People in Mexico Must Be Afraid of Being Fed to Dogs for No Reason At All

The somehow-always-escalating violence in Mexico over the last decade has just got to stop being so crazy. Thankfully, despite their brutality, our era's thugs still pale in comparison to both the brutal conquistadors and the psychopathic tyrants they supplanted, but still--come on.

It's like Mexico is an episode/season of Breaking Bad--the best show on television--so no matter how bad you think things are going to get they always get much worse and keep you on the edge of your seat.

One day you're a respectable family attending a provincial bullfight, feasting on all manner of delectable street meat, and dozing in the cool shadow of a mountain of used plastic silverware and putrid diapers trucked in from Texas, the next day you have a sack thrown over your heads, get fed into a sausage grinder, and become a hasty buffet for a pack of alpha-male pitbulls raised to ruthlessly erase all evidence of your existence. For no reason. Well, other than the fact that some asshole druglords want to send the government agents and their employers (aka taxpayers) a message that they are not to be fucked with or everybody will die eventually die a horrific, carnival death.

Mayors getting kidnapped and stoned to death in the woods, their corpses lying in the back of a pick-up truck for days before being found?

Wacko lieutenants becoming famous for dissolving bodies in vats of lie? Headless bodies hanging from bridges when the President comes to town?

People's faces being peeled-off and sewn onto soccer balls?

Danny Trejo's severed head riding atop a turtle's shell?

It's like the Mexican druglords have spent the last ten years one-upping each other, hell-bent on bringing home the Most Sadistic Would-Be Batman Villain Ever hardware every year at their annual, always-fabulous Mexican Druglord Conference in Cancun and things are really coming to a head here, the fate of a nation in flux until one of the longtime favorites (or will it be a darkhorse?) is finally cast by Christopher Nolan in his next movie already. [C'mon, Chris, don't be selfish here--think of the people of Gotham. -Ed]

Only then will a winner be declared. Only then will these men tire of the game and get back to being productive members of society, stop destroying whatever they can get away with.

If Christopher Nolan fails us here (he will), no living soul in Mexico is safe. People invited to dinner parties will start making ridiculous excuses like "Oh, I'd love to come, Sandra, but I'm afraid my entire family might be fed to dogs for absolutely no reason if somebody happens to see us in the street" and it won't be funny because they would totally mean it.

Dogs and cats will be murdered in cold blood and often later eaten by starving Mad-Max scavengers--or used as bait to lure a meatier human out of hiding if they feel strong enough for a struggle.

Even budding flowers will fall victim to the casually lethal boot-heels of restless warriors.

Harmonicas can be quite deadly

Eventually the Wild West will reign again, as all men remaining in Mexico will be pitted against each other in a relentless series of unscheduled, unregulated, him-or-me machine-gun duels.

In the end, some Mexican-Jeff-Goldblum eccentric-billionaire type (or perhaps total-Bond-villain Carlos Slim?) will square up against a rough-and-tumble bully from the other side of the tracks and smile knowingly as he smites him with a remote-controlled missile to win--finally--the entire vacant blood-soaked nation as his playground/torture chamber.

Hey, whatever--heavy is the head that wears the crown, right? Jeff/Carlos will kill 'em all, eat 'em, play the game, and figure the rest out later! Once he wins the competition!

After all, if the end result of all his efforts is for whatever reason less than ideal, he can always just drink himself to death at an abandoned luxury resort in Acapulco while writing one hell of a suicide note. If that is indeed Jeff/Carlos' path, I hope that he also has the foresight to attach the lengthy missive to a particularly-burly trained seagull's foot before he dies and send the winged slave to find A Living Person in America Who Would Open a Random Piece of Mail Delivered by a Seagull and Be Able to Make Some Sense Out of Nearly-Illiterate Post-Apocalyptic Pidgin Spanish with no delay.

Once I get my hands on that suicide note (ohpleaseohpleaseohplease) I can finally publish my (unrelated) bestselling novel about the unsympathetic, stomach-churning trials and tribulations of a notorious, suddenly-repentant-at-the-end, murdering asshole that The New York Review of Books will call "Lyrical, raw, and positively breathtaking--an astonishing debut focusing on a megalomaniacal prick who is so delusional he actually thinks he is a normal person, a person with strengths and weaknesses you can weigh, despite all evidence pointing to the fact that if he is not the spawn of Satan he may as well be."

That kind of success being something I could immediately take to the bank, I will probably set up direct deposit to an account in the Cayman Islands and never be seen or heard from again once the raucous celebration--for the humble but well-appointed launch of what will turn out to be the groundbreaking novel of a burgeoning Golden Era of Literature, the captain of the elite avant garde--winds down and I seize the perfect opportunity to sneak away unnoticed.

I will disappear in plain sight and live on the lam under the assumed identities of a series of retired international playboys who share a voracious appetite for women, adventure, and the fruits of the sea.

I will rewrite my memoirs for the rest of my life--on stained cocktail napkins stapled together--until I accidentally fall off a hotel balcony in paradise and nobody ever even figures out who I was, much less what wisdom I wanted to impart to the Earthlings I left behind.

But enough about me--what will all of you do, America? Will it even affect you? Will you even notice that your drunken trips to coastal Florida are not taking place in Cancun, a beloved resort you will never be able to visit for the rest of your life because murderous warlords own the streets? Will you join them or fight them when the furious, probing tentacles of their violence become too much to bear?

Please send me your well-reasoned answers and I shall peruse them with casual interest while traveling aboard one of my many identical yachts speeding in different directions across the vast watery stretches of globe, while wearing a clever disguise that just makes you want to weep for its beauty.

Thank you,
Goodtime Charlie

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You Got to See the Special Man!

For those of y'all out there that love them some old-timey television commercials, here is one of New Orleans' finest:




[Note: It gets really good at 0:24 -Ed.]

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The World's Most Uncomfortable Green Room?

Pedophilia has been in the news a lot these days, thanks to those pervy Catholics, and I feel it is my duty to take this opportunity to warn you all that pedophilia does not always happen behind closed doors or confessional curtains--sometimes it goes on right in front of your eyes, on national television.



Just Like Mom was the longest-running game show in Canadian history, even though it was only on the air for six seasons (How quaint!-Ed.).

The last five seasons were hosted by famed Toronto Blue Jays announcer Fergie Olver, who was the husband (now divorced) of the show's creator, Catherine Swing--which is an unfortunate name, considering what follows (Zing! -Ed.).

Now, I am the first to admit that I don't know much about Mr. Olver--including whether or not he is still alive--but that is only because his wikipedia profile has been deleted and scouring the internet has mysteriously (?) turned up no leads.

Most likely that is a result of his camp's reaction to the following video, which no doubt has made life extraordinarily difficult for Mr. Olver, if he is still alive:



Keep in mind that this is what happened when he knew the cameras were on.

What happened backstage after the show? What happened during casting sessions? What happened when he took the winning kids to Walt Disney World?

If anything more sinister ever happened besides these televised kisses, I hope he died a painful death, bled dry as a result of repeated slashes of his penis with a dull, rusted knife wielded by a vengeful victim.


Can you believe the good people of Canada let this go on for so long? Did they think it was cute that it seems all Fergie was after was a kiss on the lips from little girls?

I mean, I know it was 'a different era' and this is a heavily-edited video, but still--if an unwanted kiss happened even once it would be worth mentioning, and that is clearly not the case.

Hmmmm...methinks once again, as with 'the Catholic situation,' the rise of the military-industrial complex, the lip-service of modern-day politicians, real-estate speculation, the health-care situation, Social-Security raiding, and the current omnipotence of guilt-free corporations, previous generations were asleep at the wheel and future generations must pay the price.

So sad...

(Thanks to Videogum, btw, for introducing me to this ass-clown!)

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Jim Cramer and Glenn Beck Simultaneously Rupture Brain Aneurysms During Intercourse

In the wake of the recent--and, admittedly, surprising--indictment of Goldman Sachs for fraud, Goldman alum/boot-licker Jim Cramer has had a particularly hard time keeping his famous temper under wraps.

During such tough times, when nobody else understands him, when everybody reminds him how often he's been wrong in the past, and he loses his voice from screaming too much, he has no choice but to call in sick and cry on the shoulder of his secret lover, Glenn Beck.


After all, if anybody understands a crier, it is Glenn Beck; if anybody understands the unfair situations that televised liars are put in, it is Glenn Beck.

But these two unfortunate media behemoths have had to be careful about their treasured trysts, since freedom-haters everywhere would love nothing more than to catch them in the act and ruin their lucrative careers by propagating lies in the liberal media.


This being the case, they wisely borrowed a page from the Book of Cruise/Travolta and only engage in homosexual liaisons while flying in a private plane, high above the prying eyes of truth-seekers.

And so it is that, just yesterday, after the inevitable crying-on-each-other's-shoulder foreplay at 30,000 feet, while deep in the throes of unbridled hate-fucking, Jim Cramer tried his best to scream--but no sound would come out!

Not one to go down without a fight, our Jim heroically summoned all his reserve energy and was finally able to emit a dog-whistle-pitched high-C-above-high-C-above-high-C.

Unfortunately, this superhuman effort also ruptured one of his numerous brain aneurysms and he immediately collapsed into a lifeless pile of bones and skin.

Always ahead of the game, Glenn picked up on Jim's death before it even happened, and had already begun the most hysterical crying jag of his entire life.

As soon as poor Glenn realized there were no cameras around to record his magnum opus, it was too much for him to handle and his own brain aneurysm finally fell victim to the communists.


Sadly, the tragedy did not end there, folks.

The dog-whistle screech emitted by St. Cramer shattered not only the eardrums of the two heroically-discreet pilots and the Tibetan-midget fluffer, but also every bit of glass in the entire plane.

The sudden loss of cabin pressure, inability to hear barked emergency orders, crazed midget, and mass confusion sent the luxurious, windowless Learjet 45 into a tailspin.

The doomed plane crashed to Earth somewhere in remote Tea-Bagger Appalachia, exploded on impact, and burned itself to dust, which was fittingly spread by the four winds over the country they loved perhaps too much, thus depriving the world of any evidence this ever happened.


As far as the rest of the world knows, thanks to the fine folks at FOX Propaganda, these two pillars of the American community merely had their fill of all the liberal bullshit choking America to death and bravely fled to Cayman Island obscurity--where the financial-criminal expats and descendants of slave traders know a thing or two about real freedom--to live out the rest of their lives in aristocratic peace, as historic heterosexual heroes who only have gay sex in private.

-God

April Fools!

Wait, I'm not late for that bus, am I? Oops--sorry!

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Breaker: Hollywood Has Been Turned Upside-Down

How do I know? What is the evidence?

Look no further:

Guaranteed blockbuster The Marriage Ref is failing.

WHAT?!!

I know. But it is. And it needs our help.


So, America, if you are listening, Jerry Seinfeld (yeah--the King-Midas maestro behind that killer bee movie!) really needs you right now.

Luckily for you, helping him out has never been easier. Just follow these easy steps:

1. Become a Nielsen family.

2. Have your TV tuned in to NBC for this show--every week--while you take a nice hot bath or nap in the other room. Or just have your DVR record it and never even watch it because they'll never know or care, right? Right.

While you're at it, America, please also make sure to watch Jay Leno--he needs our support now more than ever. Thank you.


In other news, Warren Buffet lost $10,000 today. Please donate here to help him get back on his feet.

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Douchenberg?

In honor of Jay Leno's recent 'what-have-you' with Conan O'Brien/NBC, and his constant, suspicious profession of innocence in the matter, I feel it is my duty to remind the public of exactly what kind of character we are dealing with here when we speak of the man we call 'Jay Leno.'

What we are talking about here is a well-informed vintage car collector who bought a $1.5 million 1931 Duesenberg automobile for $180,000 and claims to have paid 'fair market value.'

Never mind that the owner was in his 80s, totally unaware of the sale, and suffering from dementia--or that Leno and the manager of the garage lied to that old man and put his cars up for sale in a secret auction where they were the only bidders. Or that the garage manager later shot himself in the face rather than face the music.

That's just how the game is played, right? Right?! Can I get a high-five on that?

Maybe only from Jay the 'humanitarian'...


...and then there is this, which I present to you for no reason in particular, except that it is funny to watch somebody impersonate Jay Leno so casually:



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The Golden Globes

If Fergie gets wet, she melts

I used to respect the Golden Globes for being one of the only organizations in the back-slapping business to recognize comedies, as they are universally ignored by the Academy, critics, etc.

However, comedies are no longer what they once were and last night it was impossible to shake the sense of foreboding as we head into the first-ever 10-Best-Picture-nominee-Oscar ceremony.

Even though I can't think of movies that should replace them in the list of ten, every time I heard 500 Days of Summer and It's Complicated mentioned last night--which happened surprisingly often--I felt something verging on offense.

THOSE ARE NOT MOVIES THAT SHOULD BE MENTIONED DURING AWARD CEREMONIES!

Okay, got that out of my system. Thanks.


I loved Ricky Gervais' monologue, as well as several other moments he had throughout the night--especially his jab at Steve Carell (who clearly did not enjoy it, although he tried to play it off with a successful 'I will break you' joke) and the American Office. I wish the producers had given Ricky more screentime than the presenters, which is always the mark of an excellent host.

I haven't seen Avatar yet, but from what I hear it's a worthwhile and important contribution to filmmaking. Is it the Best Picture of the Year? I don't know, maybe...I mean...I can't think of anything that came out this year that I loved, so it's a pretty easy year for a movie like that to come out. Nonetheless, I find it odd that the script is not nominated, none of the actors are nominated, and yet the movie is nominated for Best Picture and James Cameron is nominated for Best Director.

This has always been the reason animated films are rarely nominated for Best Picture (the only one so far is Beauty and the Beast in 1991) and their directors never nominated for Best Director.

Exhibit A: In 2004, The Incredibles was nominated for Best Animated Feature and Brad Bird was nominated for Best Screenplay--yet Brad Bird was not even mentioned as a possibility for Best Director. Ditto in 2007 for Ratatouille. Why not?

He cares for Haiti. And destroying the competition.

Enter James Cameron and suddenly things are different. Why? Because the animated characters have some motion capture elements to them? I fail to see the real difference here...

Last year's Oscars, in a very weak year for movies, were yet another early indicator of the low times ahead of us. Slumdog Millionaire was just so damn popular with the Sideways Set that it won Best Picture and Best Director despite being far from the best in either category (I would have chosen Let the Right One In, Frost/Nixon, or even Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and the associated directors). Wall-E was universally loved, but was not even nominated for Best Picture or Best Director. As much as I respect David Fincher (due to Fight Club and The Game) Benjamin Button sucked, yet it seemed like he was nominated because they weren't sure who else to put in there. Too bad James Cameron didn't direct Wall-E, eh?


As for this year, I liked Up in the Air more than I care to admit (maybe because I'm a bit of a loner myself and I love an unhappy ending), Precious was good but not rave-worthy, A Single Man looks great but not perfect (and nobody will see it anyway, since it's only in 1 theater in LA County and zero theaters throughout the heartland), ditto for The White Ribbon...A Serious Man was a disappointment...Crazy Heart blew...

Maybe the Oscars should just give this year a miss? Thoughts?

Question for The Academy:
If the only movie that came out this year was the worst movie anybody had ever seen, would it still win Best Picture? Or would you all abstain and leave an asterisk in the record books, as if this was the year of the big bad war that distracted us too much to participate in such diversions?

Please let me know by Friday--it will greatly impact what I think of you.

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What On Earth...

...is Steven Seagal doing on A&E? Do they even remember what those letters stand for?

His movies have grossed more than $2 billion worldwide. He is an expert martial artist with a 7th-degree black belt in Aikido. He's considered to be in the same class of action hero as Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger. However, Steven Seagal isn't just an action hero in the movies. For almost 20 years, Seagal has been working as a fully commissioned deputy with the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office in Louisiana. In addition to going out on patrol, Seagal is an expert marksman who has worked with their SWAT team and has instructed Jefferson Parish officers in firearms and hand-to-hand combat.

Steven Seagal Lawman will allow fans to ride shotgun with Seagal as he and his hand-selected elite team of deputies respond to crimes in progress. Then, when Seagal goes off duty, the cameras will continue following him as he pursues his many ventures, including musical performances and philanthropic efforts in Jefferson Parish and New Orleans.

AMC brought us Madmen and this is A&E's response? A bullshit Cops knockoff starring a loser actor "considered to be in the same class" as better examples of the same type? Every movie he has made since 2001 has gone straight to video for a reason, kemosabe! He was an actor and not a cop for a reason, swanfeeder!

Madmen v. Lawman...hmm...it's is like a community bank offering free farts instead of toasters, and pretending they are comparable enticements for potential new customers. Thanks for the fart, ABC/NBC/Hearst!

_

The trimmings:

My favorite Steven Seagal quote, courtesy of wikipedia:

"I am hoping that I can be known as a great writer and actor some day, rather than a sex symbol."

Talk about a PR maestro! Seriously, has anyone ever wanted to have sex with this guy? The idea seems fundamentally preposterous...and he's rich! I know he has seven kids, but millions of dollars and blackmail can often get you what you want. Besides, he was also married to a woman for three years before it was annulled and, thanks to Arrested Development, we all know that means it was never consummated.

While you're at it, check this out if you want a laugh.

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Too Awesome Not to Share

An old friend of mine from college has the coolest girlfriend ever--she made this cake for him for his birthday!

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Just When You Thought You Were Tired of '2012' Ads...

2013?: Roland Emmerich, the director/producer behind next week’s apocalyptic 2012, is planning to extend his disaster franchise into television. Despite popular belief that there is no way to follow up on a White House-crushing tidal wave, Emmerich told Entertainment Weekly that there is still “plenty to do in a TV show.” Along with Mark Gordon of Grey’s Anatomy, Emmerich wants the show to focus on the resettling of earth, picking up with “a group of people who survived but not on the boats … maybe they were on a piece of land that was spared or one that became an island in the process of the crust moving.” Emmerich is reportedly in talks with ABC. [EW]



Oh. My. God, Becky...is Roland Emmerich remaking Lost before it's even finished? Brilliant! Almost as brilliant as Grey's Anatomy...OHHH!!!

[Sorry, Roland/Mark, but y'all got served. --Ed.]

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Ah, the Dulcet Sounds of a Whining Loser...

The irritatingly out-of-touch, pandering schmucks behind network television series are up in arms over what they feel is unfair treatment:

Cable shows are winning all the Emmys!

Although they admit the cable shows are better, these overpaid network whingers, who are increasingly and unnervingly incapable of selecting shows they like for more than ten episodes, are of the opinion that network and cable shows shouldn't be judged the same way because they are "apples and oranges" due to the fact that cable shows don't have to create as many episodes as network series 'have to' and their busier schedule allows them less time to focus on their stories and results in their TV shows sucking and getting canceled.

Specifically:

“David Chase in his time off could conceive and write a full season of ‘The Sopranos...We can’t go about our business that way,” Ms. Jacobs noted. “As soon as we finish shooting one season in May, we have to start talking about the new season and get ready to start writing.” In addition to the production schedules cable shows sometimes make use of swearing and nudity, elements that create publicity but are generally not available to network series.

Wait a minute--swearing and nudity are being used by cable shows to create publicity? That's news to me--I thought they were being used to make television shows more realistic since, to paraphrase Boogie Nights' Jack Horner: "There's swearing and nudity in life, baby." If they also happen to make watching these shows more enjoyable for more perverted reasons, so be it, but Mad Men and Breaking Bad--the two best and most-lauded shows on television, airing on AMC--do not have any more nudity than your average network show.

Interesting the network representatives failed to bring up the fact that the cable shows of which they are jealous are all dramas with fabulous character development that keeps you guessing as to who is bad, who is good, and why, while network dramas still rely on the outdated, easy-to-follow-while-reading-the-paper 'good guys are in the army, bad guys are terrorists' model.


As for comedies, the networks seem to forget they have perennial hardware collector 30 Rock in their stable, although the only reason that show wins so many awards is that there is no real competition; I would argue there haven't been any good cable comedies since the British Office aired on BBC America, save perhaps Always Sunny in Philadelphia, on FX, but I haven't seen enough of it to know for sure. Neither, apparently, has anybody else. Most network comedies are virtually plotless 22-minute episodes of predictable and tired one-liners, parroted out by stock actors playing tired stereotypes that never develop as characters.

Case study in brief: British Office vs. American Office

The British one is one hour long, awesomely funny, rings true, featured heart-rending and hilarious character arcs, and never outstayed its welcome--only 14 episodes were ever made. It was so good that it won an Emmy for Best Comedy Series while broadcast on cable channel BBC America, a channel just about nobody watches.

The American version has so far aired 101 episodes, at least 14 of which focused on how (un)funny it is that Dwight lives on a farm. Like 30 Rock, it occasionally pulls down an award due to the dearth of worthy challengers, but it does occasionally hit the right note and makes me laugh. Sadly, though, it is more often boring, predictable, and stunted due to its 22 minute length. How long do they expect us to laugh at the same characters doing the same things? Why does a show need to go on until everybody hates it? Why can't they exit gracefully, like Gervais & Co. always do?

The bottom line is that people watch cable shows on TV and DVD because...wait for it...THEY ARE REALLY GOOD.

The networks like to bitch and moan about the fact that their audience numbers are higher per episode than any cable show, as if quantity warrants an award for quality--should the Best Picture Oscar go to Transformers 3 this year? Let me hear ya say, "No!"--but this is not only little more than a sneaky way to hint that there is some kind of intellectual snobbery going on, teabagger-style, but also misleading. They conveniently forget to consider how many people watch cable shows on DVD, even years after they aired (is anybody renting back seasons of King of Queens at your local Blockbuster? Thought not.).

Since I don't have access to detailed DVD sales/rental stats, let me instead give you a rough estimate: way more people have watched Mad Men on DVD than have watched any network show on the air this past season. Way more. That is why there is so much press about it, so many people are buzzing about it, so many awards are thrown at it--everybody is watching it at some point and everybody is loving it.

By the same token, Arrested Development was a huge hit among the same people who love Sopranos and Mad Men. Unfortunately, it aired on a network and when not enough people watch a show on-air, they pull the plug no matter what. In a rare move, the only reason it was brought back for a third season was because of surprisingly impressive sales of DVDs. Rather than taking advantage of this popularity, maybe by negotiating a bigger cut of DVD revenue to offset underwhelming ad revenue, they pulled the plug on the show mid-season when the broadcast numbers weren't where they would have liked them.

They replaced it with a string of awful shows that attracted even fewer viewers and refused to let the creators take the show to a different network, not wanting to be made to look like idiots if it matured into the next Seinfeld (which took quite awhile, and a lot of patience, to develop into a hit) and won multiple Emmys. Ah, the network way is glorious.

Good job, geniuses--abort what was easily your best show since the Simpsons and then bitch when other channels leave their fantastic shows on the air, start up new ones, and rack up the Emmys, advertising revenue, licensing revenue, and DVD revenue--all by spending less money per episode than the networks do.

Here's a good suggestion that I hope they take me up on, since the networks seem to need my help desperately:

If, by their own admission, a shorter season results in better storytelling, which attracts better writers, and results in shows that people actually like, can't this be turned into a profitable revelation? Can't the networks--who, one would assume 'control their own destiny'--simply...change their schedules? Can't they turn their existing and future series into 13-episode seasons and create enough of them to run for a year on their one measly channel, filling any gaps with reruns that will actually be watched because they will actually be good?

It's not like their current tactics are that successful; as it stands, they cancel many new shows after only 6-10 episodes and immediately give the time slot to a mid-season replacement. Instead of trying to write one shitty 26-episode season of a show, then changing their mind midway through because "the ratings aren't there," why not just make both shows anyway, each with a shorter 13-episode season, and see what happens?


It ain't rocket science, assholes--it's entertainment. Stop trying to find or recreate some magical formula--make good television, however the fuck you need to do it, whoever else you need to pay to do it, and put it on the air in shorter, higher-quality seasons.

Now quit your bitching or I'll stuff a dirty sock down your throat while swearing at you and showing my butt, on one of those sexy cable channels that are so popular these days for some reason...

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Will the Real Jay Leno Please Stand Up?

It's unfortunate that Kanye West's first public appearance post-VMA-blunder happened to be an already-scheduled appearance on Jay Leno's new, for lack of a better word, show. Has that guy ever given a good interview?

I can think of about 10,000 people I'd rather hear coax a worthless apology (either you got class or you don't) out of Chicago's most arrogant rapper. Letterman? Conan? Jon Stewart? My mailman?

I would rather see Kanye interviewed by somebody impersonating Leno than by Leno himself. What does that say about a fella?

I'll tell ya what it says--it says that fella is broke. Not financially, of course, since he continues to make millions due to his traction with the Alzheimer's set, but charisma-wise, intelligence-wise, humor-wise--broke.

But you probably already know all this.

What you may not know, however, is how morally broke Jay Leno is. Read on...

The guy pulls down over $25 million a year and loves cars. He has anywhere from 50-100 of them, plus almost as many motorcycles. He keeps them in an airplane hangar he adorably refers to as his 'garage' and employs 3-5 full-time mechanics to keep his fleet running smoothly.

Bottom line: When Jay Leno sees a car he wants, he buys it.

Unless that car is a rarity worth $1.2 million and the 90-something owner not only suffers from dementia, but also has no intention of selling him the car.

In that instance, Mr. Leno will simply conspire to swindle the old man out of the car, with the eager assistance of the manager of the Manhattan garage where the car was stored for fifty years.

The story goes like this:

A 1931 Duesenberg, but not the one in question

Jay had been trying to buy the car for years. He stored some cars in the same Manhattan garage in which the other rich guy stored some of his. Every time he walked past it, he wanted it even more...but the old prick wouldn't sell!

Conveniently, the owner of the 1931 Duesenberg, an heir to the Macy's fortune (of course), was unknowingly behind on his payments, so one day the garage manager sent a letter of warning that said if he did not pay his bill, the car would be auctioned off.

The owner promptly sent a check for $20,000 and the garage manager sneakily credited the money to some other cars held in a different garage owned by the same company. He then auctioned off the car to the only invited bidder, Jay Leno, who paid a relatively meager $180,000 for the automotive gem--over $1 million less than it was worth.

The old man never realized what happened and quickly kicked the bucket. Once his heirs swooped in and discovered part of their expected inheritance missing, all hell broke loose. They found out about the sham auction and immediately sued Jay Leno, the manager of the garage, and the company that owns the garage.

Three days later, the manager of the garage drove out to his summer home, parked his pick-up truck in the driveway, and put a bullet in his brain.

Guilt's a bitch.

Unless you're Jay Leno, that is. In his world, nothing has changed. Doritos for breakfast, Doritos for lunch, tool out to Burbank in a million-dollar car your employees refurbished for you, read a bad monologue your writers wrote for you, poorly interview two guests, laugh at your own jokes more than anyone else ever does, jerk-off in the shower, cry about how you have no friends, sleep, repeat.

He probably doesn't even remember anything about the entire affair, Bush-White-House-style. He probably never even thought he was in the wrong, figured the car belonged to him because he could figure out a way to get it, to game the system.

I'm sure his lawyers will postpone the trial for years, then appeal for still more years, and finally have his accountant cut a check for some small settlement to the only heir still hanging on for the fight, American-justice-style.

Welcome to the world of the megarich assholes, Jay! You and Kanye will get along splendidly.


Don't believe me? Read this. I couldn't find the original article I read last year, but this explains enough...

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Words to Live By

"And if there's anything I can do to help Taylor in the future or help anyone, I want to live this thing. It's hard sometimes, so."

--Kanye West

I'm sure by now you have all heard about Kanye West grabbing the microphone from some tween-wet-dream country singer and intimating that Beyonce should have won the award instead, so I will shy away from the facts of the matter and get right to the giblets:

Kanye has always been arrogant--I once watched him exit a custom gull-wing Mercedes sports car, walk the red carpet as his friend inched the car alongside him, then climb back behind the wheel and leave the party--and I doubt he has many friends aside from the eternally-wandering ghost of his deceased mother, but what exactly got into him Sunday night and made him unleash his inner asshole on the national stage like that?

Who's to say, really, but it might have been Hennessey:

West's appearance on Monday's prime-time premiere of "The Jay Leno Show" capped a 24-hour period that began Sunday evening with him strolling down the red carpet at New York's Radio City Music Hall while gulping from a bottle of Cognac.

Wow. I would respect that bottle-toting move if it hadn't resulted in such classlessness. Ballsy. I don't even think ole Jack would have tried that one in his heyday...

But any man who "[wants] to live this thing" needs to find a way to move on, to turn the tide back in your favor. As such, Kanye has since apologized several times, in multiple media, and for the most part blames it all on the death of his mother two years ago and not taking enough time off work (no mention of the cognac or his congenital prickishness). Classy once more.

The entertainment industry being the way it is, however, I'm sure it won't be long before the country darling takes him up on his vague, mumbling offer to "help [her] in the future or help anyone."

Methinks we should prepare to be bombarded in a fortnight's time by a nursery-rhyme-caliber country song about Twittering a cute boy, backed by some random beats Kanye steals from Daft Punk. Heal me, clueless music industry! Heal me! LOL!

_

An Open Letter to the Writers of 'The Office (U.S.)'

Your show is a comedy.
Those are the ones with jokes.

Please adjust future scripts accordingly.

--Goodtime Charlie