I know. We're all upset that Jenny's marrying a bohunk.

So Mr. Gleemonex was skimming the Rolling Stone cover story on the Jonas Bros., who, in case you have the good fortune not to have heard, are a boy band made up of a trio of Bible-thumping godbaggers, who are currently setting preteen hearts aflame all over the world. Sorta like Hanson, only dark-haired instead of blonde and minus MmmBop (one of my all time favorite songs, and I'm not kidding). (Shut up, it's a really good song.)

So among these douchetards' offenses against music, taste and decency, reported Mr. Gleemonex, are that they wear purity rings, and apparently a lot of their wee fans are following suit. Purity rings, in case you have the good fortune not to have heard, are these Special Christian Rings the kids wear on the third finger of the left hand, signifying their pledge to stay virgins until they're married. Some kids buy their own -- icky and weird enough -- and some kids' parents buy them FOR the kids and make a big creepy deal over it.

And that's where I draw the line. You hear the most about these things in terms of way-wrong shit like Purity Balls (a father-daughter dance type deal where there's all this talk about, and emphasis on, the preteen or young teen girl's virginity) ... ugh. There's something so skeevy and embarrassing about that -- reminds me of Joe Simpson and his obsession with his daughters' boobs, you know? Like, dude -- why are you thinking so much about that? It's none of your goddamn business. And it riles every feminist cell in my body, the repugnant notion that a father has some sort of ownership of, or material interest in, his daughter's vagina and the disposition thereof.

The nutjobs who are into this stuff like to cast it as a partnership, or the father protecting and aiding the daughter against all the dirty dirty menfolk in the world, but it's the biggest load of overbearing sexualized patriarchal horseshit ever voided by the bowels of the patriarchy.

Here is what a father needs to do to protect and aid his daughter:

1) Have her back. I don't mean act like she's always right, even when she's wrong -- I mean make sure she knows she can trust you. Trust you to believe in her, to help her navigate the world, to give her a hand when she scrambles over various obstacles. You've got to be her corner man, her rock -- and don't act like you're the ONLY man she can trust, either. Just show her what that looks like so she can recognize it in others. Be her biggest fan. Fucking BE AROUND.

2) Be kind to women in general and her mother in particular. You can't think that if you're a bigot or a misogynist or just have a bunch of unexamined "women are lesser/worse at X thing" opinions, that you can make her the exception and she'll never notice. She will. If you mutter about "women drivers" or talk shit about your exes or team up with her against her mom, if you reflexively tag combative or less-pliant women as "bitches," if you tell her how slutty her friends look, or repeatedly disrespect your mom, your daughter's teachers, the waitress, the barista, the VP of your division -- she's going to internalize that, and it goes double if the object of your low opinion and bad treatment is her mother. She'll realize she is of a species that you think is less than your own, and if her own father thinks she's not as good as boys and men, well, why should other males respect her? And why should she respect herself, either? She'll settle, she'll take what she can get. It's your job to make sure she knows her worth.

That's it. Everything else will flow from those two things. Nobody gets through life without some angst and pain and drama, and your girl will make bad choices sometimes -- but if you give her those two things, she'll always be able to pick herself up, dust herself off, and go forward, made stronger by experience.

Being paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you

What did I ever do to Amazon.com that it persists in thinking I have, or want to have, ANY TRUCK WHATSOEVER with Patti LuPone, now or in future?

Also, hospital smell probably beats the general aroma of failure and moustache clippings

And by the way, this is such bullshit -- Liz has never particularly given a boxcar about Grampa Jim, the brain-damaged but still pun-making motherfucker. It's April who's spent so much time with him, and played music with him, and all that. But I guess anything to put off The Inevitable Marital Relation with Granthony, right?

take the easy way and give in

"I'm not losing a daughter -- I'm gaining an accountant!"

If that doesn't say it all, I don't know what does.

Worst. Wedding. Ever.

You fellow Prisoners of Foob know what I’m talking about. This horrible fucking teal-and-violet shake-n-bake death-march nightmare of a wedding – telegraphed by our Dear Leader five years ago and adhered to with grim mayonnaise-covered tenacity despite the frenzied thrashing-about of a thousand red herrings (some as recently as LAST WEEK, with the sudden turn for the boxcar by Grampa Jim) – has finally reached its conclusion, its corpseflower stench in full bloom, while we can only hope for the kind of crackerjack storytelling twist that brought Bobby Ewing back to life: maybe the past few years have only been a dream! Maybe Liz is still up North, having a particularly weird nightmare after a long afternoon of banging Canada’s Finest, and he’ll wake her up for round six pretty soon and we’ll all get to pretend we never saw the entire Pornstachio storyline, Prince Michael never got his scabies-in-print-form “novel” sold, the whole bullshit house swap never happened …

I know, I know. FAIL.

It is on her that we must lay our burdens, for she alone can bear our pain. And give us cars.

OK, so I bet you all could guess that I hate Oprah. I’ve never bothered to blog this particular hate, because WHAT a soft target, and where would I even start? I could get going about the monstrous ego of a person who would put him- or herself on the cover of his/her own magazine every month, or the silly horseshit “spirituality” she hawks, or the fact that whatever glurge she picks as her book of the week becomes an instant bestseller, or the sad sack stories she’s always trotting out (tears mandatory) from The Heartland, but then I’d have to keep going, and then I’d get all frothy-mouthed and there’d be spittle flying and crazed howling and what have you and we just don’t need that right now, do we.

But as you’ve probably heard, there’s this person attempting to live – well, attempting to get a book deal by living -- according to Oprah’s every gilded utterance (in print or on the Teevee) for a year. And through the publicity about this person and her experiment, I have come across a word that is now the focal point, the bullseye, the absolute nuclear epicenter of my hate for Oprah, and that word is: shlumpadinka.

This word, it makes me fucking HOMICIDAL. I want to burn the building down with EVERYBODY IN IT.

This word apparently (I’m going from context here, since Hell to the No am I going to go to Oprah’s world to chase it down) describes people – women, natch – who don’t take the required interest in their personal appearance, and must be taught by Madam Oprah’s crackerjack team of personal and life stylists how to get their shit together. The term for this action in Oprah’s world is “Shlumpadinka Makeover.” Shatner’s taint-sweat, y’all. Why, WHY does it have to be so cutesy and p/a? WHY? I’d respond to a “You Look Like Shit – Lemme Fix You Up” Makeover. But if you come at me with a motherfuckin Shlumpadinka Makeover, I’m’a make over your THROAT with my FOOT.

Three days of unholy misery

To the silly bitches talking about your superkewl weekend plans this morning in the cafe, like it makes you Hep or something: You know, I’d LOVE to spend $500 to stand around getting sunburned in the wind (or freezing my entire nipular region off in the windy fog, or perhaps both in the same hour) enduring annoying band after annoying band all goddamn day with a bunch of hippies, hipsters, mouth-breathers from Hayward, attention-whores from all walks of life, entitled rich kids, small yappy dogs and the various human riffraff of the San Francisco Bay Area, in order to not hear (thanks to crappy PA systems, sound bleed from other stages, aforementioned wind & fog, Talky Mc O’Chattersons all around) the music being played by my favorite bands, whom I can not see on the stage two hundred yards away (without binoculars and a sudden surge in my own personal height from 5’5” to at least 7’2”), take the occasional nature break in a port-a-potty, and spend three hours trying to exit the park along with 100,000 other people when it’s over, I really would. But, you know, I’ve got, like, this … um … thing I gotta do that day. Or something. Gosh darn it, sucks that I’m gonna miss it. But you kids go have fun.

PS: yeah, sorry, I wrote this post already in March, and better ... Grandma tends to repeat herself. So what. At least I stick to my convictions.

I ain't sayin he shoulda set the house on fire ...

... but I understand. I do understand.

Approach the apparatus

Just watched a fuckton of Olympics over the weekend, y’all, and godaMIGHTY is that a lot of beach volleyball. And we’re still only on, like, the quarterfinals or some shit.

Watching the various sprint races, though (when they took a break from broadcasting the between-games toweling-off of the beach volleyball players) (really), I recalled my own sad and horrible track career, back in 7th and 8th grades, when if you were on the basketball team (which I was, nominally, because if you were cool you had to be on the bball team, even if you sucked, which I did, emphatically, my only strength being a supersweet move wherein I hooked the ankle of whomever I was supposed to be defending and often tripped them & sent them sprawling onto the floor but never once got called for it), you had to “run” “track” in the offseason.

Wow, was that a load of mis’ry to carry. The only thing worse, athletic-endeavor-wise, was that dreadful year I spent playing soccer in third grade.

Track. Holy flaming Shatner-and-asparagus canapés, y’all.

I am short, and s l o o o o o w, and hate competitions (particularly of things I’m bad at), and I couldn’t be arsed to get the proper equipment (running shoes) so I just wore my red Reebok hi-tops, and I hated running, and it was always BALLS FREEZING and sleety on track meet days especially – a whole goddamn Saturday blown, being physically stressed and miserable and antsy and full of dread, and because I was a “miler,” i.e. “one of the slowest people, so we’ll just stick you in the mile – the last race of the meet, natch – for the participant points,” I never got to relax. My memories may have blurred some over the years (mercy!) but I’m pretty sure my best-ever mile time from this Dark Chapter of my life was a 7:20.

These days, I run a couple times a week as part of my regular exercise program (for the runner’s high and the calorie torch) – still very slowly but without the tangy taste of fear and failure in my mouth, which makes all the difference.

But I do wonder, in re: the sprinters, how fast I could run the 100 meters. The ladies at the Olympics do it in about 10.5 seconds. Could I do it in 30? If it were just the once, and I did some training beforehand? I honestly don’t know. Could you?

I'm just sayin.

If there isn't any Michael Phelps/Dara Torres fanfic out there on the Internets, there probably oughta be.

Kick the can

Hey Ben Stiller. Hey. Dude, bro. Hey!

FYI, guy: Every single movie you make doesn’t necessarily HAVE to feature something hideously gross and disgusting and horrifying happening to a person’s Private Regions or to his/her Bowel System. I’d send this same memo to Mike Myers, but he’s beyond saving.

I haven’t seen Tropic Thunder yet, but I will (yay Jack Black!), but I have a bet going with myself on when this type of “humor” will occur therein. The over/under is 23 minutes. I’m taking the under.

Surprise me, just this once, eh, broheim?

sit down / stand up

Quick question for all the fellas, and all the young people (sometimes referred to on this here fine blog as The Kids Today): If you are riding on a very full bus, and at the last stop before the bus goes express into the city, more people get on, and some have to stand, including five women, one of whom is visibly pregnant (NOT ME!), and one of whom is visibly suffering from a leg/foot injury (there is a brace involved) (also NOT ME), would you stand to offer your seat, or sit on your dead ass, letting the two physically compromised ladies grab a seatback and surf the bus all the way into town?

Yes, there is a Right Answer to that, and no, none of the fellas or young people on the bus today knew it. Nor did any of the able-bodied women, I hasten to add.

For the record: I was one of the uninjured, unpregnant healthy young-ish standees; had I been seated, I’d’ve offered my seat to either of the two women in question OR any man with detectable physical issues, as I am wont to do. Courtesy to your fellow humans should not be limited to one gender, especially in this post-feminist age – the rule is, whoever needs the seat more should get it. So sayeth the mighty Shatner, so say we all.

Forty acres and a mule

Mr. Gleemonex was a little slow on the fast-forward button the other night, and we ended up actually seeing one of those horrible McCain anti-Obama ads during the Olympics. People, believe me when I tell you: that is some absolutely breathtaking -- and breathtakingly subtle --racism. The ads are bad enough on the surface ("He's going to raise taxes -- which means fewer jobs!" is a real quote), but beneath the surface is the ugliest shit I’ve ever seen. To people like … well, like certain relatives of mine – the way the unseen crowd chants "Obama" (they’re saying it "OH!-BAH!-MAH!", not "oh-BAH-muh," the way Americans/native English speakers say it), the way the shots focus on his mouth and frame his body – it’s going to touch that nasty unspeakable racist nerve deep inside people who probably wouldn't actually call him "nigger" out loud but who nevertheless are constitutionally afraid of black people; way down in their subconscious, those commercials suggest Malcolm X, African tribal leaders in dashikis, crowds of dangerous hoodlums coming for you. And it's not mistake or coincidence, this near-subliminal hocus-pocus -- the vile swine who made the commercials are very good at what they do. It is sickening, so far beyond repugnant that I’m not sure I have the words. Has it really come to this?

Little chocolate donuts have been on my training table since I was a kid.

Olympic rundown, part one of however many I get around to:

--As thrilling as the opening ceremonies were, there was also this unshakeable undercurrent of discomfiture because of the wondering how, exactly, you get that many people to DO those things so very perfectly. It’s just weird when you suspect that your own entertainment has come at the expense of a certain amount of arm-twisting (literal or figurative) …

--Why does Costas look like he’s made of wax, and what’s with the Sears suits and Just for Men hair dye?

--That one Chinese gymnast? Yeah, she’s sixteen like I’m sixteen.

--Coolest thing about synchro diving? Hearing what they say to each other before they dive. The Chinese chick just said two words, then they jumped; the Germans had a little routine; the Americans went “Ready?” “Yeah.” “One. Two. Three.”

--Speaking of which: technology has seriously enhanced my Olympics viewing – from the gigantic fiddy-inch HD plasma teevee on our wall, to the underwater and starting-block cams in the swimming pool to the sheer volume of programming – this is great stuff.

--If you row crew, you probably went to an Ivy.

--Trap shooting is kewl.

--We couldn’t help ourselves with the constant comments in re: the Chinese, such as when one gymnast stepped out after a tumbling run: “Ohh, that’s gonna cost her family that car they were slated to get next year. So sorry, but the people are displeased with her performance.”

--Our crackerjack PackageWatch 2008 Team reports multiple hilarious sightings in the brief (heh) bit of men’s gymnastics we watched at normal speed (instead of zipping past like we did with the rest of it). “His package just brushed the … apparatus,” grimaced our ace reporter. “Heh, the apparatus,” giggled our other ace reporter. “They’re mounting the apparatus,” continued our ace reporter. “But did he stick it? The landing, I mean,” replied our other ace reporter. (Commentary degenerated further from this point, in a manner not fit for a Family Blog such as this one. We have our standards, people.)

--Phelps is a giant happy Labrador puppy. I like that. But not as much nor in the same way as does my friend Indira, who during the last Olympics, dwelt at some length on her desire to devirginize young Phelps. No word on whether she attained her goal, then or since then, but I would guess that though the candidates are many, the Big Event may still yet be in the offing for young Phelps.

--Odd that it took seeing a black guy in the water to realize how very very white swimming is.

--Il Douche is apparently attending these Olympic Games. Mr. Gleemonex and I had some very harsh words for him as we sped past his ugly visage on the teevee, both during his interview (in which the lazy motherfucker couldn’t even be bothered to SIT UP STRAIGHT) and when he was shown in the stands watching the swim races. Fuck you, man. And also: You know how there’s sort of a little bit of a war on, between Russia & Georgia (the nation, not the former Confederate state)? You think you might want to pay a little attention to that (not that you have any diplomatic capital left to spend on it, but, you know) instead of farting around poolside, fuckwit? Or is it just a case of, well, you can’t be assed to pay attention to Operation Desert Boondoggle, the war you personally started, so what’s another crazy murderous situation in a long line of ‘em on your watch?

--There’s apparently a lot of screaming in fencing. But very little hair product, or even shampoo.

Franks and beans!

Is it wrong – or rather, I suppose I should ask, how wrong is it – that I deftly maneuvered a sweet last-second switcheroo on Mister Chatty Motherfucker this morning on the bus, so that he ended up seated next to an also very talky guy I’ll call Slightly Retarded Tony Gwynn? I hated to sic the King of Verbal Diarrhea on sweet, happy SRTG, but SRTG, a longtime regular on this route who likes to home in on the ladies (ALL the ladies) with his smooth lines (“You’re pretty! Are you married? Will you marry me? What time is it?”) delivered at one-and-a-half-times normal conversational volume, is the only other person on the bus who can handle that type of interpersonal interaction at this hour of the morning. I suppose the really, really wrong part was how bowel-quakingly hilarious it was to witness my relentlessly verbose bus-riding nemesis (may he rot in Shatner’s hairy anus for all eternity) trying to parry with SRTG, as if SRTG is listening to him or cares and isn’t going to answer his stupid questions and comments with “Do you have a sister? Is she pretty? What time is it?” over and over and over and over again.

The only thing that could make it worse is if the pieces are Civil War figurines.

The list of my true hates has been static for a long time. Various things have threatened to climb on the list (Emily Fucking Dickinson, puns, Mensa, douchebaggy professor beards, etc.), but most of my hates occupy the vast second, third and fourth tiers. But it’s time now to add a third item to the two that make up the top level, and that item is: chess.

Chess. Shatner’s unclean UNDERPANTS, do I hate chess. Reasons include but are not limited to:

--Board games should be played either family-style, with kids & adults hanging out and having fun together, or friend-style, with booze and rampant skullduggery. Chess lends itself to neither, and thus, I have no use for it.

--The overused strategery metaphor. If a writer or director for print, stage or screen wishes to convey two opponents outthinking and outmaneuvering each other, a battle of wits and street smarts and moxie, chances are, they’re gonna bring in chess sooner or later, either verbally (“This guy’s three moves ahead of us, Chief!”) or actually (recent episode of Monk) or sometimes super-extra-literally (second season of Twin Peaks). And seriously: Must we, really? Are there no other metaphors, or is there just the one?

--Its use as cultural shorthand for “very smart person, probably a genius.” You don’t have to be smart to play chess, and you aren’t stupid just because you can’t or don’t want to. It helps if you have a touch of the Asperger’s, or just an engineering mind, but for instance, my social-retard freshman roommate could play, and that crazy bitch was as dumb as a dented box of stale corn chips.

--Obnoxious kids that play it. Nothing is more obnoxious in the world of Kid Obnoxiousness than the kid who’s good at chess. In-fucking-sufferable, these little twits. And it’s sad, because they’re obviously making up for an inherited lack of social skills which probably isn’t going to get better as they approach adolescence, but that doesn’t stop their smugness from making me want to give them a super atomic swirly, eight years old or not.

--The fact that I do not understand it and cannot play it (like with magic – you can show me, in intricate, painstaking detail, how a goddamn magic trick works, and I will still stare at it, baffled and angry, still not getting how it fucking works).

Just so long as he remembers YOU wear the pants in the family.

Can we please, PLEASE stop referring to inanimate objects as “she”? Holy trussed-up Thanksgiving Shatner with a side of sautéed pigeons’ nuts, does that make me sick.

There’s this commercial that plays all the time during Yankees games, in regular rotation with the various dick/colon/hair-issues commercials – I don’t even know what it’s for and I don’t care, because it’s about this kid out riding his bike, finding a junker car parked by the side of the road with a note taped to it that says “If you can fix her, you can have her,” where “her” is the fucking junker car.

Ugh. You love “her” so much, you just left “her” by the side of the road for the taking, by whoever wants to slap a new coat of paint on “her,” tinker with the engine a little, and show “her” off to his similarly socially retarded friends? So creepy and lame.

Ships, cars, guitars, various machines and other toys that your basic boy-in-a-man-body type persists in calling “she” – it’s such affected, annoying bullshit. And on a related note, if I hear someone saying that X Object is “like a woman,” I instantly assume I’m dealing with at best a silly delusional wannabe ladies’ man, and at worst a misogynist a-hole who sees women as so Other that there can be no common ground – I’m just a pair of tits and a vagina to him, so why are we even talking?

“She.” Gimme a fucking break.