Scott's Brain Meat

2/1/12: New Post, New Job, New Sale, New Chair, Same Old Mitt

2012-02-01T17:19:00.000-05:00

Been light on the blogging lately, but with very good excuses, the main one among them being a new job which came out of the blue about a month ago.

There I was, slumped over the desk at my depressing, soul-sucking nightmare of a job, wondering exactly what I could do to extricate myself from my hopefully temporary vocation, when a random call from an old friend dropped the solution to all my problems right in my lap. There's nothing more boring than listening to someone describe their good fortune in great detail, so all I'll say is that I am now working from home and earning more doing so, and seem to be back in the employment of a business owner that actually looks at his employees as something more than an unfortunate expense. So far, the year is off to a great start!

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Sold another short story. I'll post more details once I receive confirmation that the contracts have been accepted. Another good start to the year.

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Since I'm going to be working from home, which will mean sitting at my personal desk for eight to ten hours a day, I decided that I needed to drop a bit of cash on a real chair. Don't get me wrong, I love the creaky wooden desk chair I picked up at a yard sale last year for $20, but the odds were clearly in favor of me picking the splintered remnants of a rapidly deteriorating piece of furniture within the first thousand hours of usage. So, I ordered the biggest god-damned desk chair I could find. It's not a luxurious leather sink-into-it-and-sleep ego-stroker, but it is a massive chair: 350lb weight limit, 24" wide seat, and a back rest that actually reaches the back of the head of my 6'4" frame. I feel like Lily Tomlin's Edith Ann every time I swing my legs over to take a call, and I have to reach over to touch the arm rest. I could have company over in this damn thing. I'm telling you, this is one big chair.

Now I need a bigger desk.

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Mitt Romney actually trying to appeal to the 99% Occupy Wall Street crowd? He's got a funny way of doing it:

"I'm in this race because I care about Americans. I'm not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I'll fix it. I'm not concerned about the very rich, they're doing just fine. I'm concerned about the very heart of the America, the 90 percent, 95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling."

You know he's trying to gain support from the growing 99% movement, but apparently the Rich Elitist in Mitt couldn't allow him to do so without adding that he's "...not concerned about the very poor." When asked to comment on his lack of concern for those living in abject poverty by CNN's Soledad O'Brien, Mitt explained that he wasn't worried because "We have a very ample safety net..." He explained that "...we have food stamps, we have Medicaid, we have housing vouchers, we have programs to help the poor."

Of course, Soledad didn't follow up by pointing out that all of those "ample" programs have become increasing underfunded with the increase in usage by America's growing percentage of impoverished citizens, or asking how he feels about the constant push by his fellow GOP members to cut funding for these programs. Mitt's talking about "fixing the holes" in the safety net while his fellow Republicans are voicing their concern about the "Safety Net" turning into a "Safety Hammock," as Paul Ryan so dickishly put in his state of the Union response last year.

Let's be fair, Mitt sounds like he's trying to appeal to the 99%, but all he's doing is pandering to the usual middle class conservatives that the GOP constantly scares with threats that the poor are coming to steal their money via socialist government programs, while attempting to dress it up with the current anti-plutocracy catchphrases making the rounds in the ever-increasing rebellion against our government being run by people like Romney.

So, you can give Mitt some credit for trying to sound sensitive to the plight of whatever he thinks the middle class is, but you still have to add "I'm not concerned about the very poor" to the list of Things Rich-Guy Romney Just Doesn't Get, right along with "Let [the foreclosure process] run its course and hit the bottom," and "I like being able to fire people."

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New favorite commercial ever. My vote is for the Pizza Curtains.

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It's been such a busy month, I never got the chance to design custom labels for the new Wilson Compound Winery release, a nice Coffee Port. Just as well, as the person who modeled for the Christmas Port backed out at the last minute. And I was so close to have an official spokesperson! Luckily, this batch came with pre-printed labels that aren't too shabby. Too make up for the transgression, however, I am already working on the label design for the Occupy Orange Sangria currently fermenting. Should be nice.

Jonathan Franzen Hates eBooks and Oprah, Yet Sells Out to Both

2012-02-01T12:16:00.000-05:00

Image via Wikipedia

I was originally going to include this in my regular posts, but decided to give it an entry all its own.

Speaking of saying stupid shit in public, it seems that Jonathan Franzen recently jumped on the anti-eBook bandwagon during a recent speaking engagement:

"The technology I like is the American paperback edition of Freedom. I can spill water on it and it would still work! So it's pretty good technology. And what’s more, it will work great 10 years from now… I think, for serious readers, a sense of permanence has always been part of the experience. Everything else in your life is fluid, but here is this text that doesn’t change…"

I guess I should be used to Jonathan Franzen making an arrogant, pompous, elitist ass out of himself on a regular basis. After all, this is the guy who caused a major controversy by rejecting an Oprah Book Club edition of his book The Corrections, only to later embrace the marketing label and willingly became Oprah's bitch when pushing his latest book, Freedom. If only Franzen had the same editorial guidance he receives from his publishers when taking illogical stances on unsurprisingly complex issues.

The most stunning thing is Franzen's claim that books are waterproof. Anybody who has ever dropped their spy novel in the tub or tried to sell a rain-soaked paperback at a yard sale knows that waterlogged books, while retaining their overall shape and form, rapidly decrease in value. Then again, Franzen is probably speaking from experience, as I'm sure that whenever he accidentally spills a freshly opened bottle of Lauquen Artesian all over a book, he simply chuckles to himself as he wipes away the excess Mineral Water and calmly slips it back on the shelf.

But what's even funnier is his claims about the permenance of the written word. During his little Luddite speech, Franzen smugly states that "The Great Gatsby was last updated in 1924. You don’t need it to be refreshed, do you?" Maybe not, but I'll bet his publishers could have refreshed his book, since the first UK printing of Freedom had to be recalled after numerous printing errors were discovered in the initial print run. And I can bet you that the numerous reprinting of his earlier works all had corrections made in between bargain bin releases. How's that for permanence?

On top of all of this, it is worth noting that Jonathan Franzen's Freedom is also available on Kindle. As an Oprah Book Club Selection.

What a dick.

12/19/2011: Avarice, Unemployment Anniversary, Lee Camp

2011-12-19T12:29:00.001-05:00

Image by dingler1109 via Flickr

These GOP presidential candidate hopefuls like Rick Perry, Rick Santorum and Michelle Bachmann enjoy preaching to their religious base about the inherent sins of homosexuality. They smile and wave as they insist that they have nothing against gays themselves, but that allowing gay marriage or gays in the military would only weaken the sacred institutions of marriage and international warfare by allowing a level of acceptance to leak into society's collective consciousness.

As much as I don't agree with these judgement, I want to approach this under the assumption that I actually agree with and understand their desire to prevent sin from gaining a foothold in the hearts and minds of Americans everywhere. Because (and I think this is very important) if we are going to be concerning ourselves with major sins that decay the soul from within, then why are none of the Religious Right's avid pundits raising a clarion call against Avarice?

That's right, Avarice is a sin. Not only is it a sin, but it's a fairly topical one. The unfettered lust for greed and wealth has been running rampant through our culture for decades now, and has played no small part in the near destruction of our economic stability. The US population's income disparity has become so vast that even the Cable News channels are bothering to mention it now and then in between their hour-long masturbatory editorial programs, and Occupy protest have sprung up all over the country to deliver a clear and unyielding challenge to the exploitation of the many by the few that reporters and politicians are unanimously pretending not to understand.

Clearly, Avarice is what you might call a "Hot Button" topic right now. Just the kind of thing that political speech-writers like to jump on to make their clients seem less elitist and out of touch with the general populace. So why don't I hear Perry or Bachmann or Gingrich speaking out about the sin of Avarice?

You know the reason as well as I do. Because these candidates are all sinners. A blind, unyielding urge to accumulate wealth and power beyond their need is sewn into the very fabric of their beings. These people aren't devoted civic leaders or dedicated political activists; they are CEOs and businessmen, power brokers looking to increase their negotiable value in their endless pursuit of even more wealth and power. The Presidency isn't a goal or achievement to them. Rather, it is merely a means to an end, a stepping stone on the way to their ultimate goal: accumulating more wealth.

Because that's the other reason the word Avarice will never leave their lips: they are beholden to those who seek wealth and power. They ca not speak out against the greedy and corrupt, for it is they who pay their bills, fill their war chests, and secure their post-presidency positions. At the end of the day, it is the sin of Avarice signs their paychecks, the love that dare not speak its name in the halls of power.

So the next time Rick Perry or Michelle Bachmann call homosexuality a sin, just remember that they are back a far greater evil. In their eyes, a man screwing another man is an abomination in the eyes of God, but a board of executives screwing over thousands of workers is just something you do in between mistresses and gold outings. Avarice, thine name is Government.

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This Christmas marks the third anniversary of employer of fifteen years laying me off due to his inability to plan ahead for an economic downturn. Not only a great example of company loyalty, but an inventive way around those pesky Christmas bonuses, no?

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12/8/11: Drug Testing the Lower Class

2011-12-08T10:31:00.001-05:00

Image by elaine a via Flickr

Holy shit. Yet another Republican politician pulls fake numbers out of his ass regarding drug usage and the less fortunate:

"I had an employer tell me of an overwhelming response for job openings," Georgia Republican Jack Kingston excreted in a statement the other day. "There was just one problem: half the people who applied could not even pass a drug test."

Sound familiar? It should. South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley made a similar baseless claim awhile back when proposing that those collection Unemployment Benefits should be drug tested, only to back down when her supposed source claimed to have said no such thing. Then there's the requirement that passed in Florida that all welfare applicants had to prove they weren't on drugs. By the time a federal judge put a stop to the policy on constitutional grounds, the amount of applicants who tested positive (including those who refused to take the test) was a third below the national average.

So why do these otherwise presumably (one would hope) intelligent people continue to make shit up? Especially when the media eventually gets around to proving the statements as baseless and unsubstantiated?

Two words: Class Warfare.

I know, these days you only seem to hear that phrase when Republicans speaks out to defend their rich friends and puppet-masters (and yes, the Democrats have them as well, so shut up) from accurate allegations of not paying enough taxes and rigging the system to their own benefit. But this is the Class Warfare the media doesn't feel the need to point out.

The point of these proposals and their false rationals isn't to actually to pass legislation. These politicians know that such restrictions won't pass and will not be tolerated by the system (at least, until it becomes completely corrupt, which might not be too far own the road). The game here is to get these statements out into the news cycle and spread the insinuation that those who are poor or unemployed aren't the victims of an economy completely shit-canned by greedy market manipulators and wealth-hoarding billionaires, but rather useless drug addicts attempting to leech off of society (and your hard-earned tax dollars, sir!) in between bong hits.

Because the unemployment problem and homeless problem and poverty problem aren't going away anytime soon the way these jackals are running things, and it's been dragging on so long that the min-numbed American population is starting to actually realize that these increasing numbers of destitute and needy people haven't simply been caused by a sudden spike in laziness and irresponsibility.

So these politicians need to distract and misinform through soundbites that are rarely followed quickly enough by corrections in this lightening-speed multimedia world. They need to confirm the ignorant beliefs held by their dwindling minority of steadfast supporters that other people's problems are nobody's fault but their own, and that anybody seeking help from the government is a moocher and a slacker. Because it isn't about fixing problems, it's about hiding them.

This is not an attack on the poor or the unemployed. It is much greater than that. This is an attack on the very foundation of a system designed to prevent America from descending into the depths of a caste system permanently separating the rich from the poor, and ensuring that the American Dream (whatever the hell that is) can no longer be reached by those at the bottom of the pile.

Welcome to the New America. It is arriving sooner that you might have expected.

Related articles

12/6/11: Horrible Bosses & Cheese, Authors & Cats, Gays & Bachmann

2011-12-06T08:33:00.001-05:00

Image via Wikipedia

One morning, years ago, my former employer of fifteen years held a brief Monday morning office meeting in which he declared a new company policy. "From now on," he stated, "'I don't know' is not an acceptable answer for any question. Understood?"

I still remember wondering to myself which management self-help book he had pulled that little nugget of inspirational go-getter wisdom from over the weekend. You could always spot them buried under invoices on his desk or stuck between business-to-business directories on the single bookshelf in his office, pseudo-informative guides like The Art of War, or Seven Steps Towards Effective Management. I guess I should be thankful that this was back before Who Moved My Cheese? became the popular corporate handbook on motivating workers through mindless platitudes.

Looking back, I guess I'm thankful that he read those books for as long as he did before finally listening to the advice of his small business owners buddies. Handling the occasional pointless procedural directive was much more preferable to him laying off all of his full time employees and staffing the entire company with part-timers, interns, and freelance contractors when he suddenly discovered that he had no funds saved up to the run the company in the off chance there was a sharp economic downturn that would effectively cripple the industry as a whole.

I guess when the question was "What are you going to do if business suddenly slows down for an extended period of time," "I don't know" was an acceptable answer.

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Why do certain authors feel compelled to include the names of their cats in the bios? Is it because of that T.S. Eliot poem? Whenever I read an author bio that ends with "...lives in a cabin in Wyoming with her Siamese cats Lucinda and Paprika," I have a sudden and overwhelming urge to actively avoid their entire body of work. I'm not saying it is a rational impulse, I'm just expressing my overall dissatisfaction with authors who identify themselves with their pets instead of their achievements.

The only thing that bothers me more than cats in author bios? Book cover author pictures taken with their dogs. I'm just saying.

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You've got to love it when mindless bigotry and prejudice is stopped dead in its tracks by the simplest of acts. Imaginary Republican Presidential Candidate Michelle Bachmann found herself on the receiving end of a face-full of rationality at a South Carolina book signing. The well-armed activist? An eight-year-old boy.

Now, let's get the obvious out of the way. Yes, the child was undoubtedly coached to say this to Bachmann by his mother. That goes without saying. But unlike many Bachmann supporters will likely claim, this reality does nothing to lessen the importance of this confrontation. Because what it all comes down to is that Elijah undoubtedly feels this way about his mother.

When Bachmann, one of the odious politicians running on the Anti-Gay Parents platform, actively campaigning against allowing gay couples to adopt and raise children of their own, is shamed into silence by one of the no-longer-hypothetical children that she supposedly wants to save from the evils of gay parental influence, there is a lesson to be learned. You can speak out against gay parents and propose legislation to prevent gay couples from adopting in order to drum up support from your homophobic far-right followers all you want, they're an easy audience to win over with false science and moral posturing. But none of that works with the child you are openly accusing of being damaged because Mommy, whom that child loves and adores with all his heart, just happens to be gay as well.

It isn't about morality, it isn't about politics, and it isn't even about gays. It's about Elijah. And he just slapped you down, big-time.

12/3/11: Coffee, Salt, Sugar, Prayer, Going Undercover

2011-12-03T10:20:00.001-05:00

Image by davedehetre via Flickr

I ordered a fast food coffee this morning, which I never do. They gave me four creamers and six creamers with the McDonald's-Crotch-Hot 20oz cup of Joe, but filled it all the way to the brim so I couldn't possibly add anything to it without letting it cool and drinking a bit first. I know it's a stupid thing to complain about, but I guess I'm just a Glass Too Full kinda guy.

By the way, anyone even thinking of suggesting that I could have simply poured a little bit of coffee onto the ground to make room for the additions has no true respect for the sanctity and integrity of morning coffee. So keep it to yourself, philistines.

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I've been seeing headlines about the Los Angeles Police reportedly going "Undercover" at the Occupy Wall Street Encampment before the ~~massive police-state violation of civil rights~~ raid. Can we really justify using the term "Going Undercover" in this instance?

Usually, when we hear that law enforcement has gone undercover, we visualize brave detectives spending months and months subtly insinuating themselves into the midst of highly exclusive organizations, risking their very lives as they infiltrate organized crime syndicates, foreign terror cells, armed separatist groups, or volatile religious cults, often in secretive or heavily fortified locations, all in an effort to glean valuable inside information that might possibly help authorities prevent catastrophe or corruption on a massive, even global scale.

In this instance, what we are talking about is some cops wandering into a completely exposed outdoor crowd, striking up some conversation with random people, and ultimately discovering that a few protesters were contemplating fashioning crude spears from bamboo poles in the event of a late night ~~massive police-state violation of civil rights~~ raid. Considering that there were no feverish reports of confiscated spear arsenals resulting from the raid, and taking into account the how plentiful bamboo must be in the middle of City Hall Park, I am inclined to assume that the person who revealed this particular nugget of clandestine information recognized the "New Shoes" for what they were and decided to just make shit it up to mess with them.

It appears that the LAPD agrees with my assessment, seeing as how they reportedly "downplayed the significance of the undercover work since Occupy meetings were public and easily tracked." It's probably the same reason that they've been declining to comment on these reports. I'm guessing it might be a little embarrassing for them to try and explain why they felt the need to assign undercover agents to openly public and exceedingly easily monitored protest meetings.

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The same fast food chain that overfilled my coffee also gave me seven packets of salt with my single order of bite-sized hash-browns. Exactly how much salt am I expected to consume with my speedy breakfast meal? Do you really need to dole out a fist-full of salt to every individual customer? The owners would probably see a sharp increase in annual revenues if their servers weren't so generous with the salt packets. Of course, they probably such a ludicrous amount out as overall policy. I can easily imagine how many customers must of angrily approached the counter during the one-or-two-per-customer salt packet days, loudly complaining that they weren't given enough salt. So now, because of these taste-bud-deficient heathens, I now find myself possessing seven packets of salt that I am presumably expected to ration equally among the dozen or so hash-brown-tater-tots that came with my sad breakfast burrito. And they wonder why other countries view us as a wasteful, gluttonous nation.

Of course, those paying attention have by now noticed that I did not level the same complaint against the six sugar packets that accompanied my coffee, Which is probably why we are also perceived by many as a nation of hypocrites.

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A friend posted on their Facebook page the other morning that they had to take their child to the ER after discovering an unwisely placed play bead in the child's ear. Turns out the bead is wedged pretty tightly, so they're going to have to perform a small surgical procedure later in the week to remove it.

I posted a simple "Hope she okay" to be supportive and polite, but then someone after me posted "Praying for her." Now, I understand how seriously some people take child illnesses and the like, and the mere suggestion of a friend's child going into surgery can seem scary and dangerous. Also, I hate to knock anyone who is acting with the best intentions. However...

Is Prayer really necessary in this instant? Yes, the child will technically be 'going under the knife'. But it isn't as if we are talking tumor removal or joint reconstruction, or anything involving organ donors and blood transfusions. It's a toy lodged in the kid's ear. If this kind of minor procedure warrants prayer, then where is the cut-off line? Should I, for example, expect those close to me to offer me their prayers the next time I go to the dentist? If so, will they be praying for me only for root canals and extractions, or can I count on them praying for me during a routine cleaning?

I'm not saying that people shouldn't pray for the safety and well being of their friends and loved ones, and the children of those people. All I'm saying is, if I make a Facebook post next week about having a filling replaced next Tuesday, and I get less holy promotion than the kid with the toy stuck in her ear, I'm going to be slightly annoyed. I'm just saying.

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Did I mention that the fast-food restaurant also gave me two after dinner mints with my single breakfast meal? Either the people assembling the meals are just lazy, or my breath was noticeably pungent over the drive-through speaker.

American Airlines Bankruptcy: Carrier And Parent Company File For Chapter 11 Protection

2011-11-29T08:38:00.001-05:00

Yet another example of how Free-Market Purists are full of it. If the airlines hadn't been protected and supported by the government, many commercial airlines would have collapsed decades ago. It air travel a vital part of national and international commerce? Definitely. But don't sit there and pretend it isn't a failed business model, then complain when Ford gets a boost.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

11/7/11 - Doublethink, Princess Cars, Parade Routes, Republican Denials

2011-11-07T12:29:00.000-05:00

Image via WikipediaOver the weekend, I found myself involved in a casual conversation regarding the schizophrenic nature of today's culture, mainly involving the influence of entertainment and advertising media on society's ideological foundation. Afterwards, I found myself pondering the aspect of a "Schizophrenic Society," what I or other people actually mean when making such a claim.

While I can't speak for other people, I usually throw the phrase out to imply that our generally accepted belief system forces us to attempt to simultaneously believe two diametrically opposing concepts. The examples of this kind of hypocritical cultural programming are many and varied, like family sitcoms espousing the wisdom of recognizing inner beauty or superficial outward appearances while being interrupt every ten minutes by ads for beauty products featuring waifish, plastic-molded models.

However, I've been chewing on the very concept the past few days, and it occurs to me that I am guilty of the exact same things I am fond of accusing the general public of falling for. From an idealistic viewpoint, I seem to be constantly at war with myself when it comes to my overall opinion regarding the current shape of the world and people as a whole. My opinion regarding the worth of people, society, government, and religion will often swing from hopeful and positive to cynical and misanthropic, at times with the same day or hour. Contemplating this, I have come to the conclusion that this apparent hypocritical mindset, while disconcerting and cautionary, isn't completely unfounded. I am of the firm belief that both my negative and positive views regarding the world and its inhabitants are easily defended and merit equal consideration.

I guess what I'm saying is, Doublethink (to coin a term made popular by George Orwell in his dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four) might not be as destructive a concept as we might think. Considering the complexities of the human mind and spirit, skewed logic might be the only real way to fully comprehend the reality we have created for ourselves.

I'm still debating as to whether this is good or bad.

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And now, for your viewing pleasure, a scene from the Japanese animated film Revolutionary Girl Utena: The Adolescence of Utena, featuring a young Princess being transformed into a sports car.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled random thoughts and opinions.

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What makes local officials think that the best way to draw business into their town is to arrange an event, such as a parade or marathon, that shuts down streets, backs up traffic, and effectively isolates the town's main commercial venues from anyone wanting to swing by for some quick or casual shopping. Parents, locals active in community events, and people with too much time on their hands might be willing to park ten blocks away and run baby stroller hurdles down crowded sidewalks in order to watch a bike race or a parade comprised of pickup trucks and tractors with random kids and strangers waving from flatbeds, but someone looking to spend some weekend folding money on a nice meal or expensive home decor are probably just going turn around and drive on to the next exit. You want to draw activity to your town? Overrun the lesser-populated areas of town, and give those not interested in extravagantly underfunded displays in local pride access to the parking meters. Just a thought.

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Dahlia Lithwick has a great article over at Slate.com lamenting that the instinctual Republican reaction the the recently resurfacing accusations of sexual harassment leveled at primary hopeful Herman Cain has not been to defend him, but to instead imply, suggest, or outright stating that sexual harassment in the workplace just doesn't happen.

This has always been a major disconnect for me with the Republican party and those who religiously follow their talking points, a false logic meant to cover flaws in their idealistic posturing. Instead of acknowledging and attempting to correct or address inequalities and injustices that hurt their political agenda, they always find it much easier to dismiss claims of abuse or need.

In this convoluted, self-serving fashion, welfare recipients wear fur coats and have multiple children to increase their benefits, those collecting unemployment are just lazy freeloaders, labor unions are terrorist organizations that hold defenseless corporations hostage for inflated salaries, worker rights are just another excuse for employees to avoid doing their jobs, sexism is just a feminist myth, and racism just plain doesn't exist anymore.

I understand that not all Republicans think or talk this way. But it is the majority of the ones in power who do, and those who follow their lead, that prevent me from taking anything their party espouses idealistically as serious or trustworthy.

11/2/11 - Sleep, Alarm Clock, Bela Lugosi, Dharma Initiative

2011-11-03T12:11:00.000-04:00

Image via WikipediaI really hate sleep. Can you honestly think of a more total and undeniable waste of time, outside of maybe late-night infomercials? If you get too much, you don't have time in the day left to get anything done, and if you don't get enough, you eventually become too impaired to get anything done. And don't even think about trying to get just the right amount, because it doesn't exist. Then, if you are lucky enough to go without it long enough to catch up on what needs to be done, you eventually crash and snooze for half a day, completely backing you up again.

Maybe I just need a new alarm clock.

Alarm clocks seem to be one of those semi-obsolete pieces of technology that we seldom use anymore, yet still can't fully divorce ourselves from making or owning. Most people these days use their cell phones or smart phones as their alarm clock, and those who never advanced that far technologically still use their digital watches. However, most of these people still have radio/ipod/cd/mp3 alarm clocks on a night stand or dresser in their bedrooms, most likely serving no purpose other than to display the time in a sharp, glowing digital format. In fact, half of the alarm clocks you see for sale these days do their best to act as a multimedia center for the bedroom, despite the fact that many people these days actually have multimedia centers in their bedrooms.

I guess you could call it a final vain attempt to retain a sense of relevance. Alarm clocks are like the Willie Lomans of technology, hanging around long after they're needed, having outlived their own usefulness, trying desperately to feel important in a marketplace made up of people walking around with multimedia centers clipped to their belts, doing anything they can to cling to their tenuous grasp on their own validity, all the while contemplating a meaningful death. Who knew waking up could be such a sad experience?

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Have I mentioned that my book, Performed by Lugosi, is currently available for purchase on Amazon.com, and at your local bookstore (if they bother to stock awesome books, that is)? Did I also mention that you can purchase autographed copies from me directly, and that Performed by Lugosi is a great work of literary/film criticism that explores the career of one of Hollywood's most recognizable horror film icons through the films he starred in (like The Body Snatcher, The Black Cat, and Murders in the Rue Morgue) that were based on the short stories of some of the most famous and well-respected authors in literary history (such as Robert Louis Stephenson, Edgar Allen Poe, and Arthur Conan Doyle), which are also reprinted along with my insightful film commentary?

I thought so. Just checking.

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As far as alarm clocks go, this Dharma Initiative Alarm Clock is probably the best one on the market. Hell, you'd probably be Lost without it. Get it? Okay, I'm done.

10/31/11 - Hate Mail, DWD, Halloween, Serial Killers on Horseback, Interruptions

2011-10-31T12:48:00.002-04:00

Image via WikipediaIt looks as if my last blog post is the most popular one that I have posted in a long time. Maybe I should write more blog posts directed specifically towards people I don't like. Coming up, open letters to several of my neighbors, half of the people I ever went to school with, and prick with the Bluetooth in line behind me at the Wawa last week.

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I keep falling asleep on my way to work. I blame my down pillow headrest.

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I'd wish everyone a Happy Halloween, but I'm not sure if my heart is really into it anymore.

I'm not sure exactly when it was that I stopped getting into the holiday spirit. It was probably around the time that parents started taking kids out trick or treating on the most convenient weekend evening instead of the day itself, or when they started doing it in the early afternoon out of some bizarre fear of having their children out after dark. Maybe it was when they started taking kids trick or treating at the mall or in parking lots instead of going door to door, legitimizing the ever-growing xenophobic fear of other people, or when schools and parent organizations started banning certain costumes to prevent the accidental promotion of witchcraft, satanism, hedonism or popular culture worship. More likely than not, I'm just bitter that I've reached an age at which wearing a mask in public is more likely to prompt the response of a panicky 911 call than a gift of free candy.

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Had the "Serial Killer Dream" again last night. The particulars of the crime are hazy, but this time my actions have gained notoriety, and there is a heavy push by the police to track me down. I do not know exactly what I have done, only that I regret not having the will power to resist doing it, and that I am now desperate to cover my tracks so I am not caught. My thoughts even go to past lapses, which I can only assume is a direct reference to previous dreams.

I had driven into New York City, where I rented a horse before committing whatever atrocity I have perpetrated. The NYPD has discovered the bodies, and is assembling a dragnet to track me down. I park the horse in a public restroom and contemplate my error. If the police are looking for connections to the crime, they'll probably check all of the local horse rental dealerships. If I return the horse, they'll probably be waiting for me. If I don't return the horse, it will arouse even more suspicion, and they will still be able to track me down, as all horse rental dealerships require a credit card imprint these days.

After hours of kicking myself for making this blunder and desperately trying to figure out a way out of this debacle, it suddenly occurs to me that I did not take the horse to the scene of the crime. I'm not even sure why I rented a horse in the first place, but there is now no logical reason to fear returning it and getting my deposit back. I can now flee the city in the car I stole earlier that evening with no worries of apprehension.

Maybe I should try going to bed earlier.

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Don't ask me why, but this morning it suddenly occurs to me that being talked over while I am speaking to someone else is probably my favorite thing in the world. Honestly, I can't have it happen to me enough.

An Open Letter to Brian, Regarding the Passing of an Old Friend

2011-10-22T12:31:00.001-04:00

Dear Brian,

We have had our differences in the past. So much so, in fact, that I find myself posting this open letter to you on my blog, as I have no doubt you have blocked my email in order to avoid any direct contact. I happen to know that you monitor my online presence, however, so I'm sure this will eventually make it to your eyes. If not... oh well. It still needs to be said.

A close mutual friend of ours passed away last week. He died young and unexpectedly, and left behind a wife and daughter. Those who knew him and cared about him were devastated.

With the service planned for the following Wednesday, I volunteered to help contact all of his old friends to see who could attend. Having known him since High School, I was able to reach out to those he had lost contact with, those with fond memories of an old friend who had tragically passed away at the age of 36. I contacted everyone I could think of that might have even indirectly known him, on the off chance that they would want to come and pay their respects.

I did not attempt to contact you.

You were one of his closest friends back in the old days - practically joined at the hip, as is proven by numerous pictures and videos the two of you took back then. Thick as thieves, some would say. But I made no attempt to contact you with the news. Not because of the animosity between us now, or out of any fear of confrontation or personal grudge. I did not attempt to contact you because, in my honest opinion, you did not deserve to know.

I was informed by some mutual friends of ours (the ones you have childishly told you can not associate with as long as they are still friends of mine), that they felt you should be informed. I disagree with their judgement, but can forgive them for the error, as they still feel some weird affection towards you, like the ghostly pains of a phantom limb. They only see what used to be there. But, their hearts were in the right place. So they informed you of our old friend's demise, and invited you to the service.

You said you were sorry to hear about his death, and that you would send a card or something, but that you would not attend the service. I predicted as much before I was told. You have spent most of your adult life isolating yourself from old friends one by one, using excuses of moral outrage and logical wariness to rationalize your disdain for exerting undue effort on behalf of anyone but yourself. But you couldn't just say you were busy, or had to work, or didn't want to travel so far. You already knew that these cop-outs would not fly, that other friends who had not seen him in years were taking time off work and traveling for hours on end to say farewell to someone they cared deeply about. So, you fell back on an old standby. You blamed me. I am much too dangerous, you explained, and you have to protect me from your family.

I did not invite you to the service because I felt you did not belong there. But you were invited anyway. And you proved me right by refusing to attend. I am not upset that you did not attend our friend's funeral. You gave up your rights to consider yourself a friend in mourning when you turned your back on him and his family, not only making up excuses to avoid visiting, but cutting off all communication with him out of some strange aversion to other people's problems, an impulse that none of your other former friends have been able to fully comprehend or explain. For someone whose family constantly rubs his old brother's successes in his face to imply his own shortcomings, you have an awful disdain for the weaknesses and faults of others.

I almost believe that our dearly departed mutual friend would agree. He had eventually caught on to your little game of Silent Treatment, and in the past years both he and his wife had expressed to me their displeasure with your attitude and judgement. But I have a feeling that, were he alive today, or if he is in someway witnessing all that has transpired since he died, that he would ultimately forgive you your transgressions and welcome you back as a friend. He was a kind person with a heart bigger than most, and a far more forgiving soul than me. To him, your presence at the service would probably have been seen as a blessing, rather than the insult that it would be.

No, I am not mad at you for not attending our friend's funeral. I'm glad you chose not to attend. You proved yourself to be as shallow and vain as I had predicted. But I take issue with you scapegoating me as the reason. Too cowardly to just say you can't be bothered to honor the memory of a childhood friend, you hide behind accusations that I am a "Dangerous" man, too wild and unpredictable to allow access to you and your family. I will admit that I am a large man, and stand strong and vindictive with my passions and beliefs, ~~sometimes~~ often stubbornly so (as this open letter undoubtedly proves). But you would have to travel far and wide to find those who can honestly claim they have been harmed by my hand or through my intentions. I am no Mother Theresa, but it would take a fair amount of creative enhancement of my actions and deeds to paint me as any kind of imminent threat.

Besides, what is this "family" you are so eager to protect me from? You have spent most of your adult life running away from your immediate family, rightfully eager to distance yourself from parents and siblings that have done little more than look down on you since your childhood, always treating you as an inferior and a disappointment. You've succeeded in this escape on many levels, apparently, since even your own mother doesn't have a single picture of you on her Facebook page. Plenty of your older brother and his family, but not a single one of you. She even has one of your wife, although I'm assuming that was because she liked the dress. I know this, by the way, because your mother was on our dead friend's Facebook Friends List.

If I am indeed dangerous to you, than I am a danger to your heightened self-image, and the rationalizations you use to build walls of false logic and moral superiority between yourself and others, intricate facades meant to obscure the truly selfish and emotionally lazy reasons you have for your treatment of people you somehow refer to as friends. You select and eliminate friends like a child in a schoolyard, assuming that your approval or disapproval means something about the intrinsic worth of others, that your imposed rankings and presumptuous bartering of friendship as chattel ("I can't be your friend if you are his friend.") carries an weight or substance, as if such prepubescent posturing has any place in the complicated world of adult relationships.

You turned your back on our friend as you did countless others, and always with hypocritical reasoning. You turn your back on a friend because of his less than wise personal life choices, then sink money into a house on a flood plane now worth half what you paid, at best. You reject a friend because of his educational career choices, only to drop out of NYU after a solid week because you couldn't handle it. You shun friends because they are having drug or alcohol problems, only to become a closet drinker yourself, sneaking cases of wine into your bedroom at night while your parents are asleep. You criticize friends for breaking the law and not respecting the property of others, then illegally enter your neighbor's vacant apartment on New Years Eve as a joke. You eliminate friends from your life with smug self-justification, then hold a bitter grudge when one of those friends becomes famous after forming a band he didn't invite you to join.

I guess we do still have our differences. But at least we both agreed on one thing: you didn't belong at our old friend's funeral. Too bad you had use me as an excuse. Since you weren't there, however, let me assure you that you were not missed. Get used to that.

Sincerely,

An old, former friend.

P.S. No doubt, you will react to my communication with you as you have in the past, by threatening to submit it as evidence of some sort of ever-increasing imaginary threat I pose to the safety of you and your "family." In order to facilitate the process for your local authorities, I have included below a complete list of my alleged transgressions:

*Allegedly (without any evidence or proof to support such accusations) making copies of your wife's LiveJournal posts in which she said nasty things about her in-laws, and then mailing those unfortunate public statements to your parents via the postal service.

[I must point out that this event took place before our mutual falling out, after which I was suddenly blamed. Before our falling out, all accusations regarding the mysterious LiveJournal Copies were directed (also without evidence) at your former upstairs neighbor in the house rented to you by your parents, whose apartment I witnessed you enter illegally on several occasions.]

*Calling you two days after the birth of our dead friend's daughter to chastise you for not calling to congratulate him, and then erupting into a fifteen-minute rant in which I said many ugly, nasty, horrible things about you and your wife.

[Guilty as charged, as the audience of coworkers who giggled uncontrollably while watching me will readily contest to.]

*Inviting you and/or your spouse to a dozen or so online social networks over a one-year period, including MySpace, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and several others that are most likely defunct by now.

[Feel free to attach your itemized, dated list of these invites, which you sent me once as proof of my "harassment" of you. I'm assuming I'm not the only person on the list of unwanted invites, however, since even your mother doesn't have you as one of her Facebook Friends.]

*Writing a short parody of the Saw film franchise as a Pledge commercial, in which I inadvertently gave a character the same name as your wife.

[An honest coincidence, which I attempted to correct by immediately changing the name of the character. Later, realizing how stupid the accusation was, as there was no similarities whatsoever between your wife and the character beyond the name, I went back and restored the original name of the character in the piece, which can still be read here.]

Add this open letter condemning you for your cowardly and selfish actions in regards to an old friend's passing to the list, and I think that brings us up to date. Wow, I really am dangerous, aren't I?

Rachel Maddow Tears Into Mitt Romney, Does Epic Segment From 'Man Cave' (VIDEO)

2011-10-21T10:23:00.001-04:00

Maddow's rant runs the risk of feeling a bit like an overreaction. Until, that is, you remember that state Rep. Scott Randolph was actually chastised by the Florida GOP earlier this year for uttering the word "uterus" on the house floor.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

10/7/11: The Occupy Wall Street Declaration of Occupation

2011-10-07T15:09:00.000-04:00

Image by david_shankbone via Flickr‎"As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power.

"We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

* They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.

* They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.

* They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.

* They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.

* They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless animals, and actively hide these practices.

* They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.

* They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.

* They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.

* They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.

* They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.

* They have sold our privacy as a commodity.

* They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press. They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.

* They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.

* They have donated large sums of money to politicians, who are responsible for regulating them.

* They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.

* They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives or provide relief in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantial profit.

* They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.

* They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.

* They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.

* They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad. They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.

* They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*
"To the people of the world,
"We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

"Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

"To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

"Join us and make your voices heard!"

10/4/11 - Jail Birds, Hummingbirds, Insiders and Outcasts

2011-10-04T09:54:00.000-04:00

Image by Dedlam via FlickrThe stench is palpable. It’s as hot as a Hen House, and the air oozes with a queasy combination of urine, vomit, and sweat-soaked fabric. The cell is packed with rowdy stragglers from last night’s Birds of a Feather promotion at Flanagan’s Pub. What was once a dank, grimy drunk tank is now a newly tarnished cage, displaying what happens when you give out free drinks to anyone who shows up in a bird costume on Fat Tuesday.

A threadbare chicken clutches at his red foam beak as he crouches in a far corner and heaves stale gin and bile on his wide yellow feet. Between Heckle and Jeckle, who are clearly not talking to one another, a homemade Peacock sits whimpering on the splintered bench, cradling what’s left of his papier-mâché plumage. A lone penguin with prison tattoos paces defiantly, staring down any lame duck that dares challenge the pecking order. Woodstock gets into a shoving match with Donald Duck, disrupting a flock of frat-brat Angry Birds debating the best place to cruise for chicks.

Someone’s made bail, but whoever posted it is apparently too drunk to give their friend’s real name. A weary cop stands by the cage and points through the bars in desperation. “Are you Big Bird? Are you Big Bird? Are you Big Bird” These canaries aren’t singing. A couple of dime-store Hen masks in Bermuda shorts turn the question into a chant, ruffling the cop’s feathers and riling the coop. Amidst the tightly-packed avian chaos, a sleeveless Rooster uses his poly-cotton wattle to mop the stale sweat from his flush, fevered face. His goose is clearly cooked.

*

Once again, Lee Camp energizes my morning commute by vocalizing the rant circling unformed in the back of my head. Thank you, Lee!

*

Time to turn the news off. I hear way too much punditry about who is the more captivating candidate or effective speaker, and far too little debate about whether anyone is actually sound in their logic or correct in what they are selling a factual information. The beltway and the media that covers it have become so obsessed with the political game that is Washington that they've overlooked the fact that it isn't a game. They aren't disseminating crucial information to a receptive public desperate for some comprehension regarding the way the system is or isn't working; the are merely catering their creative content towards their target audience of industry insiders and policy junkies more enamored with the intricacies of the process than the results of actions taken. Time to turn it off for awhile.

*

"Man caught trying to smuggle hummingbirds in his underwear."

They needn't have bothered attaching an article to the headline and photo. They stand on their own.

Hummer, anyone?

10/3/11: Delayed Dreams, Postponed News, Lengthy Protests and Depleted Days

2011-10-03T11:55:00.000-04:00

Image via WikipediaMy use of the snooze alarm in the morning has become so routine and predictable that my dreams now pattern themselves around the three ten-minute bursts of temporary pseudo-sleep I subject myself to before finally getting up in the morning. My subconscious is become smarter than my waking self. This concerns me.

*

Thanks to my relatively short commute on non-school days, I am now roughly two weeks behind on my political podcasts. This morning's Best of the Left, for example, is all about Obama's failure to update smog regulations, a news event that occurred a few weeks ago. Surprisingly, I'm finding it easier to listen to distressing and worrisome news with a two-week buffer between me and the actual date of the news in question. It's like have a time delay on reality. Am I the only one who finds it easier to handle frustrating news when it can be referred to as "recent" instead of "current?"

*

The more coverage I see of the Occupy Wall Street protests, the more impressed I am that we are finally seeing a real response to crimes perpetrated against the country and its citizens by these soulless financial power structures. I actually feel guilty for not going down and participating myself.

*

A common nugget of wisdom often offered around the workplace is "Keep busy, and the day will go by quickly." Why would I want that? How have we arrived at a mentality in which speeding up the passage of time and hastening our eventual demise is seen as a positive recommendation? I don't want any of my days to go by quickly. Even the crappy ones. We have far too few days as it is to go around wishing a speedy passage to any of them. When your job inspires you to consider deleting hours of your existence as a positive attitude, it might time to reconsider your vocational choices.

*

I'm slowly coming around to the realization that I don't drink nearly enough. As a matter of fact, maybe our entire attitude towards recreational drug use is outdated and misinformed. Sure, habitual drug use is damaging to the individual's mind and body, and can have disastrous effects for them economically as well as socially. But these days, the same thing can be said for many of the jobs people are forced to take on just in order to survive in this economic climate.

For every person suffering physical ailments from heavy smoking, drinking, or other drug use, I can show you someone with long-term disabilities due to workplace injuries, repetitive or restricted movement, unsafe work environments, chemical exposure, or simply the constant strain from performing duties above and beyond what would normally be considered safe or acceptable. For every family torn apart by a family member's drug abuse, I can show you a family destroyed by economic realities that force both parents to work, sometimes at multiple jobs, invariably neglecting their children, eliminating familial contact and communication, and creating a weary, negative atmosphere for those rare moments that the entire family manages to assemble as a whole for a meal.

When struggling to maintain an average, modern-day existence has the same long term debilitating effects as getting high, stoned or tight, who is to say which path offers more rewarding results?

9/30/11 - Bangles, White Suits, Homemade Wine and Haunted Houses

2011-09-30T11:08:00.000-04:00

Image by Joriel "Joz" Jimenez via FlickrIs it even legal for the local bland radio station to be playing Manic Monday on a Friday Morning? That just doesn't seem right.

Not that I listen to the radio anymore. And let's not go giving all of the credit to Steve Jobs, either. I abandoned the radio music format years before I even thought of owning an iPod. The constant repeating of the same group of station-designated popular favorites inspired my non-broadcast revolution, compounded by my early commuting years. Granted, relegating myself to cassette tapes and compact discs still left me with a finite amount of repeating songs, but at least they were the songs that I chose to be subjected to for hours on end.

I didn't abandon radio, though. I simply flipped to the AM side. Influenced by the background noise of choice for the local comic book store I would hang out at (Metropolis Comics) during my Bloomfield High School days, I quickly became addicted to conservative, right-wing radio. Ironically, as I grew older and started to actually disagree with the angry white men crowding the talk radio airwaves, I found myself listening even more. Not only was there variety, but listening to opposing viewpoints was always a pleasurable gateway to open thought.

I guess that's where I differ from most people when it comes to radio listening habits. It is possibly also the reason why I can't have anything playing in the background while I am writing, unlike other authors who feel more productive with music or television filling the dead air in their work space. My brain doesn't convert those unrelated sounds into a soothing white noise - instead, it desperately scans it for something to latch onto, anything that it can use to create a new train of thought. Which is seldom a good thing, especially when my coworkers insist on having radios playing softly in the background throughout the entire workday.

Oh good, another Billy Joel song. That should help the day go back quickly.

*

Last night's dream started out like a typical "I'm late for school and unprepared for class" mild nightmare, then somehow became a hostage situation that quickly degenerated into a Mexican standoff when the arrival of an old journal (delivered with the chunk of land, palm tree and decimated corpse with which it was found) that challenged the main bad guy's memory of his father's bravery in battle (turns out he died from a cold while eating soup, or something to that effect) and drives him into a homicidal rage. There was a touching moment in which one hostage proposed to another while rapping, so it wasn't all bad. Almost everybody was dressed in white suits, though, so that was weird.

Verdict: too much homemade Pinot Noir before bed.

*

Dream House opens this weekend. Great! I was so hoping that Hollywood would break ranks from the normal expectations of formulaic Halloween cinematic traditions and release a Haunted House film this October. It's also nice to see that they have chosen to buck the trend of previous horror films by incorporating creepy little girls into the movie.

Two creepy girls? That is so awesome. I don't even think I've ever seen that kind of imagery in a haunted house horror film before. Even the wallpaper seems completely original.

Talk about a breath of fresh air.

*

In his review of The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, Gore Vidal said "What other culture could have produced someone like Hemingway and not seen the joke?"

*

No politics today. Not in the mood.

9/29/11 - Lee Camp Commute, Republican Authors, Pepper Spray, Bad Movie Day, and Reading in Bed

2011-09-29T12:24:00.000-04:00

Political Activist Podcasts don't seem to be making my morning commute any easier. Listening to Lee Camp rage against the corporate power structure is entertaining and intellectually stimulating, but it isn't really the proper buildup to a day of invoicing behind a desk for a company that failed to see the irony in making Labor Day an unpaid holiday.

*

I know a number of fellow writers who are very vocal Republicans. Often, I find myself wondering how these intelligent and talented men, whom I hold in such high esteem, can be so smart and observant, yet hold such insane, illogical political viewpoints. My hope is that they feel the same way about me.

*

It is painfully obvious that the recent bouts of police brutality, including the random spraying of pepper spray into crowds by a senior NYPD officer, are nothing more than desperate attempts at sparking an outburst of reactionary violence in order to give authorities a reason to clear out the maddeningly peaceful Occupy Wall Street protesters. A virtual media blackout during an entire week of protesting (in a climate where a dozen Tea Party members in funny hats guarantees BREAKING NEWS coverage across the board) has done little to dissuade the them, and the crowds are too small and well-documented (despite attempts by police to arrest protesters carrying high-end camera equipment) to integrate masked pseudo-protesters to break some storefront windows and manufacture a false riot.

The real irony here is that it was the rash of violent incidents instigated by police that finally garnered coverage by the mainstream media through the "If it Bleeds, it Leads" loophole. It's nice to know that the truth eventually gets out, even if it is through miscalculated efforts to suppress it.

*

Image via Wikipedia

Recording an episode of Moviesucktastic tonight with my stunningly handsome and barrel-chested co-host, Joseph Guida. The main subject of this week's episode will be the upcoming Bad Movie Day, and his recent challenge to me of Supergirl, the taste of which still lingers bitterly in the back of my throat. Joining us will be our special guest Don Everitt Smith Jr., who will be sharing his comic book expertise with us in between bouts of plugging his latest book, The Goffle Road Murders of Passaic County.

I'm looking forward to spending a couple of solid hours discussing the film nominations for Bad Movie Day (Van Helsing, The Room, C.H.U.D., Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, and Garbage Pail Kids: The Movie), reminiscing about Matt "Max Headroom" Frewer's role in Supergirl as the A&W Root Beer loving truck driver rapist, and resisting the urge not to talk politics with Don.

*

My desire to read more is in constant conflict with my cluttered schedule and my body's unhealthy obsession with sleep. I decided to finally get around to cracking open The Soul's Code by James Hillman, and I managed a full two paragraphs in bed before blacking out completely.

I actually have a habit of falling asleep while reading, waking up a few minutes later, the determinedly restarting the paragraph I passed out during. I've actually gone weeks reading the same page over and over. Common sense loses out to stubborn determination in these situations, and I will usually continue my somnambulistic repeat reading of the same paragraph until I'm awoken by the thud of the book hitting the floor. Thank god I'm not a smoker, eh?

9/28/11 - Class Warfare, Facebook Evolution, Slumming Actors, and Canceled Prime Time Nightmares

2011-09-28T11:51:00.000-04:00

Image via WikipediaI've been watching the failed NBC Lost/Prisoner ripoff hybrid Persons Unknown on and off over the past week, and it finally seems to be catching up with me. Spent most of last night dreaming about some bizarre scenario in which I was trapped in a bizarre abandoned city with a group of people who kept disappearing and showing up later drugged and paralyzed.

*

I know things are getting bad when I actually find myself siding with the people whining about Facebook changes. Did the most popular waste of time in the world REALLY need a complete makeover? Imagine the hours of office productivity on a national level alone being lost to massive Friend Poke retraining. This is the biggest drain on the economy since the massive Myspace migration of '05.

*

Caught a few minutes of Morning Joe, never a good way to start the day. Scarborough holding up the latest news on soaring healthcare and lamenting on the blow to "small businesses." Never mind the millions of people now even further away from anything even remotely resembling affordable healthcare, what about the poor business owner saddled with insuring these deadbeat workers who keep demanding outrageous things like living wages and reasonable compensation for aiding their employers in increasing profit margins?

The big joke is that business owners already know how to handle the rising health insurance costs - they just do the same thing my last two employers did, stop offering healthcare to employees. See? Problem solved. What are they going to do, quit and get a job that offers health benefits? Good luck trying to find a job in this economy. No, the employees will take nothing and like it.

Bonus annoyance points to Scarborough to trying to lay the rising healthcare costs at Obama's feet for daring to try and overhaul a corrupt system hellbent on profiting at the cost of human lives. Health care costs have doubled in the past decade, while the average worker income has risen slower than the cost of food and fuel, and the wealth disparity between the rich and the poor in this country now rivals many third world dictatorships.

*

The hardest part of sitting through the two hour version of Supergirl is watching Peter O'Toole act his heart out, despite being trapped in a supporting role for such a crappy movie. You can almost imagine him interrupting every third take with "You do realize I was in Lawrence of Arabia, right?" It is painful to watch him emoting just as much as he did in Beckett or The Ruling Class while Helen Slater wanders around him trying to figure out what to do.

*

Speaking of wealth disparity, there's been a lot of complaining from certain circles about Obama's assertion that America's wealthiest citizens should be paying higher taxes. Suddenly there were cries of class warfare from the politicians that spend most of their time defending the rich and powerful, complaining that Obama and those devious Lefties keep demonizing the rich, implying that they don't deserve their vast wealth and are somehow lesser people because they have more.While I would argue that they are lesser people not because they have more, but because they are increasingly unwilling to use the stockpiled wealth they will never spend to help those in need (Gerry Spence explains his issues with this mentality by using the example of people stockpiling cans of beans during a famine), this isn't me complaint.

I take issue with the Republican politicians and talking heads who complain about their rich and uber-wealthy brethren being demonized, while at the same time they go out and claim that those forced to turn to the government for help due to the rise in unemployment and poverty levels are lesser people undeserving of charity. They have come out and accused the unemployment "safety net" of becoming a "safety hammock," have implied that old people on medicare are greedy moochers expecting others to take care of them, and observed that people on unemployment are simply to lazy to look for real work, and should just work sixty or seventy hour work weeks at multiple minimum-wage part-time jobs instead of holding out for a job that pays what they are worth, or at least what they need to survive.

These politicians "of the people" have even gone so far as to make up their own facts to support these claims, stating that 90% of welfare recipients are drug users, or that more than half of job applicants are being turned away from companies for failing drug tests. Both claims were proven to be overwhelmingly false, but the reality was only met with claims of receiving faulty data, and not apologies for pulling facts out of their asses to affirm their own self-aggrandizing world view.

My point? If the mouthpieces of the rich and powerful feel free calling poor people lazy, greedy drug addicts with no potential or real purpose in society, then I see no problem with calling the richest among us greedy, manipulative leeches that amass their exorbitant wealth by exploiting the lower classes and bleeding the very soul of America's working class, and won't be content until they have managed to pry the last of the gold fillings from this nation's rotting skull.

But that's me. I'm an optimist.

"West Memphis Three" Plea Deal Approved by Celebrities

2011-08-19T11:43:00.002-04:00

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost:

"Defense attorneys, celebrities and legal experts have said the men are innocent."

Can we please, PLEASE, not include "celebrities" among the list of those declaring these people innocent? I understand that, as media-obsessed Americans, we are far too influenced by those who entertain us when it comes to their social and political beliefs. But sandwiching them in between defense attorneys and legal experts lends them a formal credibility that I am more than a little uncomfortable with granting.

Rick Perry is a Dirty, Stinking Coward

2011-08-19T09:50:00.001-04:00

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeThat's right, Perry. You heard me right. I'm callin' you out. You ain't nothin' but a cheap, dirty, rotten, stinkin', lousy, no-good, gutless, yellow-bellied coward.

Where did I get such an idea? The Huffington Post:

During a stop in New Hampshire on Thursday, Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry raised skepticism about the theory of evolution.

"How old do I think the earth is? You know what, I don't have any idea," said the Texas governor when asked about his position on the issue by a woman and her son. "I know it's pretty old so it goes back a long long way. I'm not sure anybody actually knows completely and absolutely how long, how old the earth is."

Perry regarded evolution as "a theory that's out there" and one that's "got some gas in it." He added that in the Lone Star State both creationism and evolution are taught to students in public schools. He explained, "I figure you're smart enough to figure out which one is right."

Now, I'll ignore the fact that Perry was factually incorrect when he stated that Texas schools teach both creationism and evolution. I'm not even going to imply that he knowingly lied about it. To be honest, I have no doubt that Perry is as ignorant about public school curricula in Texas as the average Texan student is about what a High School Diploma looks like. Besides, facts rarely get in the way of political posturing. Perry gets a pass on that one, because we simply don't expect anything better.

But what's with the wishy-washy answer to the evolution question? This is the man who asked the citizens of Texas to pray for rain! The pistol-packing jogger who defied non-Christians all over the state by hosting a "National Prayer Rally" and threatened to "get ugly" all over Federal Reserve Chairman Geithner. This is not a man who minces words, or even gives much thought to what they mean when strung together as sentences.

Yet what does he do when asked about his views on Evolution? It's "a theory that's out there" that's "got some gas in it?" What's this mamby-pampy nonsense? I don't think there is a rational human being within earshot of a political ad campaign who doubts that Perry is firmly entrenched in the Creationism camp. We all know it. Why is he suddenly so shy about praising his belief in God's hand in all things? Who's he afraid of? Pagans? Hippie Atheists? Secular Progressives? The man who shot a coyote in its sleep just for snoring isn't supposed to fear anything. But suddenly, and without any real discernible reason, Perry has sprouted a yellow streak a mile wide when confronted with questions regarding his own beliefs regarding that quaint little evolution theory thing.

That's right. Rick Perry is a coward. He's afraid to stand up for his God's miraculous worth, scared to declare his disdain for scientific research that actually provides empirical evidence of a gradual change in the physical properties of animal species.

I'm callin' you out, cowboy. Show me what you got.

Allen West: I Am The Modern-Day Harriet Tubman

2011-08-18T10:41:00.002-04:00

Is it just me, or have the Republicans fully adopted the Rush Limbaugh/Ann Coulter promotional strategy of purposely making stupid/insane/controversial statements in order to ensure constant media coverage? There has been so much stupid/crazy flying out of the Right Wing this past week alone that it almost seems intentional. Between Mr. Tubman Mark II, Wild-Eyes Bachmann and Drone Over Mexico Perry, it's getting harder and harder to catch a breath between laughter,

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

And the award for Worst Father of the Year goes to...

2011-08-15T20:14:00.000-04:00

Image via WikipediaEver see one of those parents with a special-needs kid in a supermarket or public park, the kind where it is painfully obvious that this person has most likely devoted their entire lives to raising that child? Doesn't it always makes you wonder if you would be able to handle it if you were thrust into the same situation? Meet the guy who really failed that test.

Louisiana police: Father confesses to decapitating special-needs son - CNN.com

The child's head was found Sunday by the side of a city street, detective Ricky Ross said. "We received the call about 12:14 p.m. on Sunday from a volunteer firefighter who was driving by and found a head by itself on the side of the city street," Ross said. When officers arrived, they were not sure whether the head was real, Ross said.

"When police arrived, 30-year-old Jeremiah Lee Wright was standing on the porch and told police it was a CPR dummy and it was just a joke."

To add insult to injury, it turns out that guy specifically left the head out where his wife would see it when she returned home from grocery shopping.

Why I do all of my furniture shopping on Craigslist...

2011-08-12T14:03:00.000-04:00

see more Lovely Listing

2011-07-17T11:36:00.001-04:00

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A Few Thoughts on False Fathers

2011-07-05T23:27:00.001-04:00

Image via WikipediaPerhaps I'm going out on a limb here, but what kind of man, one who presumably sees himself as a good and decent man of values, purposely plays with the emotional well being of a child? How does a man bear a child, shirk the responsibilities of raising that child at every opportunity, yet still somehow feel that they deserve, have in some way earned, the right to be called Daddy.

This is not an indictment of the broken home or of single parents, attempting to do their best to raise their children in less than the optimum situation. I am not one of those who believe that a single home devoid of love and filled with hostility and resentment is better than two homes filled with caring and emotionally grounded adults. Anybody who claims to have a handle on what the ideal family should look like is full of shit and arrogance.

What irks me are these Reserve Fathers, these selfish bastards that feel enough of a responsibility that they show up every other weekend and take their kid out for a day, give them an afternoon of fun and frolicking and look how good of a dad I am happy times, just in time to drop them off at home so the single mother can spend another two weeks raising them and disciplining them and struggling to maintain a household on their own, filling in the gaps between brief Super Father appearances with all of the tough decisions and personal dedication that real parenting involves.

Or even worse, these men who leave and raise new families, and instead of simply cutting ties with the young child they left behind and letting them find a new father to care for them, stringing them along with monthly or bi-monthly visits. Or even worse, having them come and stay with Daddy's "Real" Family for a week or two every year, showering them with all the love and affection they can muster for the child's short visit before sending them off to live with their mother again. These selfish bastards spend just enough time with their semi-abandoned to forge a familial bond that will prevent them from ever letting another man into their life as a nurturing parental figure, then avoid any of the real responsibilities that come with being a Father in any real sense of the word. They can't bear the thought of their child calling another man "Daddy," but they can't be bothered to devote as much energy to the role that the poor kid devotes to loving this shadowing figure of a former roommate they still think of as Dad.

These are not fathers. They are not men. They are leeches, sucking a feeling of importance and purpose out of their child's desperate need to be loved by their father, showing up like strung out junkies for a quick fix of a child's admiration and love whenever they feel the compulsion, then abandoning the child for lengthy amounts of time so emotional instabilities and uncertainties that will plague them for decades can firmly affix themselves to their innocent spirits. They are soulless leeches, sucking the life from a childhood that she be filled with affection and love at all times, not played with occasionally like a semi-amusing toy. I personally have more respect for the men who cut all ties and move on, who at least comes to terms and owns his complete lack of commitment instead of stringing the kid along out of a desperate need to feel wanted.

The ultimate insult, what truly separates these so-called men from anything resembling compassionate humanity, is that their infrequent visits and random bursts of attention don't reel these children who shouldn't know better. Instead, the infrequency of their visits and parental presence gives them an enigmatic aura, elevating their importance in the eyes the child so that they actually become more emblematic of a love-worthy parent than the mother struggling to raise the child virtually on her own, the only real assistance being child support that this Super Dad wouldn't even bother to pay if the government weren't somehow involved in the transaction.

If you're a father of a child that you only see every other weekend or twice a year when you fly them in for holidays, and you feel that I've been unfair to your side of the situation, save your time and don't complain to me. I could care less if your pride is injured. Take the time to call your kid and explain to them why you still deserve to be called "Daddy" when you aren't there to fix their breakfast every morning, help them with their homework, or put them to bed every night. Better yet, stop calling the kid all together, and stop giving them the false hope that you actually care about them enough to sacrifice anything other than a few calling plan minutes and an occasional day off.

Republican Scare Tactics - Scaring Away Big Business

2011-07-05T10:32:00.000-04:00

Image via WikipediaI spent five minutes or so listening to Pat Buchanan defend the Republican struggle against any kind of tax increases for big businesses on Morning Joe this morning, and it really did the trick to snap me out of the lazy, relaxed mindset of a long holiday weekend and launch me head first into the frustrations of the real world that is the work week.

First of all, any debate regarding the Debt Ceiling is meaningless. The Republicans voted to raise the debt ceiling 19 times while Bush was in office, so there really isn't any logical argument as to why they would suddenly be so against doing so now that isn't purely politically manipulative. They're just trying to screw with Obama, and they're using the threat of completely shit-canning the global economy as leverage to get their way.

The regular voting public doesn't really know enough about the debt ceiling, which is more economic theory than anything else, so how do they sell the voters on their anti-tax tantrum? By going on pseudo-news shows and holding press conferences claiming that any kind of increase in the disgustingly low tax rates on big businesses and corporations will drive all of these companies overseas to countries that aren't as gun-shy about slave wages and child labor as us stupid, greedy Americans. Their threat to the American public is simple and straight forward: Tax the rich people who pay us, and we'll take away your jobs.

The argument, or at least the threat, is completely invalid. You can give all the tax cuts you want to the few manufacturers we have left in this country of Wal-Mart Greeters and K-Mart Shoppers, it will still be cheaper for them to move their operations to countries that don't keep them from paying employees $10 a week. This was never a huge problem in the past, but ever since the US has virtually eliminated all tariffs on imported goods, there's really no cost incentive whatsoever for manufacturers to stay local.

This is why the Republicans are lying when they say that tax increases will drive companies overseas, and it is the same reason they are lying when they say tax cuts for these same companies will create new jobs. And when Pat Buchanan tells the Morning Joe audience, of which I was briefly a member of this morning, that taxing the corporate jet manufacturers will destroy jobs and weaken the economy, he is stunningly full of shit. Marketplace opportunism that manipulated trade regulations and tax policies, the unwavering greed that drove government officials to create a system in which companies and corporations could squeeze as much profits as possible out of a rigged system that will eventually collapse like the pyramid-scheme that it is, that is what has already destroyed jobs and crippled the economy. What could be more Republican, or even American, than that?

What a great way to start the week.

Stephen LaRoque Hires More Unemployed Workers To Clean Up His Yard

2011-06-26T10:11:00.001-04:00

This has always been the overall attitude of the Republican Party: People who fall upon financial hardships are just lazy and greedy, and should be thankful for any menial low-wage jobs they are offered; especially if it is a whopping $.75 above minimum wage! Rich political power brokers chastising struggling families trying to survive during an economic recession for not working at McDonald's. No wonder we have so many illegal aliens in this country, what with so many snobby Americans unwilling to accept jobs that keep them living below the poverty line.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Police Blotters - The Cynic's Funny Papers

2011-06-25T17:18:00.001-04:00

Image via WikipediaI occasionally like to peruse the Police Blotter section of my local newspaper, just to see what sort of hi-jinks my fellow free citizens are up to in the surrounding areas. I don't really recommend it, but I also make it a habit of doing things that are of no benefit to my well being and peace of mine.

The Warren Reporter, my local free weekly paper full of local news and community activities, has a segment in the Police News section they like to call Fugitive of the Week. What is worrisome about this is that they don't bother to explain why this individual is in such great demand this particular week, but only that authorities are really eager to speak with him or her about something or other. The perpetrator's nefarious deeds are kept a sadistic secret, leaving me with only their physical description, last known location, and driver's license photo to hint at what offense could have possibly elevated this person to such a prestigious position. What sort of heinous misdeeds could have drawn such attention? Loitering around school playgrounds carrying a fishing pole with Tootsie Roll lures? Tackling priests naked during baptisms? Molesting dead squirrels beneath the highway off ramp? I have too sordid and perverse of an imagination to be left with such an unanswered question.

The truths behind this week's highlights is a little easier to divine, as was a general rule to live by: don't call attention to yourself if you have something to hide.

It seems that police were summoned last Friday night with reports that a Phillipsburg man had fired six shots from a handgun. Police arrived and were informed that the man had indeed fired six shots, but had done so because a Pit Bull had attacked his own dog. The police didn't find a Pit Bull or any discernible marks on the man's dog, but they did find that the remaining four shells in the man's .44-caliber handgun were illegal hollow-point bullets.

That previous Wednesday night, while police were interviewing a woman while investigating a "civil matter," the man in question drove by the front porch where the officers were talking to the woman and honked; not once, but twice. Annoyed enough to pull the man over in a nearby parking lot, police noticed a steel pipe and a baggy full of a leafy substance in his center console when he pulled out his license and registration. He was arrested for possession of drug paraphernalia, synthetic cannabis and, go figure, a suspended license.

Butcher Knives and Body Counts Edited by Vince Liaguno Book Trailer

2011-06-23T15:58:00.000-04:00

Behold, the book trailer for the upcoming horror film theory & criticism anthology, Butcher Knives and Body Counts.

Moviesucktastic #27 - The Minority

2011-06-23T09:24:00.000-04:00

Video Highlights from Moviesucktastic Podcast #27, in which Joey and Scott review the independent film from 360soundvision, The Minority.

BooksNJ set for Sunday in Paramus - NorthJersey.com

2011-06-10T08:05:00.000-04:00

Image via WikipediaI shall be in attendance at the BooksNJ Festival at the Paramus, NJ Library on Sunday, June 12.

From 1PM to 5PM, I will be selling and signing copies of my books Monster Rally and Performed by Lugosi, speaking on a panel regarding strange things, meeting and talking to book fans of all ages, and even recording an episode of the Moviesucktastic podcast!

As a special BooksNJ bonus, all signed copies of Performed by Lugosi purchased will receive a free eBook edition of Monster Rally! I look forward to seeing you there!

BooksNJ set for Sunday in Paramus - NorthJersey.com: "More than 100 authors, from first-timers such as Paramus' own Steven Paley to New York Times bestselling author Mary Higgins Clark, will be at Paramus Public Library on June 12 for BooksNJ 2011.

Hosted by the Bergen County Cooperative Library System and Paramus Public Library, the event is free to all and will be held from 1 to 5 p.m. It will feature readings, workshops and discussions with writers and illustrators from a large range of genres.

'Everything from children's authors to adult New York Times bestselling authors, illustrators to children's book illustrators and poets will be here, with over 35 panels,' said Paramus Public Library Adult Programming Coordinator Donna Perkosky. 'The group that put this together has put together these panel discussions that allow people to get up close and personal with authors. Many of them are from New Jersey or live in New York; they have some kind of tie to New Jersey.'

Panels include topics such as 'From Post-its To Pages: Writing a Book;' 'An American Favorite: The Picture Book;' 'A Female Heroine From A Male Perspective;' and ''All The President's Men' Jersey Style featuring Josh Margolin and Ted Sherman. Also included are readings by authors for children and workshops hosted by published writers and illustrators."

Rapture Repercussions

2011-05-23T12:55:00.001-04:00

Image by TheChanel via FlickrAs many, many people have been proudly pointing out since Saturday's 6PM deadline passed uneventfully, the Rapture did not occur. Those souls deemed pure enough for immediate ascension (whose potential numbers are most likely far less than some would like) did not vacate their earthly vessels, leaving the rest of us to battle either for or against the forces of Evil in the years following the Second Coming.

Needless to say, this lack of Rapture has been the cause of much gloating. It seems that everyone wants to get in on the act of mocking and ridiculing those who were fully convinced that the world was about to become a real-life reenactment of a volume of the Left Behind novel series, and I can't really say that I blame them. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't attempted to do a little "Ha ha, the world didn't end!" pointing and laughing myself.

However, the more I thought about it, the more mean-spirited and obnoxious it seemed. Perhaps I'm just getting softer as I rapidly approach my mid-life crisis years, but the eagerness displayed by the majority of the general public and major media to deride a section of the populace for it's admittedly irrational yet firmly held religious convictions seems rather... harsh, to say the least.

Maybe my current standing as an Atheist gives me a bit of outside perspective on the whole affair. I can understand that a firm belief in the Rapture might seem ridiculous to other rational people of faith, but most of those laughing at the people running around screaming that the world was going to end Saturday are conveniently ignoring that most of their religious and spiritual beliefs are equally preposterous. I happen to know for a fact that a number of people I have heard mocking the Rapture folks still hold firm beliefs in Angels, Heaven, Transubstantiation, Predestination, Reincarnation, and a number of other religious and spiritual concepts that are equally silly when considered on a logical level.

Of course, that's the whole point in the first place: religious beliefs aren't meant to be logical. Beyond that, every different religious faction that adheres to The Holy Bible for guidance has their own specific interpretation of what the book actually "says." If we knocked every religion that didn't make any sense, everyone would end up in my camp, and that's a position I actually don't recommend, either. Just because I believe it, doesn't mean I actually like it.

Beyond all of that, however, I just really don't feel comfortable making fun of someone because their spiritual hopes didn't exactly pan our. As mean-spirited as the concept of the Rapture is, it just feels wrong laughing and pointing at the people that were convinced they weren't going to be around today. As an Atheist, that would be the equivalent of laughing at passing funeral processions because the guy in the casket isn't actually going to heaven. And despite what I may or may not believe in, that just feels wrong.

Just had to get that off my chest. You may now go back to laughing about all of those news features today about people who spent all of their money before what they thought was going to be the End of the Days. Just remember those chuckles the next time you ask that guy in the sky for a favor.

Royal (Wedding) Pains - or - Stupid Rich People

2011-04-29T09:20:00.000-04:00

Cover of Royal WeddingLet's be clear about this: I have not been one of those obsessed with the Royal Wedding over the past few weeks, on either side of the argument. Like most people (at least, I hope like most people), I have found it exceedingly difficult to care in the least either way. Despite the news media's endless attempts to make this overwhelmingly non-event the major focus of every conceivable news cycle, I have remained blissfully unaware of much of the details, include the actual date of the event.

But then, this morning, I stumble downstairs and find my way to the coffee pot blocked by widescreen coverage of Will and Kate (wasn't that a sitcom?) riding around massive groups of spectators in a horse drawn carriage while Joe Scarborough and Mika Whatever whore themselves out with some of the most inane and pointless voice-over news commentary imaginable. "Every shot you see, every camera angle, has been specifically planned out far in advance." What's this you say? A wedding ceremony that was planned in advance? I am shocked, shocked I say, to find out that some sort of preparation was involved in a wedding that was being hyped as a major media event months in advance. Listening to these simpering pseudo-journalists strain themselves to fill the dead air behind endless footage of a boring carriage ride, even for the five minutes it took me to get my coffee and toast, was mind-numbing to say the least.

So now I'm pissed. Not at pointless news coverage; I'd have to be dense to expect anything actually newsworthy on a Friday Morning Show. But suddenly this whole concept of the Royal Wedding being an event to celebrate and feel all warm and squishy about inside fills me with contempt. Between America, still dealing with prolonged unemployment and an increasing income gap between the wealthy and working class as corporations continue to rake in record profits during the ongoing recession, and Britain, with its populace facing yet another round of severe Austerity Measures, you would think the idea of sitting around watching disgustingly rich people showing off with an extravagant elitist wedding would be met with a bit more resistance.

I can't blame the rich people too much. They are notoriously out of touch to begin with. Throw a rock (and be sure you throw it hard) and you'll hit some rich prick so lost in their own wealth that they can't even begin to comprehend the problems and concerns of ordinary people, let alone understand why they get so upset when their financial concerns are dismissed as trivial, or complain about paying taxes when they are currently paying the lowest tax rates in decades. Actually, I take it back. I can blame them.

But stupid, arrogant rich bastards aside, I would like to think that our news media would have just a tad more respect for their viewing audiences than what they are currently displaying. I'd like to think that I could turn on the news today just in time to hear an announcer say "In other news today, the offspring of an antiquated form of governmental rule held a lavish wedding ceremony in the face of worldwide economic woes. We would cut to video and show you more, but frankly this sort of pointless extravagance is a waste of time and effort to even assemble, let alone cover, so we're going to give you more coverage about government officials attempting to eradicate labor laws specifically designed to protect the working class, followed by advertisements for luxury vehicles and gold speculation."

That's what I'd like to believe is possible, that is at least an option considered by someone, somewhere within what was once an essential watchdog in service to the people. But then I look back at the weeks of news coverage of Donald Trump, and the endless hours spent by newscasters and commentators discussing Trump's actions and decelerations as if he wasn't a slightly retarded imbecile with enough business smarts to keep him solvent and out of jail, and realize that when it comes right down to it, the media would rather run around documenting the inane and ineffectual lives of stupid rich people instead of reporting anything substantial and meaningful. Because, after all, where are the advertising dollars in something like that? They're just giving us what the public wants, and since people are still tuning in, they seem to be right. I'm watching stupid rich doing back-flips for media attention because that's what my fellow working-class citizens want to see.

This is not a good way to start the weekend.

Fireside Chat

2011-04-24T12:44:00.001-04:00

Here's some video footage of my recent appearance at Warren County Community College, reading an excerpt from my short story, "Fireside Chat."

Rejection Junction

2011-04-09T12:25:00.000-04:00

Image via WikipediaI received a rejection notice this morning for a short story I've been shopping around. It's the sixth rejection for this piece, and I have been fortunate to receive personal feedback with all of them. Unfortunately, the feedback has not been unanimous.

Why do I say unfortunately? It all comes down to the problem of deciding which feedback to consider, and which feedback to ignore. This topic came up a couple of time in the creative nonfiction workshop I was involved with last fall, as many of the younger students were facing this dilemma for the first time. Primarily used to receiving critical analysis from one or two authority figures (teachers, professors) and general encouragement from less critical audiences (friends, family members), they now found themselves on the receiving end of often contradictory opinions and advice from a room full of people not only intimately familiar with the written word, but the creative process as well. It's one thing to have your friends read your work and either "like" it or "not get" it, but something completely different to be receiving in-depth critiques from a dozen or so fellow writers.

So the question would come up now and then, especially after a certain piece was rejected by some, but well received or praised by others in the same session. Which input do you listen to? In the case of my short story, exactly half of them have complained about the story's structure or format, while the other half have expressed interest and instead rejected it do to thematic differences with their publication's content (horror covers such a broad scope of fiction). So who is right, and who is wrong? The temptation, of course, is to side with my defenders. They must be right; I am a genius after all. They obviously don't "get" it. Then again, maybe the critical responses were right, and the editors that responded positively were just being nice to avoid hurting my feelings?

Both answers are actually false, but only because there is no simple answer. Maybe the editors that didn't like the story did indeed fail to "get" it. But then, one of the primary jobs of the writer is to make the reader "get" what you are trying to do, so their ignorance of the scope of your genius is no excuse. As for the editors lying just to make you feel good? Don't count on it. Editors don't have to be nice, and seldom are. That's not a knock against editors, mind you, that's just the way things are. If an editor thinks your work is a waste of paper, they aren't going to take the time to send you a personal response just to avoid telling you that you suck. That's what form letters are for.

A decade or so ago (God, I'm getting old), I spent a couple of years doing nothing but reading and reviewing screenplays written by other aspiring screenwriters on Zoetrope, and submitting my own work for others to do the same. It took awhile, but by the time I stopped, I had developed a feel for knowing which reviews to take to heart, and which once to ignore. It got to the point where I could tell if the criticism being offered was constructive, destructive, or merely misinformed. It doesn't always fall on the same sides as positive and negative, either. I've received glowing praise that I eventually realized was completely undeserved, and I've been sent intentionally hurtful, mean spirited, destructive criticism that actually exposed some true weaknesses in my work. They aren't always so Black and White, either. Valid feedback can often contain bad suggestions as well, waiting in ambush under the camouflage of good advice. Offering critical feedback also helps hone the writer's criticism survival skills. Give enough feedback on other people's work, and not only will you see others making the same mistakes you are making in your own work, but you'll also see how other people are handling aspects of writing that you are struggling with. But more importantly, you'll learn a lot by how the feedback you give is received by others.

I still remember one screenplay in particular, and thriller about a serial killer. It was bad. I mean... Bad. Not wanting to come off as mean, I took the time to write a seven-page response to the author, explaining not just what didn't work, but citing examples of other ways to do what he was trying to do, and even suggested other films (remember, we're talking screenplays here) that would show him what wasn't working. I put a lot of extra effort into my response, knowing that if I was going to be critical about this person's work, i should really make sure I knew what I was talking about.

The response was apocalyptic. An angry two-page response tore me apart - not my critique, but me personally. I was a bad critic. I was mean and hateful. I was stupid. He did everything short of insult my mother and threaten to beat me up. Other writers had read his novel (I shudder at the thought) which the screenplay was based on, where did I get off being so negative and destructive? I still own a copy of the screenplay, as well as my critique of it and his reply. I revisit them every now, a not-so-gentle reminder of the complexities behind giving and receiving critical feedback.

So which reviews do you listen to: the positive ones, or the negative ones? Listen to all of them. But listen cautiously, because positive praise can still lead you down the wrong path, while negative critiques might actually save your work.

Then again, it never hurts to send that short story out one more time for a tie-breaker.

But Say a Man Does Know

2011-04-08T21:44:00.000-04:00

Cover of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter"But say a man does know. He sees the world as it is and he looks back thousands of years to see how it all come about. He watches the slow agglutination of capital and power and he sees its pinnacle today. He sees America as a crazy house... He sees a whole damn army of unemployed and billions of dollars and thousands of miles of land wasted... He sees how when people suffer just so much they get mean and ugly and something dies in them. But the main thing he sees is that the whole system of the world is built on a lie. And although it's as plain as the shining sun—the don't-knows have lived with that lie so long they just can't see it."

Jake Blount - The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers

Co-workers Suck

2011-04-06T16:47:00.000-04:00

Image via Wikipedia
"You forgot to check the phone number on the order against the one in the system. The one on the order is the client's new home number."

Oh! My mistake, I must have overlooked that. Thanks for letting me know, I'll be sure to keep an eye on that sort of thing when I'm processing invoices. Constructive criticism is important, especially when it leads to preventing future errors.

"If the invoice went out with the old number, and they tried to call the customer from the road tomorrow, they wouldn't be able to get a hold of them."

Is that what happens when someone calls a wrong number? And here I was living under the assumption that if someone dialed an old number, it somehow magically connected through to the person you were trying to reach in some cosmic karma version of call forwarding. I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't taken the time to explain how the old phone number becomes noneffective when someone changes it to a new number. Granted, years down the road, with some worldly experience and accumulated wisdom under my belt, I might have eventually come to understand this universal truth on my own. But thankfully, you devoted the extra time, not to mention the precious live-giving breath afforded by your very lungs, to impart this wisdom unto me, increasing my knowledge, and making me a better person overall.

I mean, really? Is there any reason you couldn't simply stop talking after your mouth had already finished delivering all of the useful information it had to offer? Don't get me wrong, I enjoy being treated like fourth-grader with a learning disorder and having the common-sense aspects of cause and effect explained to me like I'm a complete moron because I overlooked a piece of information. It not only makes me feel appreciated, but helps the workday just whiz right along. However, in the future, when you feel the compulsion to talk to a fellow employee in the same manner you no doubt talk to your children, you might want to take a second to consider the scope of your planned monologue, mentally edit the length of your professional discourse, and make a conscious effort to stop fucking talking once all necessary words have left your mouth.

In It To Lose It

2011-03-26T11:16:00.000-04:00

Image via WikipediaOne of my newly acquired coworkers approached me a couple of days ago and asked it I wanted to chip in for the company Lottery tickets. Apparently, a majority of the people where I work (including the owner, if that tells you anything) create a Lottery pool when ever the Mega Millions jackpot climbs over $300 Million. I guess they figure chump change like $200 Million isn't worth the effort.

I am not a gambler. I enjoy games and healthy competition, and the occasional wager between friends can be fun and challenging. But as soon as gambling is orchestrated and controlled by an organization with the direct intent of making money, it becomes a situation in which you are being asked to dedicate yourself financially to a system that has been specifically orchestrated to ensure your failure in the majority of possible outcomes. Much like borrowing or investing money with banks these days, you're screwed the minute you open your wallet.

This isn't a position I take on any kind of logically superior level. I am purely adverse to gambling from emotional standpoint: like many people, I don't like to lose. I'm not obsessive about it; I don't fly into a rage when a scrabble partners plays Quartzy on a Triple Word score or cheat at miniature golf. But to me, gambling has always felt like defeat without any real promise of success. I've patronized a few casinos in my day, and the stench of desperation and hopeless persistence is always overwhelming. I can almost see the pleasure in some of it - Slot machines, for example, have evolved to the point where they are merely arcade games for unimaginative adults. Of course, as a kid, I could milk a couple of hours at the arcade out of a measly $5; the same amount of time hanging out at even the nickel slots can cost you the same as a month's worth of groceries ("What do you mean, seventy-five lines? Why did one turn on a nickel slot just cost me $3.75?). During my last trip to the local Sands Casino, I paid a brief visit to the High Roller Slots Area, just to see what people willing to take a $500 pull on a one-armed bandit look like. Frighteningly enough, they look just like you and me, just with nicer clothing.

As if that isn't bad enough, anything above slots descends into the bizarre realm of casual and somewhat civilized thuggery. Those slightly jovial people with the intense stares at the $10 blackjack table might seem innocent enough, but all it takes is ten or twelve hands for you to realize that the middle-aged mother of three (celebrating her third honeymoon) on your right and the overworked insurance salesman (in town for yet another trade show) on your left are both more than willing to shove the plastic straw from their complimentary drink in your eye if you mistakenly hit when you aren't "supposed" to and inadvertently take "their" card. Desperation can make people behave irrationally, but those who actively seek out desperation are a dangerous breed all their own. The twisted souls populating the Keno and Roulette tables are the most unstable of the bunch, and should be approached with extreme cation. The person who willingly places bets on a game in which they are fully aware that odds are firmly against them, only to become angry or disappointed when the law of averages declares them losers, is an unpredictable creature that demands equal amount of pity and respect, but only at a safe distance.

Of course, we aren't talking about table games or slot machines. My coworkers would simply like me to chip in on buying lottery tickets so as to increase their chance of beating the three-million-to-one odds against them by a fraction of a percent. It's all in good fun, but my natural inclination is to politely decline. Even when in good company, I still cannot find the joy in purposely setting myself up for yet another loss.

Then a frightening possibility occurs to me: what if they win? What if I politely decline to join in their office lottery pool, only to have my coworkers strike the jackpot. It would just be my luck to end up in an empty office on a Monday morning with everyone having called out sick to celebrate, with them mulling over stock portfolios while I process payroll for a bunch of nouveau riche, soon to be ex-coworkers.

So, I chipped in three dollars. Because the only thing worse than losing is being the only loser in the building.

PS - We didn't win.

Homeschooling: America's Biggest Joke

2011-03-24T20:54:00.000-04:00

Image by Gage Skidmore via FlickrRon Paul and Michelle Bachmann, two of the Tea Party's hopeful (yet decidedly doubtful) 2012 Presidential hopefuls picked up the anti-public schools baton lobbed by ambitious GOP trend-setters like Chris Christie and Scott Walker over the past month. But unwilling to do anything half-assed (except draw logical conclusions or research historical facts, perhaps), Bachmann and Paul shot right past those evil unions and greedy teachers, and instead attacked the institution of government funded public education as a whole. Needless to say, their arguments come across as less than coherent.

Ron Paul, claiming that the government was seeking nothing less than "absolute control" over the "indoctrination" of children, adjusted his tinfoil hat and stated that "the public school system now is a propaganda machine. They start with our kids even in kindergarten, teaching them about family values, sexual education, gun rights, environmentalism - and they condition them to believe in so much which is totally un-American."

At first, one might pause to wonder what exactly Ron Paul has against teaching children about things like family values and the environment. This involves some reading between the lines, facilitated by the fact that Paul and Bachmann were speaking at a homeschooling rally (whatever that is), which is undoubtedly comprised of a majority of Far-Right paranoids concerned with shielding their children from what they consider 'Wrong' thinking. With this in mind, it now becomes understood that when Paul accuses public schools of teaching children 'Family Values', he is really accusing them of teaching kids that homosexuality isn't a crime against God and society. 'Sex Education' translates to 'Birth Control & Abortions as Viable Options', 'Gun Rights' become 'Guns are Dangerous and Should Be Restricted', and 'Environmentalism' as 'Regulating Polluting Corporations and Reducing Consumerism'. In the right-wing mind, all of these are inherently evil forms of juvenile brainwashing.

Am I being unreasonable here? After all, shouldn't parents be expected to show concern that their children are being exposed to belief systems to which they don't subscribe? Yes, that would be a fair assumption. However, these groups that yank their children out of formal education to save them from hearing about condoms and global warming are the same ones that want students to be openly led in prayer, and balk when religious symbols is stripped from holiday celebrations out of concern for those of other religious persuasions. Paul doesn't mention evolution in his laundry list of educational sins against our children, but if he did it would have garnered just as much applause. Most of these rabid homeschooling proponents are against any kind of indoctrination other than that which follows their own firmly held beliefs. If the schools were spreading propaganda that called gay marriage an abomination, sex a dirty shameful act, and gun ownership a patriotic necessity in case of a Communist attack, you wouldn't be hearing a peep out of these people. Do I have any direct evidence that this crowd falls into such a category? No, but I have just as much proof as they do that God exists, so who are you to judge?

Bachmann followed up Paul's fearmongering against formal education by claiming that homeschooling is the "essence" of freedom and liberty. Actually, homeschooling is the essence of being an isolated frontiersman with no real connection to society. She went on to croon "It's about knowing our children better than the state knows our children," she said. Which is endearing sentiment that moves me to wonder why the government feels the need to interfere with our children when it comes to the consumption of alcohol or tobacco? Don't parents know better than the state whether or not their children are mentally and emotionally mature enough to smoke or drink? And what about laws against child abuse and endangerment? Aren't parents are the ultimate judges of how much physical and mental assaults their children can take before punishment crosses over into abuse? Talk about the Nanny State.

"It is not up to a bureaucrat to decide what is best for your children," Bachmann said. "I am so tired of the establishment telling us that they know best. We know best." Except when it comes to physics, perhaps. Maybe algebraic equations. Or, in the case of Bachmann, American History. Come to think of it, her argument that the act of pumping out a couple of children suddenly endows the parents with an accurate and infallible concept of what is 'Best' is a little more than dubious. Sure they might all want the best (and even that claim is a tad dubious), but does every parent actually know what is best for their children? What about all of those parents who bought trampolines for their kids, or left guns unattended in nightstands to be played with, or told them that being popular is the most important thing in the world. I'm sure Billy Ray Cyrus wanted all of the best for his little Hannah Montana. But did he actually know what was best for Miley? I rest my case.

Bachmann's a favorite at these events because she has homeschooled all five of her own children, a fact that is somewhat frightening when you consider the number of historical inaccuracies and illogical statements attributable to her in just the past couple of years. We can only be thankful that the government intervened and prevented her from subjecting her twenty-three foster children to a similar fate.

Despite claims to the contrary, the majority of the homeschooling movement boils down to parents afraid of Non-Christian influences swaying their children's world view, so it is no surprise that the master of ceremonies was Justin LaVan of the Network of Iowa Christian Home Educators, who stated that homeschooling was a way get children "talking about our Creator - our rights that came from our Creator, acknowledging that and giving him the glory, folks."

So, where do I get off calling homeschooling a joke? Surely, there must be examples of homeschooled kids who were not raised by religious zealots fearing heathen influences would turn their children into Gay Hippie Atheist Democrats. I can't possibly be dismissive of an entire movement simply because of the religious undertones of their overall message of wanting greater control over their children's education?

You bet your ass I can. The IQ of the average American currently hovers around 95%, give or take a few. Taking in consideration that this means half of the US population is actually (through statistical reasoning) dumber than that, what would you consider the ideal IQ of your average teacher? Would you want your child educated by someone with a merely average intellect? Or would you prefer someone a tad smarter than the average bear?

I know this might sound rather elitist to some people, but i'ts hard to put a ribbon on the ugly truth: rational people don't just want their children to grow up to be average. The want them to be exceptional, to be superior, or to put it more bluntly, to be smarter than their parents. The idea that a parent knows what's best for their children in an educational environment is a self-important position that drastically restricts the growth potential of that household's progeny. To claim that you, and you alone, should be the basis for your child's education is to insist that you are more qualified than all others to communicate the accumulation of modern civilization's knowledge into your kid's soft little skull. That, my friends, is hubris on a grand scale.

But shouldn't parents be able to shape and mold their children's beliefs and world views according to their own moral and spiritual compass? Damn straight they should, and nobody is doing a thing to stop them. The schools only have their children for a limited number of hours a day and days of the year. The rest of the time can be easily be spent talking to your children, counseling them and helping them shape the knowledge they acquire and force it into whatever spiritual or philosophical pigeon-hole you wish.

The reason the homeschooling movement in America is a joke is because the entire argument for it is based on a convenient lie. Homeschooling parents aren't afraid of negative influences on their children's impressionable young minds. They are afraid that the child, after accumulating facts and weighing evidence beyond the scope of the their parents' knowledge, will grow up to someday tell them that they are wrong. And if there is one thing that the collective psyche of the average person can't handle, it is being told that they might actually be wrong. And by their children, no less? Why, that's downright un-American.

What's Wrong With Crust?

2011-03-23T20:35:00.000-04:00

Image via WikipediaI don't understand what appears to me to be a universal aversion to crust. From mothers who will force their children to eat Asparagus and Cauliflower yet willingly cut the crust off of their PB&J, to grown adults fingering past those first couple of slices in the bread bag and eventually throwing it away with the heels still inside, there seems to be some twisted bias against what is still a perfectly edible piece of bread. What is it about this completely illogical aversion to the slightly hardened edges of sliced bread that has it so deeply ingrained in our society's psyche? What is even more confusing is that this prejudice does not extend itself to other types of bread. Firmer, tougher crusts other specialty breads are eagerly devoured without a thought, yet the square sandwich loaf is continually taught to be ashamed of its protective outer shell. I don't know why this bugs me, but it does, and I can often be found making a sandwich out of the neglected heels in the bottom of the bread bag out of protest.

The Hills Are Alive... RUN!!!

2011-02-18T15:53:00.000-05:00

The bell tolls for me afterward, I suppose. Tonight I drive down to Princeton to meet Dead Wrong, Corey Sloan, and the rest of the undead cast and crew of Zombie Etiquette, the corpse-driven talk show based out of Princeton, New Jersey. Usually, preparations for a television interview normally consist of worrying what to wear and remembering not to look at the camera. In this case, the question is whether or not to go armed with enough firepower to take down a swarm of man-eating ghouls.

Don't get me wrong; I have no doubt that I was invited on to be asked about my latest book, Performed by Lugosi, and my role as a writer and film commentator. The show has had some great artists and stars on in the past, and most of them have actually been seen again, so the mortality rate of the show's guests is actually quite low. For example, the line up for the show I'll be taping next Friday includes controversial singer, songwriter, and comedienne Jessica Delfino, actress/writer Alexis Iacono (Kiss Me Again, The Ten, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm), and clothing designer Pamela Ptak with Alternative Model Kitty Kat Kailei. Someone's bound to notice if one (or all) of them going missing.

But then again, I still have my concerns. How long can you remain in a room full of flesh-eating zombies before they start to lose their composure? Has the show's lack of on-screen guest eviscerations merely been a barely maintained safety record just begging to be broken? At what point do the par cans and tungsten stop being mere lighting and start acting as the heat lamps at a hot buffet?

Hence my dilemma. Do I stroll into a studio filled living dead fiends armed with nothing more than a smile and good intentions, or do I march in with fire axe in hand and risk committing a major faux pas? I'll most likely settle on the former; it's probably hard to interview someone while they cradle a shotgun and glare suspiciously. But I'll be sure to send updates to my Facebook and Twitter feeds to keep you up to date on my safety status. Of course, my last words on Earth might end up being a poorly spelled tweet about being barricaded in the green room, but I guess that's a risk I'll have to take. Wish me luck.

Horror-Comedy 'Zombies Ate My Neighbors' in Development, Based on the '90s Video Game (slashfilm.com)
App of the Day: Dead Rising Mobile for iPhone [Video] (gizmodo.com)
"More Online Zombie Content Than You Can Shake a Dismembered Limb At" and related posts (blogs.amctv.com)
Best "chainsaw vs. zombie" scene we've seen in ages. Plus campy kinky sex! [DVD Review] (io9.com)

Errata, by Charles Simic

2011-02-13T18:52:00.000-05:00

Image via Wikipedia
Where it says snow
read teeth-marks of a virgin
Where it says knife read
you passed through my bones
like a police-whistle
Where it says table read horse
Where it says horse read my migrant's bundle
Apples are to remain apples
Each time a hat appears
think of Isaac Newton
reading the Old Testament
Remove all periods
They are scars made by words
I couldn't bring myself to say
Put a finger over each sunrise
it will blind you otherwise
That damn ant is still stirring
Will there be time left to list
all errors to replace
all hands guns owls plates
all cigars ponds woods and reach
that beer-bottle my greatest mistake
the word I allowed to be written
when I should have shouted
her name

errata - Charles Simic

Short Story Saturday: The Unavoidable Dilemma of Chauncey P. Simm

2011-02-12T09:48:00.002-05:00

The Unavoidable Dilemma of Chauncey P. Simm

by S. Michael Wilson

“Squeaky Cheese.”

Those were the words she spoke to me before she walked out of my life forever.

Image by katiecarman via Flickr She stood framed in the splintered doorway of our spacious loft apartment, her full lips stained and puffy from an excess of pistachio nuts. I knelt in the far corner, the random fragments of my Berlin Wall Commemorative Beer Stein clutched in disbelieving hands. Her glare traveled across the room like a retired postal worker on a three day excursion through Fort Lauderdale, pausing momentarily near the singed potted palm for directions to the pitiful loser, then parking a few inches from my tear stained face and delivering her scorn through a passenger door window cracked open enough to let the contempt out and keep the air conditioning in.

There was a pause during which I was meant to do or say something, but my copy of the event’s script had accidentally made it into the washing machine with my Day-Glo Buddhist robes, the words running together so that all I knew for sure was that I was supposed to do something with a ‘P’ and an ‘E’ in it.

The moment passed, lost like a child in Sears, and before I knew what had happened, she spoke those fateful words.

“Squeaky cheese,” she said.

Then the door slammed shut, and I could hear her turn on her heels and stalk away huffily. I tried to speak, but the words stuck in my throat like an olive laced toothpick. That was it. She was gone.

I was at a loss for what to do. I was beside myself with grief, and neither of us was sure what came next. It was almost impossible to imagine a world without her, and now it was the only world I could afford admission to without a student discount.

Where had it all gone wrong? Had it ever gone right? Maybe it had all gone wrong before to such an extent that we assumed it was going right, so that when it all finally went right, it seemed so wrong.

Philosophical quandaries never fail to give me an earache, and so I staggered to the throne of woodland animal skulls she had constructed as a young Girl Scout to earn her False Idols Merit Badge. A seat of polished rabbit skulls cushioned me as I attempted to relieve my broken heart and impaired equilibrium. I gripped the squirrel spine armrest as the room spun around me like a goldfish bowl in a centrifuge and thought back to the time when it all began.

We first met in that magical time known as spring, two free spirits haunting the city of apples. Our paths crossed somewhere in central park. I was busy building tongue depressor profiles of famous dead Russian authors; she was lighting cigarettes and feeding them to pigeons. A smoldering bird set my wooden likeness of Nabokov aflame, and I pursued her across the park with the full intention of avenging poor Vladimir. My vengeful rage was cut short, however, as her stunning beauty and a vicious blow to the larynx stopped me in my tracks.

She was part Bruce Lee, part Florence Nightingale, and promptly nursed me back to health after thoroughly kicking my ass. I regained consciousness with a flutter in my heart, helped along with her flawless CPR. I felt a love for her, swelling within me like a bruised kidney, that almost matched the pity in her eyes.

We shared ourselves with one another right there in the bushes as she cradled my head and checked for spinal injuries. It seemed we were kindred souls, haunted by similar passions. She explained that her smoking pigeons were an anarchic attempt at performance art meant to illustrate the similarities between lung cancer and the avian flu. I confessed that I was cursed with an abundance of tongue depressors. We spent the rest of the afternoon asking probing questions of one another and evading park security. Our newfound affections and mutual curiosity had surpassed the restraints that shyness and no trespassing signs usually afford one in mixed company.

Our backgrounds were as similar as mismatched footwear. She was a fractured debutante from a Midwestern town best left nameless. Struck mute at an early age by the sheer beauty inherent in her inability to exist in two places at once, she ran away from home under the darkness of the yuletide season, vowing never to exist in the same place once. Owing to a severe lack of traveling circuses in the immediate area, she ending up fleeing the only hometown she had ever known on a Cincinnati Book Mobile gone rogue. Her next three years were spent like a gypsy in a library, never staying in the same place too long, never reading the same book twice. Her journey ended as most often do, abruptly at a partially hidden Stop sign and a jackknifed ice cream truck. Armed with the Hobo equivalent of a PHD in world studies, she had since spent her waking hours hitchhiking and spreading global awareness through pointless acts of obscure social disobedience.

I, on the other hand, had been born in a coma, only to be awakened at the age of seven by a monstrous thunderclap that split the heavens and set off every car alarm in three surrounding counties. Tutored endlessly until the age of awareness to catch me up with the rest of those sharing my birthday, I was released unto the world at the age of seventeen a well educated social recluse and societal misfit. Having read the collected works of Ayn Rand and misunderstanding all of it, I formed a religious and political belief system that even I did not fully understand, and was therefore forced to excommunicate myself, thus furthering along my complete alienation. I was on the verge of emotional bankruptcy when my parents finally came to my rescue and died from asphyxiation in a bizarre hang gliding accident, leaving me utterly alone yet completely self-sufficient, and owner of the world’s second largest Ping-Pong table, currently on display in Minnesota.

Our life stories were so alike it was downright eerie, and there was a brief moment in which each assumed the other was a doppelganger intent on stealing their soul. The scuffle that followed our confused misunderstanding cemented our relationship and left me recuperating in intensive care for several weeks. She would come to visit me every other day, scaling out onto the ledge and blowing kisses at me through the windows, even though visiting hours were still in effect. By the time my recuperation was complete we had gained a devotional fascination for one another that bordered on stalking.

It was not long after my physical therapy that we made a home for ourselves in small seven-bedroom apartment overlooking the first eighteen floors of a Styrofoam recycling plant. My new eternal life partner, having spent half of her life a transient, had accumulated more possessions than a convention center full of comic book collectors, and it took several months for us to contact the several storage facilities she had rented across the country and have her stuff shipped to her new home. We spent the intervening time between UPS deliveries eating Chinese Takeout and playing a bizarre hybrid of Monopoly and Pente I had once created in the throes of an Absinthe binge. Three years later, we had yet to finish the game. I was ahead by three.

The years had flown by like big blurry things whizzing past opened windows, and it seemed like only yesterday that she had walked out of my life forever, despite it having happened only ten minutes ago.

Once again, the question circled my head like an airborne badger. Where had it all gone wrong? Was the answer hidden somewhere in her parting words? Perhaps it was a coded phrase meant to scratch at the walls of my subconscious until it drew blood and left a nasty scar. What could it mean? Was she comparing our love to a dairy treat both noisy and binding, our passionate affair reduced to nothing more that a case of high pitched constipation? Maybe she was drawing a comparison between mice and cheese, alluding to dual roles unwittingly played out by us to the bitter end. However, if so, who had filled each role? Had I been the cheese, or the whining mouse? If I embodied the former, I was hazardously miscast as overripe Gouda, and if I was to be the latter, then my tail was much too wide. Perhaps I was wrong on all counts, and she was simply reading from an equally water logged script, as clueless as myself as to what our motivation was, and why the director had walked off the set in a huff.

I scratched my ankle on a protruding beaver tooth and considered the possibility that she was attempting to compare the waning of our relationship to a Holy Rodent bespoken of in the missing gospel of Doogles. The door suddenly cracked open, and her face peeked around the corner like a ray of sunshine trying to make its way to the bathroom without being noticed. She scanned the room for my whereabouts like a reluctant warden, found me curled upon her childhood’s throne, and gave me a rueful wink.

“The hardware store is closed on Tuesdays,” she whispered before closing the door with a mischievous grin.

It suddenly occurred to me that I had never asked her name.

That Sinking Feeling...

2011-02-10T09:21:00.000-05:00

Image via WikipediaI find that the older I get, the more I feel like the guy who accidentally joins a suicide cult, thinking it was some kind of social club. I can clearly empathize with the surreal sensation of confusion that must undoubtedly accompany the man as he stands there surrounded by smiling fanatics clad in purple robes, stares down at the Dixie cup of poison-laced grape juice clutched in his hand and thinks to himself, "Did I miss something?"

Paul Ryan's Response - Far From Scrumdidilyumptious

2011-01-27T10:07:00.000-05:00

Image via WikipediaPresident Obama gave his State of the Union Address this past Tuesday. As is usually the case, it was quickly followed with countless voices screaming "You Lie!" into the void of white noise that is our News Media, with the occasional whining complaint of "I'm bored." (Yes, I'm looking at you, Joe).

As a self-confessed masochist, I spent some time reading the rebuttals, and the rebuttals of the rebuttals, and so on and so forth, and Ieventually made my way to the transcript of Paul Ryan's GOP response to the SOTU (as we political savvy folks enjoy typing). It was near the end of his predictable list of reasons why Obama is so horribly and hopelessly wrong that I ran across this little gem:

"This is a future in which we will transform our social safety net into a hammock, which lulls able-bodied people into lives of complacency and dependency."

The first thing that came to mind was how much Republican love come up with these clever little catchphrases. Granted, this might not be the first time it has been used, but it's the first time I've really noticed it. Bumper Sticker Wisdom always prevails over any real intelligent communication, and I have no doubt that "Safety Nets becoming Hammocks" will soon take its place alongside such tired phrases as "Cadillac Benefits," "Tax and Spend" and "Limousine Liberals." I'd list more, but it hurts my brain to cram too many of these into one sitting.

The inanity of this obsession with witty quips in serious political speeches distracted me so much that it took a couple of seconds to realize that I had just been insulted. You see, I didn't actually watch the SOTU, or the official Paul Ryan and (hilarious) unofficial Michele Bachmann responses. I was busy taking notes in a late-night Biology class. Like many other Americans, I've had a tough couple of years. I lost my job - no, my career - of fifteen years when the recession first turned ugly at the end of 2008. I spent two years on unemployment desperately trying to replace my former lively hood in a job market more competitive than a runway model reality show, and am now working two low-paying part-time jobs with no benefits in a desperate attempt to make ends meet, while simultaneously attending school full-time in an attempt to enter a new career path.

Now, why am I whining about my own problems? Not to apologize for being unemployed - I could honestly care less what an anonymous person reading my blog thinks about me. No offense. But the point is that there is a story of struggle and hardship behind every unemployment check I received, and my story is far from unique, and nowhere near as tragic as other ones out there. Millions - MILLIONS - of people across the country are still dealing with the dark realities of this crippling recession as you read this, wondering every day how long they'll be able to last, how long until their luck will run out, hoping they can find some form of employment that will allow them to both feed their children AND make the mortgage payment.

So what does Paul Ryan do? Compare Unemployment Benefits - which you have to PAY INTO in order to RECEIVE, by the way, so Entitlement my ass - to reclining in the shade on a summer afternoon, cold drink in hand. Granted, he didn't actually mention Unemployment benefits, but considering that Unemployment is itself one of the top issues of the moment, I find it hard to believe he's attacking welfare. Besides, he's a Republican, so a hatred of Welfare recipients is almost implied. I don't see any other way to take this; Paul Ryan just implied that I'm a lazy bitch, and that anyone else in my position is just sitting back and letting others do the work for them. There's an appropriate response to this kind of slur, but I'm trying to cut back on my excessive cursing, which is harder than you might think when politics is the point of discussion.

As I mentioned with Welfare, this resentment of "Safety Net" programs is an ongoing theme in the Republican Dialogue. Conservatives actually get red in the face when they think of people cashing Welfare and Unemployment checks, or receiving subsidies or free college tuitions or, Lord have Mercy, free health care! There's this constant obsession with people receiving something they didn't earn, this overwhelming need to raise a ruckus whenever someone else gets something for free that they didn't. They are the hall monitors of the adult world, self-obsessed watchdogs on a constant search for anyone not living up to their high standards. They don't get free money from the government. Why should you? That's not fair! And get off my lawn!

Which brings me to the film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (not Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Tim Burton's self-absorbed abomination). Whenever I hear a Republican rant and rave about these "leeches" that are "draining society" by "living off MY taxes," my mind always flashes back to the Everlasting Gobstopper scene, in which Veruca Salt gets all bent out of shape because she thinks Violet Beauregarde got two Gobstopper, while she only received one.

These Republicans and Conservatives, who always seem so obsessed with anyone getting a "Free Ride" or "Something for Nothing," are the Veruca Salt of the world. Always concerned that someone is getting something they don't have, always making everything about them. The similarities don't end there, of course. In the true spirit of Free Market Capitalism, Veruca's father "earns" her Golden Ticket for by reaping the benefits of the hard work of his underpaid employees, offering a measly ten-pound bonus to the worker who finds the ticket, all of them receiving only slave wages for their diligent work while Veruca runs off to Candy Land with the results of that hard labor. And what better anthem could there be, for the party obsessed with the accumulation of wealth at any cost, than Veruca Salt's little "I Want It Now" song and dance number?

Do I think all Republicans are representative of childhood cinema's favorite Greedy Little Bitch? No, just the ones who act like it. In truth, I believe that there are only a small minority of Conservatives who think like this. Unfortunately, most of them act as spokespersons for the party, and the scream louder than the ones who actually care about their fellow man. And unfortunately, unlike the movie, the Veruca Salts of the world don't get sucked into the furnace by the Educated Eggdicater. In the real world, Veruca's father nails Wonka on a zoming violation and eventually acquires the Wonka factory in a hostile corporate takeover, Golden Geese and all.

And what happens to the majority of Americans, the meek Charlie Buckets who just want to live comfortably, want what's best for everyone, but are unwilling to sell anyone else out in order to obtain that dream? They'll just have to get used to stale bread for dinner, constant disappointment, and looking at chocolate bars through storefront windows. Wishing they had that Everlasting Gobstopper to suck on, and waiting for that safety net to start feeling like a hammock.

Feel-Good Activism: The Healthcare Debate

2011-01-06T10:21:00.000-05:00

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeWith the GOP now holding a Majority in the House, you can rest assured that there are going to be countless attacks against any and all Obama legislation, and just as many (if not more) campaigns against so-called Republican reforms.

The first out of the gate, of course, is the drive to repeal "Obamacare" and it's anti Free Market approach to Health Care at the expense of profits. I'm not going to weigh in on which side is right. That invariably results in arguing the facts with someone of the opposite viewpoint, and with the political discourse in this country becoming more rabidly heated by the moment, I'd rather have a naked bowie knife duel to the death with Christopher Walken in a dumpster full of medical waste.

I would, however, like to give some humble advice: Think your arguments through. Example? There's a very well-intentioned movement right now called Repeal health care? Give up your own first! The goal is to get a petition signed urging GOP leaders to give up their own government-sponsored healthcare if they are so against socialized medicine of any kind. It's a cute little bumper-sticker wisdom campaign that, unfortunately, has no real teeth with which to bite.

First of all, petitions don't work, folks. Petitions are a great show of strength and solidarity, and that's about it. The only real upshot to a petition is that it allows a politician to ignore your cause in one big group, which is much easier than ignoring you individually. The assumption is also that anyone signing the petition wouldn't have voted for them anyway, so what do they care? Petitions are fun and feel good, but unless you're trying to get your favorite TV show back on the air (because advertisers pay more attention to what you want than politicians do), that's about all they accomplish.

But more importantly, make sure your argument makes some kind of sense, at least as far as the end result. The whole drive of this campaign is to ask Republicans in favor of repealing healthcare for those who can't afford it to give up their own free government-issued healthcare. Sounds good on the surface, no? Here's the problem with this little jab of logic: they can afford to. John Boehner alone (insert tanning joke here) is worth somewhere between three and seven million dollars, and he's at the low end of the average Capitol Hill employee spectrum. The people pushing to repeal affordable healthcare could not only afford to purchase the most expensive healthcare package available, they could easily do it without having to skimp on the grocery shopping or canceling their golf club membership. Threatening millionaires with economic hardship doesn't work. Think about it.

The funny thing about this movement is that the Republicans it is targeted at could actually call the bluff. John Boehner and Mitch McConnell could drop their government-sponsored healthcare and pay for their own medical insurance without batting an eye, claim to be willing to lead by example, and therefore imply that all of those hard-working families living paycheck to paycheck should do the same. This would quickly abolish this form of attack against them, and be seen by those in their camp as a sign of strength and principle.

But that's not the real funny part. The real funny part is that as easy and effective as it would be, they won't do it. The political climate has reached such a surreal level of obtuse bias that they don't even feel the need to pretend anymore. They don't feel the need to lead by example, uphold the principles they espouse, or even keep their promises. People have become so enamored with their political ideals that they have become completely blind to anything beyond sound bites and posturing. So they just do what they want. There's no motivation for them to do otherwise.

But by all means, enjoy collecting signatures for your petition. Odds are you'll be the only ones who read it.

Happy New Year? Doubtful.

2010-12-31T16:55:00.002-05:00

With the New Year rapidly approaching, a mere number of alcohol-soaked hours away, I find myself pondering the completely arbitrary and pointlessly ritualistic changing of the calendar year, and what it means about the events that have occurred over the past twelve months. For this truly is a holiday meant for reflection and anticipation, a weighing of the past's influences and whatever the future might hold.

Normally, the changing over of the old year to the new one is represented by the iconic images of Old Man Time and Baby New Year. The white-bearded elderly soul, back bent and crippled from the trials and tribulations of his past experiences, hands off the baton of responsibility for forging through yet another year to the innocent diaper-clad newborn, and scampers off on withered legs and a crooked cane without even attempting to warn this naive cherub about the horrors that await his brief and harrowing existence.

Image by CornérStoné via Flickr

Being a movie fanatic, I prefer to personify the New Year by comparing it to a film that contains the essence of what the holiday represents. In this case, with the complete nightmare that this past year has become, I don't seem to be able to shake the feeling that January 1 is coming upon us with all of the harsh brutality of a Saw sequel. Just look back at the massive amounts of abject misery and mindless destruction that have occurred over the length of 2010, and ringing in the New Year raises the same levels of terror and dread as waking up strapped into some psychotic cancer patient's homicidal shop project and hearing a prerecorded message explain exactly how gruesome your impending demise is going to be.

This past year has been so screwed up, they might as well have replaced last year's Time's Square ball drop with a bicycle-riding Jigsaw puppet rolling on to every television set in America:

"Hello people. I want to play a game. This coming year, your house values will be driven down by reckless and opportunistic lending practices. Unemployment rates will hover indefinitely high while new jobs are shipped overseas, and soulless corporations alter their business models to exploit the fear of downsizing to squeeze uncompensated productivity out of their underpaid workers. As you struggle to keep your head (and mortgage) above water, your ineffectual political leaders with put on lavish shows of false concern and hollow efforts of economic restoration as your quality of life rapidly deteriorates. Live or die, the choice is yours. Actually, you have no control over it whatsoever; you're basically doomed. Have fun."

Instead of being a time of hope and celebration, this New Year's is like surviving one horrible Jigsaw trap, with other victims viciously destroyed before your eyes while you cling tenaciously to life, only to get shoved through a time-locked door where yet another perilous struggle for survival awaits you. I'm to the point where I'd rather wake up with a spring-loaded mechanical trap strapped to my face and a key surgically implanted in my scrotum than face whatever mindless, spirit-shredding madness 2011 has in store for us. Instead of slowly descending during Dick Clark's uncomfortably humorous countdown, that giant geodesic sphere hanging over Times Square should plummet to the pavement, eject hundreds of spring loaded spikes, then tumble at full speed down Broadway like a giant spiked bowling ball of death and destruction, impaling the crushed and mutilated corpses of the helpless inebriated onlookers, rolling over the unsuspecting crowds in much the same way that 2011 will eventually bulldoze over what's left of spirits.

So, this is Scott from Moviesucktastic, wishing you a Happy New Year, a fun New Year's Eve celebration, and a quick, painless death at the hands of our destructive sociopath Baby New Year.

Game Over.

Dream Diary: Treasure Hunt

2010-12-12T13:03:00.000-05:00

Image via WikipediaI had this weird dream last night.

A group of people and I are involved in some kind of elaborate scavenger hunt that centers around us following clues and riddles scribbled on a pile random slips of papers, coasters, napkins and envelopes. One specific clue leads us onto an old fishing vessel, where we try to figure out the coordinates left behind be a dead fisherman that will supposedly lead us to the location of the Loch Ness Monster's ocean home. We figure it out when one of his former shipmates tells us that his old partner would often write the coordinates down wrong. This somehow enables us to figure out the right numbers, which lead us to a tape recording of the dead fisherman's voice under a pile of newspapers in the same room.

Meanwhile, in an unrelated portion of the dream, a serial killer has body wrapped tight in Saran Wrap, and is digging a hole in the floor of a cabin in which to hide it. The body, which bares a striking resemblance to Bryan Cranston from the AMC series Breaking Bad, has its face wrapped tightly with the plastic, mouth opened wide as if screaming. Suddenly, he comes to life, tears through the plastic and attacks his would-be murderer. I never return to this scene, and so I am unsure of the outcome of the struggle.

Meanwhile, back at the bizarre treasure hunt... this clue-driven challenge somehow involves time travel (of course), and at one point I find myself walking through a lightly snow-covered field with an older woman. We reach a house supposedly belonging to her, at which point she asks if I am from the future. I confess that I am, and she asks me if I can do something about coffee cups when I go back. It seems that the paper coffee cups of whatever time I am currently in keep igniting when she drinks coffee, as she likes to smoke at the same time. I assure her that there is no need to worry; the coffee cups of the future are thick, heavy, and highly flame retardant. I then return to my future time to discover that, reminiscent of Ray Bradbury's A Sound of Thunder, my conversation with the woman has somehow resulted in all modern day coffee cups looking like ice cream cones.

Taking a moment to assess my situation, I thumb through the stack of clues and realize that there is no way I am going to finish this bizarre game before I wake up. Then I wake up.

Analysis: No more eating Coffee Ice Cream while watching Dexter reruns.

Scott's Dream Diary - Giving Unto Caesar

2010-12-11T10:18:00.000-05:00

Image via WikipediaHad this weird dream last night. I thought I was a Roman Soldier transported to modern times, and walked into a Roman-themed casino wearing a toga, carrying a broken spear, and demanding to speak to Caesar.

It turns out that they have an actor who sits in a throne room pretending to be Julius Caesar, so for some reason the staff decides to humor me and take me to him. They take me to the entrance of the "Throne Room," where I kneel and bow, and allow the broken spear to be taken away from me. I then spend the next ten or fifteen minutes talking to Caesar about fate and one's importance in the world, while the actor goes along and plays the part, possibly enjoying the chance to finally do some real acting. I can't recall the specifics of the conversation, but it was tinged with sadness about being out of place and time, and how we shape our own destiny.

At the end of our conversation, he grips my shoulder with a firm squeeze full of emotion, looks me straight in the eye, gives me a knowing nod, and comps me $10 on the nickel slots. Then I wake up.

Verdict: I've been playing too much Fallout: New Vegas before bedtime.

PETA: Dead Puppies Aren't Much Fun

2010-12-10T22:12:00.002-05:00

I have a theory that 70% of the people that complain about PETA going "too far" are just upset because the organization's extreme push against animal cruelty makes them question their own inattention to the consequences of their actions, and they hate being made to think so much. The other 30% just enjoy complaining.

As far as the commercial goes, I think it woks on both angles. The message of the ad agrees with responsible and emotional side of me that hates to think of animals being tortured and murdered to feed the pet industry, while the morbid humor of the ad appeals to the side of me that thinks children playing with dead dogs is funny. See? Everybody wins.

100 Notable Books of 2010

2010-11-30T11:19:00.000-05:00

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

The holidays are already upon us; time to start making that list of books you should have read this year as potential stocking-stuffers. The New York Times Sunday Book Review has been gracious enough to help us out be releasing their top 100 list of notable books released in 2010, soon to also appear in the December 5 edition of the Book Review.

Anybody have any titles to add to the list? What novels did the New York Times overlook this year?

100 Notable Books of 2010 - Holiday Gift Guide - NYTimes.com

O'Reilly: WikiLeaks Leakers Are Traitors, Should Be Executed

2010-11-30T10:03:00.002-05:00

Bill O'Reilly's predictably insane declarations aside, the react of our Government and News Media over the latest round of WikiLeaks documents is very reminiscent of the reaction to the potential release of the Abu Ghraib pictures way back when. Not the supposedly comical Frat Prank ones that made the rounds, but the pictures that weren't released, that were viewed behind locked doors by our political leaders; pictures featuring rape, murder, depraved forms of torture, and other happy-go-lucky Snuff Film material worthy of a seventies Italian cannibal film.

The documents being released now are nowhere as bad as the pictures of America's treatment of foreign prisoners in Abu Ghraib, but both involve the airing of dirty laundry. Back then, as is now, the cry of the powerful and enlightened was not that these things shouldn't have happened, and steps must be made to prevent them from occurring in the future. Instead we see only a mad scramble of ass-coverage, shrouded in complaints that the release of documents revealing the truth of how things are done behind the scenes will hurt us in the eyes of the world. No pause is taken to discuss the implications of the truth; instead, our time is wasted arguing whether or not the truth should be known in the first place.

I have no real solution to offer regarding this. Just pondering the state of things, which I am beginning to realize is never a healthy mental exercise.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

The Big Lie of Black Friday Economic Recovery, Take Two

2010-11-29T16:31:00.002-05:00

We went through this same nonsense last year. The mad rush to cash in on bargains on Black Friday spawned headlines screaming "What Recession?" and articles featuring pictures of shopping carts overflowing with widescreen televisions, with newscasters and journalists practically giddy over the concept of "consumer confidence" (a disgusting term in itself) as they predict this sudden shift in spending habits is an indicator of a waning recesssion, and not just a typical spike in holiday shopping. Then, after New Year's Eve has come and gone, more subdued articles are released, sans pictures and exclemations, with numbers showing an actual decrease in holiday shopping.

I understand that the news media is desperate to fill empty space on a regular basis, but when the lies and distortions become cyclical and predictable, if not just boring, you have to start asking yourself why we even bother anymore. Granted, the supposed improvement projected this Christmas season might have been influenced somewhat by the recent increase in high-end spending by the wealthy as reported last week, but the this rehash of unfounded hopefulness is still adding to the nation's already plentiful seasonal depression.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Yet Another Bank Commercial That Pisses Me Off

2010-11-26T00:24:00.001-05:00

Does this commercial piss off anybody else besides me?

Here we have an average blue-collar worker (notice the clean suit and tie) with a decent job (notice how he has an overseas business "colleague" that sends him surprise gifts, and not a co-worker that drew his name in a Secret Santa pool with a $10 limit) that apparently pays well (notice the clean and modern kitchen of what appears to be an expensive city apartment) that receives two unexpected surprises: A rare and popular toy from a Japanese "colleague," and a $1000 prize from entering in a contest by activating a Citibank credit card.

Now, the intended sentimental holiday message is supposed to be about an ordinary guy who is inspired to give a valuable toy away to charity by the generosity of his credit card's financial institution. All I can see, however, is the story a greedy corporate douche who receives a gift that turns out to be quite valuable, and so immediately begins fantasizing about all of the money he can make by auctioning off a children's toy to the high bidder online for a boatload of cash that he doesn't appear to be hurting for.

But then he wins $1000 dollars in an advertising scheme designed to convince economically inexperienced individuals to unwittingly enslave themselves to a financial institution at 20% APR for the rest of their natural lives with the promise of fabulous cash prizes to be won. So, now that he has lucked into a chunk of unearned excess income already, he decides to donate to charity, not out of the kindness of his heart or the eagerness to do good, but because now it has become exceedingly convenient for him to do so. Then, instead of donating the $1000 to a charitable organization dedicated to housing and feeding the homeless, he takes the valuable toy that didn't cost him a dime, and will be worthless in six months anyway, and drops it in the nearest toy-drive bin.

A bank attempts to sell memberships to their credit-cards with the false promise of easy money by disguising it as a demonstration of the desire to do good to others by donating to charity, and they still can't manage to make it any less shallow than some greedy prick who only considers being charitable when it becomes extraordinarily convenient and manages to not cost him a penny.

This commercial is the perfect example of:

a) How screwed up we are as a nation and a culture, and
b) Why I shouldn't be watching any television this holiday season.

Gospel of the Money River

2010-11-23T22:59:00.000-05:00

Image via Wikipedia"Perhaps, if they stopped believing in crazy things like a Money River, and go to work, they would stop having such a rotten time."

"If there isn't a Money River, then how did I just make ten thousand dollars today, just by snoozing and scratching myself, and occasionally answering the phone?"

"It's still possible for an American to make a fortune on his own."

"Sure - provided somebody tells him when he's young that there is a Money River, that there's nothing fair about it, that he had damn well better forget about hard work and the merit system and honesty and all that crap, and get to where the river is. 'Go where the rich and powerful are,' I'd tell him, 'and learn their ways. They can be flattered and they can be scared. Please them enormously or scare them enormously, and one moonless night they will put their finger to their lips, warning you not to make a sound. And they will lead you through the dark to the widest, deepest river of wealth ever known to man, You'll be shown your place on the riverbank, and handed a bucket all your own. Slurp as much as you want, but try to keep the racket of your slurping down. A poor man might hear.'"

God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

O'Reilly Strikes Back At The Simpsons For Fox News Jab (VIDEO)

2010-11-23T10:42:00.002-05:00

First of all, I love the fact that Bill O'Reilly implies that Fox should manipulate and control the creative output of the shows broadcasting in its entertainment division so that they don't clash or interfere with the public image of its news/entertainment channel. I guess the idea of controlling the message by suppressing alternative views seems like a no-brainer to Bill.

But, more importantly, I am totally smitten with Bill's refusal to take any negative criticism from a cartoon. Speaking out against critics and detractors is one thing, and defending yourself against comedians and satirists is another, but complaining about a joke in a cartoon takes it all to an entirely new level of whining narcissism that is almost (almost) funner than the actually Simpsons clip shown.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Denis Leary: People Only Pretend To Read Franzen (VIDEO)

2010-11-16T08:52:00.002-05:00

So, Denis Leary's selling pitch for his new book Suck On This Year is that other books have too many pages. It's nice to know that somebody out there has the guts to market their book specifically to lazy people and functional illiterates. As far as his assertion that most people only pretend to read Jonathan Franzen, I guess that could be true. After all, most people only pretend to think Denis Leary is funny. I guess it worked out well for both of their careers. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go and pretend to read How to Escape From a Leper Colony.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost