Ahhhhh Shit Screwed Again

All of the benedictions, invocations, prayers, religious entreaties, supplications, and imprecations for our country and our new president today at the inaugural marathon were for naught, as theologians discovered today that the power of the Lord and his sidekick, Jesus Christ the Savior, is in fact finite. God, sometime during last Sunday afternoon, was compelled by Arizona Cardinals QB Kurt Warner to cast his most devastating spell, the Incantation of Professional Football Team Victory, leaving him drained and unable to recuperate enough magic points to bless the two million onlookers and participants in the inauguration festivities today.

Apparently, God had taken a minor regenerative potion, restoring about 33% of his total abilities, but this was also quickly spent on a series of Blessing of Buzzer Beaters spells during the Monday NBA schedule: Dirk Nowitzki, lifting the Mavs over the 76ers, Chris Paul, taking the Hornets past the Pacers, and even a negative prayer by a random Houston Rockets fan, causing the stalwart Kenyon Martin to brick two potentially tying free throws with limited time remaining.

Sorry, those of you without health insurance and currently jobless: you were too late!

This is the Modern GOP

Also believes that the Duke boys are actually in trouble...

[Senator Cornyn asks about the ticking time bomb scenario, and asserts that waterboarding in this case would be the only option left]

(AG nominee Eric) HOLDER: I think your hypothetical assumes a premise that I’m not willing to concede.

CORNYN: I know you don’t like my hypothetical.

HOLDER: No, the hypothetical’s fine; the premise that underlies it I’m not willing to accept, and that is that waterboarding is the only way that I could get that information from those people.

CORNYN: Assume that it was.

HOLDER: [Laughs] Given the knowledge that I have about other techniques and what I’ve heard from retired admirals and generals and FBI agents, there are other ways in a timely fashion that you can get information out of people that is accurate and will produce usable intelligence.

CORNYN: OK, but would you cut the green wire or the red wire?

HOLDER: Excuse me?

CORNYN: Dammit, Chloe, I don't have time for this!!

HOLDER: Chloe?

CORNYN: I think you have a mole in CTU.

HOLDER: I'm not aware of any such agency in existence.

CORNYN: Do you wanna hear that sometimes I think about eatin' a bullet? Huh? Well, I do! I even got a special bullet for the occasion with a hollow point, look! Make sure it blows the back of my goddamned head out and do the job right! Every single day I wake up and I think of a reason not to do it! Every single day! You know why I don't do it? This is gonna make you laugh! You know why I don't do it? The job! Doin' the job! Now that's the reason!

HOLDER: [sighs] I'm gettin' too old for this shit.

Eight Years of the Bush Administration in Five Animated Minutes

We as Americans didn't order 'uhhhhh,' did we?

Finally Captured by the Grim Reaper's Sentient, Floating, Ravenous, Howling White Bubble

Patrick McGoohan, 1928-2009:







I'm not sure, but I think he just fucked up Sean Connery. UPDATE: And in true, three-on-a-match celebrity fashion, the great Ricardo Montalban has been felled. For a Gen Xer like myself, he was always Khan or Mr. Roarke, but (like Cesar Romero) we forget that he was a great leading man of the 40s and 50s...



Hopefully, Shatner will not be the third in this trilogy, nor will he deliver the eulogy at Senor Montalban's funeral.

Categorical Imperatives From Bob Dylan Circa 1965

1. Look out kid / 2. Walk on your tip toes / 3. Don't try No-Doz / 4. Stay away from those that carry around a fire hose / 5. Keep a clean nose / 6. Watch the plain clothes / 7. Get sick / 8. Get well / 9. Hang around a ink well / 10. Ring bell / 11. Try hard /12. Write braille / 13. Jump bail /14. Join the army if you fail / 15. Don't follow leaders / 16. Watch the parking meters / 17. Get born / 18. Keep warm / 19. Learn to dance / 20. Get dressed / 21. Get blessed / 22. Try to be a success / 23. Please her / 24. Please him / 25. Buy gifts / 26. Don't steal / 27. Don't lift / 28. Jump down a manhole / 29. Light yourself a candle / 30. Don't wear sandals / 31. Try to avoid the scandals / 32. You better chew gum

Re: Item #15. There will be plenty of prayerfulness, both gay and straight (they cancel each other out, dontcha know?) at America's political halftime show. If you want to play a nice game of "Kill Your Friends With Acute Alcohol Poisoning," take a shot of JTS Brown Whiskey (the kind swilled by the late Paul Newman in The Hustler) every time the word "blessing," "God," "divine," or "semprini" is used in the very silly proceedings.

I can understand the natural (and rightful) joyfulness at Republicans not being in control of any the branches of government, unless you count the judiciary and the entrenched, burrowed-in ideologue dickholes in the federal bureaucracy. What I can't understand is normally intelligent people treating the Hooray for America crapola in Washington DC next Tuesday as their Woodstock or Lollapalooza '95 (The Jesus Lizard AND Pavement? HOLY SHIT!). David Bowie once said something in the early 70s about the coming together of a large number of people being very unnatural and unnerving. He's always ahead of the curve, that one!

P.S. I am fully behind this sort of quixotic saber-rattling. If you set your expectations low enough, even the indictment of a midlevel procurement manager at the Pentagon or what's-her-face... the crazy one who purged the nonpolitical appointees at the Department of Justice... can be satisfying.

Ding-a-linging Is an Improper Gerund

I had no idea Taylor Negron was in Nothing But Trouble. Taylor is the glue that holds most of the marginal comedies of the 80s and early 90s together; who else had the versatility to play mailmen in two separate, seminal flicks: How I Got Into College and its better-known cousin, Better Off Dead [he began this run of giving things to other people with his uncredited "Deliveryman" in Johnny Dangerously, a grossly underrated movie]. Who else could have propped up an on-autopilot Rodney Dangerfield, flush off his unexpected success in Caddyshack, in his solo vehicle Easy Money, which is not at all based on the King Crimson song of the same name? Being an actual working comic, his authenticity was sorely needed in the laughless graveyard that was Punchline, as Sally Field is about as funny as rabies and Tom Hanks is about as funny as the cure for rabies. Really, if you want to see a movie about struggling comics, check out that one with Julie Kavner (This Is My Life).

I am sorry for the non-Taylor Negron-related content in that previous train-wreck of a paragraph. And now, a bonus video in honor of our 43rd President's farewell stammer-a-thon yesterday. There's a fine line between idiocy and stupidity, and yet another between self-pity and self-congratulation, and he blurred them both:



Mötley Crüe is more lifelike than I seem to remember them.

The Same Commercials Over And Over Again

Did you know that the difference between Budweiser and the other beers is "drinkability"? Did you know that the automatic spell-checker underlines this meaningless word? Apparently, the ability to be consumed, without chewing, via the throat and esophagus is what sets apart this most crapulent (also underlined) of alcoholic beverages. Other beers, such as Heineken Hard Resin or Anchor Steam Jagged Lager-Soaked Razor Blades, injure or kill the prospective beer consumer, making St. Louis' finest tepid brand of pasteurized, liquidized filth the only alternative.

Similarly, Wendy's informs us, repeatedly and against our will using a bunch of sub-moronic The Office rejects, that their 99 cent Menu of Abject Despair is "way better" that some other fast food alternatives, be it Arby's Tongue-Colored Punch-in-the-Nuts or Sonic's Triple-Fried Cyanide Pellets with Jalapeno Ranch dipping sauce. Speaking of Sonic, why is it that America spends nearly one-half trillion dollars on defense every year, and yet are unable to incinerate their incredibly annoying carbound douchebags with some sort of space-laser?

P.S. E-Trade, which should be out of business because of the general moneylessness of the American public, makes it advertising decisions in a method like this (look out, they use the word 'fuck').