real book I bought was the Gene Simmons autobiography, but I pimp my Nook and everybody gets the 420 that I’m up on everything that’s coming out.”

Houston realtor Dale Rice admitted, “Really, all I do is look over the reader reviews on the [Amazon.com] website and I kind of know all there is to know about the book,” he said. “I can talk about pretty much any book that’s out now and get away with it.” The trend has spread to university campuses as well. Students have latched onto the trend with a vigor usually reserved for beer bongs.

“Textbooks are hard to ignore in a backpack and they’re a bitch to lug around,” said Jeff Hentzel, an undergrad at NYU. “But you download them on your iPad and it’s like a whole new way to fake like you’re interested in class. The professor gets her cut, my back doesn’t hurt, and everybody’s happy. Usually in lecture hall I’m just doing Farmville and shit.”

Under the old business model, Barnes and Noble’s online store would sell a copy of, say, Water For Elephants in paperback discounted to $11.96 and eat the $3.00 shipping, just breaking even, with the hope that volume and other full-price books will make up for the bestseller loss leader.

“Now, in the same time frame, 50 people with good intentions buy it for their Kindle for $9.99, no shipping, and no real book to fuss with,” said business analyst Kyle Sneed. “Sara Gruen goes on NPR and tells the whole story so you can quote her at your reading group. Since no one’s going to read it anyway, it saves on labor and materials and in three months you’ve only got two other lonely copies clogging up shelf space in some remainders store,” Sneed said. “Talk about ‘green.’ That’s the beauty of this business model. It’s totally win-win.”

One current example is the Bristol Palin memoir, which has already entered the New York Times Bestseller List at #8, “Us magazine and TMZ already quoted the nasty stuff about Levi, Megan McCain and all the unworthy guys in her GED class who tried to date her,” Powell Books buyer Susan Martel says. “Nobody has to waste their time reading the whole book to find out about her stuck-up friends and how her mother picked names for her kids from an IKEA catalog.

“30,000 unread downloads later, everybody’s got that ‘I bought a book’ satisfaction,” said Martel. “B&N’s made $300,000 bucks in a day for no work at all, and Stork or Grendel or whatever her kid’s name is has a college fund in 24 hours. Phenomenal.”

And what about the deep “back catalog” titles by writers like Melville, Thoreau, Virginia Woolf and James Joyce? “James Joyce?” student Hentzel said blankly then, face brightening, “Oh yeah, the guy who sang that “You’re Beautiful” song. He wrote a book?”

Spring Calibration

2011-06-17T08:38:00.000-07:00

Spring is almost over and it’s time for a cultural housecleaning, getting rid of the useless to make way for new ideas and less obscure language and discourse. It’s time for a yard sale of people, words/terms, and situations that have jammed up the 21^st Century before it’s even gotten a running start. Let’s redefine our terms and then eradicate them from all conversation. Sure, it sounds like a rant, but somebody’s got to speak up. Are you with me?

Absolutely/exactly: Nothing is absolute except death and chaos, and I have my doubts about death. You agree? Exactly. Dude, we are so on the same page.

Amazing: Four ducks dancing to “Single Ladies” on YouTube is not amazing. Pulling a live duck out of your pants is. Know the difference.

App: A marvelous way to spend money on a technologically wonderful way do something, like figure out a 15% tip or locate your own hall closet.

BFF: Remember your best friend forever in high school? Us either. Lose it, please. Only one thing lasts “forever,” and that’s the drunken, naked photo of you that someone posted on Facebook.

Brand: Kellogg’s Corn Flakes and Proctor & Gamble are brands; Judd Apatow is not (nor is Russell Brand for that matter). You are not a brand. Now stop it.

Closure: In real life there is no closure. In real life, everything overlaps. Life is a laundry basket of unresolved conflicts, wrinkly and icky. Adjust.

Epic: Beowulf and The Divine Comedy are epic. Friday night’s kegger or your trip to the outlet mall isn’t.

Founding Fathers: Never before have so many brilliant, fascinating, and difficult personalities been clustered like a Pop Warner football team, and then quoted (or misquoted) to sound like a Vince Lombardi halftime speech. Remember that the break from tyranny was a risky, noble, and expansively hopeful experiment, to be either proven or disproved. The experiment continues. Either deal with these great leaders individually, accurately, and in context or stick with the freely truncated “Anonymous.”

“-gate” as a suffix (i.e.: Weinergate): A parasitic shorthand attachment to a host that stopped breathing a l-o-n-g time ago.

Great: No longer connoting something extraordinary or superlative, it’s now required shorthand for “pretty good.” Or “I don’t know.” Or, “Too drunk to care.”

High Concept: A movie story so unbelievably, passionately epic that it’s, like, amazing.

Icon/Iconic: When Quentin Tarantino, Margaret Thatcher, and Bon Jovi are called iconic, then by 2020 we all will be icons. Every last one of us.

iNouns: (iPod, iPad, iWhatever): Something that implies a self-defining technology that will make you one of 250 million other people with too much disposable income.

Intellectual Property: Lawyer porn. That which is intellectual is not property, and that which is property is not intellectual. Discuss, but not where anyone has to hear you.

It’s about…(“It’s about freedom,” or, “It’s about knowing your limits”): A shorthand means for summing up something that might tax one’s command of the finer details of a discussion. Usually connotes exactly the opposite.

It is what it is: Yeah, and…?

Legend/Legendary: See “Icon.” That which has been recognized for about 20 minutes.

Like: No longer a term for comparison, it’s a space-filler for lazy speakers (“He didn’t, like, go because he was, like, tired.”), with the onus placed on the listener to assign tone, adjectives, verbs, intensity, and meaning. Avoid these people.

Marriage: A lifelong legal commitment, made in love and devotion, between a man and a woman, a man and a man, or a woman and woman. Now, pull back your puny shoulders and get past it.

“My” as a prefix (MyChecking, MyBenefits, MyDental): It’s the corporate all-about-you term for something that’s not about you at all.

“My truth”: There is no quantifiable truth that is singularly yours; you’re either near it, or away from it, but it’s not yours to claim. All “my truth” does is close the door to conversation or opposition. Knock it off. Our truth can beat up your truth.

No problem or No worries: Dismissive substitutes for “you’re welcome.” Designates that you are approaching someone’s threshold for being nice, and they’re not about to give you that kind of satisfaction, are they?

Passionate: A self-flattering Match.com way of saying, “obsessed.”

Politically Correct: Reductionist term for the humorless blender that turns everything remotely interesting into a cultural smoothie. There is nothing correct that is political, and nothing political that is correct.

Reality: It’s that long stretch of grey, soul-grinding tedium that takes place between awakening and dozing off in front of Bridezilla.

Retro: Hip, ironic term for a style you never experienced first-hand but are desperate to desecrate. Also describes anyone’s thinking other than your own.

Same Page, The: A veiled plea to fall into line (i.e.: “Let’s get on the same page here.”) Well, maybe the rest of us just read faster than you do. Catch up. We’ll wait.

Soulmate: The person you’re hunkering for at 11 pm while in the checkout line with 24 cans of Fancy Feast and a quart of Ben & Jerry’s. Also a synonym for “hostage.”

Spontaneous: Match.com shorthand meaning ADHD with borderline tendencies.

Totally: An adverb of over-agreement that means “I guess,” or “I so didn’t hear what you said.”

Win-Win: Come on. In the end, somebody’s always pissed.

Hundreds of Angry Dachshunds Demand Weiner Resignation

2011-06-07T15:50:00.000-07:00

Photo: Max & Cleo, proprietors of www.thehotdogblog.com

One day after New York congressman Anthony Weiner apologized for sending a lewd photo of his crotch to a college student via Twitter, a crowd of enraged dachshunds stormed the congressional office building and demanded that he step aside, blockading Weiner’s office. Capitol police, who were called to remove the popular pets from the site, were held at bay for three hours by a shield of sympathetic pit bulls, a breed that had taken similar umbrage in 2008 during former Alaska governor Sarah Palin’s run for the vice-presidency.

“For two days, these loyal and blameless dogs have suffered repeated mockery and jokes because of the pathetic judgment of one man,” said Dachshund Outreach spokesman Stan Winkle. “He should go.”

“We’re innocent victims,” said Punkin, a reddish-coated shorthair from Baltimore who arrived on one of several buses transporting the dogs. “Everybody we pass has something smart-alecky to say, and quite frankly you can only lift your leg on so many people.”

Oscar and Opie, a pair of longhairs from Madison, Wisconsin made good on a vow to bark continuously until the congressman resigns, driving many members of the press corps back to their trucks. While most of the dogs came independently, many arrived in groups sponsored by the Dachshund Anti-Defamation League, Dachshunds United, Dachshund Singles, and a newly formed, non breed-specific collective called Weiner Relief.

“As if it wasn’t bad enough when the word got out that Don Rumsfeld and [Lee Harvey Oswald killer] Jack Ruby had dachsies, now this pervert flashes his junk and doubles the mockery with that name,” growled Mitzi, a pudgy brown dachshund from Albany. “Great. I guess enshrining ‘bitch’ as a cultural insult wasn’t enough.”

A crowd of dachshund owners and their dogs, chanting “Get rid of Weiner or we’ll just get meaner,” only served to heighten the dogs’ outrage. “In just the past 72 hours, I’ve heard more ‘weiner’ jokes than Oscar Mayer,” complained Veenie, a two-year-old from Rochester.

Marcy Cahill, a dachshund breeder from St. Louis, cited a long line of insults in the face of the popular but stubbornly aggressive breed. “They have suffered in the face of mockery, bearing continual and unsavory associations with Kaiser Wilhelm, [Nazi general Erwin] Rommel, and sauerkraut. And using them as the mascot character for the 1972 Munich Summer Olympics--well, you know how well that went,” Cahill said. “Now, a new ‘weiner’ joke has made them the laughing stock of the canine world.”

The American Kennel Club and the Dachshund Club of America have said that they will pursue a joint class action suit against the congressman. “It’s one thing to draw women into a stupid Internet sexual exchange, but it’s entirely another to slander a whole breed of noble dogs,” the suit claimed. The AKC did not return calls for a comment.

Congressman Weiner, whose future political aspirations have been derailed by the controversy, managed to escape his office through a side entrance. A dozen or so dachshunds chased the car down a driveway until it outran them. Richard Yanker, a Weiner staffer, read an apology to the group hoping to appease the dogs, who left "calling cards" of various consistencies throughout the sparkling white marble hallways.

“I have made a terrible mistake and am deeply sorry for the pain I have caused man’s best friend,” Weiner said through Yanker. “As the owner of two German Shepherds and several roosters at my home, I understand that what I have done is unforgiveable. I promise to bend over backwards to make this situation better for everyone.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in Washington on a state visit, said she would meet privately with several of the dachsunds.

High School Cubicle

2011-05-31T21:48:00.000-07:00

Troy hated staff meetings because it meant he had to come in a half hour early to make coffee. The two years he’d spent in the La Habra Dinner Theater’s Up With People production had only partly prepared him for the rigors of keeping the decaf, dark, and mild roast carafes straight, so he arrived at a logical solution. Screw it—French roast for everybody. Nobody has to know.

Being office assistant at the intellectual property law firm of Phillips, Curb, Kirshner and Davis was not what he had in mind when he stood at the center of the basketball court with the world at his feet 12 years ago. He was the epitome of what it meant to be a Wildcat, an icon of high school perfection. But knees being knees, they couldn’t be expected to handle all the stair leaps, bends, swings, “star” kicks, full court presses, and balcony shinnies of his youth without paying a terrible price. And of course later came the groveling, which is the knee’s worst enemy.

As the coffee brewed, he stared at his reflection in the pantry’s paper towel dispenser, adjusted his forelock to cover a hairline retreat, and detected yet another line between his eyebrows. He sighed. On his lunch break the day before, a young blond bumped into him, an “accident” which he read as a come-on until she, pink with embarrassment, said, “Oops—excuse me sir.” Sir.

After delivering the coffee (“Where’s the half-and-half, Bolton? Mr. Donahue likes half-and-half. And don’t try to pass off Sweet ‘n Low for Equal like last time. He knows.”), Troy returned to his desk, where a stack of documents for copying awaited him. The copy machine was not even fifty feet away, but it may as well have been at the top of the Mexican pyramids. Those knees.

By the time he’d started the machine for 25 copies—collated and stapled—a sudden paper jam threw 30 minutes of work into the crapper. Then there was the queue. The goddamned queue. 9:30 in the morning and already a wait. He was fifth in line. The two before him were 50 copies each of a 300-page doc. Full color. No lunch again.

By four-thirty he was fried. He sipped at a cold cup of coffee with a skin of cream on the surface. Several teeth ached when it was too hot, and his dental plan had a $2000 deductible, so he opted for modifying temperatures instead. He sensed someone at his cubicle.

“It’s Thursday. That means karaoke night at Dimples. Join us?” Mrs. Rodriguez, a middle-aged woman in accounts receivable, was flirting again. Jesus. But Gabriella might be there. She worked Thursdays at Dimples’ late shift (“At Dimples, Thursday’s the New Friday!”) coaxing drunk office workers to try songs like “Till My Heart Finds Out” and “Hotel California.” She wouldn’t look him in the eye anymore.

Why should she? After his shenanigans with her roommate during their first semester at college, she could never trust him again. He left the school, ashamed and contrite. Out of spite she dated—then married—Ryan Evans. Together they did a road tour of Promises, Promises! till one night in Olwein, Iowa Ryan ran away with another man, leaving her with only her dreams and his faded Wildcats sleep shirt. She had only Troy to blame.

Troy always got a small taste of stardom again at Dimples when he sang his signature “Start of Something New,” but nobody recognized him, and three people always fought him for the microphone to sing along, so his head was seldom in the game. Still, it was his song. Their song. It was time to find a new karaoke bar that would cash his check. His mind picked at the scab of resentment until his boss poked her head over his wall.

“Heads up, Bolton. I’ve got a five o’clock, and I need you to go to the basement and pull some 2002 files. There’s only about 30 of them. Should take you, I don’t know, a few hours.”

Troy limped to the staff pantry to eat something, a tasty pasta salad with last week’s expiration date, some Pringles, and a Diet Dr. Pepper. At least that’s all he could pinch from what was left in the refrigerator. He felt his belly and what remained of an ab. Monday it’s back to crunches. On the counter, was a collection of old magazines that people had brought in for community reading, each with the address label torn off. Troy randomly grabbed a Forbes from the center of the pile, which featured the magazine’s “100 Best Bosses in America.” Sharpay Evans was on the cover as #9. Troy felt his stomach turn over.

It had certainly been Sharpay’s year—covers of Cosmo (“Show Him Who’s Boss in Bed”), People (“What Makes Sharpay Run?”), Parenting (“Incorporate Your Home!”), and Jet (with her husband, Chad Danforth). Chad had gone on to the NBA (“Million Dollar Knees” and the cover of Sports Illustrated), and Sharpay had a six-year streak of dance singles and hit albums before she started her own music management company.

A voice broke his punishing reverie. “Bolton—you busy?” Jack Bolton always called his son “Bolton” to avoid any hint of favoritism, but he needn’t have. He rode Troy harder than any three employees.

“I’m on a break,” Troy said.

“Since graduation,” Mr. Bolton said. He clutched a cluster of papers. “Make some noise with that fax machine and you can knock off at six.” Troy hated the fax machine. Machines conspired against him.

“Will do,” Troy said. Eighteen semesters of community college theater and business management classes and here he was.

“You’re a star, Bolton,” Mr. Bolton said, thrusting the papers at Troy’s chest. “Shine.”

Twenty-six faxes and a trip to the basement later, Troy looked at his watch. It was 10:30. Ed Carnahan from legal would be singing “Whole Lotta Love” by now, and Mrs. Rodriguez would be waiting, brimming with drunken tears, to sing her now “standard” tune, “What I Did For Love.” He was glad he wasn’t there.

Troy gathered up his things and caught the last bus to his neighborhood. As he slid the key into the deadbolt, the door opened. “I kept dinner warm, sweetheart,” his wife said. He ate by himself, looking down the hall to the open bedroom door as she, the woman who had never lost hope in him, combed her hair at a small night table mirror. “You have an audition for Princess Cruises tomorrow afternoon, darling,” she said. “I know you’ll get this one. I made you a star once, and we can do it again. What do you say?” she said.

“Great. I’ll be right there.” She giggled and continued brushing her lush gray hair.

“Mrs. Troy Bolton,” she chirped happily to herself.

At least Ms. Darbus—Ms. Darbus-Bolton--had his back. Time to shine.

Obama Declares June 1st “National Planking Day”

2011-05-27T16:35:00.000-07:00

Washington, DC - President Obama has declared Wednesday, June 1^st, National Planking Day in honor of the peculiar fad in which a person lies face down in an unusual public place while someone photographs them. The president, who referred to himself as leader of “the party of symbols,” said he hopes planking will act as “a living metaphor for the bridge between two Americas—a reconciliation between the side of restoration, imagination and possibility, and the side of self-serving civil rigor mortis.” The president spoke during a Rose Garden reception while press secretary Jay Carney “planked” between two podiums.

Planking, which originated in Australia, has taken on a life of its own in the United States, with people going facedown on everything from fence posts, window air conditioners, and lawn gnomes to appearing suspended between objects. The activity elicits laughter wherever it’s seen, and that laughter is expected “to lighten the mood of Americans who struggle under the shadow of debilitating job losses, a fragmented healthcare system, staggering consumer and national debt, and international strife,” the president said. "It's also a great workout."

Pentagon staff have already begun preparing for Wednesday’s event with dry runs during office hours, and Speaker of the House John Boehner delivered a short address on Medicare reform while planked atop congressmen Mitch McConnell and Eric Cantor, the only two members of congress whose heads were large enough to support him.

A Tea Party chair-planking event featuring 2012 hopefuls Newt Gingrich and Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann was shelved when organizers realized a proper plank could not be achieved with both chairs on the right-hand side as the candidates demanded.

Homeland Security Secretary Janette Napolitano quickly lowered the terrorist alert level to “low” when TSA airport agents said that they would order passengers to plank atop body scanners before boarding. “Terrorists are the only ones who won’t be laughing, so they'll stand out like a sore thumb,” she said. “The extra seven hours’ wait in the security lines will be well worth it.”

International response to the president’s declaration was mixed. Jamaicans and Trinidadians were elated at the announcement, while defiant Libyan president Moammar Ghadafi scoffed at the fad, declaring that he couldn’t find two objects left to balance between in his NATO-leveled compound. A spokesman for the Taliban called the fad “barbaric.” Somali pirates were more circumspect. “Come on—we invented planking,” one teetering pirate jeered.

Others leaped on the fad. Defense counsel for former International Monetary Fund head Dominique Strauss- Kahn declared that his client, now under house arrest in Manhattan, was the victim of a planking attempt gone awry. Attorney Ben Brafman said that Strauss-Kahn had been planking between two nightstands when he lost his balance and fell on a hotel maid. “An innocent miscalculation,” Brafman said. “Teutonic Vertigo—it happened to Schwarzenegger, too, you know.”

Meanwhile, crews hurriedly moved seats in both houses of congress to make the aisles closer for Wednesday’s event. “This will be great fun, watching the two sides try to reach across the aisle,” said one worker. The capitol was swept up in giddy anticipation of thousands of "face downs" on the National Mall. Several memorials will be closed to the event, though, for safety concerns as well as decorum. “We don’t want to see some a-hole throw a body plank across the Tomb of the Unknowns for godssakes,” said Ernie Betters of the National Parks Service.

Some notable holdouts from the event include Congressman Barney Frank, who snapped, “I’ve got your plank right here.” Republican luminary Sarah Palin won’t participate either. “I don’t like being vertical like that,” she said. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi begged off for health reasons, stating through her office that her spine’s “not what it used to be.” Former Vice-President Dick Cheney said he would not participate because lying face down stiff as a board “doesn’t leave anywhere to pour the water effectively.”

(Obama photo, Associated Press, Pentagon photo by Lisa Coyro; planker photo by Louise O'Malley)

Frank McCourt to Take Over Daily Operations of Al Qaeda

2011-05-11T07:40:00.000-07:00

Embattled Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt has been named chief operating officer for daily operations of the Al Qaeda network, effectively outmaneuvering the terrorist group’s second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri, and several younger members in line for the coveted position.

McCourt, whose Jesuit education and business background give him a singular point of view in Al Qaeda’s fanatical future goals, has repeatedly expressed his ambivalence to beheadings and the slaughter of innocent civilians. “These people buy tickets,” has been an oft-repeated retort to followers calling for jihad reprisals for the killing of Osama bin Laden. "Don't overdo it."

Rumors had been circulating that McCourt was approached in January by recruiters from the Taliban, but he reportedly turned them down because several deal points had stalled. McCourt has declined to comment.

“Everyone’s delighted,” MLB commissioner Bud Selig said Wednesday. “Frank’s people skills, his way with players, and his savvy financial dealings make him a perfect fit for Al Qaeda. And his uncanny ability to take a perfectly good club and blow it to smithereens in six short years says a lot about the future prospects for this kind of organization.”

Within hours of his appointment, McCourt fired all of Al Qaeda’s top management, leveraged Al Qaeda in Iraq to NewsCorp to pare down debt, and plans to trade four or five of the group’s aging operatives for two key Hamas rookies, offering them lucrative signing bonuses to join "the new team." He also redirected the group’s funding to a holding company in Boston, where it will be administered by a close family friend.

According to insiders, other innovations McCourt has planned for Al Qaeda include a new professional sports stadium in Kabul, a subdivision on the former site of the bin Laden compound in Abbottabad, posh “sky caves” along the Afghan border, “Beer 'n Burka Nights,” bobble-head IED's, and the serving of alcohol at all Al Qaeda events. A few hundred Pakistani army members have been conscripted as security at each of the gatherings.

Three dozen Dodger fans arrived with McCourt for his first meeting with Al Qaeda management, a terrifying show of muscle for the new regime. It has been reported that the terrorists were uncomfortable with the presence of the fans, who quickly convinced them to wear Dodger gear as a sign of unity within the group “unless you want us to f**k you up,” a burly fan spokesman announced. “And if you’re rockin’ a vest, it better be blue, bitches.”

The Obama administration quickly acknowledged the change in Al Qaeda management, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has already met with McCourt to “re-chalk the playing field and change up the batting order.” President Obama unofficially noted to an aide that the war on terror "may end by October, maybe sooner once Jamie’s lawyers get a whiff of this.” No official administration announcement is expected soon.

The Osama Logs

2011-05-07T12:43:00.000-07:00

The FBI and CIA are still studying the hard drives of computers seized at the Abbottabad, Pakistan hideout of Osama bin Laden, which are believed to yield much information about the inner workings of Al Qaeda. Following are excerpts from the daily notes of one of his trusted assistants, an insider’s look at the day-to-day operation of the bin Laden household.

Whole household delighted after O starts Adopt-a-Highway program to demonstrate civic commitment.

Who is this Tom Clancy, and why does he keep stealing our plots? Check with attorney--can we sue?

Balanced household checkbook but nobody will cop to the $78.50 mail order purchase from PajamaGram.

O had family in convulsions with on-air prank calls to Brian Williams.

Abduct and slaughter paperboy for not getting paper over wall for third day this week.

O spent hours writing mash notes; he's determined to make a bride of this Palin woman.

The boss is pissed; B of A turned down loan modification because of fudging on income statements.

I keep telling him, “If you don’t smile, those whitening strips are a waste of money.”

Mrs. BL#3 is driving everyone crazy with her endless harping about going green.

Some disapproving talk among the neighbors after we hand out heads for trick-or-treat.

At dinner tonight, Osama pointed out Allah’s handiwork in the little details of his Thomas Kinkade paintings.

Called courier service on wrong cell phone; blew up nine cars. Whoopsie!

Osama is fooling no one with the comb-over. Just sayin’.

Next Saturday’s block party cancelled after arms delivery stalled at border.

Got royally chewed out for goat curd stain on carpet. Call cleaner for estimate. Call local farmer for new goat. Call local service for new farmer.

Tour group disappeared in walk-in closet.

Spent last two weeks harvesting backyard wheat to grind into flour. Can’t we just buy a loaf of bread like everybody else?

Osama frustrated playing Farmville by courier. Mafia Wars, not so bad.

After 21 missing Jehovah’s Witness teams, you’d think someone would be asking questions.

Movie night uncomfortable; Osama inconsolable after viewing Twilight: Eclipse.

Must talk to O about taking unnecessary risk sneaking into town for gum.

It is no small feat to work his Supreme Leader’s schedule around Big Love.

Hummus and naan, hummus and naan--I’d kill for a pulled pork sandwich on a Kaiser.

O's BFF Al-Zawahiri is coming for the weekend, which means manis, pedis, and pillow fights.

"It takes a village." Yeah, I guess so. And a Pakistani army.

Bin-Laden Stunned to Find “72 Virgins” Deal Expired

2011-05-02T19:12:00.000-07:00

Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, reeling from his death Sunday at the hands of a small band of U.S. Navy Seals in Pakistan, was further devastated by the news that the “special jihad offer” of 72 virgins in the afterlife had expired in 2006. The promise of 72 virgins after death has been a long accepted enticement to get Al Qaeda members to take on suicide missions.

“Are you [expletive] kidding me?” Bin Laden asked through his interpreter, the late murderer, torturer and beheader Abu Musaba al Zarqawi. The dejected mastermind of the terrorist attacks on New York City in 2001 slapped his fist into his open palm. “I had the coupon and everything, but they print the date so small who can read it?”

Bin Laden stood at the afterlife Sorting Gate for over two hours, awaiting his “most glorious transportation to the glory promised me by Allah.” But a gatekeeper for the deity, keeping an eye on a crowd surging at a velvet rope barrier, said there was no way Allah or any other deity would grant an audience or honor the coupon.

“I’ve got this list. He’s not on the list. I only let in who’s on the list,” he said shaking a piece of paper. “And the virgins? How many times do you think I’ve heard that one. That and the line about being a ‘friend of the Imam.’ That’s not how Allah rolls.”

“We’ve been caught a little off guard,” admitted Zelim, a spokesman for the mujahideen’s Afterlife.com website. “Look, this offer was made during our membership drive a few years ago, but the coupons have been floating around forever.” He added that there were “certain restrictions” that applied to the offer, one of which was that it be presented at the time of death and that the death be voluntary. “It’s a loophole, agreed, but if we let him take advantage of the virgins deal, then we’ve got to let everybody do it. And frankly, it isn't that easy getting virgins anymore.”

What outraged Bin Laden most was that “lowlifes like Atta and al-Nami [two of the 9/11 hijackers]” had redeemed their coupons and, despite their current residency in the skinning room of the darkest, most fetid broiling bowels of the underworld, “still got a romp with a woman named Trixie.” Bin Laden vowed that he is preparing a class action suit against Afterlife.com because “there are many lawyers here looking for something to do.“

Zelim said the latest controversy has been a “PR nightmare” for the site, which advertises on TMZ.com and boasts “many celebrity clients,” among them Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Muammar Ghadafi, and Brett Michaels.

“We’re trying to make good on this and keep everybody happy,” he said. “We put together a nice swag bag for him. I don’t know what else we can do at this point.” Bin Laden accepted the bag--filled with items likea Fossil watch, a signed copy of The Kardashian Kronichles, and a set of VHS tapes of Season Three of Everybody Loves Raymond, just as a team of black horses dragged him from the Sorting Gate into a blazing underground tunnel.

“We’re doing everything to make things right with him by setting him up with a woman who blew herself up during last summer’s 'Fatwa Fun' picnic,” Zelim said, “but it's a deal breaker unless we find some more of her parts.”

TV Pilot Season's "Black List” of Best Unproduced Show Pitches

2011-04-25T12:05:00.000-07:00

Hollywood - For the first time in its history, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences has released its own version of the “Black List,” a compilation of the hottest unproduced pitches for new television shows. Inspired by the motion picture industry’s December list made famous by film executive Frank Leonard, the ATAS Black List is put together from the suggestions of hundreds of TV execs, each listing up to ten of their favorite pitches that are awaiting a green light. ATAS hopes its own list will do for television what the feature film list did for Diablo Cody, Nancy Oliver, and numerous other now-produced film writers. Here’s the 2011 list, just in time for the mid-pilot, pre-summer, post-winter, mid-cancellation season.

Young Show Runners in Love by Jason Tidepool and Marnie Sullivan.

A sitcom following the adventures of two twenty-something graduates of the New York Film School who trek to Hollywood to create ‘revolutionary television” based on writing about the people they know best—other film school graduates. After one pitch, they sell their first series, Ennui, and complicate things by falling in love—with each other. Oh, and they’re both guys. “Brokeback Mountain meets Mad About You” (CBS/Paramount)

Reverse Mortgage (Reality Show)

Five elderly couples in fragile health compete to see who can live till the end of the term of their reverse mortgages, sold to them by a quintet of fired The Apprentice contestants. (Oxygen/TARP Productions)

Narcocorrido Idol by Anonymous

The stakes are high as competing Chalinillos vie for international stardom performing in front of a panel of warring drug cartel leaders. (Telemundo/Escobar Associates)

The Safety Network (Improv)

Randomly selected members of Congress are stripped of their medical plans and bank accounts, exposed to dengue fever, and challenged to find treatment based only on the services of county-funded hospitals. Comedy. (Universal/Beltway Solutions)

iMedfly (Tween Comedy)
When a middle class Chicago suburb's high school experiences a thousand-percent increase in pregnant girls, the U.S. Departments of Health and Agriculture join forces, enrolling six gorgeous, sterilized teenagers to eradicate the problem. (Nickelodeon/iRadiated Productions)

Dumpster Chef by Ben Hall

Unemployed food writer and problem drinker Jake Hale creates imaginative and haute meals from the back alleys of restaurant row in major U.S. cities, selling them for loose change to passersby. (Food Network)

Jeff Hitler by Conrad Hunt and Zeke Timmons.

Adolf Hitler’s happy-go-lucky teenage brother escapes occupied Berlin in a time machine and ends up in 2012 working at a Kinko’s next to a Chabad house in Silverlake, California. Unable to afford an apartment himself, he takes on a roommate—an orthodox Jewish memoirist. Together, they face the comedy-rich world of employment, dating, and conflicting Saturday schedules. “The Odd Couple meets Triumph of the Will.” (A&E/Eastside Productions)

CSI: Middle School by

In another extension of the mega-popular forensic detective franchise, three hard-boiled 8^th graders solve crimes in their school’s science lab. “Relevant themes such as bullying, childhood obesity, locker desecration, vandalized vending machines and cafeteria food poisoning are explored via an abundance of yucky DNA evidence.” (Disney Channel/Ashley Tisdale Productions)

Live: The First Annual YouTube Awards

Favorite YouTube celebrities celebrate the nascent and lightning fast viral art form. Presenters may include the Mentally Unstable Hand Model, “Chocolate Rain” guy, lonelygirl15, the “Charlie Bit Me” boys, a choir made up of 9/11 conspiracy theorists, Talentless Girl Singing Mariah Carey, Chris the Hysterical Britney Spears Fan, Unwashed Loner With a Computer Cam and an Axe to Grind, a tribute to Ted “Golden-Voice” Williams, and a cavalcade of people who don’t know shit but have a lot to say. Three videos will be posted at the start of the show, and the creator of the first one to reach 1.5 million hits before it ends gets a slot on The View. Hosted by Randall, off-camera narrator of “The Nastyass Honey Badger.” (FX/drkdggler14 Presents)

Warlocks (Reality Show)

A 13-week series in which Donald Trump, Ben Bernanke, Chuck Lorre, Suze Orman, Les Moonves, and Disney’s Robert Iger, dressed only in jeans and t-shirts, are blindfolded and driven to Compton, then released to find their way to a Beverly Hills Starbucks—with no smart phones and 48 cents in their pockets. “The Great Race meets Lord of the Flies.” Hosted by Charlie Sheen. (Warner Bros./WTF Productions)

Law and Order: STD by Pepper Bender and Andy Conda

In another spinoff of the popular crime series, female LAPD officers from a special sexually transmitted diseases unit follow the outbreak of various exotic, unpronounceable maladies in the Chatsworth, CA based pornography industry. Who-dun-it meets who-got-it. (Viacom/DownLow Productions)

The Bin-Ladens by Mike Shugler and Devon Parks

In this dramatic mini-series, the family of the most hated man in the world takes up residence in a gated community in Virginia, trying to conceal their identities while tending to a mysterious and seriously ill cousin, known only as “Ned,” in the basement play room. (HBO/Fifth Pilot Productions)

Covered by Enoch Shigler and Ty Hendricks

A Sopranos-inspired drama that pulls away the shroud of mystery surrounding the upholstery industry. (HBO/Levitz)

Ask the Imam

2011-04-18T19:21:00.000-07:00

Every few months we reprint letters to the advice columnist for the new Al Qaeda woman’s magazine Al-Shamikha, jihad's answer to Family Circle.

Anwar al Mawraki, head of Al Qaeda’s social network ministry, is syndicated in over 100 periodicals and websites. His blog, Connect the Dots, has over 50,000 followers, and his Facebook page boasts 33,000 fans, of which 18,300 are U.S. intelligence.

Dear Imam,

My sister’s boyfriend, whom I’ll call Murray, is a charming, well-spoken fellow who treats my sister like a queen. My family adores him, and he’s been like an uncle to my two middle-school age sons. He and my sister plan to marry this summer.

When they came to visit for the Christmas holidays, I borrowed his car to run an errand and, while looking for a tissue, found several pieces of women’s intimate apparel in the glove box, as well as an address and phone number for someone named “Jade.” It made me most uncomfortable so I kept my mouth shut, but I feel like such a traitor to my sister.

They’re coming to town next month and plan to stay at my house. Should I tell her what I discovered? I feel like a terrible snoop, and if it’s nothing I don’t want to ruin her relationship. My husband says leave it alone, but something tells me I have to warn her about Murray. What do you think I should do?

Bitter in Bismark

Dear Bitter,

Your use of the words “Queen” and “Christmas” brings my lunch back into my gullet, signaling that you are most unworthy of an answer; however, since I just this morning sent three young boys with a ticking gift to a security checkpoint (remorseless praise to Him Who is Tingly With Approval), I am feeling expansively generous. So here goes it.

Since you have expressed no moral quandary besides being “uncomfortable,” let me warn you that there is a great spiritual judgment brewing here. The sacred texts, which I have personally parsed and will feed to you like the falcon vomits chewed food into the mouths of her eager and essentially brainless young (all praise to Him Who Rewards Disloyalty with Shingles), are clear about how to deal with Murray.

Bind his arms and make him kneel at the Sabbath dinner and confess his transgressions. Throw the proof on the table. “And his eyes shall be taken with hot irons for unfaithfulness” is what I think I read somewhere about this. So this swine shouldn’t be looking at other women, much less transporting their undergarments. Since he seems to be doing just that, take out his eyes. But I ramble. Write again when you find out who “Jade” is and send me her number. I will take it upon myself to set her on path of righteousness.

Dear Imam,

I’m a 17-year-old boy, a junior in high school. I’ve had two girlfriends in the past two years, but neither of them has lasted more than a month. Last night, my mother confronted me and asked outright if I am gay.

I admit that I haven’t had much luck (or time) with girls between my love for video games and my job at Popeye’s chicken, but I still think there’s some gray area between not having a girlfriend and out-and-out homosexuality. I don’t have many friends except for Kit and Jerry at Popeye’s. Do you think I could be gay? Or is it normal not to have a girlfriend at 17? I have to have an answer for my mom real soon since she’s already made an appointment for us to visit our pastor.

Wondering Out Loud

Dear Out,

You are an abomination, the kind of mindless youth who proves that the Almighty sometimes practices sculpting with carrion. Now that that is out of the way (praise be to Him Who Would Use You as a Dental Pick), let me say that there is hope. Your failure with women is because of your own failings as a person, and your dependence on this Kit and Jerry (such names may He Who Deplores Nicknames forgive) is a sign of your unspeakable corruption.

Your mother may be right, but she is filling your head with the kind of suggestions for which her head should be removed. Do this, and then turn to such as me, who will guide you toward a better day. Renounce these Kits and Jerrys, and this Popeye with his filthy nesting birds (all honor to Him Who Would Roast You On a Spit). Join us at our summer camp outside Karachi, where we will bring you to purification and perfect union with hot women in the afterlife once you are fitted for a vest. Tell no one. The pastor will only lead you to deeper confusion.

Dear Imam,

I hate washing dishes and my wife hates yard work, but we have worked it out so that I have agreed to do a little bit of housework to keep the peace. Lately, though, she’s been letting the dishes stack up and goes to bed at 7 p.m. and leaves them for me. I don’t think that’s fair. I have offered to buy her a real nice power mower for her birthday as sort of an olive branch to help her to do her part, but she scoffs at it. So I am stuck doing both. What can I do to put our marriage back on track and keep the house and yard from looking like Tobacco Road? I’m getting resentful.

The Palmolive Kid

Dear Palmolive,

An olive branch? Please. In the words of the Most Holy Text That I Make Up As I Go Along, the insolence your wife expresses can only be dealt with by burying her to her neck in your backyard and inviting the men in your community to stone her (praise Him Who Turns Women Into Mulch). Then find a more malleable wife who does dishes and yard work. And move to a home that is not on this Tobacco Road—the use of tobacco is forbidden by Him Who Would Use Your Eye Sockets as Ashtrays. But first, bind her to the riding mower and get the lawn mowed as was agreed. It is written. You didn’t know?

Dear Imam,

My elderly mother-in-law lives two blocks away. “Myrna” drops in on us at all hours without warning, saying she’s just “checking up” on my husband and me, saying we never call her and bringing useless cereal box toys for our children, who are 28 and 21. This happens three or four times a week, and she always manages to time it so she can stay for a meal. My husband Ned, who is hard-working and a good provider, hasn’t got the whatevers to tell her to leave, so it’s up to me. But she’s family—I can’t just throw her out. She would never do this with Ned’s older brother, but he lives in her guest room. What should I do to make her feel welcome but still respect our privacy?

Put-Upon

Dear Put-Upon,

Let no family tie stand in the way of justice. This Myrna is old and therefore may be addled. Beheading (as it has been instructed by Him Who Speaks Only Through Me) will be wasted on her. However, we are only made happy through that which we do, and nothing but feeling useful will change her (all devotion to Him Who Scrambles the Brain Cells of the Aged). She can be made useful and resolve your problem all at once. Praise her, feed her, bless her, anoint her with sacred oils, and send her into a crowded plaza with a tea set made from C-4 and a cheap cell phone. Then call her as you promised. She will be happy at last to hear from you.

U.S. to Send Boy Scout Troops Into Libya

2011-03-18T18:40:00.000-07:00

Washington – General David Petraeus, directing wars on two fronts with already overburdened military forces, has conscripted the Boy Scouts of America as the first wave of troops to aid Libyan rebels in ousting dictator Moamar Quadaffi from power. The scouts have been ordered to start training next week, and the earliest troops will ship out May 1^st. President Obama is expected to sign the emergency order immediately.

“We’ve stretched our troops as far as they can go for ten years now, and the Army, Navy, Marines, and National Guard have all been tapped to the limit,” Petraeus said Saturday. “The Scouts are the next line of defense.”

The order comes on the heels of Thursday’s United Nations Security Council authorization to create a no-fly zone over the embattled nation. The U.N. decision allows air strikes on Libyan aircraft and ground forces surrounding the vastly outgunned opposition strongholds in Benghazi and Tobruk. U.S. officials insisted that while there will be “no boots on the ground” in the increasingly brutal uprising, the metaphor “does not extend to hiking boots.”

Jimmy Weber, 15, of Olwein, Iowa, heard of his deployment from Troop 79 leader Marshall Kent on Friday. He spent most of Friday packing his sleeping bag, Skittles, and Nintendo DS game into a large Justice League backpack. “I guess we’re ready,” he said. “We just got back from a weekend jamboree last Monday. Marshall wasn’t happy about it, but he says that it’s our duty.” When asked about the situation in Libya, Weber seemed to draw a blank. “I heard that guy’s a dick,” he said of Quadaffi, “and we just had an assembly at school on bullying, so I guess it’s, like, the right thing to do. And I hear they've got beaches and drone planes and stuff, so it should be pretty cool.”

The scouts, who are not expected to carry weapons or face the Libyan army directly, will assist fraying rebel forces in the volatile African nation by leading patrols and training them in first-aid, tying knots, making safe fires, archery, and camping. Once the rebels are battle ready, the scouts will hand over power and start withdrawing in stages starting in 2013. Petraeus said that a small division of scouts will remain in country “indefinitely” to oversee the rebels. “We expect many of them to become homesick, so we don’t want to invoke the stop-loss to scouts for more than two deployments,” he said. Girl Scouts and Brownies are on hold for the time being and may eventually be called to service, but only “in light-combat support roles.”

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she believes the scouts’ presence will be a morale booster for the beleaguered rebels. “Just the sight of those boys leaping off landing craft in their uniforms, badges and shorts will show the international community that we are taking strong action against a brutal human rights violation,” she said.

“We’re prepared to tap Explorer-Scout posts and Pop Warner leagues all over the U.S. and train them to confront a post 9-11 world hands-on,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said. “Bahrain’s heating up, and those kids are shovel-ready for duty,” he added. “Our youth are our greatest resource as a country. They’ll be something to be proud of.”

The defense department, meanwhile, has put on alert all United Parcel Service drivers and U.S. Postal Service employees for duty “whenever and wherever they are needed throughout the world.”

Pachinko Serves the Public Good

2011-03-07T15:43:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is another election. I don’t know for what, even though I always vote. I know that one of the items is Measure L, asking whether we should keep the libraries open. And for the record, yes, we want the libraries to stay open. Seven days a week. All day, maybe knock off at noon on Sunday. And we want water at our houses, and electricity, and weekly trash pickup. So don’t put those on another initiative or we’re going to know for sure that your number needs to be retired.

Really, all this legislating in Sacramento must be exhausting. It’s so much work, it’s enough to make a governor just up and quit halfway through a term. Wait—one already did, because being president of the U.S. is a lot easier, and you get to go to neat new places, get a bigger office, and have everybody’s attention.

But in Sacramento, there’s so much flitting up and down halls, shaking hands, getting your picture taken, forgetting your favorite lobbyist’s wife’s name, not knowing which coalition you’re in or which motel you decided on for lunch. No wonder there’s so little bi-partisanship. These days, you just have to know your party and you know how to vote. “R” is for “Right.” “D” is for “Don’t even.” “I” is the Roman numeral for how may terms (or votes) you can expect. How anything gets done with all this remembering is beyond me. So if you can remember that nothing gets done, you’ve still got a leg up on the taxpayers. And if there’s anything California politicians know best, it’s how to lift their leg on the taxpayers.

Today, the L.A. Times carried the headline, A Capitol Logjam: 2,323 Bills; Brown and others say that’s too many as the state grapples with fiscal crisis. What to do, what to do… Well, Pachinko wants to help. Let me take some of the bills the times posted as being stalled and help decide them, thus freeing up the state legislators to decide upon which powerless groups of citizens to drop the hammer.

Here we go:

“Assembly Bill 46: Dissolve Vernon’s cityhood.” Yes. Who knows where Vernon is anyway? Attach it to the next unknown city and change the name to something catchier than “Vernon.” Like Peet’s. Or Abercrombie. Done. 2,322 to go.

“Senate Bill 30: Increase state tobacco tax by $1.50 per pack.” Come on, how trivial is this, and how transparent. Let’s boost the “revenue” by making cigarettes a flat $4.00 apiece. Kill two birds with one stone and make marijuana cigarettes $10.00 apiece, professionally rolled. No sales to anyone under 30. Done. Two bills in one swoop. How easy is this?

“SB 818: Revise definition of olive oil.” Here you go: Olive oil (n.) oil made from the fruit of the olive tree. Next?

“SB 417: Bar welfare recipients from using state-issued debit cards to buy alcohol or tobacco.” Yes. Everyone on welfare should be issued a carton of American Spirit cigarettes and a half-gallon of generic gin on the first of the month. Cultivate a black market. Use the debit card for necessities, like food, shelter, utilities, child support, strip clubs and guns, like it was intended.

Okay, that’s four bills resolved in ten minutes. What else…

“AB 26: Bring Arizona’s controversial anti-illegal-immigration law to California.” No way. Let Arizona bring it here themselves. Why should we go get it? Saves over $175.00 on gas reimbursement, $375 if they’re driving a state-owned Buick. And it allows state politicians to keep their gardeners, drivers, and nannies.

“SB 40: Legalize poker on the Internet.” Are you crazy? Texas Hold’em and cigars is the last domain of guys whose wives are gone on Thursday nights. Dilute that and it’s a civil rights issue. Let’s give every taxpayer a $300.00 opening stake. Tie it in with SB 417, and you’ve got a deal.

“AB 1279: Change animal ‘pound’ to ‘animal shelter’ in state code.” Absolutely. But only if you change “Los Angeles County Foster Care System” to “pound.” Let’s be accurate and consistent.

“AB 582: Require cities to give public notice twice before awarding raises to city managers, consultants, and other top employees.” No. Break down the total amount of the raises, divide it by the number of constituents, and require said “top employees, managers, and consultants” to personally phone and ask each family for a check. Now you’re talking.

“SCR 14: Create “Parks Make Life Better” month.” Needs more heft. Call it “Parks Make Life Better for the Unemployed” month and distribute free tents and Sterno. Bingo.

“AB 400: Require employers to provide paid sick leave for personal illness, to care for a sick family member or to recover from domestic violence or sexual assault.” No way. We’re already giving them cigarettes, alcohol, and poker. This will break the system. And a lot of that money is already going to change signs from “pound” to “shelter.” Skip it. Wait till the economy’s rolling again, then we’ll talk. And exempt elected officials from the bill.

“SB 366: Require a review of 28,000 pages of state regulations and recommendations for reducing red tape.” Tie this in with SCR 14, and burn the paperwork for fuel and heating. Done.

“SB 39: Ban caffeinated beer.” Yes. Nothing worse than a wide-awake drunk. Ban pickled eggs and Slim-Jims in bars instead. That stuff’ll kill you.

There you have it. Twelve bills out of the way, and it only took me 45 minutes. And I’m not charging the state a nickel.

Now, one new bill I’d like to propose, and that’s for the state to establish a citizens’ “Common Sense Committee” to review every bill before it goes to a vote. I’m volunteering as chair. Bring your own cigars.

Ode to a Black Lab

2011-03-03T08:01:00.000-08:00

Our dog enjoys a snack of flowers

Torn from a blooming springtime bower,

Then, once fermented several hours,

Scrambles our olfactory powers:

A scent-times-six that contradicts

The very nature of a flower.

Charlie Sheen: The Proust Questionnaire

2011-02-28T14:45:00.000-08:00

Women held at knifepoint, hotel rooms destroyed as pornstresses cower in the bathroom, briefcases of home-delivered cocaine, and attacks on the people who finance his festivities: such is the world of Charlie Sheen. Living his life as an ongoing tribute to Captain Jack Sparrow, the man who singlehandedly made the word pharmaceuticals an industry reflects on love, judgment, and his epic journey. [Illustration by Chris Wahl]

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Strafing fools and trolls in my underwear before my first cup of coffee.

What is your greatest fear?

Running out of smokin’ hot goddesses—which I WON’T. Print that.

Which living person do you most admire?

Errol Flynn.

Errol Flynn is dead.

Bullshit. I just saw him over the weekend.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

I’m too trusting.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?

The judgment of envious prick bastards.

What is your favorite journey?

The journey that is Charlie Sheen. Do the math.

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

They’re all overrated.

What do you dislike most about your appearance?

What’s to dislike?

Which living person do you most despise?

You ever watch Two and a Half Men? Read the credits.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

“Epic.” “Gnarly gnarlingtons.” “This has never happened before, baby,” “No, officer.”

What is your greatest regret?

Vatican assassins don’t regret. Regrets are for pussies.

What or who is the greatest love of your life?

[Shrugs, opens arms, whispers into lap] Pssst! Did you hear that?

When and where were you happiest?

[Shrugs, opens arms, whispers into lap] Care to answer this one?

Which talent would you most like to have?

Keeping track of my cars.

What is your current state of mind?

Warrior mode.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

More magic in my fire-breathing fists.

If you could change one thing about your family, what would it be?

Don’t get me started. But thanks for the Adonis DNA, losers.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

Ask Heidi Fleiss.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

Ten minutes of Mike and Molly.

What is your favorite occupation?

Research and development. Or fluffer—those guys are unsung.

What is your most marked characteristic?

Impulse control.

What do you most value in your friends?

A willingness to be in my army in the battle for justice.

Who are your heroes in real life?

Radio hosts who take my calls.

What is it that you most dislike?

Whattya got?

If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?

I’m King of the World. What—I’m going to settle for an oak tree?

If you could choose what to come back as, what would it be?

Captain Jack Sparrow.

He’s not a real person.

Bullshit. I just saw him with Errol Flynn.

How would you like to die?

I won’t. It’s not part of my reality.

What is your motto?

It’s lonely at the top. Embrace it. Violently.

World Leaders Disagree on Spelling of Libyan Leader’s Name

2011-02-23T17:18:00.000-08:00

Geneva – Leaders of 65 countries convened a “crisis meeting” in the Swiss capital Tuesday to determine a consistent spelling of the name of the embattled dictator of Libya. What began as a civilized, highly ordered agenda quickly descended into rancor as various camps stuck to their nation’s version of how to spell the name of the guy.

“We’re aligned with the New York Times’ spelling, which is consistent with The Christian Science Monitor,” said Vice-President Joe Biden, President Obama’s emissary along with Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. “They’re the only two major news sources that are even close to agreement.”

“We cannot agree,” said Afghan president Hamid Karzai, who objected to the Monitor’s “Christian" affiliation. “It will not fly in my country,” he declared. “And I believe it will do nothing except to further piss off the region.”

Biden, unaware of an open mike, offered, “How about “that chick-protected a-hole?” to Liberian president Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. Seconds later, Biden was forced to dodge a thrown shoe.

The Chinese delegation brokered a compromise by writing the soon-to-be-bus-driver-in-Eritrea's name in Mandarin characters and thus making it less likely to be misinterpreted, but a long silence filled with shrugs and a snort from the North Koreans caused the proposal to die without a discussion.

Three European leaders who agreed to work as a team suggested simply referring to the embattled dictator as “the Colonel,” deferring to the drape-wearing douche’s rank, but that was struck down out of fear of a trademark infringement lawsuit by international franchise KFC.

“Look—this guy perceives himself as some kind of ‘prince of Africa,’ offered Mrs. Clinton, "so why not use Prince’s symbol? He isn’t using it anymore. And it's possible that ‘When Doves Cry’ could be a rallying anthem among the dissidents." Clinton's suggestion was met almost immediately with an argument over better Prince songs like "Let's Go Crazy," "I Would Die 4 U," and "Little Nikki." The meeting was called back to order by the blasts of an air horn and several vuvuzelas.

Egyptian representatives, still basking in the overthrow of former "president" Hosni Mubarek only a week earlier, argued for the use of only the robes-and-turban wearing tool’s first name, but Biden was unhappy with that, contending that it would throw a shadow on the Mummers Parade in Philadelphia.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu composed a “rebus” spelling on a whiteboard, using a picture of a donkey and a cap as a version of the name of the soon-to-be-roasted-on-a-spit wack job, but that was rejected as well. After eight hours of back-and-forth wrangling, everyone finally agreed to leave the spelling of the egomaniacal crusher of the people’s spirit to history, and refer to him “simply and respectfully as ‘the Whore of Satan.'”

A unanimous vote sealed the decision. "The accurate spelling and pronunciation of names is an understated peril in the diplomatic community," said German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stormed out of the meeting before the final vote muttering "Welcome to my world" as he passed a cadre of journalists.

14 Signs for Men That You’ve Picked the Wrong Valentine’s Date

2011-02-07T09:33:00.000-08:00

A survey by the American Institute of Psychology revealed last week that Valentine’s Day is, for men, the worst holiday of the year. “Every February, most men will admit feeling the crushing pressure of expectations mixed with a strange giddiness,” reports Dr. Arlo Kister, the Institute’s statistician. “We have found this to be the same physiological response generated by cattle being led down a slaughter chute."

Based on interviews with over 2500 men from all social and economic strata about their worst Valentine's Day experiences, the Institute has published a “14 Signs” checklist that men can use to “manage the level of potential trouble” on a Valentine's Day date.

According to a statement at the list’s conclusion, a single positive response means a definite warning that you may have picked the wrong Valentine’s date. Two positives mean that you have “quite certainly chosen the wrong date.” Three or more positives mean: “Dude, you need to find a way to escape and get to a safe place no matter how well things seem to be going, at least until the 20th.”

Kister says the holiday findings are for straight men only since gay men "seem to know exactly what's expected of them for gifts, meals, and a perfect evening." Kister says that many of the straight respondents highly recommend a gay consultant. Most married men, the Institute found, have surrendered to Valentine's Day "in the same way hostages slip into the Stockholm Syndrome."

Here is the AIP list of the 14 “signs” of a potentially bad Valentine's date:

1. She keeps popping up out of the bathtub holding a knife when you're trying to get ready.

2. Wears bangs to hide a faded swastika scar on her forehead.

3. Her dress and handbag are made of bacon.

4. She has three Valentine’s cards on her mantle, all from David Arquette.

5. The only time you’re allowed to speak at dinner is when she puts in her whitening strips.

6. The card she gave you includes a lock of her hair with a piece of scalp still attached.

7. She gives you a laminated, wallet-sized calendar of her ovulation schedule.

8. She’s constantly quoting the Kathy Bates character from Misery.

9. She growls and makes barking noises at your waiter.

10. Wants to spend the evening with a big bowl of kettle corn catching up on DVR'd episodes of Bridalplasty.

11. During intimacy she asks if you’re happy with your cable service.

12. Gives you a stylish red highway-flare vest with a disposable cell phone.

13. Her hair smells like a meth lab.

14. When you ask where she’d like to go for a romantic dessert, she suggests Charlie Sheen’s house.

Close your eyes and pretend it's March. And Happy Valentine’s Day!

“What’s in a name? That which we call a Bowl…”

2011-02-02T09:07:00.000-08:00

In an announcement freighted with meaning this Super Bowl Week, Farmers Insurance Monday made a $700-million deal with the city of Los Angeles for a proposed football stadium to be known as Farmers Field in downtown, adjacent to the Staples Center and the Nokia complex. The news has ignited a lively discussion of the “branding” of sports venues by corporate sponsors.

With cities strapped for cash like never before, corporations have stepped in to help. And where once a baseball field would be named for a beloved player or coach, or a community center for a local philanthropist, venues are now opportunities as high-profile PR zones. AT&T Park, Honda Center, and Chase Stadium are all testaments to the successful merger of capitalism and the commoditization of good old fashioned team spirit.

The practice can be a dicey one. Anaheim, California’s Edison Field became Arrowhead Pond, which became Honda Center. And who can forget the afternoons of pleasure spending the family’s nest egg at Enron Field? But now, with the economy rebounding at the top, what could be better than to revive your hometown venue with a little help from a multi-national corporation?

After no small amount of research, Pachinko has uncovered some of the less successful corporate partnerships and their proposed "brand statements." The names of the associated cities have been omitted to protect the citizens. So break out the Doritos (from Frito-Lay, proud sponsors of the Cheetos Pavilion)!

Blockbuster Casino: “The Luck Stops Here.”

Forest Lawn Field: “Now That’s What I Call a Season Ticket!”

Apple iPark: “Just Like Being in the World.”

Amway Chapel

Zillow Field: “Because We Know What It’s Worth to You”

Trident Stadium: “Long-Lasting Flavor, Stuck Under Your Seat”

T-Mobile Stadium: “More Bars, Fewer Dropped Balls”

Lipitor Square Garden

Skoal Hockey Rink: “Chewed, Blued, and Tattooed”

Durex Motor Speedway: “Where the Rubber Meets the Road.”

Netflix Opera Hall: “Unlimited Arias, $8.99 a month.”

Ronco Megaplex: “Not Just Movies—There’s More!”

Sara League Baseball Camp: “It’s a Piece of Cake”

Cirque du Olay

Red Bull Community Theatre: “Give us 20 Minutes, We’ll Give You Everything by Andrew Freakin’ Lloyd Weber”

Krispy Kreme Women’s Correctional Facility: “Hot Donuts Now.”

Oakland Raiders’ Massengill Park: “A Venue to Match Our Fans”

Circuit City Center: “Your Best Buy for Family Fun!”

Tylenol-Cowboys Stadium: “You Think You’ve Got a Headache”

Have a great Super Bowl Sunday!

25 Answers to “What Do You Like Best About Travel?”

2011-01-24T23:20:00.000-08:00

It is the 6:45 a.m. reveille of “Housekeeping!”

It is the surprise upon checkout of the unordered movie, “No Title Shown on Bill (Though the $3 Price Differential Means it Was Porn).”

It is the plentiful and convenient airport parking.

It is the courtesy of my fellow travelers as I struggle with two bags after declining to pay $35.00 to check one of them.

It is the compassionate and friendly suggestions offered by TSA agents.

It is the new tube of Crest surrendered to the agents so that I may do my part to stem the alarming increase in toothpaste related terrorist attacks.

It is the escalating surrender of my belt, eyeglasses, money clip, and lip balm during the screening in order to keep the flight secure and safe.

It is the unspoken joke about weapons struggling against my natural inclination to try to liven up a (so far) humdrum morning.

It is the woman in front of me who asserts her right not to go through the X-ray machine, rallying the support of the 68 people behind her in line.

It is seeing the same woman smile through tears during the extensive and, frankly, quite tender girl-on-girl pat down.

It is the array of healthy and reasonably priced foods at the terminal.

It is the man on his cell phone two gates away relating a detailed account of his morning apparently to someone at the School For the Deaf.

It is the fecund literary oasis known as The Bookery, which sells inspirational titles for in-flight reading like The Kardashian Kronikles, Assholes Finish First, an interior design book by Barbra Streisand, Sexy Sudoku, a hundred or so romance novels involving vampires, and the omni-talented Snooki’s manifesto A Shore Thing.

It is the clean, comfortable and spacious waiting area, entitling one seat per passenger and two more seats for her belongings.

It is the emergent democracy of boarding.

It is the olfactory aura of the man across the aisle on his way to Las Vegas in his “lucky“ shirt.

It is the good-natured Darwinian competition for space in the overhead.

It is the toddlers in the seat behind undergoing the rigors of behavior modification.

It is the “All About Salmon” theme of this month’s in-flight magazine.

It is the friendly introduction and note of thanks to you (“our flight associates”) in the same magazine, dictated by the airline’s president from his private jet.

It is the special attention of the captain, awakening the flight in mid-nap, to point out his boyhood home in Oelwein, Iowa.

It is to marvel at the efficiency (and irony) of the coffin-sized restroom.

It is the sweetly harmonic convergence of 177 simultaneously booted-up cell phones upon landing.

It is the glimmer of the pilot’s tip jar.

It is the new swearing of allegiance to Amtrak.

For Sadie's Girl

2011-01-24T08:17:00.000-08:00

What a thing is an anniversary!
Growing old in joy, her and me,
I, somewhat faster than she.

For K.B.

2011-01-23T20:31:00.000-08:00

I’d hate to end with sudden death

And people asking “Why?”

Please let me have a slower one

So we can say goodbye.

Beatification of Aaron Spelling moves Mod Squad creator one step closer to sainthood

2011-01-18T15:07:00.000-08:00

The Catholic Church has announced the beatification of Aaron Spelling barely five years after his death, pushing his elevation to sainthood ahead of that of Mother Theresa and the late pope John Paul II. A Vatican panel last week verified a miracle ascribed to the TV producer who brought the TV show Charlie’s Angels among a broader canon of deeply affecting work into 20^th Century culture. Pope Benedict XVI, himself a huge Dynasty fan, had approved the surprising move, given that it is the first time a Jew—and married person—has been granted such a distinction. Benedict has championed Spelling’s canonization since the producer’s passing in 2006. Certification of a second miracle is necessary for sainthood.

Tens of thousands of devotees are expected to join in simultaneous celebrations April 22 in St. Peter’s Square and the Television Academy of Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills, which will be followed by a reception at widow Candy Spelling’s Century City condominium.

According to the Vatican, Benedict approved the church’s findings that, with the survival of William Shatner’s post-T.J. Hooker career, Spelling had performed a miracle after his death, which is a prerequisite for beatification. Spelling’s own career had been on the ropes after Nightingales, but in a miraculous turn of events took off again with 7^th Heaven, which Benedict called “an ecumenical triumph—Protestant-leaning, Catholic in spirit, and Jewish in execution.”

A cardinal in the Pope’s inner circle, requesting anonymity, said that Benedict had quietly submitted a bid for the Spellings’ $150 million Beverly Hills mansion when Mrs. Spelling put it on the market in 2009, as “a sort of Vatican West, given the pomp and scale of the property.” The bid was accepted but the purchase fell out of escrow because of the church’s continued lawsuit obligations; the home is still on the market.

Asked what is necessary now to seal the canonization, the Vatican was elusive except to say that they are pursuing the angle of a resurgence in roles for Jaclyn Smith (one of the original Charlie’s Angels cast) as well as the continued, unearned attention paid to the Spellings’ daughter Tori as proof of the second miracle. Spokespersons for Ms. Smith and Ms. Spelling did not return calls for a comment.

WikiLit Website Promises "Books That Don't Hurt"

2011-01-07T19:31:00.000-08:00

Cambridge, MA - In a response to the recent uproar over replacing the words “nigger” and “injun” in Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn with less inflammatory nouns, a collective of educators and linguists have launched WikiLit, a site that offers versions of classic literary titles in a “more civilized, less confrontational” version.

“WikiLit allows readers to enjoy previously troublesome books by letting them replace segments of the text with more reassuring and less problematic substitutes,” said WikiLit founder Brent Bright. “Words and ideas are painful reminders of being human, and we’re trying to make this human experience a little easier for people who bruise easily,” Bright said. Readers are encouraged to replace words or post re-written sections that had once caused discomfort and ambiguity in high school and college classes. “It gives readers a whole new level of interaction with a work so that they may enjoy it at their own comfort level.”

The first book on the site is a rendition of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the story of Hester Prynne, who is forced by her puritan community to wear a scarlet “A” on her breast as penance for adultery. The WikiLit version presents Prynne wearing a “BC” as, Bright says, “a symbol of bad choices.”

“She’s a single mom, and we don’t want other single mothers to feel the taint of such a term. We’re inviting like-minded readers to step in and rewrite the sections of the books that are hurtful or incompatible with their belief systems.”

Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, for example, has been returned to a much shorter action/adventure, with the ambivalent relationship between Ishmael and Queequeg “made more like a buddy story,” with new female crew members and Captain Ahab now “a role model to the disabled.”

“In The Scarlet Letter, the word ‘adultery’ is freighted with judgment, which worried some academics,” said Marilyn Edgmont, head of Keep American Literature Modest (KALM) a professors’ collective that monitors the site. “Students hated that she was involved in a sexual liaison with her minister (Reverend Dimmesdale). It grossed them out, and frankly teachers hate to have to answer questions, since every situation is relative. So we let readers create their own literature.” One WikiAuthor rewrote later chapters of the book as a “bromance” between the Reverend and his nemesis Roger Chillingsworth, which was quickly edited out by the site’s moderator. “In some states, that’s problematic. Until some of the laws are cleared up, we’re going to leave it as a traditional love story,” Edgmont said. Later in the afternoon, the ending was recrafted as a “more traditional romance,” in which Hester and Dimmesdale run away together to raise their now-adopted daughter, Pearl. “It was beautiful,” said Edgmont, blushing. “It’s how I always wanted it to end.”

A new downloadable application available for $1.99 on the KALM site offers a find-and-replace service for potentially uncomfortable nouns, verbs, and modifiers found in American literature such as “harlot” (replaced with sister), “queer” (unconventional), “black” (hued), “prudent” (saintly), “white” (unpigmented), “rape” (unwanted attention), “savage” (spontaneous), “son-of-a-bitch” (canine descended), “niggardly” (slavish), “fat” (husky), “native” (first inhabitor), “jew” (wanderer), and “bitch slap” (refudiate).

The list of available titles includes “tidier” Wikilit versions of renowned works such as The Last of the Mohicans, Charlotte’s Web, To Kill a Mockingbird, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Native Son, The Fight Club, Spoon River Anthology, The Bell Jar, Catcher in the Rye, Fahrenheit 451, and virtually anything written by Edgar Allan Poe or Allen Ginsberg. New books are being uploaded to the site weekly, each available in Kindle, Nook, and iPad versions. KALM’s goal is that by the end of the decade every American literary work will be represented by a “more reassuring” version.

“We’re not trying to rewrite the classics,” KALM’s mission statement explains. “We abhor censorship. This is simply a thematic cleansing to put readers who are already overwhelmed with the self-esteem compromising complexities of 24-hour news, mutating cultural boundaries, face-to-face conversations, and celebrity surgeries in a comfort zone to enjoy the classics.” With Huckleberry Finn, WikiLiterature has “freshened” Twain’s racial terms and cleaned up Jim’s diction to sound “more like Michael Steele, except without all the baggage.”

“We can’t wait to let readers have a go at Shakespeare and The Bible,” Bright said. “For now, though, we’re just sticking with American writers.”

More Good News

2011-01-03T11:36:00.000-08:00

Last November I wrote a piece about what I learned from my father, my mother, my kids, and our dogs. My wife, Louise, took exception though she never said so directly, only mentioning it peripherally about three dozen times. I watched her leave the house this morning, looking radiant as she ventured forth on a cold, rainy day to face the world as I lingered, unshaven, in my pajamas, clutching a mug of coffee (which she made) like a life raft. Then I was reminded to right a wrong, and just maybe sneak in a thought or two about why I adore her at the same time. So here are some lessons I have culled from Louise. And it's just the start.

Women sit in the car for 20 minutes before they pull out of the driveway. They just do. Don’t try to figure it out.

Laughing about nothing is as good as crying about something.

She is not a sounding board for my excuses.

She remembers everything I have ever said, by date and time, but never uses it against me.

Trust is sex is trust.

You can admit you’re wrong without using the apology as a weapon.

I could watch her operate the power drill I bought two years ago all day; in fact, it’s a pleasure to see someone finally use it.

She operates that same drill with more dexterity and less colorful language. I guess.

Before you stun him, hang him upside down, and eviscerate him while he’s still breathing, call someone.

She doesn’t complete me, but she sure adds to the mix.

She is left brain, I am right brain. I can write 250 words about the nature of the checkbook; she can balance it.

A new idea is not a threat.

It’s not necessary to have given birth to children to be a wonderful mother.

A little bit of peanut butter on the dog's nose is better than any movie with Jack Black.

2 x h (-m): Twice as hot without makeup.

What looks like a long, slow and painful death to me looks like a 250-piece puzzle to her.

Feelings change, but vows don’t.

You can listen with your heart, but you should get a second opinion.

There’s a lot to learn about all of them by watching her with my kids.

I am more to her than my credit score.

I will learn to love the dogs, or I will be sleeping in a crate next to theirs.

She loves me at all angles.

A column like this can (almost) make up for a week of distractions.

And Happy New Year to all of you who keep checking in.

Unforgettable Last-Minute Christmas Gifts

2010-12-21T11:14:00.000-08:00

The hottest gifts of the year are all gone, and they probably weren’t that great to begin with (ie: anything with chipmunks or the word “app”), so we’ve put together a list of last-minute presents for the busy shopper who’s already fobbed off every opportunity to go to the store in favor of “lunch with Captain Morgan” in the backyard gazebo. This is the perfect way to say goodbye to a season that’s been noticeably bereft of good cheer.

Hoarders Season I Box Set

Pull up a TV tray, push aside the garbage sack of bread bag ties and that stack of salvaged bubble wrap and settle back. This is the hit TV series with a legion of devoted fans that see it as the next civil rights issue. As we see it, this year’s Christmas treasure (right next to the Tom Arnold McHale’s Navy VHS) is part of next year’s Hoarders episode, which could wind up on Season 2, which becomes next year’s gift, and on and on. For joy that knows no boundaries, wrap it in newspaper and watch the lucky recipient sweat over whether it should go with the newspaper stack or in the oven with the saved gift wrap. There’s pleasure here for everybody.

Adopt a Democrat

Many Democrats this season find themselves without homes or hope, and some are simply waiting to be euthanized. While many of the Democrats up for adoption have behavioral problems and are unable to assimilate into the pack, all are worth a try. There’s no need to field a new Democrat when there are already so many waiting to join the right family. Won’t you help?

Toughskins “Urban Cowboy” Vest

Kids have it tough these days, and Sears Toughskins have always been there for them. A first Toughskin vest is a rite of passage for city kids, and our market research shows that durability is still the most important feature for parents buying children's apparel. Sears' engineers have created a stronger material than either the 50-50 blend of cotton and polyester or 100-percent denim most commonly found in kids’ clothes. This year’s new 75-25 vulcanized blend of Kevlar and cotton is a vest for a generation, a mixture of comfort and utility that can stop an errant hollow point at ten yards. It’s this season’s gift that promises a Christmas for next year.

Box O’Jars
Remember someone at 2:00 a.m. Christmas morning? Don’t fret! Scour your pantry for peaches, pears, soups, and pasta sauce. Dump ‘em, wash ‘em, and wrap ‘em! Aunt Trish will be delighted that you have so much faith in her canning verve. And isn’t faith what Christmas is all about? We'll bet our sugarplums it is.

Chewer Brewer

No one likes waiting for coffee to brew, so here’s a thoughtful gift for the person in a hurry. A chewed handful of whole beans washed down with a cup of hot water gives the full-brewed flavor of a good cup of Joe with minutes to spare. Use a tablespoon of ground espresso for an even faster brew and profound kick, releasing earthier tones and highlights with a savory aftertaste that lingers for hours. Bag of beans (8 oz.) comes with small measure spoon, mug, and instructions.

A Blockbuster Store/Detroit Home

This beats any Black Friday bargain by a mile: a complete Blockbuster store OR a 3-bedroom house in Detroit, all for less than the price of a latte. Let the collapsing real estate and DVD markets work in your favor, and give a gift that will be remembered long after the paper and bows have blown away.

ParkLife Camping Set

Okay, so you don't want to live in Detroit. Don't worry. This Christmas, you and your friends can laugh at foreclosure with this nifty camp set, which includes an aluminum-framed nylon igloo, Sterno ™ cooker, and two water-resistant down-filled sleeping bags, all tucked in a fashion-forward shoulder carrying case. You’ll be home for Christmas (even if "home" is next to a railway siding!). Your bank promises!

Target Reserve Parking Space

The day after Christmas is an ordeal, especially with returns, late purchases, half-off clearance sales and prickly employees. And the parking lot? A disaster, unless you have a Target “Reserve” parking space. This is the gift of love, given by a friend who is willing to get up at 3 a.m. on Dec. 26^th and sit in the Target parking lot space, acting like the car has just gone missing for a second. What better way to say, “thank you” for the ParkLife Camp Set?

High-Brow Green Technology Personal Groomer

Unwanted hair goes away with this green-tech personal groomer by High-Brow®. Safe, plentiful, and portable, you can keep one at home and one in your car for those last-minute touchups before an important meeting or date. Tis the season to exfoliate!

Jake: A Guide to the 21^st Century

His name is Jake, he’s eleven years old, and he’s your tour guide to the technical world. Jake knows how to program a Blu-Ray, install apps, clean a hard drive, stream Netflix videos to any screen, create a website, and get to Level Six of World Of Warcraft: Cataclysm. He can also synchronize a stereo, TV, and slow cooker, calibrate a regional electric grid, and use a milligram of weapons-grade plutonium to power an entire house (on a single remote control). The only thing he doesn’t know how to do is pick up after himself, find his homework, and stop asking what’s for dinner.

[With no irony or tongue-in-cheek snark, please know I appreciate your visiting Pachinko, and I wish each of you a happy, hopeful, and memorable Christmas]

Mystery Voice on New Jackson Album Reported to Be Putin

2010-12-13T23:40:00.000-08:00

(Los Angeles) - Michael Jackson’s first posthumous album, Michael, hits stores and iTunes today, but for weeks rumors have swirled around whether the vocal on “Breaking News,” a song previewed on the Michael Jackson website, was actually Jackson himself or another singer called in to beef up the track.

New light was shed on the controversy when Russian Federation Prime Minister Vladimir Putin sang “Blueberry Hill” to a roomful of Hollywood luminaries at a weekend fundraiser in St. Petersburg. A number of guests noticed the similarities between Putin’s confident vocal chops and playful crotch grab and the “Breaking News” voice purported to be Jackson’s. A Jackson family spokesman would neither confirm nor deny the connection.

Los Angeles Times pop music critic Ann Powers reported Sunday that Putin, a longtime Jackson devotee who had many times hosted the “King of Pop” at his home outside of Moscow, secretly traveled to Los Angeles in May and was seen briefly at Sony Studios, where an insider confided that the prime minister and former KGB operative was “laying down a couple of vocals” for a “special friend.”

When the latest song broke just before Thanksgiving, Jackson friends opposed to the new release immediately questioned the authenticity of the vocal. Speculation as to whose voice was used to supplement Jackson’s own has grown as the album’s release date approached.

“The clues that this is the voice on the new Jackson album had been around for months, but it took Saturday’s impromptu gig to connect the dots for me,” Powers said in a phone interview.

Putin, who bears an unsettling resemblance to British singer Phil Collins, has long been a pop culture follower, but until recently it was thought to be a mere distraction for a powerful and indignantly outspoken leader whose estrangement with Washington has been growing in recent years.

Until the singer’s death in June of 2009, Putin, Powers reports, had concealed his private obsession for all things Jackson. “He knows the whole Jackson catalog by heart,” Powers said, “and was famous for breaking into Michael’s songs and moves for close friends and trusted visitors.”

In 2005, Putin was seen on vacation sporting a tee shirt emblazoned with the words “SMOOTH APPARATCHIK.” His way around a Jackson lyric and beat, Powers says, is “remarkable.” Passionate renditions of the Jackson hits “Human Nature” and “Liberian Girl” at a pre-Olympics party in 2006 earned him the affectionate moniker “Vlad the Inhaler,” “but not to his face,” Powers said.

When Russian glamour-spy Anna Chapman was deported in July, secret recordings revealed that an alarmed Putin called her from his private phone to ask, “Anna are you OK? Are you OK Anna?” “You’d think somebody would’ve caught on right then,” Powers said.

“His favorite Michael material is from the Off the Wall and Thriller period, but he’s no slouch at the others,” Powers said. Putin, in fact, pushed his considerable political weight to replace the Russian Federation National Anthem with either “Invincible” or “They Don’t Care About Us,” but was quietly discouraged by the ruling Federation Council.

In 2004 Putin, incensed by a stubborn Chechen counterinsurgency, broke into a vodka fueled performance of “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” before he was whisked away asking "What? You'd rather hear 'Blood on the Dance Floor'? A 2009 Red Army Choir command performance of “Man in the Mirror” sent him running out of the Leningrad Opera House, sobbing.

Putin performed his version of Fats Domino’s “Blueberry Hill” on Saturday to a packed dining room as a second choice after he was convinced that “Bad,” would create unnecessary international tension. When his spoken word bridge to the song came, Black Eyed Peas singer and Jackson friend Will i. Am, who strenuously objected to the release of Michael, realized that it was the voice he heard in “Breaking News.” “That’s the guy,” he said. “That’s the voice. I knew it wasn’t Michael.”

Putin, who received an enthusiastic ovation from the crowd, reportedly had the backup band’s synth player imprisoned hours later for “screwing up my tempo.”

The prime minister said late Monday that he is taking meetings with Timbaland to produce a full album for a late 2011 release. He brushed off requests to comment on his contributions to the Michael album. “He wants it to stand on its own merits, and not because of his participation,” Powers said.

Wikileaks Docs Reveal Almost Universal Contempt for Kardashians

2010-12-07T09:54:00.000-08:00

While the purloined diplomatic cables published last week by website Wikileaks allowed a peek into the backroom conversations of world leadership, they also revealed an almost unanimous and startling revulsion the world over for the Kardashian sisters.

Whether east or west, Christian or Muslim, and despite a gulf of ideological and economic difference, world leaders agree that the stars of the reality show “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” are-- individually and as a set—“resource-sucking trollops” according to one British diplomat.

The sisters Kim (the curvy one), Khloe (the petite one), and Kourtney (the husky one) have, according to the diplomat, “quite possibly put the letter “K” through more hardship than the Kellogg’s Corporation and the Ku Klux Klan combined,” and were derided by former German president Horst Kohler’s chief of staff as “doing more to topple the world economy [than] Goldman Sachs.”

The sisters, who launched a debit card for teens on November 10^th to howls of protest, have already backed away from the endorsement after pushback from the World Bank. A missive from Secretary of State Hilary Clinton ordered diplomats to find out how many French, British, Russian, and Chinese Security Council members carried the cards, why they weren’t being honored when used by members of Congress, and why there was one in the glove box of her car.

And taking the anger a step further, VISA, Amazon, and PayPal have not only refused to honor the Kardashian Kards but have cut funding ties with Wikileaks creator Julian Assange as punishment for giving the Kardashians an even broader forum.

“It’s clear that these three top-heavy exemplars of American values are doing exactly what three decades of deregulated capitalism couldn’t do—get people to waste the equivalent of the Greek GNP on products that have turned meaninglessness into a duty,” said one member of German Prime Minister Angela Merkel’s inner circle.

Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan, in a February 2010 cable, tersely noted that, “they’re half-Scottish too, thank you very much.”

Even though the Wikileaks cables illustrated an almost universal gag reflex at the mere mention of the Kardashians, they did have their fans. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi couriered a personal letter to Kim Kardashian, inviting her and “the little one” [Khloe] to his villa in Naples. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad offered the girls a tour of his nation’s nuclear reactor core. “You are so hot!” Ahmadinejad declared in one cable. “You could only help in our refinement of yellow cake uranium! Later, we can walk down Nasty St. with the camera on, Sharia law be damned.”

Calendars featuring all three sisters are being used as Al Qaeda recruitment premiums, and the terrorist group itself has taken to spelling its name "All Kayda" in tribute to the girls' spelling in their Tweets. Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri also issued an appeal to the Al Jazeera television network via a Pakistani diplomat to “please pick up the E! Channel, I pray to you in the name of Him who loves jihad and Kourtney.”

Statisticians who pored through over 450,000 cables found that 198,211 diplomatic messages mentioned at least one of the sisters by name, 28,315 referred to them as “deplorable tarts,” a majority used the terms "skeevy" and "skanky," 18,756 declared that they didn’t know who the Kardashians were, while over 30,000 admitted that they “want to be like them.”

In other Wikileaks developments, approximately 35,000 diplomats expressed the sentiment that while Jennifer was the more accomplished dancer, Bristol showed the most improvement.

Some Good News

2010-11-10T11:56:00.000-08:00

LESSONS FROM MY FATHER

Be loyal.

Sand with the grain.

Remember that men cry. Just not all the time.

Get an education. That's not the same as "go to school."

Do what you said you'd do.

Learn how to polish your shoes and make a bed like a Marine.

Some day, you'll yell "turn that noise down!" and you'll think of me.

Your pals are your pals. I’m your father.

I’m willing to die for you, but you have to clean up after yourself.

If it falls on the ground, pick it up.

If it’s trash, throw it away.

Never. Never. Never hit girls.

Little things matter.

Big things pass.

You are destined for the same hairline.

You'll forget my shirts but you'll always remember my aftershave.

Respect your mother. She’s my wife.

Go ahead and sneer at my mistakes; when I'm gone they're all yours.

LESSONS FROM MY MOTHER

Ironing helps you forget.

If you pay attention, you can get all your family’s weekly groceries for twenty bucks (and have enough left over for lunch with your little boy at the Woolworth’s counter).

Enjoy your mischief but only tell one other person.

Magic is where you look for it.

Abuse doesn’t justify abuse.

Sometimes, all you’ve got to give is a kind word and a glass of water.

LESSONS FROM MY SON

If you put a toy plane under your pillow, you’ll fly in your dreams.

If your pal crashes his bike, carry him across the street and get him some Bactine and a bandage.

The passing of gas is always funny. No exceptions.

A hug from dad before bed forgives a lot of sins.

If you spend five minutes watching me play Star Wars Battlefront I will never forget it.

Everybody is funny, some intentionally.

Electric cars? Why aren’t there light sabers?

LESSONS FROM MY DAUGHTER

Sing, even if it’s only the dog watching.

It’s hard to dance without smiling.

If your older brother does something wrong, it’s always acceptable to rat him out.

The most important topic in 9-year-old girl-talk is “puppies.”

Birthday party planning begins the day after your last birthday.

LESSONS FROM THE FAMILY DOG

If it holds still, it’s worth humping. If it moves, better yet.

You’ll always be a puppy. That’s how you roll.

Water tastes best right from the hose.

What is it with squirrels?

He’s on your walk; stop and sniff whenever you like.

Bark, even when there's no reason for it. Repeat. Repeat.

Lick it like it’s Baskin-Robbins.

They have a dog park too; it's called the Rotary Club.

There’s never been a butt not worth sniffing.

When they try to push you away from their crotch, push back harder and make that gagging noise. That's power.

Kiss little kids; their faces are a buffet.

If you're really old and they want to take you for a ride, don't go.

If they force you to go, crap all over the car.

Police Urge Gang-Bangers to Aim at Children

2010-11-02T13:13:00.000-07:00

Los Angeles - After the tragic Halloween murder of a 5-year-old boy in South Los Angeles, an LAPD spokesman is asking gang shooters to think twice before pulling the trigger. "So many kids are getting killed in senseless crossfire, we think it would be helpful for gang rivals everywhere to aim directly at the kids themselves," said LAPD press liason James Guthrie. "Maybe that way they'll finally start hitting each other."

"We're trying to be pragmatic," Guthrie said. "Gangbangers generally don't work out their weapons skills at the range. They get most of their technique from John Woo films.

"Frankly, that Hard-Boiled, tilted-gun posturing in the movies is a joke--haven't these [gentlemen] heard of gravity? The bullets are flying everywhere and innocent people are being murdered in the name of looking like freakin' Wesley Snipes."

LAPD Chief Charlie Beck has joined the chorus of officers urging gangsters to "Target-a-Kid." "Studies are showing that unskilled shooters like the Kitchen Crips and the Swan Blood Gang [who are suspected in the murder of the five-year-old] have a higher percentage of hits on intended targets if they aim at local children. Otherwise their accuracy stinks. They should at least use that to everyone's advantage."

Gang members objected to their characterization as bad shots. "Sure, a lot of it's stance and 'tude, but why even pull the trigger at all if you gon' look like [that darned] Cliff Huxtable," said a member of the Westside Wilmas gang whose moniker is "Blinky." "You hit the pose, chamber yo' gat, and hope somebody else get hurt. Lotta guesswork. Therein lies the problem an' shit."

"We're in the process of working to certify gang members as marksmen to keep the guns out of the hands of members who are less competent," Guthrie said. "But you're still going to have your scofflaws. So for now, we're just urging them to take a moment and think first, find a small child nearby, and aim at them. They'll almost certainly nail some other jackass. We'll take that as a success for now."

Poll Stars

2010-11-01T13:59:00.001-07:00

Let’s get this out of the way: I don’t care how you vote tomorrow. I don’t even care if you vote—last time there was a low voter turnout, my vote counted times five. So you won’t get an argument from me or the 22 other people who showed up for that election.

If you’ve read the voter guides, followed the news, weighed your options, considered your guiding principles and are—like I am—willing to let providence have a hand in the outcome, then the republic is sound whether we agree or not.

But I think we might agree on one thing: that after all the shouting has faded into hoarse whispers, the nonspirational speeches and brain-numbing talking points forgotten, the disgust registered, the mud dried and the money spent, the final step of an election cycle—the polling place—is perhaps one of the most pleasantly unifying experiences of American life. That address on the back of your sample ballot is America at its best, and no matter where it is, it holds the air of a sacred place.

Mine is in a musty fluorescent-lighted fellowship room scented with coffee and doughnuts at the Lutheran Church around the corner. There are others in my city, at elementary schools, a city-owned log cabin at a local park, and the common room of an assisted living complex. Within 100 feet of the entrance to each of these places is a campaign-free zone, a place where you can rest your cranky senses from the assault of glossy smiling photos in the mailbox, nasty radio and TV ads, and rage-fueling robo-calls. It’s like riding into Fort Apache with the Indians a quarter mile behind you (forgive the political incorrectness and trite movie cliché).

With sample ballot already filled out and in hand, this whole process can take up to a full ten minutes from start to finish (so it’s understandable for some busy people to skip voting altogether, given the considerable sacrifice of time). But again, if you don’t want to vote don’t let me encourage you.

I’ll be there right on time as the place opens, and will likely be waiting with a few other eager voters as the poll workers get things in order. Poll work used to be the domain of “elderly with nothing else to do,” but lately younger (meaning middle-aged) people have bounded onto the field. No matter how old or young, there’s always something that needs to be done past opening hour; it’s just part of the process. You just wait for a few minutes and take it all in—the clumsily human part of democracy. There’s always a respectful silence in the line, and nobody at this point cares what your affiliation is, especially the volunteers. They’ll give you a warm welcome even if you plan to vote a straight fascist ticket.

You don’t need to show your ID—just provide your name and address. A very pleasant and painstakingly thorough poll worker will line out your name as you sign in. Unlike the cereal aisle at the market, there are no confusing choices beyond “Democrat,” “Republican,” or “Independent.” The poll workers are always full of warm conversation of the post office/barber shop variety. But don’t let the pleasantries fool you—the polling place is also home to a gravitas that matches the situation, because the little marks made on the ballot will determine public policy outcomes for years. But if you’re not voting, just enjoy the conversation and the free coffee.

People with kids will be there, too. In fact, you’ll run into all types—the gardener and the local real estate broker; the cop and the recovering alcoholic; the millionaire and the guy who’s got three weeks left on his unemployment benefits and no prospects. All of them are voting with one goal in mind: the best outcome for the city, the state, and the country. Sure, you can argue the methods, but this is a participatory form of government, and since we’re not likely to be invited to the table at any other event, this is where we have the power to awe leaders and potential leaders into remembering just who works for whom. And I'm using "awe" with all the weight and forcefulness the word is owed.

For you who will vote, there will be an uninterrupted and private time in the polling booth, where you will start to feel better immediately as you tick your way down the ballot you’ve already filled out. Don’t go there undecided—it’s a terrible feeling to be getting acquainted with the issues from the past 16 months in a 2 x 2 enclosure while standing. But since you might not be voting, don’t worry about that.

After you’ve deposited the ballot and kept your proof-of-vote stub, you get the “I Voted” sticker from yet another cheerful volunteer. Wear it with pride. Lord it over everyone. Enjoy it. Sure it’s tacky, but so what? So is not voting. You leave there nodding and bidding good day to the man or woman who may have cancelled out your whole ballot. But that’s the way it is, and that’s why a little surrender to providence always sugars the possible bitterness.

You’ll get another pleasant goodbye and thank you before you leave. They mean it, too. They’re lonely a lot of the time, so a visit from a voter, even one as confused, irritated, and cynical as I am, is like a letter from home. And they have always eased my mind, no matter what the issue on the ballot. I always leave feeling better, and it’s free.

Of course you don’t really have to vote, but since it’s so close and the benefits so obvious and (though fleeting) immensely rewarding, why not?

Zoo Fires Worker for Wearing "Slutty Penguin" Halloween Costume

2010-10-28T11:06:00.000-07:00

Portland, OR - An employee at the Greater Northwest Zoo has filed a discrimination lawsuit after being fired for wearing a Halloween costume described by colleagues as a "Slutty Penguin." The worker, who was not identified, showed up for work on Thursday dressed in a sheer, clingy halter top, hot pants, feathered headpiece, black cowl with a white mask, thigh-high stockings and "a style of boots favored by street prostitutes" according to a supervisor.

The 350-pound employee, who was not identified but referred to by coworkers as "David," was sent home immediately before the zoo's traditional noontime Children's Halloween Parade after a fracas erupted in the penguin habitat. Thirteen penguins were injured and three others were placed in an isolated enclosure.

Zoo spokesman Jeff Garrett said that the penguins had become agitated "in a manner consistent with mating rituals" when "David" wobbled into the parade lineup. "We can't have that kind of distraction--these animals need to be treated with respect." When "David" refused to cover himself or adapt his costume to another theme, he was sent home.

"This was a children's event, and his costume was inappropriate for the occasion," Garrett said.

"David's" discrimination lawsuit, filed hours later by Los Angeles attorney Gloria Allred, alleged that the zoo singled out "David" and categorically ignored other troublesome Children's Parade costumes such as Slutty Vampire, Slutty Big Bird, Slutty Dora, and Slutty Siamese Twins.

Penguin handler Lucky Rice would not comment on the incident. "I just got everybody calmed down," he said. "I hate Halloween."

Bullies Gather for Message: “It Gets Better”

2010-10-26T12:22:00.000-07:00

The keynote speaker at a national gathering of bullies soothed a downbeat yet vigorously hostile crowd with the message that “it gets better.” Barry Gilligan, an admitted bully from Canton, Ohio and president of the lobbying group American Bullies: Honor Over Rights (ABHOR), delivered the keynote address to an audience that reacted with tense reverence for the speakers and impatient bitch-slaps for some of the hotel’s banquet wait staff who were moments late with the entree.

Despite a month of near relentless negative publicity and several high profile ABHOR members “calling it quits,” bullies throughout the United States met in Elko, Nevada this week to reflect, regroup, and reassert their message. Bullies claim they have been unfairly blamed for the suicides of several gay teenagers, who had been harassed and humiliated in person and online “by people posing as bullies.” “I’m not saying our people did or didn’t do it. But listen—we’re Darwin in action; the weak either need to grow a pair or get out. This is New America.

“People say they’ll stand up to us,” Gilligan continued. “They say there’s blood on our hands and that people should wimp-out their kids to be more ‘accepting,’ whatever that means. And what do they do? Wear a new color of ribbon. Ooh--I'm scared!” The crowd, made up of timorous office workers, executives, schoolyard hooligans, a few second-string athletes, some well-known political figures, and a huge group of pimply, affection-deprived Internet thugs, roared and booed. Several threw drinks at each other while hotel security stood nervously at the perimeter.

“We will not stand by and watch impassively while snotty college-educated dorks and handsome, eloquent guys of a certain persuasion look at us like we’re nothing,” said Biff Kinnick, who is running for a state senate seat in Michigan. “Give me the Internet and some ‘connected’ donors and we’ll see who’s so smart,” Kinnick shouted over the crowd, which leaped up and down tossing chairs and centerpieces.

Many in the assembly held handmade signs declaring "Dateless But Not Powerless," “YOU THIK YOUR BETER THAN ME?” “Punch a Pusy,” and “VOT,” which was apparently a reference to next week’s mid-term elections. A spokesman for the group denied reports that several members were fashioning crude tools from stone and wood.

“You can’t lay the actions of the weak and underdeveloped on us,” Kinnick said. “If anything, we’re mettle testers. You need us to show yourself how much you can take. If anything, we’re providing a service. And what do we get? Whiny hand wringing and 20 minutes of crybaby talk on ‘Dateline.’”

A trio of teenage girls giggled as they worked out a threatening text message to a young cerebral palsy patient in Florida, while four young men in an adjacent video arcade set up just for the meeting played a hunting game called “A Boy Named Nancy.”

“You start out just ‘checking’ them against the locker or spitting in their lunch, then it gets really fun,” said Carl, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “You can give ‘em punches and ‘swirlies,’ and at the next levels you start wrecking their whole life,” he said, wiping his nose on the sleeve of a t-shirt reading “WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?” “We’re fighting for the heart of America.”

Asked what his long-term goals are, Carl grew briefly thoughtful. “I don’t know. Run for congress. Be a supervisor in a factory. That would be cool. But I’d maybe have to go back to high school. I think.”

Gilligan, 43, who lives in his mother’s garage and heads a war advocacy PAC called Bring America Back, urged the crowd, which by now was tossing food platters at the dais, not to let "a minority" of principled “liberal faggots” undermine democracy with same-sex marriage, fact-based logic, a return to sensible discourse, women’s right-to-choose and “other stupid legislation that is turning America into a dog park.”

“We’ve got leaders. We’ve got Rush, and Ann, and O’Reilly. We’re here to stay,” he said, growing misty-eyed. “I’ve seen our group go through hell lately, but believe me, it gets better. Just you wait.” When asked later about people voting their conscience, Gilligan grew agitated.

“Conscience is some pretty weak [stuff]. We’re at war here. We have to be brave, bold, and committed.” Before the event concluded, he and the other speakers exited through the kitchen to avoid an orderly crowd of protestors assembled outside the venue.

The hotel is pursuing legal action to collect on the NSF check left by the group.

Disney’s Beauty and the Beast: The Ultimate Edition

2010-10-12T10:21:00.000-07:00

The Walt Disney Company has just re-released a Blu-Ray incarnation of its Academy Award-winning animated musical Beauty and the Beast.

Acclaimed and treasured like no other, Disney’s modern classic—one of many Disney animated musicals that redefine both “modern” and “classic”—is transformed to a new level of entertainment (redefining “new” and “entertainment”) through the magic of Blu-Ray™ High Definition, which you have come to believe is like the very air in your lungs.

The music you will never forget, the characters that will fill your heart, and the magical adventure about finding beauty within all—which none of us really believe, do we?—come to spectacular living, breathing, moist and palpitating life in Blu-Ray. Trust us. Plus, all-new, immersive bonus features will transport you even further into Belle’s enchanted world and farther away from the desperate lifeboat of your sofa.

So "be our guest" (for $29.95) and join the beloved, independent Belle and the Beast you would let your daughter date as they cast an enchanting spell like never before, until next time.

Specs:

Blu-Ray

Way-Hi-Def 9,380 × 2100 pixels (720p) or 10,920 × 8,080 pixels actually penetrates the retina and scrambles the vitreous gel, rearranging your entire perception of space and motion and transforming your optic nerve into a clothesline.

Innovative Disney 4D puts you directly in harm’s way

36:1 audio captures sound from your own renal system and incorporates it into the score

Special Features:

Exclusive music video version of the song “Beauty and the Beast” by Michael Feinstein and Courtney Love
Three versions of the film, each one a renunciation of the one before it
Original theatrical version with a PIP of the storyboard, with audio track of storyboard artists discussing studio executives’ baffling requests for changes (“Waltz? Why a waltz? He’s a beast—they should do the Apache dance.”)
Alternate ending
Alternate opening (in storyboard)
Alternate film (in 8mm with kid actors)
Up close and personal celebrity interviews with people who have no idea what they are talking about but are deeply honored to work with each other
Michael Eisner summer vacation photomontage set to “Be Our Guest”
Coupon for horrifying costume characters of Belle and the Beast to visit your children’s preschool
Hologrammatic Howard Ashman-on-demand
Chance to win a new ending of your choice written by Linda Wolverton, who will accompany the original cast to your home to perform it live
A special word from Jeffrey Katzenberg about why this edition has it all wrong
Glenn Keane commentary
Bil Keane “Family Circus” commentary
Karaoke version of soundtrack for your family’s special “Sing-Along” night
Recording contract, tour itinerary, and TV show pilot for any singer in your family age 12-16

Limited time offer only; by the time you read this, the opportunity will have passed and Beauty and the Beast will go back to the Disney vault thousands of feet below the earth's surface in a Utah salt mine. Buy it now. Magic like this only comes around again about every six months.

Consumer Commission Orders Ball Recall

2010-10-04T07:32:00.000-07:00

The Consumer Product Safety Commission said Thursday that balls of all sizes from all manufacturers will be removed from retail stores immediately because of safety concerns. Fisher-Price, in the middle of another huge recall of tricycles and high chairs, has already recalled over 200 million of the round, flexible plastic toy.

CPSC Chairman Inez Tenenbaum said that there should be more focus on engineering safety in products made for children, especially something as potentially hazardous as a ball.

“We’ve tested them over and over, and they always come up short,” Tenenbaum said. “In the past year, over a million school-aged kids have been injured playing with balls.” The CPSC says that children have been seen bouncing, throwing, and even kicking the objects on playgrounds, often with dangerous results. “One mother was beside herself that her son got a black eye from a tether ball,” Tenenbaum explained. “What will it take to get toymakers to listen? A ball-related decapitation?”

“We get reports of near misses with these things every day,” said one elementary school principal. “You put sugary snacks, kid energy, and a ball together and it’s a recipe for tragedy. I hope parents will use good sense before purchasing these potential projectiles. Children are getting hurt, especially boys.”

Lee Carpentier, a spokesman for the beleaguered Toy Industry Association, says that every effort is being made to re-think the design and materials in a ball to diminish their hazardous potential. The recall, he explained, is “just the first part of a strategic response.

“We have released a set of public service announcements showing the possible deadly effect of throwing and catching a ball.” The series, “Give Up Your Balls,” shows children innocently playing dodge ball, basketball, long ball, and foursquare with tragic results. The tag line, shown on a black screen, drives home the message: Rubber, leather, foam, inflated/Ball safety can’t be overrated.

But Carpentier refers to many of the ball incidents as “kids being kids,” and calls the spike in ball accidents “part large motor development, part Darwin.” The TIA insists that the ultimate safety of a ball is in the hands of its holder, but the CPSC claims the position is “a backboard” to shift responsibility “from safe design to blaming the victim.”

The recall, which comes just weeks before the critical holiday shopping season, could be devastating to an industry already reeling from the weak economy and another widespread recall.

“We hope that in the future, parents can have complete peace of mind that the ball their child is playing with is injury-proof,” says Janine Risman, chairwoman of Helicopter Moms International. “Keep in mind, childhood is innocent fun, but the playground is a minefield. We’ve just created a Sidewalk Chalk Task Force, and that will be the focus next year once we can safely take our minds off of balls.”

“Allred” Gardening Tool Recalled by TrueValue

2010-09-30T23:24:00.000-07:00

Chicago - TrueValue Hardware has recalled a combination fertilizer spreader and landscape tool that promises to transform dirt into flowers. The “Allred,” a tool that comes in handy every four years for taking ordinary soil and turning it into a garden, was removed from TrueValue stores when it was found that the garden lasts only for two weeks and that the tool itself loses flexibility and rusts when stored.

The Allred has been a staple at TrueValue for decades, although few people have bought one and most who have bought it don’t know what to make of it. “It’s a tool that sort of looks like it’s helping the garden but is more interested in propagating itself,” said Inez Rodarte. But what’s weird is that damned garden—it’s gonna be dead before daylight savings time is over, I know it. Happens every time.”

“We keep the Allred around mostly for nostalgic reasons,” said Ben Nimitz, a TrueValue Hardware manager from Redondo Beach , California. “But nobody much cares about it because it doesn’t really help the person using it. It’s a tool’s tool.”

Republican “Pledge” Features New Healthcare Plan Via Redbox

2010-09-28T22:12:00.000-07:00

Washington, DC – The Republicans’ “Pledge to America” will make health coverage available to millions of uninsured Americans by offering low cost policies available at 25,000 Redbox DVD rental kiosks throughout the country says House Republican John Boehner of Ohio.

“Across America, the people see a government in Washington that isn’t listening, doesn’t get it, and doesn’t care,” Boehner said. “The Redbox Insurance Plan (RIP) speaks to that frustration. Now you’ll be able to get great entertainment like Get Him to the Greek and affordable health insurance at over 25,000 convenient locations for the price of a Red Bull.”

The insurance, underwritten by a number of as yet unannounced carriers, will cost $1.00, with a 24-hour coverage window that can be renewed daily for 25 days. At the end of the 25-day period, the policy is considered “fully in force” at a cost of $1875 per month, which will be automatically withdrawn from the renter’s credit card. The plan places the responsibility for illness and surgical planning “firmly in the hands of the consumer, where it belongs, not big government.”

Consumers who have purchased the plans through a test program backed by Anthem/Blue Cross find the concept confusing, but there has been some promising feedback. Arlette Healy of Grand Rapids, Michigan was delighted to find the new offering at the Redbox in the foyer of a Bob Evans restaurant. She and her husband had just gotten news of a recurrence of his non-Hodgkins lymphoma earlier in the week, and the Redbox plan was “a godsend.”

Her husband Randy is looking at another round of expensive treatments, and with the house in foreclosure and his manufacturing job outsourced to Istanbul, they were unsure of how they would pay for the life-extending health care he needs. “Then just as I’m renting The Bounty Hunter I see the insurance and I thought ‘God, thank you for an alternative to Obamacare.’ Four bucks later, we’re laughing on the couch and getting Randy ready for his fourth round of chemo. I’m going back in the morning to renew if we haven’t maxed out the card.”

Democrats on the healthcare committee expressed outrage at the plan, citing the “penurious late fees and very limited coverage, which is good only on the day of purchase and comes with no assurances that any of the bills will be covered.”

“Read the fine print,” Representative Ann Cheatham (D-Illinois) said. “The Healys are covered for a Wednesday, and the 24 hours begins at the moment of purchase. According to our consultants, Mr. Healy’s treatments started at 7:32 p.m.. He hasn’t even filled out forms yet, and the clinic where he’s receiving treatment opens at 9:00 the next morning. If the card is rejected, so is the entire claim.

"Our plan would at least have some more rhetorical flourish."

House Republicans scoff at such criticism. “We’re taking coverage right to the streets,” said one Republican committee member. “As long as they renew faithfully, citizens are covered. We can’t be responsible if they forget to renew, though.”

Redbox expects to roll out insurance offerings at all of their kiosks by summer of 2011, although some insurance companies are withholding newer premium-care packages for 60 days after they hit the market. To make up for the gap, Redbox plans on incentives such as discount coupons for over-the-counter medicines and health hotlines for people who are too weak to return to the point of purchase.

Emboldened by the forward-thinking, free enterprise nature of the plan, Republicans will next tackle Social Security, Medicare, and education funding via state-administered SuperLotto scratcher cards that will determine the amount of monthly payment.

“If the Redbox program is a success—and we see no reason why it won’t be—this will revolutionize healthcare in our great country,” Boehner said.

Redbox is also in the final stages of creating absentee ballots and voter machines for their kiosks. According to a company spokesman, some of the innovative new machines will be in place for the 2012 elections.

Postal Service Says “The Hell With It,” Raises 1st Class Stamp to $37

2010-09-27T22:19:00.000-07:00

Washington, DC – The United States Postal Service has proposed an 800% increase in the price of a first class stamp to $37.00 “just to get it the hell over with,” said Postmaster General John Potter.

The increase which, depending on congressional approval, may go into effect as soon as 2011, is an attempt to leapfrog over a nagging $7.1 billion deficit facing the post office for fiscal 2010-11. “We believe that this increase in revenue will finally allow us to be competitive with FedEx and the United Parcel Service, and will keep us from painful layoffs and shortfalls in service for the next few years,” Potter added. The increase will add approximately $104 monthly to the average American’s budget.

Plummeting mail volume tied to the recession and the use of the Internet spurred the admittedly controversial rate jump. Staggering under enormous losses and considering the elimination of a delivery day, the USPS announced in July a two-cent increase in first class postage to 46 cents, on the heels of a three-cent increase in 2009. The USPS noted that the increases were necessary to keep the institution viable. Despite eliminating millions of work hours and reducing expenses by more than $1 billion every year since 2001, a budget gap remains.

“It’s simple math,” Potter said with some exasperation. “We raise the price two cents and everybody piles on with the complaints, so we had a strategic meeting and came to the conclusion that there’ll still be blowback, but not 800% worth. Rather than suffer the death of a thousand cuts, we’re going with one big incision and see how that goes.”

“There is no one single solution to the dire financial situation that the Postal Service faces,” Potter said. “This proposed adjustment is, relative to bank and automobile bailouts as well as floating those deadbeat Einsteins at Fannie Mae, a moderate and sensible approach to insuring mail service for all Americans well into the future. We’re just back-loading the ‘well into the future’ end of it.”

But organizations like the Affordable Mail Alliance, a newly formed lobbying group of direct mail advertisers, major trade groups, and publishers have taken their objections to Washington, fearful of the economic impact of proposed hikes. “We had to speak with one voice to let legislators know that this is the wrong time for an increase like this,” said Jerry Chaffee, a spokesman for the group. “It’s outrageous. We were pissed after they asked for two cents, so you can imagine how many arteries started slamming shut after they proposed this fiasco. I wish I had stock in Lipitor.”

“Sweet mother of Mabel. Two cents, and you’d think we’d demanded a loyalty oath,” an exasperated Potter countered. “Tough times demand big ideas, so we figured ‘why not think really big and just get it the hell over with?’ It’s not like we’re still the Pony Express. We’ve got tradition, duty, and a huge nut to cover every year. Selling boxes and tape and those creepy ‘Forever stamps' just doesn’t get the job done.

“This outfit was founded by Benjamin-freakin’-Franklin. That’s founding fathers cred here. Who founded UPS or FedEx? Some guy with an MBA and a polo shirt, that’s who. Every day, one of our people comes right to your door with a handful of important papers just for you. Every day.

"On top of that, many of our carriers are asked to open jars for old ladies and sniff around the house for natural gas leaks. One of our mail carriers even helped re-install Windows Vista for a guy who—get this—needed to pay his bills online. You think we’re going to do this anymore for 46 cents? Think again.”

Naturally, an increase of this magnitude must carry a value-added component lest congress and consumers reject it out-of-hand; mail carriers will now be required to have a basic understanding of plumbing, electrical, and automotive repairs as well as two semesters of psychological counseling courses to deal with customers suffering from loneliness and depression. “Everybody wants to chew the fat with our carriers. We expect the [delivery] rounds to take considerably longer than in the past,” Potter said. “Just wait till we submit our budget for 2013. That’s gonna be a doozy.

“By the way, when’s the last time you heard about somebody ‘going postal’ who’s actually been a USPS worker? We’ve gotten a bad rap.”

Congressional leaders have been mum publicly on the new rate increase, but some have said off-the-record that it would be labeled a "convenience fee," thus escaping the fury of November voters.

Christine O’Donnell: The Proust Questionnaire

2010-09-22T17:18:00.000-07:00

The Tea Party-supported Delaware Republican candidate for the senate has taken center stage in this year’s mid-term elections. Here, exclusively, we present her Vanity Fair Proust Questionnaire, where she sounds off on love, lust, and Tolkien.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Seeing Yahweh’s name in my inbox.

What is your greatest fear?

Waking up between Karl Rove and Eddie Izzard.

Which historical figure do you most identify with?

Frodo.

Which living person do you most admire?

Kathy Ireland.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?

Reason.

What is your favorite journey?

Anything with Steve Perry.

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

Consistency. Maybe afterglow.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

Crushing tax burden. Finger the Fig. Chlamydia.

What or who is the greatest love of your life?

I’m on the fence between Edward or Jacob.

What is the lowest depth of misery?

The day Wham broke up.

When and where were you happiest?

The day I got my first wand.

Which talent would you most like to have?

The ability to turn Bill Maher into a newt.

What is your current state of mind?

I guess that’d be Delaware on the cusp of DC.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

Redefining “lust.”

What is your most treasured possession?

My Glock 9mm.

Where would you like to live?

Middle Earth.

What is your favorite occupation?

Senator. Or philologist. Or Queen of the Shire.

What is your most marked characteristic?

Truthiness.

What do you value most in your friends?

Compliance.

How would you like to die?

Of laughter! No, wait--a brain aneurysm.

If you could choose what to come back as, what would it be?

A unicorn.

What is your motto?

“I’m here. I just don’t know why I’m here.”

Facebook to Add New “Reaction” Buttons to Site

2010-09-18T02:28:00.000-07:00

Palo Alto, CA – In response to an increasingly shrill political landscape and a demand for more specific single-button responses in addition to “Like” and “Share,” the social networking website Facebook will add three new “reaction” buttons to its pages by November 1^st.

Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said the new buttons will be designated as WTF (I don’t understand), STFU (I disagree with your point), and GFOH (Stop kidding me).

The three were culled from tens of thousands of suggestions by Facebook’s users and were chosen to “enhance and encourage expression based on a bold new brand of cultural etiquette.” Users had complained that the “Like” button was too limiting, and Facebook’s own suggestion of a “Don’t Like” button carried “the freight of victimization.”

“We want to empower our users to speak their minds, and these new choices will facilitate that without wasting more of their employers’ valuable time,” Sandberg said.

Button nominations that made the final list before being eliminated were NFL (Nobody listens), ESAD (I didn't care for that), UR1DMSOB (That was not very smart of you to say), and NOBDGVSASHT (Frivolous post).

“We were blessed with a bounty of choices,” Sandberg added, “and tried to keep the level of exchange light and on a positive note, although my personal favorite was IWNTUDED (I find your existence offensive). Mark (Zuckerberg) thought that might be a little harsh, lol.”

Whitman Buys Brown From Democratic Party

2010-09-17T17:14:00.000-07:00

Sacramento, CA – In a surprise move just 53 days before state elections, California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman has announced the purchase of rival Edmund G. Brown, Jr. in a cash-and-stock deal. Whitman made the purchase as part of an overall strategy to cover all bases in her first election campaign. The California Democratic Party had been jockeying to sell Brown since his candidacy was announced on March 1st.

No details of the exact purchase price were made public, but insiders claimed that the 54-year-old former eBay CEO was able to secure Brown for approximately $38 million. The acquisition of the California attorney general puts Whitman within striking distance of the governorship. A Whitman aide commented that the purchase of Brown is “ another example of Meg’s ambition and take-no-prisoners leadership approach.”

“Jerry’s purchase was considered early on as he’s not only a valuable commodity, but he's collectable,” a Democratic National Committee member said. “She got him at a fairly low price, and his value is expected to rise the closer we get to November.” Rumors that Brown would be given a makeover and “flipped” before the election have been circulating in Sacramento for weeks, and the purchase brought that closer to reality.

Whitman, a political novice, has spent a record $119 million on her campaign according to public records filed with the election commission, which Whitman had tried to buy in early June (she settled for the purchase of a state building in Fresno). While Brown didn’t officially announce his candidacy until he was almost certain to lose, Whitman began her candidacy in late 2008, the first year she ever “seriously” voted. She had cast votes in the past, she said, but set her civic duty aside for years “after Justin lost to Kelly.”

Brown’s office had no comment on the acquisition, but California insiders speculated that the former governor had been “in play” for some time. “They were just waiting for the price to come down relative to his value to the campaign,” a state senator said, requesting anonymity. “And Jerry’s shrewd. He’s not going to give himself away,” he said.

On a presumably unrelated eBay posting that went online Tuesday, an item listed as “free-thinking 72-year-old male with great ideas; knows ins and outs of budgeting, alliances, and union negotiations” started bidding at $4.3 million. There were three bids so far, with “52 days, 11 hours,” left until the final sale.

The Order of Things

2010-09-13T14:26:00.000-07:00

Hey, you know something people? I'm not black, but there's a whole lots a times I wish I could say I'm not white. –Frank Zappa, “Trouble Every Day”

There are packs of idiots on both ends of the racial/political spectrum whose rhetoric—vile and bountiful in its store of hatred, ignorance, victimization, and self-pity—has only served to push anger and defensive reactions about race, religion, and national identity toward the center. If ever a discussion needed reasonable voices and open ears, this is it. If you think otherwise, talk to Shirley Sherrod.

Even after noble but usually half-measured attempts to integrate people (via busing and affirmative action), in the end we all pack up our tents and stick with our own camps, which seems more a part of our basic, homogeneous tribal origins and less a rejection of others. We cleave to our own, but I know that I would wither and die in a city that didn’t have lots of people who don’t look or talk like I do. I’ll take diversity any day over a planned community full of people who wear sweaters. And on a purely visceral level, I'd be delighted if President Obama rocked a dashiki for the next State of the Union address. Nobody would be barking "You lie" during that speech.

Actually, I don’t much like the term “diversity,” a polite political contrivance that carries the freight of agenda, when the reality is that we all rub shoulders uneasily, cautious and afraid of each other’s cultures in their strangeness, like trying to push two magnet poles together that are made to resist each other.

There’s a parallel in religion. While acknowledging a Creator pretty much across the board, the strict Bible readers don’t trust the “idolatrous” Roman Catholics, guitar-mass Catholics don’t get along with pre-Vatican II believers, the Episcopalians roll their eyes at each other, the Jews struggle against constant suspicion and misunderstanding, the Buddhists keep their divisions to themselves, the Hindus have been slugging it out with each other for centuries, just about everybody wants to take a swing at Islam and, as it is with poets and Rapture believers, nobody listens to the atheists.

In discussions of race, it’s much the same thing. We seem to vault our common welfare and go right to the barbed wire.

For a long time I’ve marveled at the willfulness with which we carve ourselves apart from each other (and cheat ourselves in the process) through labeling. Because of my distant ancestry, surname and almost fluorescent coloring I’ve been called Irish-American, which makes me laugh since I’ve never been to Ireland.

I am Caucasian, probably closer to beige than white (my great-great-great grandfather was, I am told, half Cherokee, allowing me only the benefit of a light beard), and I have neither pride nor embarrassment over the color of my skin, as I have learned the hard way that what is worth being proud or ashamed of is the fruit of my actions. Nonetheless, Caucasian is my “affiliation.” Over the years, I’ve been humbled and humiliated by my own racial ignorance, grateful to be left holding a shred of common sense that demands I keep my eye on what people do rather than their hue.

What I find unifying in my life’s experience is what I share with about 320 million other people: a devotion to the founding principles of my country, an almost painful love for my children and the world they’re inheriting, a pre-set respect for and interest in what happens to my neighbors, a belief in fairness and freedom to live out whatever destiny (good or bad) may come my way or yours, and a deep celebration of other people’s courage in their struggles and triumphs. And these are universal principles (of course there are exceptions--that's why we have a system of courts and prisons).

One thing I don’t have is a desire to separate myself from my fellows, so if the subject of nationality or race comes up, I don’t ever refer to myself as Irish or European-American. The mere racial or geographic affiliation instantly distances me from a huge group of the very people whose destinies are entwined with my own. In America of 2010, any small change to stop the erosion of our shared experience will help.

So here's my solution.

I am American first, with a subset (European, Irish) born only of chance. So if you must, call me American-Irish. And I think with the simple switching of the terms, I bring myself closer to other citizens: American-Blacks (a black-skinned Dominican friend broils when he’s called “African-American”), American-Mexicans (or American-Latino, American-Brazilian, or American-Puerto Rican), American-Asians, American-Natives, American- Iraquis and American-What-Have-Yous. No matter our differences, we’re first Americans.

Changing the order of affiliation might just be the easiest and most obvious first step to unify us with due respect to our “tribes” and open a smoother path toward a civilized conversation about race or religion.

It’s a start, simple and probably a little naïve, but it costs nothing and is a first step to some semblance of unity. I’m a man—American by birth, man by chromosome. An American Man. That’s my designation for good.

Anyone care to join me in the emphasis shift?

Quran-Burning Church Ignites Shrub, Gets Searing Lecture

2010-09-10T08:49:00.000-07:00

Gainesville, FL – The planned controversial Quran-burning ceremony at a fundamentalist Gainesville church was in question Thursday when, during a dry run burning Anne Rice novels, congregants accidentally set a decorative shrub ablaze, which angrily admonished the group.

According to eyewitnesses, the practice burn had proceeded without incident, but just as a copy of Rice’s Blackwood Farm was being set afire, a flash of sparks spread to the shrubbery, which burst into flame. The shrub reportedly yelled, “Put that damned thing down” when some church members grabbed a fire extinguisher.

“I couldn’t believe it,” said a clearly shaken attendee. “Everyone just froze. Then the bush told Pastor Terry to “step up here and tune in.”

The Dove World Outreach Center had promised to burn copies of the Quran to mark the anniversary of the September 11 attacks and “send a warning” to Muslims. With over a billion practitioners of Islam in the world, the threat posed by Pastor Terry Jones’ tiny 50-member congregation was unclear.

Using vocabulary that included the terms “bitch,” “jack-jaw,” and other epithets that cannot be repeated in a mainstream publication, the flaming shrub then upbraided Jones and his followers.

The bush reportedly yelled, “Terry! Oh, Terry!” and when the pastor identified himself it beckoned him forward. “That’s close enough,” it said. “Take off your shoes and your socks. And lose the jacket—nobody’s worn polyester since the Carter administration. You’re on holy ground now, [synonym for female dog].

“Every 3000 years or so I get so fed up with what you people are doing that I have to step in and clarify,” the bush continued. “The last time was with Moses, but he was doing something good for his people and needed a pat on the back. But you…” The bush said, taking in a large gust of air. “You’re something else entirely. And I’m up to here with it,” although with a flaming bush “up to here” was hard to interpret.

“Listen, Nimrod. You and your half-wit brethren need to dial down the self-righteous [stuff]. What part of ‘all-powerful’ and ‘Creator of the heavens and Earth’ is confusing you? Do you think I can’t handle a few thousand people who wear what they SAY are my words like a suicide vest? Come on, you [popular female-hygiene device]. I take care of everybody, the living and the dead. Here’s the deal: you make nice and help the poor and empty of spirit, and I’ll take care of the other [circular egress point for human waste]. If anybody gets hurt because of your [crude gerund term for reproductive act] around, it’s on your head.“

“Why have you chosen me?” Jones implored. “I’m a mere servant in a small congregation, doing the work of the Lord. Islam is evil.”

“Cut the [livestock excrement],” the bush replied. “Since when do Christians have the market cornered on righteousness? Care to talk to Timmy McVeigh? Oh, sorry—right now he’s a little…occupied, if you catch my drift. I’m having a terrific time with the hijackers and all the other [people] who believe that interpreting my word means blowing up innocent men, women, and kids in a Sbarro’s on the West Bank. Think I need your help? Think again.”

“But I…” the pastor said.

“Just tighten up your faith and slow your roll, pal. You’re not here to interpret. You’re here to spread the Good News. Everything else is just a way for you to pass the basket twice.”

“But what about Islam? Atheists? Non-believers?” the minister replied. “Their wickedness is the way of Satan.”

“I’m sorry—is your cakehole making noise again? I can hardly hear myself think. Listen, Mr. I-Was-God’s-College-Roommate. I’m big enough to love everybody—even the ones who can’t believe in me. How big an ego do you think I have? What am I? Kanye West? I made everybody. Even you in a weak moment.

“But I’m feeling kinda cuddly today, so I’m going to give you an ‘out.’ Lay off the Quran and I’ll leave quietly. Tell them you “came to an agreement” with an Imam or somebody not to burn anything and I promise not to burn you. You and your pack of weasels make everybody who believes in me look bad.

“And just for the record—if anybody keeps an accurate record, Deuteronomy—I’m saying the same thing at this same moment to every pious (paper container for feces) religious leader of every bogus religious affiliation in every corner of the world, not because they’re ‘blessed ‘ but because I’m pissed. Pissed! Play with fire, [masturbatory term], and you get burned. Now, go change your pants, padre.

“Everybody else: CLEAN YOUR HOUSE. Capiche?”

The pastor later announced that he was considering cancelling the Quran burning after a face-saving “deal” reached with the president of the Islamic Society of Central Florida and the imam of the controversial “Ground Zero Mosque” in New York.

While fundamentalists of all faiths were reported to have nervously taken the bush at its word, all were terrified the most by something almost overlooked in the fury of the message: it was spoken in a woman’s voice.

Spector to Produce Chapman Christmas Album

2010-09-07T23:08:00.000-07:00

New York - Just one day after being denied parole for the sixth time, John Lennon’s murderer, Mark David Chapman, has announced that he will record a collection of Christmas songs to be produced by Phil Spector. It is the first prison-to-prison project in music history. Spector, who is serving 19 years to life in California’s Corcoran State Prison for the shooting death of actress Lana Clarkson, calls the project “a natural.”

Christmas in the Rye is planned as a holiday 2011 release, and will include familiar standards as well as Chapman/Spector originals such as “I Shot Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” “Christmas Stalking,” “Slay Ride,” and “I’ll Show You What Happens (If I Don’t Get What I Want).”

Chapman shot Lennon to death outside the iconic singer's Manhattan apartment building on Central Park, and was sentenced in 1981 to life in Attica State Prison in New York with the possibility of parole after 20 years. The widow of the former Beatle, Yoko Ono, has said on repeated occasions that she is opposed to Chapman's release because she still considers him a threat to her family. His requests for parole have been rejected every two years since 2000.

It will be Spector’s second full-length recording project in 30 years, following the 2010 release of his wife Rachelle Spector’s bouncy Out of My Shelle, which he also produced from a 5’ x 10’ studio with somewhat less extravagant recording equipment than he is accustomed. Christmas in the Rye will be available via digital download as well as through Attica’s online gift shop.

Spector has promised a return to his famed Wall of Sound approach for Chapman, which he’s dubbed “Inside the Walls of Sound.” He has also made overtures to Sirhan Sirhan, “Night Stalker” Richard Ramirez, and Scott Peterson to record for him under his fledgling Big House label.

Chapman, always an enthusiastic music fan, is known to be an emotional follower of “American Idol” and “America’s Got Talent,” loudly singing along from his isolation cell in a voice described by fellow prisoners as a cross between “a man being garroted and Taylor Hicks.”

“He knew his parole wouldn’t fly,” said Attica guard Jerome Jessup. “Hell, Sunday night the other inmates torched their mattresses when he broke into 'And I Am Telling You I Am Not Going,'” from Dreamgirls.

“He (Chapman) has really got the chops to be a pop singer,” Spector’s spokesman Arnold Kemp said. “And we can fix everything in post, which is the way the business is these days. Neither of these pricks should ever see daylight again; that said, I think Phil and Mark are turning negatives into positives and continuing a tradition that began with the Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison album from the 1960’s. It’s a match made in…heaven. Sort of.”

Chapman, in a statement through his publicist, said that, “working with Phil was a dream—pure magic, even if the engineer was sweating bullets.” A rough musical track was recorded in Los Angeles, and Chapman laid down vocals with a chorus of inmates that has taken on the stage name “Really Bad Company.”

“I hope to do for Mark what I was able to do for Rachelle,” Spector said. “It’s a digital age. Working in prison’s a lot like working from home, except there’s no driver to take you out clubbing.”

Chapman is also said to be finishing a manuscript for a children's storybook. The tentatively titled Now Who's the Freakin' Walrus? will be published by HarperCollins, a News Corp. company.