Sunday, September 28, 2008

Hot sheets: Got a bun in the oven and always carry your lucky human’s foot

Howdy friends. Got a new Hot Sheets for ya this week. A little levity for you to enjoy on this easy, laid back Sunday morning.

First off, in Portland, Oregon (Motto: Oregon, more than just a cheesy computer game from the 80s) comes the interesting tail of a 71-year old who went into the Curry General Hospital in Gold Beach with abdominal pains only to discovery the actual diagnosis was pregnancy.

The actual hospital paperwork stated “Based on your visit today, we know you are pregnant.”

There are stories like this; rare, but they happen. Like once every ten or so years you hear about a ridiculously old chick who finds out she’s pregnant (speaking of which, I hope to never make it to that age, cause I really don’t want to find 70-year-old women attractive. It’s not adorable, it’s unsettling!) while going to the hospital for gout, or shingles or some such.

The only problem is, this time it wasn’t a 71-year-old women. It was a dude. A grandfather named John Grady Pippen, to be exact.

According to William McMillan, the hospital administrator, it was “an errant keystroke” that caused the wacky mix-up.

Ok, now, we can all enjoy a hearty larf at such zany shenanigans, but that’s because the “errant keystroke” caused nothing more than a minor disturbance. Obviously the guy knew he wasn’t preggers, so it was no big deal.

But, what’s worse are the stories where some dude goes into the hospital to get his tonsils out (do they still do that anymore?) and ends up getting his frank and beans chopped off because the doctor had the wrong paperwork. That shit is scary! And it happens a lot more than we know! I watch Scrubs, I know that hospital administrators bury mistakes and silence witnesses. Just like that one episode where J.D. and Turk went to the home of that botched surgery patient and killed and dismembered him so he couldn’t sue. It was a heart-warming episode.

That’s why I do all my own surgeries at home. It’s cheaper and I rarely make mistakes.

Toes grow back, right?
***
The next story is all the way from a little place called Fort Pierce, Florida. The home of cokehead alligators and the country’s stupidest voters (I say you guys should vote for Bush again. Let’s see what happens!)

Just a little word of warning if you’re ever in St. Lucie County: Don’t get into a car accident on I-95 and have your foot severed!

Besides the obvious reasons of doing your best to not get your foot lopped off, there’s another reason. Those damn sticky fingered firefighters might steal it!

On September 18th, there was a car accident where a guy’s foot was sheared off, (he probably let his wife drive and she was distracted by texting, or something). He went to the hospital for treatment (and when I say he went, I’m sure he was taken there by an ambulance and didn’t walk).

According to the fire department’s policy, they’re supposed to take severed body parts to the hospital with the victim. Well, it looks like this foot didn’t make it to the hospital until September 24th! I did the math, that’s six whole days later. I’d like to imagine the conversation when they discovered the foot was missing.

Victim: Honey? Have you seen my foot anywhere around? The doctor is asking for it.

Vitcim’s wife: Your foot?

Victim: Yeah, you know…the thing I walk on…S’got five toes…was cut off in that horrible car accident we were just in?

Victim’s wife: No dear, I haven’t seen it. Who had it last?

Victim: The last person I saw it with was that creepy-looking fireman who was fondling it, drooling and muttering to himself.

Victim’s wife: Uh-oh.

Man, I’ve heard of some freaky fetishes in my life, (I particularly enjoyed the Hot Sheets I did where the dude cut a whole in some chick’s couch and crawled inside) but I have never heard of a severed appendage fetish. And why a foot? Did he have a heavy door that he wanted to prop open? Perhaps some severed foot fetish magazines he didn’t want blown about his windy apartment? I can’t even imagine.

So there you go. What have we learned today kiddies? If you’re an old dude, don’t get pregnant, it won’t end well. And if you get a body part lopped off in a devastating car accident be sure to put it in your pocket, or at least get a receipt.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Public eating etiquette for men and women

I love to eat. My stomach and the extra holes I had to make on my belt can attest to that. I love to eat and I love to cook. I find cooking to be soothing and focusing. When I have had a bad day or am just bored, I get in a kitchen and just go to work. It calms me down and I enjoy myself. Even if nobody likes the food I make, I just love to create and experiment in the kitchen.

When I’m not cooking for myself or for guests, I like to drag my fat ass to restaurants. I’m a big restaurant guy. Especially American restaurants where they give you, per sitting, more food than five African villages have seen in a year. Not to mention the booze.

Of course, one cannot go to a restaurant alone. To do so is a huge faux pas. You look like a friendless turd who couldn’t get a date or a companion if your life was at stake, (well, maybe not that bad, but pretty close.) So you’ll always want to make sure that you’re out at a restaurant eating with somebody, even if it’s some bum off the street.

On a side note, eating at a bar is a totally different vibe. You are allowed to eat alone at a bar, because doing so seems kind of like something to do while your body is absorbing all that alcohol that you truly went there to enjoy. In that case, be sure to enjoy at least two drinks and maybe some bar nuts or something before you order food, or else it’s just weird.

Now, let’s pretend that, like me, you’re a dude, (albeit, not as manly as me, but that’s to be expected, don’t worry, you can’t help it.) who’s going out to eat with another guy. There are a few reasons you’d eat with another guy (or guys).

• You’re both just finishing up some manly sporting event and you want to celebrate at a nearby establishment.

• You haven’t eaten large amounts of cow flesh, or quaffed great amounts of beer in the last four hours.

• You’re getting a full belly before going out to a bar or club to pick up some women with loose morals.

• You’re hungry.

Eating with a male friend is easy. We don’t ask for much. Appetizers will most likely be ignored, in favor of going straight to the main course, unless the appetizer itself is the food. If that’s the case, then it’ll be something fried and greasy.

Beer or some other alcohol is likely to be purchased. If appetizers are also ordered, they will be individual appetizers and are not to be shared! (more on that in a bit.) And the food will no doubt be loaded with calories and fat. Salads are not allowed.

There will be little to no small talk while waiting for food to arrive. Unless said conversation is about:

1. Who would win in a three-way fight between Chuck Norris, Steven Segal and Mr. T
2. How the local sporting teams are fairing
3. All of the women they’ve banged and any subsequent lawsuits
4. Why The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the 8th Dimension could be the best movie ever made

The meals will be short, not lingering affairs where the participants sit around, sipping cups of coffee and gossiping.

There will be no ordering of dessert. Ever.

When a man (usually me) and a woman are eating at a restaurant, whether they’re friends or it’s a date or whatever, there are some rules that women need to follow.

1. Eat what you order. If you want to eat the spaghetti, then order the spaghetti. Don’t order the spaghetti if you really want to sample what’s on my plate. There’s nothing more annoying than the female habit of food-sharing. Leave my food alone! I ordered it cause that’s what I was in the mood for.

2. Eat what you order. I’m probably shelling out good money for the meal, so you’d better damn well eat everything on your plate! Don’t be modest and save shit for later. That’s dumb.

3. Order some damn food! I didn’t take a shower, get dressed in my finest duds, (you know, the t-shirt with the tux design on the front and my favorite plaid shorts) drive all the way out somewhere (and wasting $100 on gas) to watch you order a salad. Not hungry you say? Better make some room for this knuckle sandwich you’re about to eat!

4. I don’t care if you order dessert, as long as you don’t care that I’m ordering my eighth drink so I can put up with listening to you babble about every thought that wafts through your empty head.

5. In fact, don’t talk at all. If you’re talking, then you’re not eating. And certainly don’t expect me to hold up my end of a conversation. My mouth is full of food.

6. Feel free to pick up the tab sometimes. Women have been liberated for decades, chivalry is dead and Japanese porn isn’t cheap. Priorities!

If everybody just follows these simple rules of etiquette, then we’ll all be happier and better off. Especially if I’m forced to go to that ridiculous excuse for a restaurant, The Olive Garden. Yeah, I said it.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Hot sheets: Free parking my ass and kids (porn) say the darnedest things

For this week’s Eighty Four Glyde Hot Sheets, I decided to go with a new approach. Instead of wacky stories from around the country, I’m going to offer commentary on real stories that may or may not affect you. Stories that you might actually have an opinion on. Let’s see how it goes.

The first story: “Cities rethink wisdom of 50s-era parking standards” concerns parking spaces in cities like Washington D.C. and others across these fruited plains. It was reported in USA Today, yesterday.

It looks like the District has a parking problem, but not the one you’d think. Some critics think that there are too many parking spaces in D.C. This “over abundance” of spaces apparently make the city look ugly and “eat up space that could otherwise be used for trees.” Because, as well all know, people go to cities to enjoy the foliage.

The idea is that if “they” make it harder to park in major cities, then “they’ll” be able to use the empty lots for new and thriving businesses, like restaurants that aren’t up to health codes and porno stores.

Less parking spaces means more pedestrians and less traffic and congestion. This means that we’ll have quaint little cities where everybody walks where they need to go, regardless of the weather or if they have a lot of shit to carry.

Let’s think about that for a moment. I happen to live near D.C. and I find this idea to be retarded in the extreme. I hate going downtown already because of the lack of decent parking. But don’t take my word for it. Read the words of Virginia commuter Randy Michael: "Today I had an 11:30 meeting and I had to plan an extra hour just to park" said Michael, 49. It ended up taking him 40 minutes to find a metered spot.

How ridiculous is that? And less spaces will make the situation better?
There’s already too few parking lots and parking garages in D.C. and the ones that are around are so expensive that I end up having to take a loan out before I drive into the nation’s capital.

“But Josh,” you say. What about that famous D.C. mass transit system? I mean you’ve got buses, taxis and the metro!”

Yes, let’s talk about the metro for a minute. Half the time there are delays that can take hours, or entire lines are shut down because some hobo’s remains were accidentally run over. The other half the train’s packed so tight with commuters that you can tell if the guy next to you is circumcised or not. And that’s not my idea of fun.

Nope, people who want to erase parking spaces from the face of the Earth so that they can plant trees and make the city “look nice” should go play in the traffic they so desperately want to get rid of. We need to burn down more buildings so that there are more spaces, more spaces means cheaper parking.

I vote that we pave paradise and put up an all night, five-story parking lot with stairwells that don’t smell like piss and vomit.
***
The next story is from Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell, and it’s about a new and exciting cult from the bottom lands of Arkansas.

Feds raided a Christian ministry compound in Arkansas looking for evidence of child porn. I know what you’re thinking, Christians? Priests? Sex with little boys? Give us something new Josh!

And so I will. This time, it turns out that it’s not Catholic holy men who are into the kiddie porn. Nope, it’s the Tony Alamo Christian Ministry! Sounds like a new religion created by some radio D.J. from the 70s, doesn’t it?

Anyway, Rockin’ and Rollin’ Tony Alamo’s take on Christianity is anti-gay, anti-Catholic and anti-government. Well, I can’t fault them on the last one, at least. Oh yeah, and they’re also pro-polygamy, (which has always struck me as odd. Isn’t it enough just having to deal with one wife? Who needs more of that nonsense?!)

The feds raided the 15-acre compound without any kind of arrest warrant, which is just silly because that’s only warning people of what you’re trying to do. It’s like going to rob a bank but not bringing a gun, or mask, or sacks with dollar signs on them and asking politely for the money. It just doesn’t work.

Not that it matters anyway, because Big Bad Tony Alamo was actually in Los Angeles, probably to get the movie deal about his cult. Here’s what he had to say about the raid:

"We don't go into pornography; nobody in the church is into that," said Alamo, 73. "Where do these allegations stem from? The anti-Christ government. The Catholics don't like me because I have cut their congregation in half. They hate true Christianity."

Spoken like a real man of God.

I’m not exactly sure what makes this guy’s congregation a cult; it can’t be their dislike of the government, that’d make most people in America cultists. It can’t be the polygamy, or else Mormons would be cultists*. Hell, Alamo says he doesn’t even practice polygamy. And it can’t be the kiddie porn, or else Gary Glitter and more people in the country than I’d like to think about, would be cultists.

The ministry’s website says that Tony Alamo and his Wacky Morning Zoo is "dedicated to spreading the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and the winning of souls worldwide."

That sounds wholesome and decent to me. I might have to shun my atheist ways and see what all the fuss is about.

Oh, and the name of where this compound is located?

Fouke, Arkansas. Not sure how it’s pronounced, but I bet I can fouken guess!

That’s the Hot Sheets for this week, join me next week when I just make up my own stories and then make fun of ‘em!

*Yeah, I know the Mormons don’t get down with polygamy anymore, but they used to, and people don’t accuse John Smith of trying to create a cult. Or do they?

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Forgotten Heroes of Yore: Steven Segal


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Imagine it’s 1991 and you find yourself walking down a street in “The Big City.” It’s your first time there and you tend to gawk as you stare upward at the skyscrapers. Your every movement telegraphs the fact that you’re a tourist to everybody around.

You accidentally make a wrong turn while looking for the Museum of Vomit Splatters Shaped Like Religious Figures, and end up in some dark and smelly alley. You’re confused and apprehensive. You’ve heard that in the alleys of “The Big City” roving gangs of hoodlums and ne’er-do-wells hold sway, attacking and killing innocents like yourself, at will.

Suddenly, from the corner of your eye, out jumps three street thugs. They look big and mean and are holding various implements of destruction, while yelling at you, (with vulgar language no less!) that they want your wallet, watch, phone and any other valuables you have about your person. You’re scared stiff, unable to even comply with their brutish demands. Your eyes, locked on their knives and chains and whatnot, have you rooted you to the spot out of fear.

Like lightning, a flurry of fists and elbows attack out of nowhere, pinning the thugs against walls and throwing them to the ground. The thugs, bruised and battered, run for their lives, while your savior reveals himself to you. With squinty eyes, magnificent ponytail and mumbled, flat-toned words, the good Samaritan hands you back your wallet and tells you to be careful, before disappearing in the shadows like a ninja.

You have just been rescued by the force of nature that is Steven Segal. And you can take solace in that. But at the same time, let your heart hang heavy, because you know that every minute Steven Segal wastes in “The Big City” saving your ass, is one less minute he gets to spend in Montana, saving the mighty caribou, or the majestic spruce tree.

You see, Steven Segal would prefer to not be a fighter but, rather, a lover. A lover and a fighter. Okay, I guess he really wants to be both, but only for the most noblest of causes: Mother Earth. Steven Segal deeply loves nature and the environment and he’s willing to spastically aikido chop in the neck anybody who threatens his lady love.

The story of Steven Segal is a boring one, but one I shall tell nonetheless. Maybe I’ll throw in some explosions and gratuitous nudity to spice things up a bit.

Steven F. Segal (the F is for Fabricated) was born in 1951 in Lansing, Michigan. Poor boy. I’ve been to Michigan and I instantly pity him. When he was five, he (and probably the rest of his family) moved to California, where whatever it is in the air out there that instantly turns people on the west coast into loonies, worked its magic on him. He began studying aikido, which in Japanese means “martial art that a fat guy can do without moving around too much.”

Besides mastering aikido, (later earning the rank of Shodan, which really isn’t as impressive as it sounds) Steven Segal also earned belts in karate, kendo and judo. They were chartreuse belts, but they were belts none the less! And it’s more than you have, gaijin!

Feeling the high from all the fashion accessories he was earning, he moved to Japan and became the first foreign manager of an aikido dojo, (of course these days, the Japanese have outsourced all of their dojo managerial jobs to phone technicians in India. The students have suffered terribly due to communication problems.) He also claims to have fought Yakuza, but after seeing the kind of people he fights in his movies, I kind of doubt it.

Anyway, after a decade or so slumming around Japan, Segal came back to America in the early 80s and was a personal bodyguard for several Hollywood celebrities. I, for one, wonder just who would hire him as a bodyguard. Estelle Getty perhaps? Carrot Top?

It seems that somebody in Hollywood was impressed with Segal’s sixth-degree aikido black belt and decided to give him his first movie. And if you’re wondering, yes, that somebody in Hollywood was a movie producer who enjoyed freebasing crack. Segal’s first movie was 1988’s Above the Law, wherein he beat up a lot of people for a reason that I’m sure seemed good at the time, (not to be confused with the much better Above the Rim, starring the late Bernie Mac, the really late Tupac and the man with one name, Leon) and its synchronistic release, during the late 80s-early 90s rush of corny action movies, made Segal an instant action star.

Segal went on to star in many other forgettable action movies that did very poorly at the box office. In fact, I don’t think I can name a single one of them, but I know that in each he out-acted the hell out of everybody else who ever appeared on screen with him. That’s because Steven has only one acting style, “dead.” No matter what emotion he was supposed to portray, no matter what his lines were, he had no more facial expression or tonal inflection than a dead person, (yeah, I know that dead people don’t have tonal inflections, but that shows how much you know. He’s only mostly dead, smarty pants!) He may not have won any awards for his acting, (or maybe he has, I didn’t check) but he’ll always be a master thespian to me.

Steven Segal hasn’t had a movie released in American theaters since 2003, but that hasn’t stopped him from making at least a dozen movies so far this decade. Surprised? You shouldn’t be, he’s a hardworking man. But, as he says “I am hoping that I can be known as a great writer and actor some day, rather than a sex symbol*.” And perhaps time will bear out that hope. Probably not though.

The thing is, acting is secondary to Mr. Segal. He’s really got a chubby for the environment. That’s why he did that one movie where he killed everybody in the EPA, (but he recycled their mangled corpses as fertilizer, because he was green before being green was in.) And that other movie where he and the four other Planeteers got together to unleash the power of Captain Planet and fight the evil of Hoggish Greedly. Or something.

He’s also an accomplished musician. Perhaps you’ve heard of his albums Songs from the Crystal Cave and Mojo Priest? No? Then you’d better get to iTunes right now and start downloading his soothing guitar work. The rich melodies and intricate compositions will blow your mind!

Segal is also a marketing genius! I drink at least two cans of Steven Segal’s Lightning Bolt a day. You want to know why? Because according to Steven “I have traveled the world creating this drink; there is none better that I know.” And syntax that distracting has to be right!

I’d like to finish up this tribute to a forgotten hero with a haiku:

Steven “The” Segal
Spaz chopped my still beating heart
With his manly love



*No shit, that’s an actual quote!

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Whether or not the weather complies

Anchor: Greetings and welcome to the Fox News, 24-hour, nonstop coverage of Hurricane Josephine, which we have dubbed “Countdown to Inevitable Windy Death!”
Currently the winds of Hurricane Josephine are bracketing the coast of Texas. Texas hasn’t seen such a violent, Category 1 hurricane since the deadly 1908 Hurricane Stanislaus, which killed, literally, millions of people.
We have with us in-house weather expert and meteorological scientist Dr. Gooch to help us understand just how much wholesale slaughter we can expect from Josephine.
Doctor, can we expect the death toll to reach the numbers from 1908?


Dr. Gooch: Undoubtedly. In 1908, Stanislaus killed 12 million Texas residents, despite there only being 4 million people living there at the time. We assume that family must have been visiting that weekend. Also, that hurricane caused billions of dollars of damage and forced the survivors to eat one another until FEMA arrived. It was an ugly scene.
I calculate that the force of the wind and rain, when Josephine hits, will be the equivalent of 10 nuclear bombs. We could be seeing the end of all life in the western hemisphere, Bob.

Anchor: Sobering words indeed.
We here at Fox plan on showing you, the viewer, every last minute of this impending catastrophe, to keep you informed of the agonizing death the people of Texas are sure to face. We report, you decide.
We have, out at the Galveston levee, correspondent Grace Stevens to tell us about the current situation in that town. Grace?

Grace: Thanks Bob. Well, as you can see behind me, all of the businesses are closed. This could be because it’s 11 p.m. or it could be because shop owners and residents of Galveston have fled the town, abandoning their cars and leaving their lives and all that they knew and loved behind.
Josephine has been pounding the coast and the town levees for 3 and a half hours now and if you look down at my feet you can already see the water level has risen almost a quarter-inch. We don’t yet know the extent of this flooding, but it could be Katrina all over again. Bob?

Anchor: Grace, from where you are, can you see how the levees are holding up to the water?

Grace: Well Bob, so far the walls are holding up fine. The water is barely having an impact against the levee, but, as we know, this could change at any moment and millions of gallons of water could come rushing into town, drowning every man, woman, child and pet it comes across. Breaking all of their bones and battering their bodies against hard surfaces like so many rag dolls.

Anchor: Grace, have you seen any evidence of death or destruction so far?

Grace: Not yet Bob. If you look behind me you can see what looks like a couple walking their dog, and over to the left there are some kids playing in a puddle. I don’t know if these are the die hard residents who refused to leave town even after all of the signs that were posted everywhere telling people if they stayed they would certainly die, or if they are simply unaware of the terrible danger they are in.

Anchor: Interesting how people can convince themselves that a situation is other than how it looks. Thanks Grace.
We have with us, on the phone, Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane, the sheriff of Galveston. Sheriff, can you shed any more light on how the town of Galveston has prepared itself for Josephine?

Sheriff Coltrane
: For who now?

Anchor: Hurricane Josephine. The single most deadly thing that will have occurred in Texas in the last 100 years!

Sheriff Coltrane
: You mean the storm outside? I’d barely noticed it. Well, we made sure to lock our doors and put shutters over the windows. Also, I had a couple of deputies go around town to make sure that everybody’s patio furniture was put in their garages or carports. Wouldn’t want those cushions to get wet!

Anchor: Fascinating. Sheriff, have you gotten any calls of damage around the town? Perhaps millions of dollars in damage?

Sheriff Coltrane: Well, let me see. We have gotten a couple of calls about mailboxes falling over and I believe that one family’s cat is up a tree. But that’s about it. So we’re looking at maybe, $56.83 worth of damage.

Anchor: Thank you for that update Sheriff Coltrane. Be sure to keep us informed as to the untold death and destruction when it happens… any minute now. Right Dr. Gooch?

Dr. Gooch: Very soon Bob. It’s only been four hours into the hurricane, reports are still preliminary. We’re sure to hear about the horrors Josephine hath wrought once things have settled down a bit.

Anchor: Continuing now with Fox News’ “Countdown to Inevitable Windy Death!” we turn to Dr. George Roberts at Galveston General Hospital.
Dr. Roberts, has the hospital seen a surge in injuries or deaths during Josephine’s deadly visit to the Lone Star State?

Dr. Roberts: Hi Bob! Ummm, it’s been business as usual here at the hospital tonight. The lights flickered for a second a couple of hours ago, but other than that, there’s been nothing out of the ordinary.

Anchor: Doctor, with the amount of damage Josephine is sure to inflict on your state, are you prepared for the hundreds, no, thousands of people that will come rushing into your hospital like a human flood of misery and anguish?

Dr. Roberts: Sure.

Anchor: Okayyyy. Thanks Doctor Roberts. Good luck to you and the rest of the staff at the hospital, I’m sure you’re going to need it soon, when you have to triage the victims of Josephine’s indomitable wrath.
Once again, we here at Fox News we are committed to showing you the devastating effects of Hurricane Josephine, in a fair and balanced manner. Stay tuned, after the break we’ll be talking with a stock market expert who assures us that the price of Oil will rise to unheard of heights following Josephine. Naturally, this will lead to the fall of civilization, and we’re sure the democrats are somehow responsible. Also, we’ll show a pre-recorded interview of a Galveston resident who plans on sitting on his roof and shooting every looter he sees. Not to mention plenty more live shots of the streets of Galveston as Hurricane Josephine runs amok in Texas. These are dark times indeed for this country.
That’s here, on Fox, and “Countdown to Inevitable Windy Death!” Stay tuned.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

What have you accomplished with your life? (a palaver with the voices in my head)

Voice: That’s the question today. In order to figure out what you’ve accomplished so far with your life, let’s look at where you are.

Me: I’m 27, in the army and sitting in Iraq in a uniform that chicks say is hot, but which hasn’t helped me get laid once.

Voice: Alright. Let’s approach it from another angle: What’re your goals?

Me: Goals?

Voice: Indeed.

Me: Indeed?

Voice: Indeed.

Me: Indeed.

Voice: Just tell me about your damn goals!

Me: Well, this one time, when I was 13, I did this sweet banana kick with the outside of my left foot that fit nicely into the upper left hand side of the net, the keeper wasn’t even close! The crowd went wild!

Voice: Goal -noun: The result or achievement toward which effort is directed; aim; end.

Me: Ahhh. Goals! Well, I never really thought about that. I guess my goal is to die rich and famous, like Jesus and Elvis combined.

Voice: Hmmm. To know what you’d like in the future, let us look back at what you wanted to accomplish when you were young. What did you want to be when you were seven?

Me: Death. Destroyer of worlds.

Voice: Ooookay. How about when you were 10?

Me: I wanted to be a masked vigilante. But that dream died at the age of 12 when another kid’s arm got broke. Guess I don’t know my own strength.

Voice: At 13?

Me: A certified accountant. The main character in The Shawshank Redemption knew how to get that money! Plus, at the time, I had a deep fascination for gangsters. Not the punk ass ones like Scarface. But the real old school guys, like Lucky Luciano and Capone. Back then I wanted my own criminal empire. I was a fence throughout most of high school.

Voice: So you went from wanting to fight crime when you were young, to wanting to be a criminal a few years later. Interesting. And at 16?

Me: A parapsychologist. I’m scared to death of ghosts and things of that nature. At that age I was very much into spiritual stuff, not religious stuff so much, but just the idea of there being some next-level shit going on made me want to be a part of it.

Voice: At 19?

Me: Hmmmm. It was around 19 or 20 that I decided that I wanted to be a writer. Which is what I’ve wanted to be ever since.

Voice: And have you done that? Have you written anything?

Me: Well…sure. I wrote for my college paper and created a humor column that’s still continued to this day, not that I get any credit for being the originator. And I’ve been a journalist in the army for at least six years. I’ve written hundreds of stories for countless newspapers, magazines and websites across the world, both military and civilian, and have won a butt load of awards doing so. I also write a corny little blog online that seems to have at least a couple fans. And it’s the blog that brings me more personal pleasure than all of the professional writing I’ve done and for which I’ve gotten paid.

Voice: So what have you accomplished with your life?

Me: Well, I may not be rich, or famous, or have a dong that could choke a Filipino hooker, but I’ve messed with peoples’ heads, made a living out of doing what I love to do and left my own little mark on the world.*

Voice: Great. Now let’s go get a drink.

Me: Indeed.

*Put that shit on my tombstone son!

Sunday, September 07, 2008

Men, wake up! Hot lesbians = bad!

I’m tired of this attitude that is so prevalent among dudes in this day and age. And that attitude is that hot lesbians are good. This is a fallacy, one that confuses me and just highlights the stupidity of men as a gender. Let me break it down.

If you’re a chick, turn to the closest guy* and simply say “two hot chicks making out.” He’ll instantly break into a grin and you’ll be able to hear the rusty wheels of thought in his head, as they squeakily begin to turn. Like J.D. from Scrubs, he’s off in some fantasy world that involves said two hot chicks and probably some jell-o or a video camera.

If you’re a dude, then I’m sure the above phrase in quotes gave you at least a semi-chubby. But the question is: why?

I ask because I don’t get the whole concept. Lesbians are women. Women who like other women. If you have a penis, you’re not even part of the equation. If I run across two hot lesbians making out, I’m not going to saunter up to them like I’ll convince them to get a Joshua sandwich going on. It just wouldn’t happen. If, on the other hand, they’re bisexual, well, that’s a different story altogether.

Speaking of which, bisexual people, male or female, are just greedy. Just pick a gender and stick with it! And don’t even get me started on bi-curious. Bi-curious chicks deserve to get pus-filled herpes sores on their lips!

So, let me set the record straight. Hot lesbians are bad. Why are they bad? It’s simple. Every hot lesbian out there is one less hot straight chick for me, (I don’t mind ugly lesbians in the slightest.) I’m terrible with women, I need all the hot women out there I can get. It’s a numbers game. The more women out there means that eventually I’ll run across one who doesn’t look at me like I’m a diseased moose when I try to stick my tongue in her mouth.

On the other hand, hot gay dudes are great! Figured out why yet? Every hot gay guy there is takes himself out of the running, leaving more chicks for me. That’s so nice of them. I make sure to honor hot gay guys with an appreciation day once a year, (I buy them all new cutoff jean shorts.)

You’re probably wondering what caused this lame-ass rant. It’s that god-awful Katy Perry song: I kissed a girl. I hate that song! I hope she spends the rest of her miserable, has-been life (because trust me, she’s going to be a has-been very soon) lamenting the fact that she made a song that was popular only because she talked about kissing another chick. That’s it. She knew she could make a few easy bucks by talking about some pseudo-lesbian experience. And don’t tell me she’s opening doors for other women, or being progressive or bullshit like that, cause if she is, then the guys behind Girls Gone Wild, are groundbreakers in the field of women’s lib.

In a few months, when everybody’s forgotten about her stupid song, Katy Perry will be on a street corner, selling her withered, hideous body for crack, too forgotten by people to even get onto The Surreal Life, or whatever other VH1 reality show gives pathetic has-beens a second chance at stardom. The chick isn’t even hot! She’s just riding the wave of her song, because guys are stupid enough to hear it and think that they’re gonna get some action or something. I’m still not too sure about the reasoning behind it. I dunno. It just frustrates the hell out of me that everybody’s being manipulated and we’re all too stupid to realize it.

Of course, hot lesbians in pornos are exempt from all this. They live all the way in LA and are too far away for me to bone anyway. Praise be to lesbians in pornos!

*Closest straight guy

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Forgotten Heroes of Yore: Steve Guttenberg

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Every so often a man comes along who is greater than the times in which he lives. His very presence is a beacon of excellence that promotes and encourages greatness from those around him.

Steve Guttenberg is such a man.

During the wonderful time that was the 80s, Steve Guttenberg rode a wave of unrivaled popularity. Everywhere he went he was mobbed. Women threw themselves at him. Men begged him for tips on emulating his eminence. He was a god among men!

His shinning visage bathed us in a glorious light whenever we went to the movie theaters to see Cocoon, Short Circuit, the Police Academy franchise and the ever popular Three Men and a Baby movies. Each movie is a testament to his magnificent acting skill.

But what happened to him? Ever since the 90s, he has slowly disappeared from our movie and television screens and has moved to the back burner of American consciousness. How did this great man fall from grace and where is he now? To answer these questions, we must examine Steve Guttenberg’s career, from the beginning.

Steven Robert Guttenberg was born Raul Sorvig Guevara in Hell, Michigan, in 1958. His parents, Jesus and Bjorin Guevara, were both circus freaks, trained to chew nails and car doors to the delight of rural mid-western audiences. Steve wasn’t satisfied with the simple life his parents had planned for him. He didn’t want to marry the bearded lady and take over the family business. So he ran away and joined a law office as a paralegal.

Steve worked at the law offices of Stein, Berg and Gold carrying papers about and doing research for the lawyers. He discovered an aptitude for making people laugh whenever he would tell clients what their bills were.

Guttenberg was able to parlay that skill into a small gig yelling really bad jokes at passersby on street corners. The job paid only chewed gum and greasy sandwich wrappers, but it got his foot in the door.

One day, one of the people Steve yelled at turned out to be a Hollywood movie producer. The producer saw a gleam in Guttenberg’s eyes that inspired him to hire Steve for his first movie, The Chicken Chronicles, in 1977. Steve played the main character, David Kessler, a man who is torn between his love of a woman and his deep burning desire for some chicken poon. Steve’s powerful performance in that groundbreaking role set Tinsel Town ablaze with gossip of the up-and-coming A-List actor.

Other roles soon followed, including the starring role in The Boys from Brazil about an Inuit man and his own Brazilian-Siamese twin. The movie won an Oscar for special effects. He was also in Diner, which was one of his most difficult early parts, where he played a man who was locked up in a mental institution for believing that he was a 1950s Drive-in Diner.

Guttenberg really caught the culture’s attention in 1984 when he starred as Mahoney, in Police Academy. A movie that spawned a half dozen sequels all equally as funny as the original, if not more so. The Police Academy series has received many accolades and are lauded as comedy classics, funnier than anything done by the Three Stooges, Charlie Chaplin or the Marx Brothers. Jim Carrey once said in an interview that he modeled his physical humor style after Steve Guttenberg.

Steve went on to make a few more 80s classics, alongside a robot, a baby, a bunch of aliens in cocoons and some feisty old people; Bad Medicine, The Bedroom Window and Amazon Women on the Moon, respectively. All of those movies made billions of dollars and allowed Steve to buy half of Iceland, where he moved with his wife Aphrodite and his sons Chewie and Boba Guttenberg.

Disaster struck Steve Guttenberg in 1995 when he was diagnosed with ovarian cancer while filming It Takes Two, a porno featuring the Olsen twins, both well known nymphomaniacs. Steve had to undergo a radical new treatment wherein he had to stay submerged in a tank of orange juice for 23 hours a day, for 4 years.

While the treatment successfully put the cancer in remission, it left Guttenberg weak and citrusy-smelling. At this time he also was dealt a crushing blow when his favorite fichus tree was overwatered and died.

Weak and depressed, Steve made his way to Tibet, where he spent the next five years in the Bonyg Shu Monastery. He was trained in the art of Pon Farr, a lost skill that develops a person’s acting and improvising abilities and gives them the power to make a man soil his pants from 200 yards away with just a look.

Rejuvenated and refreshed, Guttenberg made his way back to Hollywood. In the spring of 2008, he triumphantly returned to primetime on the television show Dancing with the Stars, where he was promptly voted off the show in the third episode for being a really bad dancer.

Last month, Steve was honored with a Tony Randall Lifetime Achievement Award for Being an Old Queen Who Refuses to Accept his Has-Been Status. In previous years, this award was given to Charles Grodin, Bill Cosby and Woody Allen, so Steve is in good company.

What’s next for Mr. Guttenberg? He’s rumored to play King Tut in the next Batman movie coming out next summer and will follow that up with the role of Skeletor in the Masters of the Universe-on Ice! Coming soon to a mall near you.

Allow me to finish this bio of Mr. Guttenberg with a haiku:

Steve Guttenberg-Man!
Your humor, much like the sun
Burns up my retinas.