As I mentioned the other day, I am — through no fault of my own — appearing in a live “radio play” version of It’s a Wonderful Life: 11 actors, 74 characters, 1 huge fucking headache.  At the same time, I’ve been getting the occasional email from conservative outrage merchants touting their new line of War on Christmas wares — although the sales pitch seems a bit muted this year; perhaps in poor economic times the question of whether a retail clerk wishes you “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays” is secondary to whether you can afford to purchase gifts at all.  Nevertheless, many of the offense-taking, donation-cadging generals of the right wing seem unaware of the Yuletide truce developing in the trenches, and have gone blithely on fighting last year’s war, among them that perennial Christmas carbuncle, American Family Association, which is calling for a boycott of The Gap, Old Navy, and Banana Republic:

Last year, Gap issued this politically-correct statement to Christmas shoppers: “Gap recognizes that many traditions are celebrated throughout this season and we feel it is important to display holiday signage that is inclusive to everyone.”

Christmas is special because of Jesus. It’s not just a “winter holiday.” For millions of Americans the giving and receiving of gifts is in honor of the One who gave Himself. For the Gap to pretend that isn’t the foundation of the Christmas season is political correctness at best and religious bigotry at worst.

Not to be needlessly combative, but Christmas is special because of Santa Claus.  No kid expects the Messiah to shinny down the chimney with a sackful of crap from Hasbro, and it’s unlikely your adult son believes the long-sleeved pique polo shirt and new pair of cargo shorts he found under the tree were hand-delivered by a Magus, unless your son is Jonah Goldberg.  And if the only thing families did on Christmas morning was to get up and worship Jesus, maybe sing “Happy Birthday,” I guarantee you, more grown-ups would be allowed to sleep in.  Besides, the “foundation of the Christmas season” is disputed by more reputable historians than you’re likely to find on the payroll of the AFA.  Or The Gap.  Is December 25th the actual birthday of Jesus?  Probably not, assuming he even existed.  Is it an old Roman feast operating under new management?  A plagiarized Pagan festival?  Or just a chance for self-appointed prophets to get shirty with the marketing department?

But there remains the issue of whether leaving Christ the Lord out of your pre-holiday hoodie sale represents “religious bigotry.”  If that’s the case, then I suppose George Washington’s Yuletide sneak attack — against German troops, the most enthusiastic observers of the holiday — constitutes a hate crime.

The Gap is censoring the word Christmas, pure and simple. Yet the company wants all the people who celebrate Christmas to do their shopping at its stores? Until Gap proves it recognizes Christmas by using it in their newspaper, radio, television advertising or in-store signage, the boycott will be promoted.

There are certain dangers in making an ancient murder victim a paid spokesmodel for your chain of moderately priced clothing stores.  Suppose Dan Brown was right, and it turns out that Jesus was fooling around with Mary Magdalene?  Then you’ve got that whole Tiger Woods situation, except when his endorsement contracts were canceled, nobody accused the sponsors of religious bigotry.  Plus, Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ revolutionized filmed depictions of the Savior, so nowadays the only good Jesus is a bloody, beaten-to-a-pulp Jesus, and I’m not sure that having a bunch of hipsters swing dancing around a corpse on a stick is going to move a whole lot of relaxed fit heathered slacks and French rib crewnecks.

It’s pretty clear there are two Christmases — the religious observance, with its creches, devotional music, and midnight mass, and the secular holiday, with its cheerful commercialism, classic films and TV specials, leftover pagan rites, and iconography lifted from Dickens, Thomas Nast, and mid-50s Coca-Cola advertisements.  So perhaps the best solution is the one the American Family Association and its ideological brethren propose for marriage equality: separate but unequal.  Just as gays should be satisfied with civil unions and stay out of the sacred institution of marriage, Christians who object to worldly motivations profaning their sacred birthday bash should retire to their churches and stay out of the malls from Black Friday through January 1st.  I mean, if evangelicals want to get back to the foundations of Christmas, what better way to do so than by reliving those days when Christianity was an outlaw cult, best practiced behind closed doors?

Speaking of seasonal classics, over at Big Hollywood, the Artist Formerly Known as Dirty Harry (John Nolte) is making a list of the 25 greatest Christmas movies.  Number 12?  One Magic Christmas.  Given Nolte’s habit of searching every film for reactionary Easter eggs, I’m not surprised he fell for a picture which, in his words, offers “a gritty life-affirming story set in a world where God exists and cares for us enough to practice some mighty tough-love.”  What does astonish me is his contention that it’s 88 minutes long.  Uh, no.  Sorry.  Light-minutes, maybe.  Or perhaps there’s some special relativity mechanism where time seems to slow down the closer you get to the end of One Magic Christmas.  The point is, any film in which the souls of the recently departed are forced to work in Santa’s sweat shop, and Kris Kringle himself commands an army of supernatural hobos, is yet another excuse to over-spike the eggnog, and I’ve already got plenty of those this year, thanks.  (One commenter at Big Hollywood remarked, “I remember when this first aired on TV there were all kinds of warnings given to little children about not trusting strangers who said they were angels.”  ‘Nuff said, but for those who may have missed it, we offered a Better Living Through Bad Movies treatment of One Magic Christmas as our special holiday presentation back in 2007.)

But one thing I will say for It’s a Wonderful Life, its angels may be voyeurs, but at least they’re not pedophiles.  And for a film which climaxes with a Christmas miracle, it’s remarkably Jesus-free.  George Bailey is saved by divine intervention, but he isn’t a church-going man, or even a Christian, judging by the on-screen evidence.  He never attends worship services, his wedding appears to be a civil ceremony, and even when he’s on the verge of suicide, George doesn’t consult a priest or a minister, but does his praying in a bar.  And his prayer is answered.

So all in all, I think I prefer a film in which the angels use their divine powers to show the protagonist how the world is a better place for his having lived, rather than enslaving the dead, snuffing the heroine’s spouse, and traumatizing her children because she was a little grumpy around the holidays.  Even if the FBI did think It’s a Wonderful Life was bolshevik propaganda.*

*I suspect the [redacted] party who went complaining to the G-Men was director Sam Wood, head of the ultra right wing Motion Picture Association, which fatally weakened the movie industry’s united front against HUAC and opened the door to the Blacklist.  We got a good look at his career as a pioneering Hollywood snitch here, when another conservative cinephile, Ben-Peter Terpstra, wrote a love letter to Sam the like of which has not been seen since the John Hinckley-Jodie Foster correspondence.

Happy Holidays | 20 Comments »

I’ll be frank: it’s been Boo-Hoo-Hoo time down in Whoville recently.  While trying to protect an open wound from a thousand and one disease vectors, my prone-to-herniation disc made another bid to quit the spine and launch a solo career; and just to decorate my cupcake of weltschmerz with the almond-flavored, cyanide-laced frosting of bitterness, I’ve been dragooned into appearing in a live “radio play” version of It’s a Wonderful Life, which as anyone who’s read this already knows, I loathe with the heat of a thousand suns, assuming loathing produces heat, which it doesn’t seem to because I’ve been sitting here loathing stuff for over an hour and a half, and I still had to get up just now and put on a sweater.

Speaking of loathsome: the minimum wage, no benefits, entry level blogosphere has been abuzz lately with calls to revolution.  At RenewAmerica, Sher Zieve, whose brain is a seething pressure cooker of sedition beneath her Cousin Oliver bowl-cut, has ended her last two columns with leading questions about armed revolt:

December 10, 2009: Since the beginnings of the ObamaCzars’ phenomena, I have been sounding the clarion call that Obama would attempt a Coup d’etat against Congress — and us. Dictator-in-Chief Obama has now threatened just that. Is there really anyone out there who doesn’t see that this guy is the American Stalin? What does one do when an admitted tyrant and his tyrannical Czars take over one’s country and impose their absolute and uncompromising will on the people of said country? I see only two options: Submit or die.

December 9, 2009:  But, if the majority of us don’t actually want slavery any longer, what do we do? Have our peaceful means ceased their effectiveness? Heck, the ObamaMedia paid little attention to us when we were at least 1.7 millions strong in Washington D.C. on 12 September and they and their Marxist-Democrat masters minimized and smeared us for voicing our discontent with Washington policies at Congressional Town Hall meetings. Are peaceful means really working, folks, or are they now just ways to vent? The Political Ruling (not governing) Class no longer listens to us in any way, shape or form. They listen only to the venomously sweet whispers of those who would offer them extraordinary bribes if they sell their souls. Do you really believe there are options other than a new American Revolution? If you do, I’d love to hear them. Please let me know. In the mean time, keep your powder dry.

Fortunately, there is one voice of sanity out there:  WorldNetDaily columnist Robert Ringer.

If there was ever a face that shrieked “compos mentis” it’s this one; he’s so darn adorably sapient I just want to give those cheeks of sanity a good pinch!  But wait until you hear his voice!  Not only is it clearly sane, but unlike a lot of low-rent pundits, he also has a great telephone voice of sanity, which really helps with those cold calls.

Now some of you may be wondering, Hey, who’s Mr. Ringtone here?  I’ve never heard of him!  And while I completely understand your skepticism — and cannot personally vouch for Mr. Ringer’s dulcet lucidity — his bio seems to think very highly of him:

Robert Ringer is the author of three No. 1 best-sellers, including two books listed by the New York Times among the 15 best-selling motivational books of all time. He also hosts the highly acclaimed Liberty Education Interview Series, where he interviews today’s top economic and political leaders on the most vital and controversial issues of our time. To tap into his profound wisdom and life-changing insights on a regular basis, sign up for a FREE subscription to his one-of-a-kind e-letter, “A Voice of Sanity in an Insane World,” by visiting www.robertringer.com. 

Wow, “profound wisdom” and “life-changing insights”?  The best my bio will grudgingly offer is that I’ve “never been convicted of a Class B felony in the state of Nevada.”

Most readers have probably not noticed it, but in all the articles I’ve written about BHO, I have never referred to him as “President Obama” except when quoting someone else. As you might have assumed, this has not been by accident.

I’ll never forget the time I was standing in line at a bookstore, chatting with someone about BHO. A stranger standing a couple of people away from me overheard my comments and abruptly admonished me, “Whether you like it or not, he’s our president.”

To which I responded, “He may be your president, but he’s not mine.”

“My president is silent as tomorrow.  He kills in the night.  He has been acquainted with the night.  My president has a secret, that there’s, um, an elf.  In his head.  And he has a trillion times the atom bomb power.  He’s a 24-hour wide-awake nightmare, and he has all that stuff that I just mentioned, plus he has the power to completely kill your president ten times over!”

That was the end of any thought I may have had about conceding and accepting the fact that BHO had been elected to the highest office in the land.

“I’m also finished with conceding and accepting the fact that my testicles retreated into my abdominal cavity on January 20, 2009, and I’ve spent the last eleven months using my vacant scrotum as a change purse.  From now on, I’m going to totally ignore that jingling in my groin, unless I need a bus token.”

The reason I have never seen BHO as the president of the United States is because he swore to uphold the Constitution, but from the day he took an oath to that effect, he immediately began violating it.

If you’re having trouble seeing the Obama Administration in quite the same alarmist, pearl-clutching terms as Mr. Ringer, try imagining BHO as Ganymede, the slave from Mandingo, and the Constitution as the Susan George character.

President Obama prepares to put his inky quill to the Preamble in an episode of Schoolhouse Rock.

I concede that all of our presidents have violated the Constitution, but even the worst of them have at least made a gratuitous attempt to honor it to some degree. BHO’s actions make it clear that he does not even acknowledge its existence.

The very minimum the American people deserve is a president who at least tries to be gratuitous.

But enough of my intransigence.

“And my Word-A-Day® desk calendar.”

My humble objective is to get a handle on what makes this self-defensive, arrogant young socialist so angry and so anxious to take away the rights of American citizens.

Yes, Obama is like an R. Crumb character — always fretting and grimacing and shooting huge drops of sweat from his head.

BHO’s actions have been deceitful to such an extreme that some have gone so far as to suggest that he is the Antichrist. Others stop short of that label, but see him as the epitome of evil.

Opinions run the gamut from Y to Z.

Well, this may surprise you, but I don’t see Chairman Obama as evil. I really don’t. After a good deal of study and observation, my take on him is that he is a man without a soul. And, as soulless individual, his actions are not hampered by trivial moral considerations.

Obama has no soul?  Awesome!  According to the Bible (or at least, certain Southern theologians), that means we have the legal and moral right to enslave him, and given the weak economy, I was thinking maybe we should go halvsies.  Now, I’ve been going over some popular slave names, and I suggest we call the president either “Josephus” or “Tituba.”

If you read his autobiographies (two in print before he even made it to the White House!)

That’s two more books than his predecessor has even read!

…along with some of the other books written about him, you see a very troubled young man. I, for one, have a great deal of compassion for anyone who has experienced a difficult childhood.

And, clearly, Obama had a dysfunctional life growing up – a white Marxist mother, a black African Muslim father who was a drunk and a philanderer, then, of all things, an Indonesian Muslim stepfather. And, of course, there were the years he spent in a Wahabbi Muslim school in Indonesia (Wahabbi schools being most famous for teaching students hatred of Western countries).

Apparently “a great deal of compassion” is a term of art favored by childhood development experts to describe what laymen might refer to as “passive-aggressive insinuations about someone who’s too big to beat with a clothes hanger or a fan belt.”

Given all this, it’s not hard to understand why a youngster would become vulnerable to a “down–with-the-rich” proselytizer. And in BHO’s life, it seems clear that that proselytizer came in the form of American communist Frank Marshall Davis, whom he refers to in his memoirs simply as “Frank.”

Which is pretty shocking, given how formal most communists are, even on Casual Fridays.  In fact, I have it on good authority that whenever Obama’s Marxist mentor walked into a Starbucks to order a Caramel Brulée Latte, he insisted the barista write “American communist Frank Marshall Davis” on the cup.

Ironically, BHO attended Punahou High School in Honolulu, which is the most upper-crust school in Hawaii. Like so many other things about BHO’s life, where he got the money to attend such an expensive school, not to mention Columbia and Harvard, has never been revealed.

Democratic presidents who come from modest or even underprivileged backgrounds (Obama, Clinton) yet manage to attend good schools are automatically suspected of using corrupt means to acquire an education, while mediocre but monied legacies who attend Harvard and Yale on the strength of their family connections are rightly applauded for playing by the rules.

In this series of articles, I’m going to try to get inside BHO’s head by dissecting the man and the book that perhaps had more influence on his anti-capitalist, anti-American attitude than anyone or anything else in his life. I’m talking, of course, about the infamous Saul Alinsky, founder of modern community organizing, and his equally infamous book “Rules for Radicals.”

Because I always keep in mind that it is critically important to know your enemies, I recently reread “Rules for Radicals” and was surprised by how certain parts of it struck me. For example, would you believe that there was much about Saul Alinsky that I actually liked? He was a fascinating character with a great sense of humor.

In fact, Alinksy was a witty, congenial, intellectual man with whom I probably would have enjoyed having lunch once a month. As I reread “Rules for Radicals,” I pictured what it would have been like to have engaged in friendly philosophical debates with my fantasy friend at the other end of the political spectrum.

I’m glad Robert has made some new fantasy acquaintances, because lately his old imaginary friends have been canceling or declining lunch and dinner dates with one lame excuse after another.

I think my attitude toward him would have been, “Saul, I love ya, pal, but I feel obliged to tell you that you’re full of crap.” And with that, we’d have another friendly debate over human nature, philosophy, politics and life. Alinksy was no Jeremiah Wright or Bill Ayers. He was a serious thinker.

“Then after lunch we’d walk around Chicago’s famous ‘Loop’ and do some window-shopping, or perhaps, if the weather was warm, we could stroll along the lake shore and share a refreshing Italian ice.  Eventually, I see us taking off our shoes and socks and running in slow motion on a beach…”

In Part 2 of this article, I’ll tell you some of the things in the early part of “Rules for Radicals” that make me believe that I would have liked Saul Alinsky. Before concluding that I’ve lost my mind, be sure to read what I have to say.

Um, sorry.  Too late.

No Country For Old Men | 30 Comments »

I’m recovering from minor surgery — dealing with post-operative pain and wondering why I’ve got black eyes where there ain’t no eyes — so forgive me if posting is sparse for the next few days, and really forgive me if posting is incessant and seemingly written under the influence of opiates, because appearances will not be deceiving.

In other news, it’s War on Christmas season again and we’re gearing up for our annual neighborhood lights and display contest.  So please use this thread to suggest which heartwarming holiday perennial you’d most like to see given the * treatment, and we’ll post a deconstruction of the winning (or losing) film on Christmas Eve.  Previously defiled classics include: Santa Claus: The Movie, One Magic Christmas, and It’s a Wonderful Life.

*A lovely gift idea, and just in time for the holidays!

Now a word from our sponsor | 45 Comments »

Riley doesn’t always look evil.  Occasionally she likes to put a fresh new spin on things, and look paranoid instead.

“I am not the droid you’re looking for.”

Moondoggie also enjoys seasoning life with a bit of variety.  Usually he appears sleepy or adoring, but today he just looks massively stoned.

“My arms are too short to box with God.”

Wild Things | 14 Comments »

When I say “feminism,” what’s the first thing that comes to your mind?  Hm?

Unfortunately, I can’t hear you through the Internet — although I’m sure that whatever you said, it was urbane and trenchant, perhaps even a wee bit risqué, but still in good taste — so in this, as in all matters touching the eternal struggle between the sexes, I must turn to my own masculinity mentor and personal Iron John, Admiral Ackbar.  The Admiral, whom I found in a sylvan glade, naked but for a loincloth and dripping sweat after a particularly energetic and purgative drum circle, obligingly considered the word “feminism,” swishing it around his thin-lipped, tentacle-fringed, piscine mouth like a fine Chardonnay, before finally concluding, “It’s a trap!”

Of course, the Admiral thinks everything is a trap, from escalators to Circus Peanuts, but in this case, he’s correct.  Thanks to an enterprising hacker (probably the same guy who exposed the Anthropogenic Global Warming scam) we now have conclusive proof that the entire Women’s Rights movement, from Seneca Falls to the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act has been an elaborate fraternity prank, engineered by this guy:

Matt Patterson (whose Omega Theta Pi name is “Blueballs”).  According to his bio, “Matt Patterson is an author and analyst whose work has appeared in The Washington Post, National Review Online, and Pajamas Media, among others. In 2009 he was named a National Review Institute Washington Fellow.”

I’m not sure what, if any, credentials or achievements are required to become a National Review Fellow (although I myself was deeply honored to be named a Maxim Institute Dude in 2005), but I assume it means that in lieu of carefully verified facts and exhaustively annotated research, Matt is simply allowed to make his own gravy.

“From 2008-2009, Matt served as research assistant to Charles Krauthammer.”  I believe this is a slightly more polite way of saying “Matt spent a solid year sprawled on the sofa in his sweatpants, watching daytime TV and eating Trix cereal out of a soup tureen.”

“In the 2008 Republican primary race, he served as policy communications coordinator and a state political coordinator for the Rudy Giuliani presidential campaign.”

This isn’t a resume, it’s a confession.

“Matt is an honors graduate of Columbia University, where he studied ancient Greek and Latin, and has performed across the U.S. and abroad as an award winning sleight-of-hand artist.”

This either means he’s a crappy magician or a talented masturbator.  Anyhow, let’s sit back and listen to Matt’s tale of how he Punk’d Sojourner Truth and Betty Friedan.

Confidential Memo

To: All Men

Re: Operation “Feminist Movement”

Men, our long twilight struggle with the opposite sex is over. Our victory is total.

It was the War to End All Sex.  In Flanders fields the poppies blow, and that’s the most action Matt is going to get, our long twilight struggle having become a fairly brief wrestling match with a Fleshlight.

Can you believe the way things used to be? Remember when our fathers and grandfathers would drag themselves to mind-numbing jobs every day, having the sole responsibility for the feeding, clothing, and housing of their entire family?

And things were no easier before marriage, when men’s quest for sexual satisfaction was all too often hampered by the widespread moral code which taught women not to give out the “milk” for “free.”

Fortunately, that was never a problem for Matt, since he’s lactose-intolerant, if you know what I mean.

Well, that state of affairs just wouldn’t do. So we men came together and did what we do best — formulate and implement a plan. First step, design the perfect world, the perfect male world. We decided such a world would consist of two things: less responsibility and more — and no-strings — sex.

Unfortunately, the world decided it would consist of pay-per-minute Internet porn videos and microwavable Chicken & Cheese Chimichangas.

Brothers, have we succeeded.The amazing thing, really, is how easy it was, how fast the old world of obligation and responsibility dissolved. The first, crucial step, of course, was convincing women that they had it bad, that our jobs were “intellectually stimulating” and not the soul-crushing monotony that they in fact were.

Kind of a tough case to make when your job description is “research assistant to Charles Krauthammer.”

It worked, and soon women were clamoring to join us on the job. It seems never to have occurred to them that we could have so easily prevented them from doing so — and yet we didn’t.

It’s just like in high school, when Matt cleverly enticed Doug Flanzer into sitting on his neck and punching him in the head until Doug’s class ring made the back of Matt’s skull look like a phrenology chart.  Once again, Matt had lured his opponent into a trap!

Right away, women at work began to solve our problems. First, men and women interacting more frequently inevitably led to hanky-panky, which led to the breakup of families, which led to less responsibility for us.

“Thanks to wage stagnation, I’m getting laid more than ever!”

But that was only a start. To really fix things, we had to root out that old bourgeoisie mentality that had in previous times kept girls frustratingly modest and chaste. And what better way to do that than to convince women that the most reckless elements of our sexuality — the promiscuity — were in fact the correct behaviors, which had to be imitated in order for them to be “liberated”?

Matt Patterson: Male Slut

Amazingly, they bought that, too.

Until Matt pulled his scam, most women regarded the clitoris as purely decorative.

Unfortunately, our sister selves

Our–?  Yeah, okay, whatever Matt.

…are less suited to such behavior, which can cause painful and lasting tears in the feminine soul.

Soul, hymen — what’s the difference?

But no matter — we were also able to convince them that there was no such thing as a “feminine” soul, any more than there is a “masculine” soul, and that both sexes are equally suited to all things.

It’s hard to believe women fell for this, when it was God Himself who decreed that the soul shall come in two flavors.

(Many of you said that women would never buy this, that the accumulated history of our species speaks to the deep and abiding difference between the sexes, a difference which has benefited both sides from time immemorial. But I was sanguine about our ruse — have I not been vindicated?)

From time immemorial until the early 1960s, women flatly rejected our efforts to fool them into having careers.  Fortunately, one of the side effects of the Pill is gullibility.

Men, “Operation Feminist Movement” has worked, and more swiftly and completely than many of you thought possible. Mere decades ago, we spent endless hours and countless dollars before marriage courting and wooing; after marriage, we shouldered the entire financial burden for our families.

Matt has spent the bulk of his National Review Institute Fellowship fact-checking Leave It to Beaver, and is now up to Episode 118, “Beaver Won’t Eat.”

Now, after marriage, women can be expected to pay for half of everything, which is to the good, because video games are expensive. But, as more and more of you are discovering, why bother with marriage at all anymore? You can stay up all night, hang with your buds all the time, secure in the knowledge that on any given night you can be sure to find a willing woman, a woman who has likely been taught, conditioned even (by other women!) to expect nothing from you in return — and that this is a good thing.

“Dear Pajamas Media: I’m a Fellow at a small Northeastern Institute.  I never thought your articles were real, but a recent experience changed my mind.  I was hanging with my buds, when suddenly a willing, well-conditioned woman bumped into me on the street and her massive, Triple-E bosoms knocked my inhaler into the storm drain…”

Is it any wonder that, according to recent research, women these days are “becoming less happy relative to men” across all age, income, and marital levels? No, this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, although the unhappiness of the modern woman seems to be taking many of them by surprise.  After all, don’t they “have it all”?

I think we should give Matt’s question very serious consideration, especially since he came all the way from 1982 to ask it.

No — it is men who now have it all.

Congratulations, brothers. Our day is at last at hand, a day of no responsibility and easy mating access as far as the eye can see.

Matt, don’t Bogart the Fleshlight.

Sure, there are downsides. Civilization has now entered into free fall; those masterpieces of art and science and literature, for which men have been almost exclusively responsible, have ceased to issue forth from our minds and hands — and is it any wonder?  Such pyrotechnics are no longer necessary to impress women, which, really, was the only reason we bothered.

Michaelangelo was often heard to remark that the Pietà was “a total trim magnet.”

High culture seems a small price to pay, though, for the loosening of morals and duties which has brought our present Sex and the City-fueled bounty.

So sit back, men, and enjoy the slide. It’s Miller time.

I’ve never met the author, but judging by his work, I suspect that Mr. Easy Matings’s sexuality never much progressed beyond that tingly feeling he got from the Slide ‘N’ Slide when he was ten.

Anyway, thanks for the sleight-of-hand-job.

Why Can't A Woman Be More Like A Man? | 48 Comments »

Even though I don’t cook, and have little interest in, or aptitude for hospitality, whenever Thanksgiving rolls around I can’t help but think of Martha Stewart.  This is largely due to my friend P.J., who is a high priestess in the Church of Martha, a cult which exists to create and serve tasty cocktails and hors d’oeuvres around the holidays, and which, were they to merge with the Catholic Church, would undoubtedly make for a very swinging communion.

Speaking of the clergy, Pastor Swank also has Martha Stewart on this mind.  Martha Stewart and…MURDER!  Or at any rate, Mrs. Swank apparently wants to put the doyenne of upper middle class home economics on ice; but Martha has survived the exercise yard and the lesbian wrestling matches in the ladies correctional institution shower room, so sticking a shiv in her may not be quite so easy as La Swank believes.

I THOUGHT MY WIFE WOULD SHARPEN KNIVES WHEN MARTHA STEWART BOILED SARAH PALIN

She was not ready to hoist our turkey knife-upward either. She was livid. She was after Martha Stewart. For certain.

And this wife of mine is a Martha Stewart loyal royal. She loves her show. Martha says it; it’s true. My wife even tried the recipe mimic.

As seen in the 1997 film Recipe Mimic, in which Martha Stewart (Mira Sorvino), creates a powerful insecticide out of ordinary items you find around the house, in order to keep roaches out of the kitchen during holiday meal preparation.  All goes well, until three years later, when authorities discover the substance has triggered the evolution of a species of super-insect that can mimic the appearance and culinary repertoire of Rachel Ray.

But no more. When Priscilla learned that Stewart went after Sarah Palin, finis!  Sarah Palin is not God. But Palin is indeed a choice one for Priscilla.

Great, we could use a hot girl-on-girl scene right about now.  I see it as a combination of The Bishop’s Wife and Bound, with Sarah Palin as an angel sent to help Pastor Swank finally build a church that’s not in his living room, except she falls for Priscilla, and the two plot to steal the construction funds and frame Swank, leading to a violent and deadly climax in the nave (which is awkward, because the chancel doubles as the Swank’s entertainment center, forcing the two women to squeegee the blood off the TV screen before they can watch The L Word).

Gov. Sarah Palin (L) and Mrs. Priscilla Swank (R) in Dial M for Martha.

So Stewart was asked what she thought of Palin. I saw it with my own eyes. And as far as I could tell, Stewart’s eyes drooped in a condescending fall. The lids were all but on the floor.

The only thing worse than being patronized by falling eyeballs is having to pick up after haughty female media magnates when they leave their lids all over the red carpet.

Stewart let it be known in that soft, cutting voice of the elite that Palin was “boring.” Palin is so boring that Stewart would not even care to walk across the street to hear one syllable from the former Alaskan Governor.  Further, Palin is not only stiff board, she’s “dangerous” for any country. Just plain dangerous. She is not good stuff, in other words.

Well, I don’t know how “dangerous” Palin is, but she may indeed be “not good stuff” (although I believe she gave the “stiff board” to Rich Lowry.)

When I told her what media was telecasting, Priscilla was a bit suspicious that I had fallen into hyperbole.

You?  Noooo…

But when Priscilla heard with her own ears those nasty terms sliding off the kitchen mistress’ tongue, Priscilla just about slid all the knives from her own cabinet onto the fighting field. Priscilla looked to me as if she were after blood.

Why do I think this probably wasn’t the first time Mrs. Swank pulled a knife and looked at the Pastor with murder in her eyes?

After all, there are some moral bases that cannot be crossed without battle begun. I guessed in an instant that the garrisons were being called up and children should run for cover.

Oh great, now she’s Peter Lorre from M (”Hey look, Hon, there’s a balloon trapped in the telephone wires.  I think Mrs. Swank has killed again.”)

Stewart, with all her cute phrases and courteous glances toward one show guest or another was now no friend of Wifey. Stewart’s lush pad and come-back from prison cell was no bait for Priscilla’s liking.

And I can’t say I blame her. I go right along with her analysis of the Cooking Queen.

I predict Swank will regret agreeing with Wifey, because now he’s going to have to help her move the body.

Stewart has lost with us common folk who have brains working for what is decent and logical.

Said…Pastor Swank.

Stewart has tightened all the more with the crusty liberals, dittoing their mantras and bedding down with their tripe.

According to the Urban Dictionary, “bedding down with tripe” is also known as the “Full Menudo” or the “Philadelphia Pepper Pot,” while “dittoing the mantra” is basically a “rusty trombone,” made slightly more hygienic by the “player” wearing a pair of wax lips.

Any questions, just ask Priscilla. She’s ready with the verbiage—out and about and up and down and left to right, no end in sight.

Word to your mother.

Further, as I see her marching up the avenue, I note quite a line of like-minded pot-banging females screaming at the pines.

Suckiest. Vision Quest.  Ever.

Get the Butterfly Net! | 47 Comments »

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.  Mary and I usually travel for the holiday, but it’s been a tough year and a half, thanks to several pending projects that perished in the great Financial Sector Flame-Out of Ought Eight and Nine, so we’re forced to stay home and hide from the Hollywood Christmas Parade, which commandeers our entire neighborhood as a staging area, in a clear violation of the Third Amendment.

This year we’re reviving a tradition from the earlier, even more poverty-stricken days of our partnership: watching the Mystery Science Theater 3000 Turkey Day Marathon, while Mary cooks and I…do something helpful.  Provide moral support, probably.

As the show itself is but a sweet, lingering memory, we’ll be pulling down a few selections from the DVD shelf, culminating with some cocktails, a lovingly prepared meal featuring a turkey — naked, alone and afraid, not stuffed inside any other combination of birds — and finally, a cover version of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians by Cinematic Titanic, Joel Hodgson’s successor to MST3K, comprising the original on-camera team from its days as a local oddity on a Minneapolis UHF channel.

Happy Turkey Day, fellow crapiers!  If you get bored with starch and football, drop by later, as I may have a couple new items from Pastor Swank, who has clearly stopped taking his meds this week in order to save room for extra yams.

Happy Holidays | 10 Comments »

Sorry for the absence of posts (and malice) this week.  In spite of (or thanks to) the physical therapy, my back has been more querulous than usual lately, so I’ve been trying some Tough Love by giving it time outs and revoking its computer privileges.  Unfortunately, these disciplinary measures haven’t discouraged my spine from sneaking out after dark to get drunk, drag race for pink slips, or go on shooting sprees at the Griffith Observatory, so I guess I’ll just give up and let it go back to blogging.

In the meantime, my spine and I went for a walk this afternoon, and I took a few shots with my iPhone, just to preserve a record of what the world was like before it all ended in 2012.  As you can see, the city has already begun putting up the traditional Christmas decorations on Hollywood Boulevard:

Felling a streetlight is a fairly common occurrence on the Boulevard, but it amazes me how these drunks never fail to crash into one of the few remaining old style lamps — the ones with a soupçon of character — rather than the plentiful, and ugly modern fixtures.  You’d think, if nothing else, the law of averages would intervene at some point.  Still, it’s pretty damn festive, don’t you think?

Read the rest of this entry »

For No Good Reason | 16 Comments »

Riley:

Some days I stand, ever vigilant for signs of human perfidy.  Other times, I feel like, you know…just chillin’.

And Moondoggie:

If I could only…reach my…utility belt!  Ah, screw it.

Wild Things | 10 Comments »

Good day, brothers and sisters.  Before we begin, the elders have asked me to announce that during the following sermon, Wo’C spiritual guide J. Grant Swank is expected to reach a charismatic climax of such unusual force, distance, throw-weight, and viscosity, that you might want to leave your hat on.

Sarah Palin will be quizzed about political this and that. But when she runs for Oval Office, if she does, and it surely does appear as if it’s in her adrenaline swing, her being Christian will be shredded.

Listen boys, if you’re going to use the adrenaline swing during your sex orgies and rainbow parties, remember to apply adequate lubrication and ease into things, so you don’t wind up shredding her “Christian,” as the kids call it nowadays.  Didn’t the Coach teach you anything in Mental Hygiene class?

She is not only Christian in the biblical definition, but also “evangelical” when it comes to tags.

So if you’re going to “know” her “Christian” in the “biblical sense,” that’s fine, but if, during a peak of passion, she begs you for an “evangelical,” remember to be safe and use a condom and a shoehorn.  (NB:  Some inexperienced young people confuse the “evangelical” with the “throttled pentecostal” — a form of auto-erotic asphyxiation that requires two wet suits and a dildo — or the “Quaker snaker,” which is basically anal sex, except one or both parties are wearing a periwig.)

And not only “evangelical,” but charismatic/pentecostal.

That issue alone will swab the deck.

(”Swabbing the deck” is also known as a “Cincinnati Bowtie” or a “Chinstrap Penguin.”)

The atheists, agnostics and generic secularists will warp and woof. They will holler and screech. They will write and scrawl. They will pull up the sewer tops from every evangelical and pentecostal persona in the past century.

Hey, slow down there, Pastor.  I can’t keep running to the Urban Dictionary every time you discover a new fetish.

Further, they will take especially the pentecostal beliefs and strew them from coast to coast, then every continent. They will misplace them, misstate them, malign them and nail them to hell’s front door.

Then ring the bell and run!

The bloody war that awaits evangelicals and charismatics in particular is not yet envisioned by the general biblical believers. But it will be forthcoming if she goes further than marketing her book.

Examples of the sort of excessive marketing on the part of former Governor Palin which might plunge us into a bloody war include:

1. Signing copies of “Going Rogue” at a Waldenbooks, while firing on Fort Sumter
2. Appearing on Oprah to promote her memoir, then shooting Arch-Duke Franz Ferdinand from a helicopter.
3. Posing in pantyhose and gym shorts for the cover of Runner’s World, then massacring two thousand Huguenots.

Her local church will be swarmed with reporters. Her pastor will have to hide from media.

And from definite and indefinite articles.

Every churchgoer there in her hometown will likewise be buttonholed.

Also known as a “Davenport Corncobbing,” or a “Minnesota Widestance.”

Some will speak clearly regarding doctrine. Others won’t have a clue and so will stir up the theological pot to dirt.

Well, not everyone can speak with the clarity and eloquence of a Sarah Palin.  Or a J. Grant Swank, for that matter.

Then First Dude will be quizzed till he’ll flee on dogsled.

If only he not flee on dogsled, First Dude could answer quiz.  Quiz easy!  “Friend?  Good!  Fire?  Bad!”

Palin children will be asked if they agree or disagree with family faith, especially the matriarch’s claim.

A Matriarch’s Claim is basically a Dirty Sanchez using Jean Naté and potpourri.

The Bible verses relating to miracles, the Second Coming and speaking in tongues will make front page fodder, mostly screwed up to the nth.

I tried screwing up to the nth once.  It made me very chafed.

Imagine what Katie Couric will do with the Word.

It actually works better for me if I just think about baseball.

Those truly interested in the topic will be twittering and emailing and posting till their fingers fall off.

Well, it’s better than going blind.

In the meantime, God will oversee the mayhem and wonder what happened when Sarah Palin decided to run run run.

She should flee on dogsled!

The circus has not even started yet. Wait till they pitch the Big Tent.

Oh, I think you’re pitching a pretty big tent right now, Pastor.

Oh Lord | 57 Comments »