Guess Who's Going to Bed?

Nobody tells Sidney Poitier when to go to bed

In honor of Elizabeth Taylor's death today yesterday, I dampened my cheeks to the stylings of Katharine Hepburn in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.

The movie was enjoyable and I even laughed out loud a few times, which is rare (ask my biographers that follow me everywhere and never have a good tip on a horse). Sidney Poitier was dashing, aggressive, and effective. Katharine Hepburn killed several monologues and the rookie from Connecticut, Katharine Houghton (Hepburn's niece, whom you might remember from her recent performance as Katara's Grandma in The Last Airbender), was the one who made me laugh the most.

Spencer Tracy, on the other hand, reminded me way too much of Robert DeNiro in a comedy, which is a polite way of saying he turned in a poor performance, but unfortunately one not as poor as those of Scott Baio in Arrested Development, which are so poor they come back around again to be funny and are therefore unique and redemptive.

'Maggie the Cat' indeed

If only Most Hideous Man Alive® Bruce Vilanch hadn't stolen my copy of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof I might have cut a more respectable figure this evening as four of the world's leading massage therapists worked me over in the screening lounge aboard my jet and my biographers scribbled wildly. Blaming him for everything that went wrong is so fun these days, especially when the accusations are true.

As it was, the only movie of Ms. Taylor's I had lying around was Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and even though she knocks that role right out of the galaxy it isn't exactly how anyone would like her to be remembered.

In your honor, Liz, I am going to bed with this image on my brain instead:

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Delightful News From the Middle Coast

At 1451ft, Chicago's Willis Tower (née Sears) is the tallest building in the Western World

Our associates in Chicago informed us recently that some of the news out there in this cold, dark world these days is good and we felt we should share:

The Sears Tower, lately unceremoniously renamed the Willis tower, is about to pioneer a kind of crazy-innovative window, one that produces power without obstructing the view or letting in appreciably less sunlight.

At first the Willis tower will only replace windows on the south side of the 56th floor; eventually, the whole south face of the building could be slathered in glorious high tech energy generating windows, enough to generate 2 MW of power. The windows have the added benefit of keeping out the excess heat energy that plagues glass buildings.

As incredible as these windows sound, they're only a small part of a larger, $350 million initiative to reduce electricity consumption of the entire Willis tower by 80 percent.

(courtesy grist.org)

So please, Internet, I implore you to take a moment to block out the horrific situations in Japan, Libya, Egypt, Gaza, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf of Mexico, Wall Street, Detroit, Wisconsin, America, Mexico...etcetera, draw in a few good deep breaths, loosen the muscles in your neck, and soak-up a little ray of sunshine before you head back into the courtroom of public opinion and perjure yourself by saying the whole world has gone to shit because it hasn't.

Only most of it has.

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Dick Captured by KGB

In keeping with this week's (year's?) penis theme, here is another one for ya--painted on a drawbridge facing the windows of FSB (née KGB) headquarters by Russian art-warriors Voina.

The folks at Voina have also thrown cats at McDonald's employees, staged a pantomime orgy at the Biology Museum, and generally just given the Putin/Medvedev camp the finger as many times as possible, in front of as many people as possible. [Further reading from The Independent. -Ed.]

As a result, Voina are of course on the lam or being beaten by thugs in a damp prison somewhere, but you gotta hand it to them for their Extreme Creativity in the Face of Thinly-Veiled Totalitarianism, which should be an award category next year in one of those self-congratulatory pageants that happen all the time.

Now, I think it's important to clarify that I am not saying defacing public property or throwing cats at innocent people are good things to do in any situation; what I AM saying is that they are far from the worst things you can do to draw attention to the fact that hundreds of millions of your countrymen are getting fucked by the cigar-smoking, vodka-swilling, mother-nature-raping Russian oligarchy every second.

Carry on, comrades!

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Who Doesn't Love a Good Penis?

What would we do without people in the woods who have a lot of time on their hands and know how to use a chainsaw? Answer: Be way more bored.

Thank you, Woodmen of the World (WOW)!

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The Amish Need to Get Real

Easily the most vain Amish people in the entire world

Amish communities in Illinois (which apparently exist) are upset over a law that will soon take effect in the state that will require photos on all firearm-owner identification cards.

Can you imagine being upset over that? It seems like a reasonable requirement (we require a photo to verify you are the correct person driving a car but not buying a gun?) and I'm surprised it wasn't already in place, so...what exactly is the problem?

Well, it seems the Amish--much like Australian Aborigines living off the land in the middle of nowhere, as they have for thousands of years--aren't big fans of photography. While it does not appear they are afraid it will capture their souls (that sounds so stupid, right?) they ARE afraid of what embracing this newfangled technology will mean:

The Amish are also known for being uncomfortable with photography, especially posed photography, which they believe leads to idolatrous vanity, according to AmishNews.com.

(courtesy HuffPo)

If the Amish don't figure something out quickly they might be royally screwed because apparently a lot of them "hunt and they usually use squirrel or rabbit rifles to bring some food back home" as well as "to disperse varmints," according to the Mattoon Journal-Gazette and the Amish America blog.

So let me get this straight--the Amish have a blog, their own news website, and apparently unfettered internet access, but believe photographs of themselves will end the world as they know it? Is a blog not the height of vanity? [Don't answer that. We can't handle it. -Ed.]

Get real, Amish--you've been kicking around for a long time and seem to be doing pretty okay (somehow), but as H.G. Wells once said, "adapt or perish." Either join the real world already or slowly turn your evaporating culture into little more than a quaint museum exhibit fourth-grade schoolchildren draw penises on with Sharpies during interminable field trips.

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What Would YOU Do with $83,000?

Probably nothing nearly as cool as what this mook did:

Miljenko Parserisas Bukovic at the top of his game

The gruesome details:

Parserisas, a 56-year-old newspaper seller from Mexico, revealed his inked artwork in a photo shoot in Valparaiso city.

He has so far spent a million Mexican pesos (just over £51,000) for the 82 tattoos. The newspaper vendor's obsession with tattoos of Roberts started after he watched her in Erin Brockovich.

In the film Roberts plays a legal assistant who brings down a US energy company single handedly.

The American actress is tattooed all over Mr Parserisas' body in artwork inspired by a number of scenes from the film.

The Roberts fanatic has said that he has plans to get more faces inked on his chest, back and arms.

As long as he has the space on his body and the money, his tattoo tribute will continue.

(courtesy metro.co.uk)

I guess if you can't figure out a feasible way to have sex with your (questionable) celebrity crush, you might as well (semi-) permanently ink her face all over your naked body and get your picture in the papers so she at least has an opportunity to fly down to Mexico and make your dreams come true before you die from unfulfilled lust (the silent killer).

 

Celebrities do that all the time, after all--make dreams come true. They're very generous people who unfortunately cannot afford good public relations personal and so they get a bad rap as greedy selfish millionaire Vanity Smurfs afraid of intimacy, aging, death, and--most of all--obscurity.

If you see your favorite celebrity today, give them an awkwardly-long hug and kiss them softly on the neck with moistened lips. It'll make everything they do finally seem worthwhile. If you DON'T see a celebrity today, cash out your Roth IRA early and head to the nearest tattoo parlor to cover every square inch of your flesh in their likeness (worth it). It's the next best thing you can do for them.

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Brando on Brando, with a little Connie Chung on the side

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The Classics Revisited

Sometimes it's easy to be brilliant--all you have to do is have a great idea that is simple to execute and go ahead and do it. So go do it, Internet! For the kids, so they understand where we came from.

Thanks for the simple brilliance, Videogum/Internet--put another fur in your cap and keep up the good work.

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Fur in My Cap

Catchy little number, interesting visuals, professional, patient, smooth. All tha kiddies at school gonna be sangin' it soon, y'all...which means it is only a matter of time before Rob Roy (no relation) winds up on a reality show about dancing, eating contests, or some kind of Urban Survivor.

The pace of life has been greatly accelerated within my lifetime and I am certain it is a bad thing.

[Thanks for the tip, CMC]


Dessert

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Because Why Not?

New York just seems so incredibly boring and normal I don't know how people there can stand it. They should all move to Los Angeles, where things are interesting...

Booger, Kitty, & Mousey walk the streets of West Hollywood 
and for some reason people stare.

[Thanks for the tip, Videogum]

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The Green Dragon is a Superhero, Not a Villain

The Republican strategy over the last 40 years can be boiled down to one phrase: they are the party of discontent. It's easier to get mad about the state of the world than it is to fix it; it's easier to breed discontent than loyalty to a cause.

It's also easy to create chaos as a smokescreen to legislate morality and advance a selfish corporate agenda that favors the rich.

As the party seems to run increasingly in lockstep with the Religious Right of late, it becomes increasingly difficult to separate the two groups. Although not all Republicans belong to the Religious Right (the smartest ones only sell their souls for tax cuts and corporate socialism), all Religious Right folks are Republicans, and so their fates are in concert.

As such, while I don't find this latest news surprising, I do find it eminently troubling:

Various conservative Christian leaders have united with the Cornwall Alliance for the release of a shocking new 12-part DVD series, "Resisting The Green Dragon," that attempts to debase and discredit the environmental movement by portraying it as "one of the greatest deceptions of our day" that is "seducing your children" and "striving to put America and the world under its destructive control."

In the video, David Barton, founder of WallBuilders, attests that environmentalists' "false assertions are based more on their own morbid pessimistic fears, not on any good science," while the president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, Dr. Richard Land, says, "Environmentalists have a long history of believing and promoting exaggerations and myths" -- statements both so steeped in irony that they are hardly worth parrying.

"One of the greatest threats to society and the church today is the multifaceted environmentalist movement," says Cornwall Alliance founder and national spokesman Dr. E. Calvin Beisner. "There isn't an aspect of life that it doesn't seek to force into its own mold."

(courtesy HuffPo)

Boy, that WallBuilder fellow sure is good at his job...of building walls wherever they can be built, regardless of need. At least, I assume that's what his job is, since no other description seems to fit the bill.

And so it goes that religious groups continue their relentless march to breed discontent between people who would otherwise find substantial common ground.

All religious doctrine, abridged:

Be nice to people, unless they belong to another group of people who also want to be nice to people. In this case, they are your enemy.

And so the ongoing Republican attack on all the "anti-religious" social advancements of the last 100+ years and vital "job-killing" environmental regulations has a delightfully bold ally in their quest to end mankind's tenure on Earth way ahead of schedule.

The Great American Mistake

Coca-Cola is America. Or so they are always telling us.

Can anybody really argue? It was invented in America, patented in America, peddled in America, and mutated into a thriving international megacorporation by generations of enterprising American businessmen over the last 125 years (happy anniversary, btw).

Coca-Cola is a potent symbol of American ingenuity, a shining emblem of American capitalism, and the perfect example of everything that is wrong about where we have come as a nation.

Fact: The syrup used by Coca-Cola bottlers (who are largely independently-owned and operated, although Coca-Cola, Inc. is a minority owner in most of them) is manufactured in the United States, the process involves spent coca leaves imported from South America, and the story is fascinating.

Fact: Foreign bottlers have the option of sweetening their country's Coca-Cola to local taste--the syrup is just the patented secret flavor and contains no sweeteners.

Fact: I buy my Coca-Cola from Mexico because they use real sugar instead of corn syrup.

Fact: Any American who tastes Mexican Coca-Cola will never go back to American Coca-Cola.

Fact: This should be phenomenally embarrassing for Coca-Cola, Inc. and yet they don't seem to care at all or have any plans to revert to using real sugar. Why would they? They are making a shit-ton of money ["Shit-ton" = 1 with 100 million zeroes after it. -Ed.] and sugar costs $0.02 more per shit-ton than corn syrup, so it makes NO sense from a corporate-bottom-line standpoint to make their beverage taste the way it used to and always should.

Fact: This is proof that American businessmen have their heads so far up their asses they only think in the short-term and don't care what customers want, only what they are willing to consume because they don't think they have a better option.

¿Quieres bailar?

Crack open a six-pack of Heineken, put on your headband, and turn this shit up:



The Ex is a Dutch band that has been jamming since 1979 and that will probably live forever, in one form or another. They used to be punk and now they are something else because they are older and more refined. Their first single was called Stupid Americans and their first 7" was called All Corpses Smell the Same. 1983's Gonna Rob the Spermbank might be my favorite title, though.

If you like good live music, check out their upcoming (starts in 5 days!) US tour schedule, get your tickets, wax your private places, and get ready for a cheap double-guitar stompin' good time!

Of special note to my biggest fans:

Chicago: March 8th at Lincoln Hall
Los Angeles: March 18th at The Satellite

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Snapshot of America: March 2, 2011

The most popular stories on the New York Daily News site. Read 'em and weep, America...

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It's March 1st--Do You Know Where Your D-List Load-Dropper Is?

For those of you who mopes out there who don't know what it means when people call you a mope, here is a fascinating education, courtesy of the LA Weekly:

The porn industry is many things. Subtle is not one of them. So when Porn Inc. went searching for a job title for people like Stephen Hill, the choice was "mope." It's based on the off-camera life of these fringe actors, hangers-on who mope around the studios hoping for a bit role, which if they're lucky might bring them $50 plus food — and the chance to have sex with a real, live woman.

The average rate for a mope is $50 a movie, $75 if the porno gods are feeling benevolent. So financially, mopehood is a losing proposition in an industry where just getting the HIV testing required to work costs $135.

"They're worthless, D-list load-droppers," says Jim Lane, also known as Jim Powers, the director of such fare as Young and Anal 39, Ganged and Banged and White Trash Whore 40.

Unlike mainstream Hollywood extras, Lane notes, "Mopes don't know they're mopes." Instead, most cling to a delusion. "They all think they're going to be stars and millionaires."

Mark Kulkis, the head of Kick-Ass Pictures, a company that specializes in specific niche porn such as foot-fetish and gangbang material, says, "We pay $50 for a foot job. And we shoot one a week for the site. There are only so many of those gigs to go around. These guys are hanging on the edge economically."

Hill, whose screen name was Steve Driver, used to say his signature was "monster hands." According to set photographer Gia Jordan, Hill "would wear these hands, like, from a Halloween costume. That was his shtick. He'd jack off on the girl with the hands and when he'd come he'd yell, 'Monster hands!' It was ridiculous."

Wow. Okay. The only thing I would argue there is that mainstream Hollywood extras lack delusions of grandeur, which anybody who has spent any time with extras knows is patently untrue. 95% of extras expect to be millionaire actors, whether those millions come from 15 years of nationwide Verizon commercials, a role on CSI, or the fat paychecks commanded by an A or B-list movie actor they are expecting it one way or another--IF THEY CAN JUST MAKE THE RIGHT CONNECTIONS.

It's good to know foot-job dicks can be rented for only fifty dollars. This is knowledge that's good to have up your sleeve when you run out of other options. It also helps explain how homeless men in the Valley get all their booze money and how male Hollywood extras are able to stretch out their paltry paychecks during lean times.

But just so you know, not all D-List Load-Droppers go quietly into the night, clutching a bottle of Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill, and stretch out on a piece of cardboard along the cement-lined Los Angeles River, never to make a name for themselves.

Todd was a pioneer among the D-List Load-Droppers

Take Stephen Hill (aka Steve Driver), for example, who was mentioned above--the lovable "Monster Hands" dude. Now here is a guy who moped his way to infamy in style.

Check it:

Female porn actor Charley Chase recalls, "I only worked with [Hill] once. It was a boy-girl scene and it was terrible. Mainly from bad hygiene."

Believe It, America

(Glorious HuffPo snapshot courtesy GTC)

I know it's hard to believe, but apparently Oscar©-winner Natalie Portman has allowed a $50 dress to rub against her body voluntarily.

What might cause a woman like her to stoop to such a level? Well, I'm no omniscient psychiatric genius*, but clearly she is going through a phase--a rebellious phase wherein she gleefully thumbs her nose at the absurd world of high-fashion whilst huffing fifty-gallon drums of industrial-strength disinfectants behind a dumpster with a bunch of asexual private-school bad boys in leather jackets.

Do you think she even cares that she is up the stick? No, you don't. Because she doesn't and it shows. She will rock whatever shit you throw over her shoulders to tea with the queen or her cousin's wedding, no questions asked. She's got other things on her mind and knows the world's either gonna roll along with her or she'll tell it to fuck off and lose no sleep.

Don't believe me? Check out this brief documentary about a day in her life.

Now, before you get too excited about the whole huffing thing, please keep in mind that mothers have been huffing industrial-strength disinfectants for centuries and there have been no conclusive studies funded by the international chemical conglomerates that link frequent chemical-huffing by pregnant women to three-limbed children who reach maturity unable to spell or locate themselves while staring into a mirror.

All those liberal communists that claim huffing is bad for children have been clamoring for government action for a while now. Does the government care? Not really. A brain-damaged pool of wage-slaves happy to have any job you throw at them is actually a very desirable underclass in this era of increasingly disgusting income inequality. People cut from such cloth are notorious for being unable to figure out how to cash paychecks or even maintain a mailing address for more than one day, much less mount a well-organized rebellion intent on wealth redistribution.

If I may be so candid, the real problem with these little huff-baby fellers is that they're so stupid they keep falling into the machines at the plant! Do you know how much more difficult that makes it to abide those job-killing, anti-business FDA/EPA laws regarding pieces of humans in things you sell?

As we all know by now it's pretty easy to get away with whatever you want in taco meat, hot dogs, and shit like that, but once multiple fingers start showing up in bottles of shampoo you're probably going to have to send some handsome-ish publicity wonk around the network talk shows to explain away the situation with a propaganda chuckle and a Beck-ish explanation for the accident that perversely blames the government regulations for causing employees to make stupid mistakes due to stress. Then you pay a $10,000 fine, raise the price of your shampoo, cut employee salaries, and voila--you're even higher up that golden ladder to rich person's heaven.

But I digress. Back to the meat:

- How did Natalie look in the dress? Youthful, vibrant, magnetic.
- Was it a pretty dress? No.
- Does it matter? No.
- Would it look great on my living room floor? Yes.
- Do I care that she is pregnant? No.
- Why not? The likelihood of child support payments are essentially zeroed-out, which is where I'd like them to be when I'm tomcatting my way around the green room at the Kodak Theater. In fact, it makes the exit strategy so much easier it's almost worth converting to a career of cruising prenatal clinics. Also, I have a pregnancy fetish.

Verdict: Success. (Yawn)


In other news...

(Glorious HuffPo snapshot courtesy GTC)

[We're all going to hell. Which means it'll be pretty great, if you think about it. Or would you rather be lonely in heaven for eternity? -Ed.]


* Kidding--of course I am

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Christian Bale Reacts to the Charlie Sheen Situation

"You think you're a fucking badass, Charlie? You're a small-screen trained monkey whose audience is far from discerning. They're gonna replace you with John Stamos, for Pete's sake. I'm Batman, Patrick Bateman, John Rolfe, John Connor, and a boxer from Boston.

"I grew up in Wales and even though you're nine years older than me I was chewing kids' ears off in the park for no reason at all ever since you were in short pants. I beat-up every single person I see, just so they know not to fuck with me. Your Dad is Martin Sheen and mine was a pilot (who later married Gloria Steinem). My Mom was a circus performer. I had to be exponentially more crazy than you could ever imagine in order to escape my humble beginnings and beat you out for all the good roles and all the good girls (the kind you don't have to pay for).

"I think we all know it's been a long time since Platoon + Men at Work, but still you were the highest-paid actor in television history until the other day and I guess that is a commendable accomplishment for somebody in your field. It takes dedication to put up with the grueling schedule of a television show. I know I would never want to do it, that's for sure. I prefer to do my work in intense chunks, in exotic locations, and then take several months off to drink vintage wine and fornicate with native women on a white-sand beach somewhere warm while the footage is edited in preparation for a lavish premiere and I marinate in Cuban rum, fresh pineapple, and rare orchids.

"But I no longer need to fake my respect for your humble dedication because you were fired by your boss--an ugly guy who made even more money than you, had more than enough of your annoying bullshit, and put you in your place on the world stage.

"How does a man respond to this? There isn't one good answer, granted, but surely none of the answers are 'doing the talk show bitch circuit and proclaiming yourself a warlock who's "tired of pretending like [he's] not bitchin."'

"Boy, that must be fun. Can't wait to watch you get shot-down by Barbara Walters on The View before your on-air pedicure even begins to dry.

"Oh! You think you got a comeback for that one? You don't. You never will. You're a puff pastry at heart. You'll never have the fire your dad has and it kills you. Even with a full arsenal of Hollywood stylists at your disposal you look about as bad-ass as an Olsen twin. Proof:

"In conclusion, shut up and go to bed, Charlie Sheen. You're wearing out the world's patience. You're tired. You're broke in every manner of speaking other than financially. Make sure you get a good long sleep by finishing the entire bottle of pills and I promise everything will be better in the morning. The whole world will be a safer, happier place for everyone--especially those closest to you--and it will help set-up another Oscar win for my 'vicious,' 'lifelike' portrayal of you in the made-for-TV movie of your pitiful life."

- Christian Bale

[Disclaimer: Nothing in this post was written or spoken by Christian Bale although he may have thought it at some point and nobody can prove he didn't. -Ed.]

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Homeless Men of America's 'Great Depression Redux Charm Initiative' Still Going Smoothly

Dispatch from The Michigan Front:

PONTIAC, Mich. — A homeless man in southeast Michigan says a woman accidentally gave him a gold ring laced with diamonds when she handed him a handful of change.
Michael Secaur tells The Oakland Press that he was panhandling at an intersection in Pontiac on Monday when a woman pulled up in a vehicle and handed him some money. He says the ring was among some coins, and that he thinks she "did an oops."
Secaur says he would recognize the woman if he saw her again.
He says he quickly dismissed a plan to pawn the ring. The owner of a shelter where Secaur often stays has locked it in a safety deposit box.
Secaur says he has lived on the streets of Pontiac for nearly two years.

(courtesy HuffPo)

Could you imagine a rich person doing that? Hard enough to squeeze some spare change out of them. You gotta get creative, get your finger poopy, and make quaint signs that say things like "Homeless Veteran Father of Three Mongoloid Preemies Who Can't Catch a Break. God Bless." just to get your hands on some Diet-Coke-greased pennies from the polished-walnut-lined cupholder between the cabretta leather-skinned bucket seats of some old bag's Bentley that could fetch enough bank at auction to feed an entire town for a year.

The kind of old bag that doesn't realize for weeks she lost an extraordinarily expensive ring during one of her 5000 daily moments of carelessness--if she ever noticed at all.

And this guy's who's been living in the street for a year is begging to give it back to her. Shades of that Homeless Radio Announceritis outbreak not that long ago.

Thank you, Homeless Men of America, for keeping it classy.

Seriously, though--how bad do they need to make us feel about ourselves before this increasingly derivative hubbub is over and the homeless men are once again a phantom population everybody pretends is already dead, thinks of as naught but a swarm of charming and smelly holographic reminder of the desperate lives people lead when they don't work hard enough or get born to rich parents.

I'm getting too worked up about this. I might just have to forget about it, erase it from my brain by going to Disneyland til it blows over--tickets are only $100 per day for Southern California residents and they apparently have "carts that sell big turkey legs (fried, I think) for $7 each."

See ya there!

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