Of Gilligans and Mary Ann

For those of you out there obsessed with Lost, Survivor, and Gilligan's Island (so many of you out there, I know--GET YOUR OWN WEBSITE ALREADY!), or who haven't been able to shake Lord of the Flies out of their head since high school (mostly because it's the only good book they ever finished), get ready for this fascinating (and true) tale as old as time, courtesy of this strange but informative website:

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June 30 1951 - Anatahan Island
A group of stranded survivors of a Japanese vessel sunk by the American military found their way to the island of Anatahan, 75 nautical miles north of Saipan. The island's coast line is precipitous with landing beaches on the northern and western shore and a small sandy beach on the southwest shore. It's steep slopes are furrowed by deep gorges covered by high grass. This brooding cone jutting from the sea floor is a large, extinct volcano with two peaks and a grass covered flat field, the final resting place for a B-29 Superfortress that crashed upon returning from a bombing mission over Nagoya, Japan on January 3, 1945 killing the aircraft's crew.

By 1951 the Japanese holdouts on the island refused to believe that the war was over and resisted every attempt by the Navy to remove them. This group was first discovered in February 1945, when several Chamorros from Saipan were sent to the island to recover the bodies of the Saipan based B-29, T square 42, from the 498th Bomb Group, 875th Squadron, 73rd Wing under the command of Richard Carlson Stickney, Jr. The Chamorros reported that there were about thirty Japanese survivors from three Japanese ships sunk in June 1944, one of which was an Okinawan woman.
Pamphlets had been dropped informing the holdouts that the war was over and that they should surrender, but these requests were ignored. They lived a sparse life, eating coconuts, taro, wild sugar cane, fish and lizards. They smoked crushed, dried papaya leaves wrapped in the leaves of bananas and made an intoxicating beverage known as "tuba", (coconut wine). They lived in palm frond huts with woven floor matting of pandanus. Their life improved after the crash of the aircraft . They used metal from the B-29 to fashion crude implements such as pots, knives and roofing for their hut. The oxygen tanks were used to store water, clothing was made from nylon parachutes, the cords used for fishing line. The springs from machine guns were fashioned into fish hooks. Several in the group also had machine guns and pistols recovered from the aircraft.

Personal aggravations developed as a result of being too long in close association within a small group on a small island and also because of tuba drinking. The presence of only one woman, Kazuko Higa, caused great difficulty as well. Six of eleven deaths that occurred among the holdouts were the result of violence. One man displayed thirteen knife wounds. Ms. Higa would, from time to time, transfer her affections between at least four of the men after each mysteriously disappeared as a result of "being swallowed by the waves while fishing." In July 1950, Ms. Higa went to the beach when an American vessel appeared off shore and asked to be removed from the island. She was taken to Saipan aboard the Miss Susie and, upon arrival, informed authorities that the men on the island did not believe the war was over.

Meanwhile, officials of the Japanese government became interested in the situation on Anatahan and asked the Navy for information "concerning the doomed and living Robinson Crusoes who were living a primitive life on an uninhabited island", and offered to send a ship to rescue them. The families of the Japanese holdouts on the island of Anatahan , were contacted in Japan and requested by the U. S. Navy to write letters advising them that the war was over and that they should surrender. In January 1951, a message from the Governor of Kanagawa Prefecture was delivered.

The letters were dropped by air on June 26 and finally convinced the holdouts that they should give themselves up. Thus, six years after the end of World War II, "Operation Removal" got underway from Saipan under the Command of James B. Johnson, USNR, aboard the Navy Tug USS Cocopa. Lt. Commander James B. Johnson and Mr. Ken Akatani, an interpreter, went ashore by rubber boat and formally accepted the last surrender of World War II on the morning of June 30, 1951 which also coincided with the last day of the Naval Administration of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands.

For more information, read Saipan Oral Histories of the Pacific War by Bruce Petty, page 78, 119-120.

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Wow, right? A formal surrender to a US Navy tugboat captain six years after the war ended? From 29 tattered, stir-crazy, deranged, horn-dog Japanese soldiers who had been chugging coconut moonshine and chasing some poor woman around a small uninhabited island with their dirty dicks for five years when not busy brutally murdering each other in order to increase the odds of getting her all to themselves for the rest of the interminable war they were so busy fighting (in spirit)?

War is such gentlemanly sport.

Hey, you know what? Somebody get Aaron Sorkin, J.J. Abrams, and Rip Torn on the phone like yesterday--I think we've got the next hit series here and we need to meet up in the Bahamas and start writing episodes immediately.

We'll shoot one version of the story for every country in the television world, simultaneously so that it's cheaper. It will be the biggest undertaking anyone in Hollywood has ever imagined (eat your heart out, Ron Howard).

Also, somebody track down that recipe for tuba--that coconut moonshine is the best chance I have of finally achieving my billionaire supervillain dreams.

Kazuko Higa with rescuers

Dessert:

Wondering what ever happened to Kazuko Higa? Well, naturally the comely lass joined a burlesque tour in 1952 and regaled audiences with tales of her sexytimes on the island. Moral of her story: "...and THAT is why you never move to a deserted island with your husband!"

Hollywood legend Josef von Sternberg became obsessed with her story and, as one does, wrote/directed/photographed/narrated a movie about her called Ana-ta-han (1953), which has since been remade twice. It was a financial bust and the last movie he ever made. He died of a heart attack 16 years later.

Incidentally, three years after that, Ayn Rand sold Von Sternberg's custom-built, architecturally-significant house (for seven times what she paid for it) to a developer who demolished it--one of her many vile offenses against art and philosophy.

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The Hottest Waste of Time in Years!

Question: In what manner are the pictures on the right better than those on the left?

Correct Answer: No manner. I cannot think of one possible reason why somebody would ever want an image to show less skin in order to increase arousal. The best possible matte to place on either of the images above would be one shaped exactly the size of the bathing suit--no more, no less--but that would be a complete waste of time, as those parts of her body are already covered by a bathing suit.

Answer Its Creator Wishes Was Correct: Every way, dude! Or at least in enough ways to make the purchase of his app that 'shittifies' otherwise titillating photos/cartoons worth a minimum of ninety-nine cents. Look at the bubbles! You can move them around to cover up her legs and shit! Awesome! I totally need to viral this shit on the Twitterne for major cool-dude pointst! [air guitar]

Here's how this totally fun app works, dudes and dudettes:

When you upload a photo of a swimsuit-clad figure, the program applies a transparent layer that you can manipulate using the iPhone's touch screen. You can poke holes--bubbles--in the surface of the transparent layer, opening up patches of skin while keeping clothed areas hidden. You can drag the bubbles around with your finger and resize them by pinching. When you're done, the swimsuit should be completely covered and the exposed areas of skin should imply nudity. After you save your work, you can share it over email, Facebook, Twitter and Flickr.

(courtesy HuffPo)

In other words, you have to actually do WORK to ruin swimsuit photos for no reason, after paying for the privilege.

If this is the direction we are headed as a tech-addled global community, a cave on an island somewhere--the kind where people never hear about world wars ending--is sounding better every second.

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There is Nothing to Fear

This just in:

(courtesy Videogum)

I have to admit--I was secretly elated to hear this news. I've been seriously worried about this shit since like October, thought the end of the world (as we know it) was nigh.

So...champagne anyone? I stockpiled just in case and now it will all go bad before I would ever want to finish it by myself in a non-apocalypse situation.

I shouldn't give my address out online, cuz there are creeps out there who would send me feces-smeared love notes in broken English, so just meet me in the park. I'm easy to find when you want to--I'll be the creep talking to himself on a park bench, wearing a vest because I'm afraid of drowning, and giving everybody the stinkeye. Let's be friends.

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Things Were So Much Simpler Then. And Uglier. Probably.

Ah, nostalgia...how I long for you...sometimes.

Like whenever I try to remember what life was like when I was 6 and I realize I might as well try to reminisce about the Big Bang.

As much as I love to long for the far-from-perfect-but-certainly-less-complicated, artistically-vibrant world that I never experienced in the 1960s/70s, try as I might it is impossible for me to romanticize my actual past. Everything I remember about my childhood I only 'remember' because people have told me the same stories over and over and therefore they have stayed with me longer than the rest.

But these romanticized memories, from somebody else's perspective no less, are far from the truth. They are filtered, corrupted opinions; fiction masquerading as memories. Unless you are a snail or a hermit yet to murder his last brain cell with moonshine, life moves too fast to remember all the details.

It is as if I am a dependable machine stuck in 'Forward Mode', a young man eternally going West and failing to realize I have been treading over the same ground my entire life, unsure what exactly I am looking for and why I keep moving, unsure whether things are improving or getting worse, constantly reformulating theories about the world that become more depressing the more I learn about it and its inhabitants.

The curious, adventurous, social adult--the guy doing it right, I tell myself, all the while conflictingly aware that ignorance is bliss--leads a life replete with biases, uncertainty, and editing, whether he likes it or not. The relentless flow of new information into your brain not only needs to be easily sorted, but also inevitably results in the deletion of the oldest material in the storage bin, the information that doesn't matter because it isn't going to help you achieve your dreams, while the wisdom filling one of Carl Sagan's seminal tracts might help you understand things a bit better and smooth over those last few wrinkles impeding your impending success.

And then you realize you probably had all your best dreams when you were a child, all those dreams you have long-since forgotten, and a slow-burning panic sets in. Am I ruined? Does too much knowledge work against me? Have I paralyzed myself by learning too much about the world? Have I made things too complicated when simplicity is the answer? Has reality destroyed my dreams? Have I lost my unique identity somewhere along the road to wherever the hell I am right now? What am I chasing anyway?

Who knows. Knowledge? Adventure? True love? Happiness? All sound trite, but maybe triteness is closer to truth than we realize. Maybe we should grant it more respect.

All I know is I've been hard at work for twenty years, trying to get somewhere, making sure I enjoy the ride, never sure of where I'm heading or even where I've been once the initial afterglow of discovery wears off. Who am I? Where am I? What am I doing here? Is there a better way to go about all this?

So many questions, so few answers. Zero answers. Help!

Enter the Apple IIe, machine of the future, here in the now to solve as many problems as you can throw at it. 4 + 4? No problem. Starving to death on the Oregon Trail for lack of squirrel meat? Unsure whether or not reality is a dream or if the calories are worth it? Whatever your problem, rest assured the Apple IIe will solve it with only a few strokes of its custom-built keys.

I don't know about you, but I find that comforting. Hey, maybe that's what it's all about--comfort. We all know the answer, whatever it is, will be a simple one, so it might as well be the simplest.

Whatever you do as the merry-go-round of life spins its finite series of revolutions, just make sure you are comfortable doing it and you can be content that you are doing it right.

Huh. Too bad I'll forget all about this tomorrow...

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Rivers Cuomo is Officially a Jackass

If the results of Rivers Cuomo's ill-fated decision to use an equation he distilled after studying the music of numerous successful songwriters to replicate infinite variations of the perfect pop song weren't bad enough--the Green album, Maladroit, Make Believe, the Red album, Raditude (really?)--trixie pixie sellout Cuomo just shot the moon with his latest aural turd, Hurley.

In case you were wondering, yes--the album IS named after the morbidly obese guy on Lost, yes--he IS featured on the cover, and yes--he DID sing a duet with Rivers onstage at some sort of asshole convention in Los Angeles.

I feel no need to ruminate on the wherefores of Rivers' decision, since I don't give a shit what stupid reason he had, but I do think it is important for everybody out there to realize, if they haven't already, that the man behind Pinkerton and the Blue album, two of the greatest rock albums of the last 20 years, has officially become an irredeemable, unapologetic jackass.

You have been warned.

Also, I feel the need to warn you of the following forthcoming turds from the Cuomo camp:

- Pinkerton, their best album and the last one worth a damn (recorded 14 years ago) is set for an unnecessary re-release (same music, but with new fan art! probably! OMG!).

- A third solo album--The Pinkerton Years--is also in the works.

Noticing a trend here, folks?

[Puke]

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Old News: Vatican Corrupt

The world's smallest city-state is in the news once again and, once again, hopes its ridiculously inappropriate Foreign-Sovereign Immunity (which absolves it of all responsibility for child sexual abuse cases in the United States, fyi) will allow it to do whatever it wants while thumbing its nose at the peculiar secular world, where actions have consequences.

VATICAN CITY — Italian authorities seized euro23 million ($30 million) from a Vatican bank account Tuesday and said they have begun investigating top officials of the Vatican bank in connection with a money-laundering probe.

(courtesy HuffPo)

But don't worry, it's probably all a big misunderstanding--it's not like the Vatican has any history of highly-suspicious involvement with the mafia and/or catastrophic financial crimes:

The Vatican bank was famously implicated in a scandal over the collapse of the Banco Ambrosiano in the 1980s in one of Italy's largest fraud cases. Roberto Calvi, the head of Banco Ambrosiano, was found hanging from Blackfriars Bridge in London in 1982 in circumstances that still remain mysterious.

London investigators first ruled that Calvi committed suicide, but his family pressed for further investigation. Eventually murder charges were filed against five defendants, including a major Mafia figure, and they were tried in Rome and acquitted in 2007.

Banco Ambrosiano collapsed following the disappearance of $1.3 billion in loans the bank had made to several dummy companies in Latin America. The Vatican had provided letters of credit for the loans. While denying any wrongdoing, the Vatican bank agreed to pay $250 million to Ambrosiano's creditors.

(courtesy HuffPo)

Yikes! But soft--who runs the Vatican Bank? Its problems can most likely be blamed on greedy secular bankers operating outside the church's sphere of influence, right? The religious folk just made a few careless mistakes in who they hired to run their financial operations, right?

Wrong:

More after the jump...

Stupid Whore Class is in session

"Our backs ache, our skirts are too tight, we shake our booties from left to right."

This is the controversial cheer that a Michigan cheerleader's mother objected to recently. This objection got her daughter kicked off the squad and straight onto the stage of Good Morning America.

The kicker: The former cheerleader is only 6 years old.

SIX YEARS OLD!

For whom do six-year-olds cheer? Six-year-old football players? The Catholic Priests Charity Football League?

Even more importantly, however, how does this cheer make any sense? Who wants to hear about people's problems? Their backs ache? Whose doesn't. Their skirts are too tight? Stop getting so fat!

Boring...

Or are these cheerleaders trying to say they are always on their back getting it from football players and their skirts are intentionally too tight because they're trying to show off the hot bodies they spend all day creating by not eating and ditching class to do bikram yoga and smoking cigarettes across the street?

Oh, wait, I just got it--these six-year-old girls are CHEAP SLUTS who really, really, really want their football-playing sex-partners to win the game against their other football-playing sex-partners who go to first-grade at a nearby rival primary school.

Or so their coach wants us to think, for some reason--probably because she thinks it's "cute."

Makes total sense...this is, after all, the monstrous nation that created Miley Cyrus.


Dessert:
Our disease has been exported to China!

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The Dark Side of Youtube

For every Scarlet Takes a Tumble and Fat Dad Falls Off Skateboard, there is always a video that makes you stop laughing uncontrollably at the misfortunes of others and reminds you of the frightening power of the Dark Side.

This is one of those videos:

(Thanks, Videogum!)

Shock and awe, folks. Shock and awe.

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Who Doesn't Love a Psychologically-Damaged, Overly-Vain Mystery Bride?

The end is nigh, folks, as this will be coming to your television screen before you can stop it:

The [E!] network is set to announce "Bridalplasty," where brides-to-be compete in wedding-themed challenges to win extensive surgical procedures.

Each week, a group of women competes head-to-head in such challenges as writing wedding vows and planning honeymoons. The winner receives the chance to choose a plastic surgery procedure from her "wish list." She's given the procedure immediately, and results are shown at the start of the following week's episode.

One by one, the women are voted out by their competitors and, according to the show's description, "possibly walking away with nothing and losing [their] chance to be the perfect bride."

The last bride standing will receive a "dream wedding," where she will reveal her new appearance to friends, family and the groom. "Viewers will witness his emotional and possibly shocked reaction as they stand at the altar and he lifts her veil to see her for the first time following her extreme plastic surgery," E! said.

(courtesy Hollywood Reporter)

Oh, my God! I can't wait for the bitchy cat fights as these women maneuver to have their foes eliminated one-by-one! And the daily sobbing as they talk about how their noses/chins/cheekbones/butts/breasts/un-rejuvenated vaginas have conspired to ruin their lives!

But mostly I can't wait to see the looks on those husbands' faces when they lift up the veil on their wedding day and realize they just married a perfect stranger who used to be a crazy person they loved for some reason!

It just doesn't get much better than that, if you are looking for one perfect moment that defines a new low in the Global Corporate Village known as the Western World. The ascent of Beck/Palin and the Double Down were just foreshocks and now we must brace ourselves for the mighty quake.

As far as aftershocks go, we also have these three turds to look forward to avoiding this fall:

The Defenders - Jim Belushi (!) and Jerry O'Connell (!)...together at last! Not since DeNiro and Pacino in Heat has America been this excited about an actor pairing. For those of you who are confused, Jim is John Belushi's less-talented brother and Jerry O'Connell is the kid who was in Stand By Me who is married to Rebecca Romijn. Two of the finest examples of the new American dream--failing upward.

Undercovers - The tired Mr. and Mrs. Smith dynamic all over again, but worse. The catchy twist: They're black this time!

Mike & Molly - Two fat people (read: relatable!) fall in love in Middle America while performing endearingly working-class jobs. From wikipedia: "The series, set in Chicago, follows two obese people, Mike Biggs [Get it! -Ed.], a police officer who wants to shed some pounds, and Molly Flynn, a fourth-grade teacher wanting to embrace her curves, who meet at an Overeaters anonymous group and become an unlikely pair. However, they also have to deal with the comments, jokes, and criticism from Mike's fast-talking partner Carl McMillan; Molly's slim sister Victoria and mother Joyce; and Samuel, a Senegalese waiter at the cops' favorite restaurant."

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United States v. Muslims: By the Numbers

(courtesy The Atlantic)

Just goes to show you that, despite our wealth and military muscle, we are but a moon orbiting the Muslim planet, and we should remember that as we spend trillions of dollars and end tens of thousands of lives chasing down the smallest enemy fighting force we have ever faced.

So take a step back, warmongers, hide your misspelled vitriol for a moment, and start taking up a collection to bribe your Congressional representatives to get us the hell out of Afghanistan, Michael Moore-style:

Let's dig a few thousand wells in Afghanistan, build a few free mosques, leave behind some food and clothing, fix their electrical grid, issue an apology and set up a Facebook page so they can stay in touch with us -- and then let's get the hell out. Your own National Security Advisor and your CIA Director have told you there are less than 100 al Qaeda fighters in the entire country. 100???                           (courtesy HuffPo)

As long as our unemployed serf brethren pony up more than Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Halliburton, and Xe Services (nee Blackwater) combined, it should be easy enough to transform the United States into a slightly more sensible world power.

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AIDS = Hitler

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Lower-Class Twit of the Year Competition Results Are In

The votes are in, folks, and the twittiest of the lower-class twits from across this gorgeous globe have been identified and ranked in a highly scientific process know as a "boondoggle."

Here are the results to share with your friends:


Gold Medal -

That is one disturbed belly-button/cat

 Silver Medal -

This guy's girlfriend must never let him take his shirt off at pool parties.

Oh, wait--he's never had one.

 Bronze Medal (with special commendation for supreme idiocy) -

Jolene must be so proud of her little skinhead

Kids at home, please take note--this is what you either should or should not do, depending on how you want your life to turn out. Good luck figuring that shit out!

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I Can't Stop Laughing

At the first half of the video in this link.

Thanks, Videogum!

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Republican Party Nominates 3 Newcomers to Defuse Tea Party Insurgency

Tired of losing ground to the Tea Party in the battle for who is the most irrationally conservative, the Republicans have decided to drag three newcomers--longtime listeners, first-time callers--into the political ring to avoid having the rug pulled out from underneath them this November.

This guy = Not crazy enough

The candidates for the new ruling committee known as the First Triumvirate of Idiocy--which would yield supreme legislative power over all three branches of the popularly-elected puppet government--are known only as the Three Horsemen of the Corporatocracy (their real names/identities will never be known) and are shown below in a photo taken at the stark press conference announcing both their candidacy and inescapable victory:

Where did these handsome young chaps come from and how is their victory assured, you ask?

Well, they came from nowhere, probably some place really remote, never listened in school, have the craziest ideas you have ever heard, and couldn't run a 7-11 on their own, but that is exactly why they will be elected--THEY ARE SOMETHING NEW AND DIFFERENT.

Besides, it's inevitable, right? You might as well just email them your ATM pin and jump headfirst into the party of the people before they force you to at gunpoint.

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What a Stupid C*nt

She's laughing at you, Arizonans, because she thinks you'll vote for her no matter what she says (or doesn't say). Jan Doofus can ask all she wants, but let's hope she doesn't get any of your votes this fall, despite the fact that she has did done fixed everything.

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The Last Two Feet are the Hardest

Tales from the Front:

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- A doctor involved in an "on-again, off-again" relationship apparently tried to force her way into her boyfriend's home by sliding down the chimney, police said Tuesday. Her decomposing body was found there three days later.

Dr. Jacquelyn Kotarac, 49, first tried to get into the house with a shovel, then climbed a ladder to the roof last Wednesday night, removed the chimney cap and slid feet first down the flue, Bakersfield police Sgt. Mary DeGeare said.

Dr. Jacquelyn Kotarac, 49, first tried to get into the house with a shovel, then climbed a ladder to the roof last Wednesday night, removed the chimney cap and slid feet first down the flue, Bakersfield police Sgt. Mary DeGeare said.

While she was trying to break in, the man she was pursuing escaped unnoticed from another exit "to avoid a confrontation," authorities said.

DeGeare said the two were in an "on-again, off-again" relationship.

The man's identity was not revealed by police, but the man who resides in the home is William Moodie, 58.

Moodie, who runs an engineering consulting firm, said Kotarac was a superb internist who often provided service and medication free of charge to her patients.

Kotarac apparently died in the chimney, but her body was not discovered until a house-sitter noticed a stench and fluids coming from the fireplace Saturday, according to a police statement. The house-sitter and her son investigated with a flashlight and found Kotarac dead, wedged about two feet above the top of the interior fireplace opening.

Firefighters spent five hours late Saturday dismantling the chimney and flue from outside the home to extract Kotarac's body, DeGeare said.

Officials said Kotarac's office staff reported her missing two days prior when she failed to show for work. Her car and belongings remained near the man's house.

A cause of death has not been determined, and an autopsy was scheduled or Tuesday. Foul play is not suspected, though investigators have been looking into the incident as suspicious.

(courtesy Huffington Post) 

Let me get this straight--a man hears his girlfriend trying to get into his house by crawling down the chimney, leaves for three days--in order "to avoid a confrontation," and hires a housesitter (over the phone?) who eventually smells something funny / sees stuff dripping into the fireplace?

What sort of person's first two choices for forced entry into a residence are a shovel and the chimney? Was this Moody guy holed up in some kind of impenetrable fortress? Were there not windows that could have been broken? I mean, the houses in Bakersfield were not exactly built to last...

And where did this guy go all of a sudden, anyway? Was he across town, in bed with some other broad, making this poor sap the laughing-stock of the community, as she breathes her last breath in his chimney--no doubt immediately post-vow to haunt him for eternity?

Probably.

Also, why does it matter that the woman was a doctor? If she were a garbagewoman [Do those even exist? Why are women not forced to represent 50% of the garbage collectors? -Ed], would this article have read "Garbagewoman Dies in Chimney Trying to Break into Boyfriend's Home?"

I think not. You see, we expect that kind of behavior from garbagewomen--when doctors do it, it's newsworthy. It sells papers.

"A doctor did it? Hmmm...well, there must be some kind of juicy story behind this...doctors are usually so put-together and never have to worry about money...oh, look, it says here she was a 'superb internist'..."

-Woman reading aloud to her cat while eating her third bowl of Kix

Meanwhile, the carcasses of her last twelve cats decompose in the nearby chimney, totally unnoticed by the world until Hoarders comes through and turns that ole garbagewoman's life right-side-up in thirty minutes of too-hot-for-TV, soul-crushing depression and feigned re-birth.

Don't miss it!

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Senator Palpatine Living in New Jersey

86-years-young Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), aka Darth Sidious

Sure, he may look bone-chillingly evil, but Senator Frank Lautenberg is actually pretty liberal.

He supports the gays, the women, the poor, the sick...WTF, right? Is the Dark Side in the throes of some generations-long, total-mind-fuck takeover scheme that will crush our spirit forever?

Probably. They've always been more cunning than the good guys...

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Rich Man Gets His Desserts

Reprinted from Time.com:

On Dec. 5, 1985, Christopher Forbes, vice chairman of Forbes magazine, shelled out $157,000 for a bottle of wine at a Christie's auction in London — still the largest sum on record ever paid for a single bottle. Its body handblown from deep green glass, sealed with a wad of dark wax and inscribed with "Th.J.," the 1787 Château Lafite was thought to come from a collection of wines belonging to Thomas Jefferson. "It's more fun than the opera glasses Lincoln was holding when he was shot," Forbes declared at the time. "And we have those too." Though Jefferson was born on the Virginia frontier, he served as the U.S.'s minister to France in the late 18th century and is regarded as America's first true oenophile. Regardless, the trove of wines the bottle came from, discovered in an old building in Paris, are now almost universally believed to have been fakes. Upon further investigation, it seems that the Founding Father's initials were etched into the bottles using a power tool.

Too bad that asshole didn't use Lincoln's opera glasses to discover he was about to drop $157,000 on a marginally-clever forgery, eh?

Although it probably doesn't matter in the end, since he has been squeezing at least that much money out of the middle class every day of his life and it probably still tasted really good when he opened for his prized pony's fourth birthday party.

The plot thickens:

Remember those two billionaire assholes who fund all the Tea Party bullshit? Well, their brother, Bill, was also taken in by the same scheme.

How thorough were Forbes and Koch, wealthy investors by birthright, at doing their due diligence?

When a cache of more than a dozen bottles engraved 'Th.J.' reportedly came to light in 1985, [German collector Hardy] Rodenstock said they had been found in a walled-up cellar in Paris, where Jefferson served as minister to France. Jefferson, who helped draft America's Declaration of Independence, became the country's third President.

The exact quantity of wine reportedly found, and the precise location of the cache, have never been established. Rodenstock told decanter.com that in 1985 he was told of the find, and flew to Paris to see the bottles, which he was told he must pay cash for. He will not say who called him, and says that he did not go to the actual house.

(courtesy decanter.com)

Sounds like everything checked out fine, there should definitely be no blame placed on the stupid greedy buyers who overpaid for a stupid trophy whose existence nobody could prove. I hope they get their day in court and spend even more money on lawyers.

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It is the end of August and I feel thirsty.

So, apparently, does the mewling alleycat outside my window, but unfortunately for me, my thirst is not so easily slaked.

No passing stranger of the opposite sex can solve my hydration problem, even if they wanted to, but here this greedy cat will take all comers and get as much as she wants.

Or maybe my perspective is wrong.

Maybe satisfaction looms in the distance, tantalizingly on her radar but frustratingly never within reach. Maybe she is a tormented soul whose thirst, like mine, is bottomless. Maybe we are two of a kind.

Much like the insatiable central characters in the 1976 Japanese arthouse porno, In the Realm of the Senses, which I watched this evening in (mostly) wide-eyed surprise.

Never in my life have I seen so much penis--and I own one.

Never in my life have I seen two people engage in so much public fornication, to such blase reaction. To say the sex is gratuitous misses the point, but still--it is exhausting to watch.

Here is what Mr. Criterion has to say about the movie, for all you bumpkins out there that ain't never heard of it:

SYNOPSIS: Still censored in its own country, In the Realm of the Senses (Ai no corrida), by Japanese director Nagisa Oshima, remains one of the most controversial films of all time. A graphic portrayal of insatiable sexual desire, Oshima’s film, set in 1936 and based on a true incident, depicts a man and a woman (Tatsuya Fuji and Eiko Matsuda) consumed by a transcendent, destructive love while living in an era of ever escalating imperialism and governmental control. Less a work of pornography than of politics, In the Realm of the Senses is a brave, taboo-breaking milestone.
SYNOPSIS: WARNING: THIS FILM IS SEXUALLY EXPLICIT

I wish I could agree with their pornography versus politics angle, but there was so little politics involved in this movie that I was bored stiff. Imagine saying that! I wanted more politics!

What exactly...were the politics? I saw some soldiers march past in one scene, but who knows what that's supposed to mean. What I do know is that the entire movie involves a former prostitute fellating, ravaging, and beating/strangling her master-cum-husband, whom she rapidly turns into her willing sex slave.

I'll put it this way--there is a good reason the narrator feels the need, at movie's end, to reveal the events took place in 1936, because any other movie that took place in Japan in 1936 and even hinted at politics would have found that designation superfluous.

Game, set, match. Verdict: Porno. Sorry Criterion--there was no need to salvage this one.

That being said, if you are in for an initially titillating movie that ultimately makes you never want to have sex again, this 'masterpiece' is for you. Enjoy!

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Oh, Chicago--Don't be so lonely!

I know Chicagoans have it rough, what with everybody either dismissing their city as windy/cold or, worse (?), just flying over them all the time, but has it really gotten this bad?

How bad? This bad:

(link to post)

What? Also, what?! This creepy dude wants "a female" to spend a long time describing--in an email--how her hand moves while she eats cereal? How on Earth would this be enjoyable for anybody who isn't certifiably insane? Is this a last cry for help before RickMoranisRulez spikes his own Tab? Or will he choose to go to work one day with a collector's-edition Rick Moranis mask and a pair of over-the-counter machine guns instead?

Chicago must be real lonely right now. If you know somebody in Chicago, please give them a hug so this craziness stops before it spreads to the entire Midwest and the Pervert Monster gets so big it ultimately destroys both dismissive coasts (who are never paying attention) with a careless flailing of a giant-sized arm--as painstakingly described by LonelyGirl69 in a soon-to-be-legendary email blast.

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What if Spiderman was a chiseled, 35 year-old man with pimples?

Who liked to use his powers to spy on women changing their clothes with the curtains open?

And sometimes had powers he couldn't control...

Especially at night!

Oh, James Cameron--you might have just redeemed yourself for Titanic and Avatar.

Might. I'll let you know for sure once I've had a few years to think about it...

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Man, I Hope This Kid Gets Raped in Prison

 (Steven Hirsch/AP)

Although he is being referred to as a man by all the news outlet--and he is certainly old enough for the designation, on a technical level--we all know Michael Enright is little more than a punk kid.

To clarify a bit further, he is an arrogant sissy-punk kid who should be put in a whole and never heard from again.

Who is Michael Enright, you ask?

Ask and ye shall receive (Goodtime 13:46):

James Zaleta, an assistant district attorney, said in court that Mr. Enright hailed a taxi near 24th Street and Second Avenue on Tuesday evening. Mr. Enright asked the taxi driver, who was from Bangladesh, whether he was Muslim, Mr. Zaleta said.
After the driver said he was, Mr. Enright responded with the Arabic greeting, “Assalamu alaikum,” according to the criminal court complaint.

Then Mr. Enright said, “Consider this a checkpoint,” before pulling out a Leatherman utility knife and slashing the taxi driver’s throat, Mr. Zaleta said. The driver turned and Mr. Enright slashed him in his face and forearms, Mr. Zaleta said.

(courtesy NYTimes.com)

Don't worry, Teabaggers--your hero already has some crafty big-city lawyer doing his best to get him free after billing as many hours as possible:

Jason A. Martin, Mr. Enright’s lawyer, said his client lived with his parents and was an honor student at the School of Visual Arts, where he is a senior.

Mr. Enright is a volunteer with Intersections International, a nonprofit that works to promote cross-cultural understanding and has spoken out in favor of the proposed Islamic cultural center near ground zero. Mr. Enright, who shuffled into court with a collared T-shirt, cargo shorts and shackles around his ankles, has also worked with veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, Mr. Martin said.

“He’s terrified,” Mr. Martin said of his client. “He’s shocked at the allegations. He’s just trying to cope with it right now.”

(also courtesy NYTimes.com)

He's "shocked at the allegations?" He was caught immediately after leaving the cab--it's not like they were going on a description and picked up some random chubby white dude with orange hair who looks permanently scared.

But, more to the point, who the fuck cares that this little prick is an honor student who lives lived with his parents? Why is this a detail anybody needs to know? All we need to know is that he is now living in prison, where he belongs.

And here's to hoping he stays there for a long time and gets treated to a few serious invasions of privacy every day until he learns his lesson the hard way--DON'T FUCK WITH PEOPLE FOR NO REASON.


Dessert:
It's gotta suck to be this guy right now.

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Further Proof People Will Watch Anything If They Have No Good Choices

The Expendables takes the crown two weeks in a row, after FIVE new movies premiered this past weekend? And all it took was a $16.5 million haul in August?

Some shitty spoof of shitty vampire movies came out to no acclaim? A 3D remake of low-budget cult-hit Piranha? Bow-Wow wins the lottery? Some movie about Julia Roberts eating gelato in Italy while looking for herself/a man that middle-aged women don't even like?

What the fuck is going on? Is this the third horseman?

It gets worse: The Nanny McPhee sequel beat out America's Sweetheart(TM) Jennifer Aniston's The Switch. Ha-ha!

Will this undeniably laughable result finally decrease her shitty-romantic-comedy output to less than two per year in the coming decade (until she finally ODs on whatever it is that numbs her), or do I have to sew my eyeballs shut every time I risk encountering a billboard or commercial?

Speaking of Jennifer Aniston (nee Brangelina), I know there are plenty of men out there who would 'put one in her,' but aside from that, does anybody actually care for her at all? Anybody not on her payroll, I mean. Does she have fans? Who are they? Do they not realize how boring and whiny she is, or are they interested in her like somebody who goes down to the Y once a week is interested in some little kid without a dad?

By the way, not all movies made these days are shitty--the ones that are good are usually just really hard to find. For example, when will we finally get to see 2009's I Love You Phillip Morris?

Which 12 old white men running this country from the rec room at the C-Street House do I have to blow like a circus seal during some clandestine pagan ritual in order to get the religious-right minority to back down on this one? Would they even realize the irony in making me do that? How many of them will write me checks for my services because they don't know how to use an ATM?

I'd rather not have to accidentally blow any footsoldiers, so precision is appreciated here, my child; do whatever you need to in order to get me those names.

Love,
Your Mother

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Finally, a Pop Singer Takes Responsibility

The douchebag in the middle--Charles Haddon, lead singer of legendarily obscure British pop band Ou Est Le Swimming Pool, which just rolls off your tongue--climbed a telecommunications tower in Belgium yesterday and jumped to his death. Immediately following a performance at a music festival with a funny name, which, when translated, means "PimplePop."

What gives, right? After only three singles, OELSP's transgressions against humanity's ears/minds had already reached a tipping point?

I can only assume so, since only forty people have ever heard any of their music. And two of them are now dead.

Ou Est Le Swimming Pool's first album--Christ Died for Our Synths (how's that for agonizing guilt?)--is scheduled for an October release.

The real question, though, is whether or not Christ will finally forgive the band for their synths and move on, stop torturing all mortals by lording his own death over millions of guilt-ridden believers.

Something tells me that won't happen, but I'll keep my finger on the pulse for ya.

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Ann Coulter Equates College Students with al-Qaida

Al-Qaeda, al-Qaida, al-Qa'ida, Qaeda...call them what you will, Bushites--the bottom line is they are the enemy and they are potentially everywhere, including Texas and the other 58 states.

Who are they? Irrelevant. Towel-heads. Brown people. Taxpayers. Liberals. Nuke 'em. God will sort 'em out. Whatever.

Noted foot-in-mouther Sarah Palin must have been busy watching the wet nurse breastfeed Trig as she gagged/Twittered, because this little number was left up to fellow conservative darling Ann Coulter (Hmm...the most prominent conservatives are Ann Coulter and Sarah Palin because...they are the best?)

"They hired me to give a speech, so I'm giving a speech. I do it all the time," she said. "I speak to a lot of groups and do not endorse them. I speak at Harvard and I certainly don't endorse their views. I've spoken to Democratic groups and liberal Republican groups that loooove abortion. The main thing I do is speak on college campuses, which is about the equivalent of speaking at an al-Qaida conference. I'm sure I agree with GOProud more than I do with at least half of my college audiences. But in any event, giving a speech is not an endorsement of every position held by the people I'm speaking to."

(courtesy Huffington Post)

"The main thing I do is speak on college campuses, which is about the equivalent of speaking at an al-Qaida conference."

Who is this supposed to insult more, al-Qaida or college students? Is she really equating ALL college students with al-Qaida members? Why? Because they're getting educated and don't just take whatever you try to cram down their throats? Has she ever met an al-Qaida member? Why are we listening to this woman again? Who IS she?

Ann Coulter was born in New York City, to rich parents, went to Cornell, then to Michigan, then was a law clerk in Kansas City, before she was scooped up by a Republican party desperate for pretty faces and controversy. She writes awful books and delivers awful speeches to anybody with deep pockets.

Seeing that Ann Coulter went to not one but TWO colleges, she's pretty much Public Enemy #1, as that of course implies that she is one of al-Qaida's most sophisticated operatives. Although I am unsure of her motives in revealing this new shit to the world--is she a double agent? triple agent?--many thanks to Imam Coulter, for it is now easier than ever to spot terrorists.

They are the ones who read books and think critically--and their names and addresses can conveniently be found in the admissions department at any college in the country.

Get out your guns, people! Kill the nerds that hate your freedom!

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And a good day to you, sir!

Nicholas Cage (nee Coppola) shows off the top form that earned him his cherished Celebrity Merit Badge for Transvestic Fetishism.

Bravo, Nicoletta! Così sexy voglio avergli sesso con!

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Elves are the Tallest of All the Nature Spirits

I'm sure you all already knew that, but if you didn't, please write that down, along with a hundred other bits of info about elves (as seen in Lord of the Rings):



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Heidi Montag Knows Hyperbole

She may not know what the word means, but Heidi Montag should receive a Celebrity Merit Badge for Hyperbole.

First, her freaky, hyperbolically-curvy, wax-figurine body, courtesy of plastic surgeon Frank Ryan:

Second, the Team Heidi-approved Twitters after said plastic surgeon drove his Jeep off a cliff along the Pacific Coast Highway and died:

I am devastated to hear the news of Dr. Frank Ryan's death. He was the most amazing person I have ever known. He was an angel and changed my life and the lives of everyone he met. He was the most brilliant talented surgeon who will ever exist. Dr. Frank Ryan changed the world.

My thoughts and prayers go out to his mother, family, friends, and anyone who was ever blessed enough to meet him. He is in a better place.

(Courtesy Huffington Post)

"The most brilliant surgeon who will ever exist," who "changed the lives of everyone he met?"

Yeah, right. I believe that almost as much as I believe Heidi has the capacity to be "devastated" by anything, or that Dr. Moron "is in a better place"--he's in Hell, baby! Yeah!

Which, for the record, is much worse than being paid millions of dollars for totally unnecessary surgical procedures and then using the money to cavort around Southern California changing people's lives for the worse, all the while giggling and doing lines of silicone off the dashboard.

I have no evidence to support this claim, but something tells me Dr. Frank may have driven off a cliff because his latest 'perfect' monster (Two heads with six tongues, mounted on a giant breast!) was giving him head and it was so fantastic he just couldn't take it.

Or maybe that's just some hyperbole right there...who's to know?

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Death by Cuteness

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On:


MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON from Dean Fleischer-Camp on Vimeo.

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The Michael Cera Problem

First there was Paper Heart, then Youth in Revolt (which, for the record, was disappointing mostly because there was no real romance going on), and now Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, so I think the citizens of moviedom finally have all the evidence we need to justly psychoanalyze the central figure in the imminent crisis known in the halls of power as the Michael Cera Problem, which, incidentally, is soon to be the Next Big Thing once the Looming Commercial Real Estate Crash has its way with us.

With that in mind, please enjoy the following fabulous entry to the research on this cutting-edge topic, from Stephanie Zacharek at Movieline:

I used to worry about Cera as an actor: He seemed like a talented kid in danger of being limited by his own acute boyishness. And I still think that maybe — maybe — smart filmmakers will figure out ways to bring out the best in him. But in Scott Pilgrim his wispy smile and quivery voice aren’t endearing; they’re an affront. In every frame, Scott appears to be begging us not just to love him (which would be bad enough), but to pity him.

I’m willing to suspend disbelief enough to believe that Cera’s capable of playing a character with a sex drive. In fact, Juno handled that aspect of his character astutely: We never saw him trying to get the girl; we simply knew that he had, and that fact alone suggested that maybe this sweet, gawky kid was really quite something in the sack. Sex is, after all, one of life’s great mysteries.

But Cera plays Scott Pilgrim as the kind of guy who thinks that getting an erection is an insult to a girl, damning evidence that he doesn’t just, as we used to say in the ’70s, “love her for her mind.” Men and women alike have plenty of sexual anxieties. But just as men — the good ones — will sometimes tell us women that we don’t need to be Victoria’s Secret models to be sexy, men should know that they don’t have to be Bruce Springsteen — or even, heaven forfend, Mick Jagger — for us to find them irresistible. But they do have to look as if they might possibly be interested in having sex, and that’s a bridge too far for Cera in Scott Pilgrim. So what if he passes the Herculean he-man test the story puts him through? He still has all the sexual charisma of an untied shoelace. And even a woman who likes the soft touch can’t do much with that.

(courtesy Movieline)

I couldn't have said it better myself--after all, without any degree of sex drive detectable by modern scientists, what is the point of getting the girl?

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Sunday is a Good Day for Regret

Anything you should have done differently? Is there still enough time to change every single thing about you?

You have the day off, probably, so why don't you just sit back, take stock of your life, order another couple martinis, and figure this shit out once and for all.

After all, there is still time. For most of you...

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