A Crying Sham

Now’s the time. For nothing, I mean. It’s the time when absolutely nothing happens that hasn’t happened already to just about everybody just about everywhere. And it bored them all right into the ground too. I ain’t special.

*fourth of July picture - cold blues and hot reds; sparks like rice at a wedding. The whole thing.*

What a bust this holiday was. I played beer-pong with water and found myself drinking the water. It was one of those moments you feel like punching yourself in the mouth.

“What am I d- I’m not even thirsty!”

*picture of a guy looking disgusted with himself*

I used to write about stuff, too. Not since about freshman year of high school, but I did. The way soda machines and lit-up signs are warm when you touch them. Like when you’re lost and wandering across a strip-mall parking lot. Shit like that. Who cares.

*picture of a cartoon moose with a sad expression*

We done given up, boss.

Or has we?

RPM’s was a diner that had radical neon and also Street Fighter

What is it you’re working on here, Peter?

I’m doing a little research on my reputation. There had to have been something to make everyone at school hate me.

Maybe it’s your combative and superior attitude.

Couldn’t be that.

You’re right, what was I thinking.

What were you thinking.

I plead temporary insanity. What else could it be.

Well…there was this local placemat competition when I was in like second grade.

Ah-ha. A placemat competition.

Exactly.

Now there you might have something. That’s much more plausible.

Just hear me out-we had to design these anti-smoking uh…placemats. Like to put your-

I know what a placemat is.

Okay but so you…don’t remember this.

Maybe it’s because I didn’t place.

You didn’t place. Ha!

Ha.

Right, well the thing is, see - I won. And my winning placemat design was made up of two things:

Mmhm.

There was a big “NO” where the capital O was like, with a line through it and a cigarette-

It’s called a prohibitory sign.

Terrific. But the thing I think that got me first prize was this little bee, like an insect bee, saying “Just beeeeeee yourself.”

That’s awful.

In a little word bubble, an-

Not only is that awful, it’s stolen from Aladdin. You are a ripoff artist.

I was eight years old. But you’re right, it is from Aladdin. I think that may have been an early foothold-

For the generalized hatred? I think it’s bad enough.

Yeah?

Sure, I mean I hate you now. Didn’t they like, put these placemats out somewhere? Like around town.

You bet your ass they did. Some diner on Main Street, and also….RPM’s.

RPM’s.

Fuckin’ RPM’s, man. They were eating off my placemats for a few months.

They weren’t “yours.” You had a scam running that got your terrible drawing on a few placemats around Mt. Horeb.

No, well I mean, you’re exactly right.

I’ll bet it was rough on the judges when they found out they excluded some budding young artist’s original work-

In favor of my blatant plagiarism, yeah.

Maxin’ with the kids one day, he or she pulls down Aladdin in its big soft white plastic Disney case and throws it on.

Those were the clamshell cases, yeah - for like so the kids could get them open easily.

Ah.

And they get to that part and are like “Wait, hold the phone, that placemat slogan we gave first prize to - Robin Williams said that shit in Aladdin.”

Right.

“We fucked up”

I’ve decided not to settle.

I’m searching for a summer job. I’m only doing this now, because I mostly do everything the wrong way.

The ridiculousness that’s about to begin will seem like it doesn’t pertain to the above, but it does!

Good tidings to all Ella’s customers. Wait - you there! Are you really enjoying eating off the kids’ menu at age TWENTY-TWO, ASSHOLE?

What you see above is the late Captain America riding a device that seems to be a combination of three things:

Old-fashioned monoplane -

Thank me for the guns.

Magical, mystical, alien-homeworld-bound rocketship:

*ahem*

Star-nosed mole

Anyway, the resulting monster patrols the ceiling, along with about a thousand other rainbow-hued paper-mache characters/badly-painted strange objects at the Madison restaurant everyone loves for distracting you from the food: Ella’s Deli!

I don’t want to work at the actual restaurant. You thought too soon. If you’d given the question any real consideration, you’d know that I of course want to design new novelty tables!

There are tiny trains inside the table.

Maybe a “famine” oriented table, with lots of harrowing starvation pictures under the glass. Challenging.

Or maybe uh. Exotic firearms. And little speakers in the table legs will play Guess Who’s “Guns Guns Guns.” For the kids.

NOT THAT FUNNY!

Ted Dancin’

Dad, I mean. I know you’ve got your own agenda.
Yeah.
I just think it’s stupid.

Scarlett Johansson

I have a natural knack for spelling difficult female celebrity names.

J-a-n-e-a-n-e G-a-r-o-f-a-l-o

She’s aged very well, hasn’t she? However self-righteous she might get on her radio show, she still has that wiseass charm. Not as cute as when she was on Space Ghost, but still.

Quick, Janeane - do some comedy!

There’s this other girl who hasn’t so much aged gracefully as lived gracefully through her youth and into young adulthood. She is one of those actresses whose delivery suggests she must be at least slightly cool when her lines aren’t written for her. And physically, well.

Even candid and unposed, in form she’s clearly the best selection for our generation’s Perfect Woman.

Unfortunately, she stands on the cusp of a brutal (and unnecessary) test of charisma and relevance: an album! Of sung songs! Sung by a singer. Which is um, her! Why? I don’t know, why did Zooey do it?

Why did Paris Hilton do it? Because she’s soul-dead. But surely this isn’t just a ploy fo’ dollas. Scarlett’s way too pretty to do anything less than honorable.

I’m wandering pretty far here. All this to get to the fact that she’s covering one of my first favorite songs, Tom Waits’ “Anywhere I Lay My Head”

Blah blah bad between-songs-joke blah blah awkward blah blah.

I’ll be damned if I’m going to go on trying to be funny. Instead I’ll give you the straight story:

This song is way too pure and glorious and brutal to be done justice by some hip young know-it-all wannabe chanteuse.

And it’s not just the song, it’s the title of her album! This kind of thing weighs on my mind.

I don’t need anybody
Because I’ve learned
I’ve learned to be alone

Scarlett, you haven’t learned shit about being alone. I can’t off the head come up with anyone who is LESS alone than you are. A song like this is all about pure, visceral, unadulterated sincerity. And poor Scarlett trying to sell a line like

“(S)he left in my sleep boys, I can feel it in my bones”

might be cute, but it couldn’t be sincere. And Tom Waits isn’t cute. Alright, when he tells stories and jokes during a set and comes off all insecure and nervous he’s pretty cute. Sigh.

God damn this rain.

Sammitch Madness: Officers are in Pursuit…

Of a 6′2″ tattooed white male in possession of what seems to be the thickest, baddest and most bombastic turkey-pepper-mozzarella-barbecue on wheat in the tri-state area.

Bystanders described the sandwich as “truly glorious and terrible.”

A man believed to be repeat cuisine criminal Peter Michael DeWitt was enjoying a delectable spring day when he was spotted by Buggy-Force officers in the area, who immediately gave chase; declaring a “lunchtime emergency.” Suspect is a delicious fugitive in violation of strict statewide sandwich sanctions. He is armed with a lethal array of unlikely flavors and is not to be approached without officer accompaniment.

Buffet the Campfire Slayer

Family buffets: another quintessential childhood experience.

All the nighttime lights in the world can’t keep your silly little heart warm.

Magical places drenched in toddler drool and a constant overhead glow. Any staff you see are mostly cleaning rather than serving, giving the impression that they’re always in the middle of closing for the night.

Any time you look up from your food and over the top of the adjacent booth, steel yourself:

These places long ago became the domain of staring babies.

You will feel oddly convicted. That look always seems to demand an answer, and when you realize you can’t provide one, you will feel worried and strange. Defenseless.

Anyway, shake it off and get in there. Keep in mind those tricks any halfway decent brother/sister pair works out by the time they turn 5 or 6:

wheres the pussy bar tho lol

When navigating the maze of bright glass food stalls (that’s what they’re called), remember to keep your wits about you. What I mean by that is:

Do not use the dessert bowls for dessert. Any buffet-goer worth their knox blox cubes knows that the soup bowls are the only way to go. The dessert dishes are shallow, and often very warm. They don’t hold much ice cream, and what they do hold will melt too soon. The soup bowls are deep and cold, like the river that runs through a woman’s heart.

Hotels and mini-golf courses are two other forgotten realms, for anyone who is between their early youth and having children of their own. Maybe I’ll write on one of those soon.

Sighlock

Now here’s a fun picture.

Blades of psychic energy match outfit - total coincidence.

The fabric of the suit almost covers her vulva. She’s gonna fuck around and have lips hanging out when it’s time to fight Sabretooth. Gross, yeah I know. Thong underwear provides about 65% more coverage than what she’s wearing here, and from what I know, this is her official assigned combat uniform. Exactly what combat capability does it have? I’m gonna wager that she didn’t make it herself. I don’t think anyone really knows who the tailor for the X-Men is. Apparently some perv.

Ben Stein’s “Expelled”

I think it’s ironic how quick people who bellow about “free-thought” are to viciously assault any statement, production or undertaking of any goddamn kind associated with a worldview or opinion that differs fundamentally from their own.

They sang THINK FOR YOURSELF.

Not THINK LIKE THE BEATLES you fucking retards. I don’t mean you, of course.

To those I do mean:

Do you know or believe anything your teachers and professors haven’t told you? Can you even THINK about politics or art without someone else’s help? Is it that hard to investigate something on your own? Is it that hard to not be a FUCKING SOCK PUPPET?. All you for whom Rage Against the Machine and the Daily Show are exulted prophets that inform 80% of what you believe are no better than Rush Limbaugh listeners. Realize that and you’ll have started to wake up. Maybe.

Anyone? Anyone?

I honestly can’t decide who I’m more pissed off at - those who are clumsily and enthusiastically attacking Ben Stein’s new movie on intelligent design, or Stein himself for making a movie that’s so easy to attack. The former group is made up of a sad collection of critics who are hurling themselves at the chance to write something “relevant.” Awkward, sometimes embarrassing attempts at hip, lacerating sarcasm or an overturning of the film’s “logic” are characteristic. They’ll quote one interviewee and then quote something Stein said and chalk it up to one more hole in their new paper target. THIS is faulty reasoning. If there was any “point” or “argument” one was meant to come away thinking Stein believed in (and that wasn’t “people should be able to talk about intelligent design without being FIRED”), it would be a God-and-science reconciling “Inherit the Wind” style religion or spirituality(since when is that offensive to hollywood liberals anyway?). Beyond that and some suggestions made after a severely ill-advised turn about halfway-through, the film is only expressing concern about a climate that is NAKEDLY HOSTILE to certain kinds of ideas. And it is!

I saw the damn movie, I didn’t agree with the damn movie, but this bullshit has got to stop. One reviewer said Michael Moore was smarter than Ben Stein. Ben Stein was a law professor. He is as rich as Jesus because of his financial acumen. Sure he was a Nixon speechwriter ($$), sure he’s a known republican. But from what I’ve seen he’s better read and less fanatical than just about any other Hollywood ideologue that comes to mind. Michael Moore is not smarter than Ben Stein. Nor does he look as sharp in a suit and sneakers. From where I’m standing, that look works all day.

My right-wing battering ram of a dad invited me to see this movie, which I’d never even heard of. Indeed I checked for it on metacritic. It didn’t seem to exist, and still has yet to appear. (responses I’ve read were mostly from rottentomatoes.com)

The film first seemed like a somewhat lighthearted investigation of a bias in the scientific community against proponents of “ID”. Reviewers have mistakenly claimed that because ID isn’t “science” (which it isn’t) that the film is somehow backward or fundamentally wrong. THAT is an example of the “specious” reasoning these tards love to think they’re debunking so adroitly.

The entire point of the film was that ID has been demonized, essentially outlawed, and that any cursory mention of the idea can mean career-death. Anyone who doesn’t believe that a notion like Intelligent Design (one unfairly associated with right-wing thinking) can bring down the wrath of the academia is kidding themselves. Anyone who doesn’t think a left-leaning bias isn’t spoon-fed to students at 90% of universities in America IS KIDDING THEMSELVES.

And anybody who thinks that by pointing that fact out, I somehow am condoning or supporting the right, is perfectly exemplifying the kind of braindead dickbasket I’m railing against here. Do I have a problem with the liberalization of students? I mostly agree with liberal ideas and social policy. But is it fair? Answer Nobody fucking CARES if it’s fair as long as it’s unfair in their favor. Are any of us ACTUALLY concerned with an unimpeded flow of ideas? I should think a whole lot fewer than would wear a fucking t-shirt that says they are.

Ben fucked up when he got all heavy-handed and tried to make a direct connection between Eugenics/Nazi-style fascism and Darwinism. But the unspoken connection that all these piss-brained reviewers are making between Intelligent Design and racism/homophobia/theocracy involves about .05% as much sense. After all, the most damning stuff was QUOTED from Darwin’s writings. He had some scary and dangerous ideas! SORRY. I know he came up with evolution. SORRY YEAH that sounds like right-wing talk-radio. SORRY. IT’S FUCKING TRUE. SOMETIMES THINGS ARE TRUE.

Chemical evolution, or the occurrence of life from its absence by natural processes, is as hazy, convoluted, nonsensical, straining and overreaching a set of propositions as you are likely to ever find, ever. Anywhere. As an origin-of-life tale, it BARELY outstrips the garden, the snake and the apple. I’m serious.

I’m not pointing that out because I think we should look for ways to believe in God. I don’t believe in God. I’m pointing it out because all these smug cocksuckers who wouldn’t last eight seconds before they were completely eviscerated by Ben Stein’s droll but knifelike technique need to stop being childish and unoriginal and pathetic. You’re nothing but a line of colorful and well-versed little parrots.

The internet is primarily a noxious heap of disgusting pictures.

None of those pictures will be included in the body of this entry.  I’m here to entertain and educate, and I’m keeping it CLEAN!

There are two kinds of gross internet pictures.

The first kind can thrill young minds (or even grown ones) with a vivid reminder of the macabre possibilities in life. They’re worth a nervous shriek of laughter, or some giddy goosebumps. They break from the mundane, and can even help keep one grounded in a certain understanding.

Fuck Nitrogen or Carbon, and the other elements as well. The world is made up of about 80% carnage.

Someday this man will be a father.

The second kind is different. And much worse. There are almost never any gasps or squeals from viewers. One picture that falls into the second category was shown to us during today’s Human Sexuality lecture, in the University of Madison’s psychology building.

These pictures are not useful for entertainment. They were never meant to be seen by the public, and without an imminent threat to your family’s safety depending on your familiarity with them, there is no excuse for seeking them out. Sending these images to a friend or coworker is not a sick joke, it is a betrayal. They often seem to be pulled from antiquated medical journals or other unholy and rightly forgotten vaults of blind horror.

Brad was BORN with that lazy eye, asshole!

The reaction I find most typical to this second form is what I call “The Death Gaze.” Today’s lecture was, of course, on the issue of “STI’s” in America. Contrary to what some dude tells you at a party, they are not an urban myth. The hundreds of students in the spacious hall were mostly silent after the first photographic slide clicked up on the projector. There were a few miserable sighs and a quiet moan or two. Mostly we stared at the picture like we were staring at our own graves. Silent. I felt suddenly dejected; weary of life and all it offers. The many eyes directed toward the drop-down screen were sad and confused. They spoke of formless, unposed questions to God. Outside, the rain kept falling.

I won’t even describe the picture in words: the ghost of an image my exacting prose might conjure would haunt your sleep.

Instead:

This is what my personality looks like as a guy at a concert.