heckuva job

How bad a president do you have to be to make that lying corporate-owned warmongering genocidal racist misogynist fuckwit sack of shit GWB look Presidential?

And then you end up at like, a Chili's, havin a bloomin' onion with a buncha secretaries

So, Chili's has come back into my life -- or, perhaps, I have come back into its.

The very same outlet I wrote about in 2011 (on what turned out to be just ten days before Danger Secondgrader's birth), in fact. And I've learned, finally, how to properly access its wares: A couple times a month, my friends and I will go directly from our workout at the trendy HIIT gym, cross the SUV-and-Tesla-filled parking lot, and skip the dining room for the bar area. We order chips (which are always delivered fresh and hot, if not salty enough, but that's what the shaker's for) & salsa, one small adult beverage each, and something off their $8 lunch menu -- the cup of soup and half a turkey/bacon/avocado sandwich is quite edible. It's a good time, the servers are always happy to see us, and we tip really really well (which maybe is why they're happy to see us? also we're nice and not the kind of middle-aged suburban women who Speak to the Manager). We avoid the rest of the insanely-long menu, and there's not a Chickie Nob in sight. It's actually kinda like when I was a teenager, except I don't get carded anymore -- just a fun, cheap hang with friends.

So like, this is not exactly an Endorsement, but it is a reflection on revisiting things and allowing them to have a different place in your life at different times in your life. Plus also, anyplace that can serve me a beer THAT cold is to be applauded, whenever and wherever it may be.

Also in music: Dave Grohl is a NATIONAL GODDAMN TREASURE.

Trying to find a particular artist or song on the multitudinous channels of Sirius Satellite Radio is exactly as frustrating and annoying as it was to attempt the same feat on regular radio (usually in pursuit of the next track on my recorded-from-radio mixtapes) back in junior high, only it's way, way more chagrin-filled now because what I'm looking for is one song each from Taylor Swift and Lorde, both of which songs I've heard exactly once, don't really remember the names of, and find it hard to admit I'm pursuing on purpose.

But Mommy isn't one of those, I've known her all these years

In Which the Blogger Tries to Work Out Some Issues, Hoping Not to Sound Like a Total Asshole and Probably Failing, Per the Usual

So I have talked in here already about the suburban moms who populate our little slice of the Silicon Valley, and how they kind of creep me out. It's not the Dallas-Royce-type moms who creep me out -- that, I can sort of understand (what with my issues about mani-pedis and such), and I'm still just as intimidated by them as I was by the really put-together girls in my own high school back in the day (the neurosis that keeps on giving!). No -- it's the Mom moms -- the bitchfaced judgmental Fox "News" demographic, the ones I have trouble believing were ever kids, or teenagers, or young single adults, the ones who look like they were born wearing slacks and blouses and talking about how little Reagan and Cheynee are enjoying the fourth grade at Saint Ballsacktious's Academy for Middle-Intellect White Childrens.

I find myself in these ladies' company quite often these days; as my kid takes up activities like dance class and this crazy-fun tumbling thing at the community center, and of course pickup time at preschool, I am, naturally, where the other moms are. And y'all -- I'm not one of them.

I mean -- yes I am. I have to confront and own the fact that I am a suburban mom -- a female parent whose domicile is in a suburb. I'm not purposely trying to Other these women, or -- wait -- it's been awhile since I was in kollege -- maybe it's myself I'm trying to Other?

Anyway. Point: I show up to the dance studio in shorts and a tank* top, same hair I've had for more than 20 years (long, straight, unbothered by any product except really good shampoo & conditioner and some Pureology smoothing serum), with my kid and my baby, and park it on one of the benches with the other gals while our various offspring do their dance classes. I'm flipping through Sullivan and my political tumblrs (Recall All Republicans, STFU Conservatives, Advocating Progress, etc.), playing peek-a-boo with the tiny guy and/or letting him teethe on my free hand, and there's a knot of them over in one corner, wearing actual shoes, and makeup, and shirts that require ironing (even though it's 93 fucking degrees out, thus my shorts and tank and ponytail, it's not a fucking political statement, ladies) talking amongst themselves, and I swear to you that in response to my cordial howdy smiles, they are constantly giving me the side-eye, like Who is this girl and why is she allowed to be here? This scene is for grown-ups, Missy! And it kind of gives me the blerghs.

What I'm saying is, I am a grown-up, goddammit, I just don't look like the local/default image of one. It's not a hipster thing, I'm not trying to hold on to my long-ago youth. I'm seriously, sincerely, not doing it on purpose, this Grownup Look Fail. It's just what I fucking look like. I haven't worn makeup on the reg since August of 1992 -- because I'm lazy and cheap and besides it's really fun to clean up good on the extremely rare occasions when I do paint my face with stuffs. I wear what I wear because it's comfortable -- it would be cool to be stylish and shit, and wear Outfits, but I'd need a person on staff to lay out my clothes every day and an independent income stream to pay for it all or else I'd revert to wearing the same navy BR cargo shorts and Gap Ts again (laaaaazy, cheeeeap).

I don't know. I'm overthinking it (again) -- and now the word "mom" looks weird to me. Mom. Mom. Mom om omom momooo. Heh. Mom.


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*BTW, these really are perfect tanks -- they cover bra straps, skim the cleavage, and hold up through endless wearings -- I LOVE them for everyday. I wear two different-colored ones at once, for a little better coverage and some visual interest. How's a J.Jill shout-out for increasing my hipster/riot-grrrl cred, y'all! 

Change a hawk to dove, stop a war with love

We really need to talk about Wonder Woman. I bet you're all, "Girl superhero! Awesome! Kick his ass, Sea Bass!" But no.

First, like I said a couple of weeks ago, that origin story of hers is complete bunkum. And what lame superpowers she has: spinning, lassoing, talking to animals, flying an invisible jet. Super strength is pretty good, I guess, but there's not enough of it.

Secondly, OMFG was the 70s TV show horrible. I mean -- I watch a lot of bad TV, but this? This is ... outrageously fucking bad. Stupefyingly craptacular production values, even for 70s TV; tons of unironic blaring from the brass section of the made-for-teevee orchestra; worst theme song ever ("in yer satin tights / fightin for your riiights"); amazing long stretches of not a goddamn thing happening. And Lynda Carter -- oh honey. Lynda, if you've Googled yourself and this post comes up, you should stop reading right now, cause I'm sure you're a real nice lady and I don't want to give you a hard time but this is gonna hurt your feelings: I'm pretty sure Shatner's ballsack could out-act her, all by its grey-curly-furred lonesome. It's like she's not a native speaker of English,* and has learned her lines phonetically, with the em-PHA-sis on the wrong syl-LAH-bles. Dig this, in which she's getting a new assignment -- putrefaction has set in. And Debra Winger as Wonder Girl -- the younger sister of Wonder Woman, doncha know -- might be even worse. They've got her made up as some sort of bobby-soxer (the series started out set in the 40s, for completely unknowable reasons), and it's possible she's a prototype of the singing dog/lion animatron thingies at Chuck E. Cheese, because I can't find a spark of genuine humanity in there at all.

Finally, in the kids' picture books they have nowadays, featuring all the superheroes, she looks like a porn star who's trying to go legit but she doesn't really know how the legit world acts and -- heartbreakingly -- all her office clothes for her respectable office job are from Victoria's Secret. She works out with her friends Batman and Superman -- training and such -- and then has brunch with them. Brunch, yes -- in which B&S look like a couple of really cut young dudebros who are totally into each other in a committed life-partner way (not that there's anything wrong with that -- I'm just not sure it's canon).

Why do I know all this? Oh, you know why. The kid's obsessions (who could have imagined how many thousand clips and mixes of this fucking show would be on YouTube? WHO???) respect no mental boundaries.

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*Which, incidentally, is the code by which we used to refer to Hispanic job applicants back when I worked at the high-end nanny agency in San Francisco. That hell-cunt of a boss of mine would be all, "Does she have English as her first language?" And that answer would be how the applicant got placed in the pool, salary-wise and posh-job-wise. That was FUCKED UP. 

How about a nice warm cup of shut the hell up?

A Partial List of Unreasonable Grudges I Have Held for a Minimum of Twenty-Five Years

--The "bunny-fur coat" my cousin L. got from my grandmother E. This is one of the really stupid ones -- L., four years older than me, was/is a child of the Unfavored Daughter of my grandparents (whereas my siblings and I were from the Most Favored Son), and lived in another state, so only visited once a year at most. When I was about 9 and she 13, my grandmother took her shopping -- like she did us about every damn week -- and bought her a fur jacket. Rabbit fur. Which my cousin wore around ALL GODDAMN WEEK, hugging herself and prattling on about it. I should let it go because: A) who cares, B) I already had one, bought by the very same grandmother, C) those cousins never got anything, because of favoritism and also they lived across the country as opposed to half a mile away, so who is so small as to begrudge a goddamn jacket? I haven't let it go because: SHUT UP ABOUT THE BUNNY-FUR JACKET, L! And go home already! You guys are hogging my grandparents! Length of grudge to date: 29 years.


--The 4th/5th grade music teacher who always told us to "keep it down to a dull thud" during free play. It's dull ROAR you're looking for, dumbass. Dull ROAR. "Dull thud" is a thing, but it isn't THIS thing. Length of grudge to date: 27 years.


--My cousin A., who put the fucking giant rubber spider in his family's swimming pool and wouldn't take it out, so I had to get out of the pool on one of the hottest days all goddamn summer and not go back in. He and I are friends now, and I adore him, but William H. SHATNER, I am never ever going to get over the way that thing undulated in the water. Eeeeeeeeeeeeegh! Length of grudge to date: 29 years. 


--My friend C.'s parents trying to make me call them "sir" and "ma'am" during the entirety of this extremely hot, buggy, terrible week-long trip to some awful lake or other in the height of summer when I was about eight. We didn't do "sir" and "ma'am" in my family, it was really embarrassing and stupid and felt like they were the principal of the school all the time, and it made a rough (allegedly fun) week even worse. Length of grudge to date: 30 years. 


--My cousin S. (sibling of cousin A. and four years older than me) and her bitch friend S.S. ditching me that time I was over there getting babysat by S.'s older sister. I blame S.S. for this; she was the one who came up with the "there are Oreos in the kitchen -- why doncha go get some for all three of us?" ruse. When I came back, after a fruitless search for Oreos, they were gone. Length of grudge to date: 30 years. 


--That bitch who bit my little sister at daycare at Mrs. Book's house. She friended me on Facebook a few months ago. I still might bite her back someday. She should watch out. Length of grudge to date: 31 years.

Amirite?

I am on vacation this week, hangin' out with Kid Gleemonex, which has been awesome. Lots of fun stuff (you parents with just boys are missing out on the foofy tea-room restaurant experience, no kidding around), crafts, baking, lots of just nothing in particular (that's in short supply when both parents work, I tell you whut, and honestly it is restorative to the soul).

And but so one day, we went to a local park -- part of the appeal of the area where we live now is that it's absolutely lousy with well-tended parks. We took a picnic, and ate on our blanket in soft green grass under a shade tree -- it was lovely. But then, because we are at a park, we have to do park stuff.

Know what's fucking boring? Parks.

We went over to the sand play area, which to my surprise, for once in her life did not interest my kid -- five or six toddlers mucking around in the sand in the glaring sunlight, moms and nannies and what have you arranged nearby in what shade they could find, most either reading or on iPhones. The slides were too hot -- direct sun, doncha know -- so Kid Gleemonex wanted to swing. Christ, swings are boring for the one who is not doing the swinging, even when your kid is adorable and wants you to push her at varying speeds such as "monster fast," "rabbit fast," and "grass fast." Eventually she got done swinging and went over to the water play area (you push a button and these jets set into a rubberized surface start shooting at random intervals -- a little like the Bellagio only you can play in it and there's no music or light show or booze).

So I took my book* over to a shaded bench and read while she went to TOWN on that water thingy. And here's where I want to get back to the thing about all the moms and nannies on their iPhones and/or reading -- I never understood that, before I had a kid. I was all, oh that's so sad, why do they even HAVE kids if they don't want to play with them? But now I get it. I do. Parks used to be a place where you'd send a kid to play in relative peace and grown-up-free safety -- think about all those Amy & Laura books, the Fudge books, where the playground has nothing to do with parents whatsoever. But now instead of letting them go nuts and burn off all that kid energy farting around with other kids, we're supposed to ENGAGE with them -- hover right over them, climb up the fucking slide if we can fit through the thing, mediate sand-toy disputes with other small humans ... and that is FUCKING BORING. They like playing on playgrounds because they're KIDS -- to them, it's discovery! and skills! and daring! Which is great! But the actual stuff they do in these settings is b-b-b-b-boooooring for adults.

It's only that guilt -- "I should be over there, running through the water jets with her ..." that taints things. So I decided to let it go -- the kid was having an absolute blast, and it would've been less fun and over sooner if I had participated, so we each enjoyed our own age-appropriate activity, and we went home exhausted and happy.

The take-away: When you go to the park, take a book or something.

The end.

--------------------------------------

*The Help, if you must know. Shut up. SHUT UP I KNOW, OK?

Could you do the rest of us a favor and leave by the outfield? I mean ... they're gonna get you anyway ...

Nolan Ryan, do you want my advice for how to win a World Series? Do ya? Well, here it is: Quit palling around with the genocidal maniac George W. Bush and his lifesucking wife Laura.

GOD. Texas, man. Can't even watch BASEBALL without seeing those two walking advertisements for abortion. The Series has been huge fun -- I love me some Giants (my NL homeslices), and there's been all kinds of crazy awesome stuff happening in the games, but boy, does it chill the room forty degrees to see that funloving ex-First-Couple on my bigass teevee. Last night when we got home from trick-or-treating with the kid (she went as DJ Lance Rock, of course), Mr. Gleemonex and I watched the TiVoed Game Four, which was all kinds of rawk except for the part where Laura Bush -- ill-bred viper parked right in the good seats, wearing her everyday Nicholson-Joker face mask -- yawned on camera, mouth open wide like one of the goddamn Ewells, not even bothering to try to cover it with a polite hand, fillings countable in HD clarity for thirty full seconds … holy pitcher-dueling SHATNER do I loathe her.

GO GIANTS!

Also, Mary preferred to sit inside and sew on her nine-patch colorblock quilt because she's a goody two-shoes kiss-ass little twit.

Or: Further Adventures in Children's Lit
Sparked by a comment I was going to leave over at Sarah Brown's joint, which comment became overlong and moved itself over here instead:

1) I have started reading Little House on the Prairie to my almost-three-year-old. It is pretty awesome, and she likes the sound of it, and follows the story remarkably well. But I'm glad she can't actually read yet, because I have had to do some on-the-fly editing-out of this and that -- such as the Ingallses basically being HOME-INVADED by some Indians while Pa was away (it is really a terrifying chapter, no kidding), and how Ma is constantly mouthing off all racist about Indians in general (even before the home invasion).

2) Speaking of home invasions (Cat in the Hat, GOD), I never knew how much a person could grow to hate Dr. Seuss. Now, a bunch of y'all just went "Noooooooooo!" and started composing defenses of the man and his work, but y'all -- Y'ALL -- have never had to read "Blue Fish Blue Fish" for the eighth god damn night in a row, all that "Ish Wish Dish" and "Zans cans" and "seven-hump Wump" shit.

3) And speaking of editing, I don't edit the ending of Henny Penny, where HP, Cocky Locky, Goosey Loosey, Ducky Lucky, and Turkey Lurkey stupidly follow Foxy Loxey into his lair and he and his wife and kids EAT THEM ALL UP. Because DAMN, y'all, get some brains and don't follow a fucking FOX into its LAIR.

Rollin in my 5.0 with my ragtop down so my hair can blow

What is it with me and ice trays? Why do I so loathe emptying and refilling them? I do it -- I am not a goddamn BARN ANIMAL -- but I hate it sofa king bad.

Crack them (flecks of ice explode all over & stick to your shirt), dump them out, carry the tray to the sink, refill (either using too much water so the force keeps spraying the water out of the tray instead of staying the fuck in there dammit, or filling so slow you feel like empires are rising and falling while you stand there), walk them (spilling all the way) back to the freezer (which your husband has CLOSED because he is COMPULSIVE about that even though it's clear what you are doing five feet away for like thirty frickin seconds, so now you have to put one down to free a hand, or try with tray-filled hands, thus spilling it all, or get him to do it -- but probably he's already left the room to go back to his guitars, like he came out of there specifically and only to close the freezer and then bail on you, which is particularly annoying since you yourself have no quirks or annoying habits AT ALL, not even the bench in the bedroom piled three feet high [you wish that were a joke but it's true] with your clothes, which drives him bugfuck, heavens no, that's not annoying!), then put the depleted trays back in the freezer.

At least with cleaning a bathroom or whatever, you have the reward of shiny surfaces, neat organization and a peaceful, accomplished feeling of a job well done. But ice trays ... ugh. Just sittin in there, freezing, for to make you have to do it all over again.

Which I guess is why I like to take a cube out, on special occasions such as almost every evening, and pour vodka over it, right in front of its peers, and then drink it as it melts, so they understand what's what and who's who around here.

That which lies buried in the cortex

So I’m by myself in the elevator at work yesterday (and please believe me, I am as christless tired of work, and of talking about work, as you are of hearing about it, but the setting is important because this is where I am supposed to be all professional and shit), and it stops a couple of floors down and a tall, sweet-faced rangy/awkward guy with a corona of blond curls gets in, and (certain of you gals know where this is going) driven by a force I did not realize had such power, my mouth actually began forming the word “Krakow!” This impulse was so strong that a strangulated “k…” sort of came out really quietly as my brain stomped hard on my treacherous sound-maker, going (at neuron-melting speed) “SHUT UP MOUTH! Leave the poor Krakow-bastard alone!”

But then later I was like, come on – you have options for dressing yourself and styling your hair that will not provoke this type of near-ungovernable response in women my age, so really, if the brain had failed to manually override the speaking mechanism, would it really have been my fault? Srsly. Krakow.

Sort of like Josie Grossie, only a dude.

Internets, this is the kind of news story I love – a 22-year-old man went to Odessa Permian, told everybody he was 16 and homeless, and becomes a star basketball player, leading the team to a 5-A state championship. Turns out, he had, ahh, somewhat overextended his eligibility, having already had a championship high school bball career in Florida -- and some of the coaches recognized him when he played at an amateur tournament in Arkansas. [sad Price is Right trombone]

I feel bad for the people who believed it, and I guess for the kids who are now going to have to give up their state championship (and, OK, the teams they beat to get there) – but A) are you stupid or something? The guy’s obviously 22, plus he’s 6’5”, come on, and more importantly, B) What moxie!

I’m the kind of person who will always, always give points for style – I’d make a bad math or science teacher, because I’d probably give full credit to answers like these,* and if I were a judge, I’d be inclined not to bring the hammer of the law down on people who had a really good story to tell about their (victimless) crime or committed it in a really funny way (as long as no one was actually hurt!). I don’t know if this makes me a fundamentally unserious person or what.

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*And also because I can’t do math or science, even to save the life of a precious baby golden retriever, so there’s that.

I don't know what you're talking about and I wantcha to shut up.

So I can't figure out if this was because of residual mental trauma from the extremely ... muscular ... spider I had to kill the other day,* or something to do with how beatdown and defensive I'm feeling at work these last few weeks, but I dreamed I saw a lady** being attacked by a lion and instead of helping her, or calling 911 or the zoo or whatever, I shoved both lady and lion into the conveniently-open trunk of a large 70s automobile and shut the trunk, with the clearly articulated thought that "I can't deal with this -- I'm really sorry, but she was already losing anyway."


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*Seriously. It fucking had MUSCLES. Like it works out at the gym. And it was in the bathtub and I spied it JUST as I was about to put my kid in there. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeegh.

**Specifically, the lounge singer with the band Sausalito from Lost In Translation.

"His brain is squirming like a toad." What? Srsly. What?

OK, this I got via a link from the inimitable Sars:

Morrison was immortalized first by death at 27 and then by three generations of college kids who needed a poster to cover up a creepy-looking stain in their dorm room. That voice plus thirty pounds of extra flab wouldn’t have gotten Jim Morrison past the cattle-call round of “American Idol.”

And I laaaaaaaaaughed and laughed and laughed. Because y’all, Jim Morrison is the most jive frontman of the most jive band ever (Buddyhead says that title actually goes to Courtney Taylor of the Dandy Warhols, but in this instance and ONLY in this instance, they are wrong. I love the Dandy Warhols. Suck it, Buddyhead!).

I had my Morrison/Doors phase. If you are a straight female, a gay male, or a nascent music person of any gender or orientation, you had your Morrison/Doors phase too. Some of you may still be in yours, and for that, I’m sorry (unless you’re still fifteen, in which case you’ll get over it I hope, or you’re coming out of a lifetime of repression in some weird religious subculture, in which case you just go ahead and do what you need to do, old kid old sock).

Mine coincided with the release of the Doors movie (which my friend Lebowski was an extra in! woo!), and that only fueled the fire. The stupid, stupid fire. Plus also the still-awesome Danny Sugerman book, Wonderland Avenue. That shit had me writing Doors quotes all over my textbook covers and in yearbook signings for sure,y’all. Lizard King, Jesus H. Shatner with long locks, leather pants and a hairless chest … oi.

And with the exception of “People Are Strange,” which is truly a cool weird awesome little song, the music … ugh. Blow City, USA.

Thus has it been written, so let it be told across the land.

"Oh, and uh, Mitch, Carl ..."

Some Actors Who, No Matter What Else They Do In Life Or In Their Careers, Will Always Have A Special Place In My Heart. And Why.

Ashton Kutcher: Dude, Where’s My Car? This guy is almost more retarded than Keanu Reeves, and never was as good looking, and what is the DEAL with his life, but: “Yeah, yeah, its mystery is exceeded only by its power.” “What does mine say?” “Dude.” “Heh. What does mine say?” “Sweet.” “Heh. What does mine say?” “DUDE.” “Heh. What does mine say?” “SWEET. WHAT DOES MINE SAY?” “DUDE! WHAT. DOES. MINE. SAY?” “SA-WEE-TAH! WHAT DOES MINE SAY?”

David Krumholtz: Slums of Beverly Hills. Mr. Gleemonex and I actually call him “Luck Be A Lady.” If you ever saw this movie, and his bong-hit-fueled, tighty-whities-only a cappella performance of that song, you’d still have a season pass for the laughable idiocy that is NUM3ERS, too.

Ben Affleck: Dazed & Confused. “Y’all ready to kick some ass?” “Y’all hear some kid’s mom pulled a shotgun on my ass?” “Hoooo-eeee, ducks on a pond!” “Y’all are a disgrace … to the sport of pool … and y’should be proud … that I even let y’play … at my table.” I could go on. In fact, I am. I’m just going to stop typing it now, is all.

Jennifer Aniston: Office Space. Well, I know Lumbergh fucked ‘er.

Kevin Corrigan: Slums of Beverly Hills (“You know, you’re not supposed to wear a bra with those.”), Grounded for Life. (“I know about … seventy-five guys.”)

Brad Pitt. True Romance. I cannot look at him without thinking of the honey bear bong, and his request for some cleaning products. That’s how Mr. Gleemonex and I say it, when a cleaning product must be bought for the Gleemonex household. And now you will too!

Jennifer Connelly: Labyrinth. There’s something weird and harsh about her now, and I don’t really buy whatever she’s selling, but as the grumpy, dramatic, put-upon teenager getting totally owned by David Bowie, she’s gold.

Nicolas Cage, Honeymoon in Vegas. If the Fiveheaded One himself, Las Vegas, Hawaii, or flying Elvises, or even Jimmy Caan cross my mind, I’m pretty much guaranteed to start hollering “Is that Kapa-a-ah, or Kapa-a-a-AAAHHH?”

Rosemary: Satan's Favorite Herb

Internets, what is the fucking deal with rosemary? I had a beautiful lunch ruined by it again this week, and I’m goddamn tired of it.

It was going to be so good – heirloom tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, balsamic vinegar, all on toasted focaccia. I opened it up, salted my tomats, and took a big old honkin bite … aaaaaaaugh! Rosemary! Stealth rosemary in the bread! It was hidden – I didn’t see any of the hideous flecks when I checked, but oh Shatner have mercy, the stuff was riddled with it! Breadfail. Epic breadfail.

Rosemary is a perfectly lovely name for a person, a Lenny Kravitz song, and/or Satan's babymama. But the substance, the actual herb, smells like your grandma’s attic and tastes like dogpissed ditch weed that grew by the side of the 101 freeway. And it doesn’t help its case that those assmunches, Simon & Tardfunkel, sang about it in one of the single most annoying songs in the history of recorded music.

Put it in the Bin 'o Hellish Crap, alongside bananas, hamsters, and arugula. And set it all on FIRE.

It's really laughable

Things that are never not funny

--pants

--the last name McCracken

--this video

--the six original mini-eps of Tenacious D

--little figurines of Jesus making a jackass of Himself in little kids' sports games

--referring to someone’s mouth as their cake-hole, yam-hole, or pie-hole

--Bill O’Reilly falling for a fake Howard Stern-related phone call on air and going, “WELL, Mister Meehoffer!” (Guess what the caller’s alleged first name was.)

--Thomas Sullivan Magnum IV’s itsy bitsy running shorts

--the handsome face of Derek Jeter

--Top Gun

--the thought of that time during an Algebra II test when, during a period of total silence as we all worked on word problems, CF raised his hand and said “Coach C.? What’s the fastest anyone’s ever ridden a bicycle?”

In which I’m sure I deeply grieve and offend some, but hey, they’re not likely readers of this blog, so.

Internets, I have done told y’all before about my powerful obsession with Big Love, which is another one of those HBO amazingly-well-written-and-acted joints (oh, for my lost Deadwood! And The Wire! But fuck Sopranos right in the ear. It is dead to me).

We’ve just had the second-to-last ep of this cheaply shortened season (they’re still crying writers’ strike, which was like THREE FUCKING YEARS AGO, lazy bastards), and it showed Barb (Jeanne Tripplehorn, or as I like to call her, Three-horn, yay Norm MacDonald! ) going into the LDS temple for this seeekrit ritual thingy. She’s not supposed to be there, having left the LDS church to join the Church of Bill, a polygamist offshoot she was sort of pressganged into on what she thought was her cancerous deathbed some years ago, and as the first wife of three, she’s lost her “temple recommend” and her good standing amongst the mainstream faithful. But with her life in crisis, she cons her mom and cunty sister into sneaking her in with a borrowed recommend, and y’all.

Y’ALL.

This ritual she goes through? Is HYSTERICAL. They were taking it very seriously, very solemnly, and cursory research has indicated it’s accurate. Which is just … RIDONCULOUS. There’s all these veils, and they’re wearing, like, weird white drapey dresses … I don’t know, it was just hilarious to this little lapsed Methodist. And then they went into this sex-segregated lounge area in their crazy duds, and … y’all. A guy, or several guys, made this up about a hundred and fifty years ago. I mean, come ON. With Catholicism or Islam, at least it’s been around so long that I can’t prove to you whether it’s real or not (I suspect not, thus my apostate status, but to each his or her own), but with this, like Scientology, you know exactly when it all got rolling and who exactly came up with it. No mystery, except the one of why people believe it, you know? And don’t even get me started on those two jackasses from the local LDS ward who just BARGED IN on Barb in her bathrobe in her own home and got all up in her GRILL with questions and threats and shit like they had a right to be there (I would’ve told them to go fuck a dead donkey, then slammed the door into their flinty little priss-ass faces, and right quick). And then (SPOILER ALERT) at this hearing they forced her to go to – and I mean, this is not a law enforcement action; the only power these fucknuts have is what Barb, et. al. give them – they excommunicated her, meaning (I think) that not only is she barred from Heaven on Captain and Deputy Fucknuts’ say-so, but also not even her own mom can ever speak to her again.

Two questions:

1) How is this bullcorn religion different from my establishment of His Righteousness The Shatner as the Deity as far as this blog is concerned? (Besides the fact that, though crusty, I am less of a smoking prick than those LDS ball-sores on the show, I mean.)

2) These are the people who were behind the big push on Prop 8? Wow.

Well, I know LUMBERGH fucked 'er.

Oh Shatner, you guys, get your vomit buckets out, cause I’m about to defend Jennifer Aniston.

Hardly a day passes that I don’t see a cheap-looking magazine cover or a Yahoo homepage feature with her cute, brave, tragic, sassy face on it, and no matter what else is going on in her life – fucking that douche John Mayer, or that even bigger douche Vince Vaughan, or starring in yet another stupid-ass unfunny feminism-negating “romantic” “comedy” or whatever – the story is ALWAYS about how, this one time? She used to be married to Brad Pitt (see, he’s really famous), and everybody wanted them to have a baby but for whatever reason (who knows, maybe she didn’t fucking want to?? Anybody ever think of that?) they never did, and then Brad Pitt (famous, handsome dude) starred in a movie with Angelina “Homewrecking Incestuous Mad-Crazy-Hottie” Jolie and yada yada yada Miss Aniston found herself divorced (and alone, OH THE HUMANITY) while the two happy adulterers adopt half the favela children of Brasil or whatever and then start replicating their own ridonculously pulchritudinous DNA like they’re the godless heathen bizarro-world Duggars.

Internets, that shit happened like TEN GODDAMN YEARS AGO. If people were still asking YOU about the hot guy you used to date back in the day, YEARS LATER, would you not find it justifiable to just go fucking apeshit on them? Cause I sure would. It’s like, the whole story of this woman and her entire life is how she got cheated on and then divorced, and her ex took up with some other famous woman and now you all gotta elbow each other off the cover of US Weekly and none of the three of you can ever talk about anything else, especially not YOU, and every interviewer’s first and last and only question of you is something about that whole fucked-up situation. Aniston could cure cancer and end all war, and they’d still be all, “So. Have you ever met Brad’s children? Do you ever think you’ll speak with Angie? How painful was it, exactly, when you found out they were fucking?”

Two things that are ridiculous, and one that is awesome

RIDICULOUS:

1) The Michael Phelps bong brouhaha. Internets, what is the matter with people? Is there really anyone on planet earth who is shocked and offended by a 23-year-old guy firing up a bong? It’s not like he did it on national TV – he THOUGHT he was among friends, in PRIVATE, but some fucking douchetard numbnuts asswipe decides to go global with his/her idiotic bullshit, and now he’s suspended from competition – without pay – and loses sponsorships from Wholesome Family Companies, and for what? Something that 98 percent of Americans have done with no repercussions but the munchies. This makes me insane. Insane in the membrane. Got no brain, goin insane. These pigs wanna blow my house down, but I’m underground to the next town.

2) The so-called Octuplet Mom. My GOD. She’s catching up to those nutjob Duggar morons – it might only take her one more pregnancy to draw ahead. Where is CPS when you need em? What kind of twisted medical ethics allows a doctor to perform the procedures she’s had? Obviously this deranged person only likes HAVING the babies, not raising children, so can we have some adoptive parents over there to pick from the litter? Jesus H. Shatner.

AWESOME:
My friend Theresa Andersson on Conan! It’s sofa king weird to see someone you know on national TV – and she nailed it. Enjoy, Internets!