February 17, 2007
The Shark? Oh Yeah, It's So Jumped
Back in the day, I developed a healthy -- well, you could probably call it unhealthy -- fixation on Britney Spears. Her lack of musical talent didn't bother me... because well, y'know, the woman was just freaking hot for a while there.
Through the ever-growing train wreck that has been the woman's life for the past three years, I've kept the faith. Through a 55 hour marriage and annulment in Vegas, to the marriage to a no-talent leech like K-Fed, even through the recent no-underwear phase, I held on, believing that maybe someday we'd get the nymphet of 2000-2002 back.
No more.
This latest news story not only takes her life from train wreck to a 9.7-on-the-Richter-scale disaster, but it has officially killed off any last remaining interest, physical or otherwise, I had in Britney Spears. She's permanently jumped the shark... not only is she officially off my 5-Celebrities-I-Get-A-Free-Pass-With list, she's off my I'd Do That list. Hell, she's off of my If I Was Massively Schnockered And It Was Last Call And All The Other Women Went Home With Somebody Already list. She's even off my There Are Only One Woman And One Man Left On Earth, And Reproductive Sex Is The Only Way To Perpetuate The Species And Ensure Human Survival, And We're It, So... What's Your Sign? list. I mean, if a mass plague hits and there's only Britney and I left, and the only way humanity could survive is for her and I to make like bunny rabbits... then well, humanity... it was a hell of a run, too bad it had to end.
She's become utterly vile. It's honestly sad. I took her in my dead pool for 2007, and I'm more confident in my choice today than ever. Either she gets help, or she's gone by New Year's Eve. Sad, really. Britney, honey.... don't call me, I have an early squash game tomorrow... or something.
Posted by Christopher at 11:42 AM | Comments (5)January 05, 2007
Dead Pool 2007
Okay, I've had friends asking me when this post was coming and who'd be on the list... so once again, I present to you the often imitated, never duplicated, karma-tweaking Curmudgeon's Dead Pool for 2007. Remember... this is a twisted game I was first exposed to while working at the Minnesota Senate in the early 1990s; you list ten famous people who you think are goners in 2007 and will not celebrate Jan 1, 2008 with us. If they do indeed "pass on" during the next 12 months, you get a certain amount of points -- 1 point if they're over 65, 2 points if they're between 40-64, and 3 points if they're under 39. Yeah, it's sick, sorta twisted, and rather perverse... but then, so am I, and I think this is morbid fun!
In 1994, Kurt Cobain and Richard Nixon died within two weeks of each other, giving me four points and vaulting me into an insurmountable lead in the pool among capitol workers... and I was hooked. So who makes my list for 2007? (Please recall that I of course bear no ill will toward any of the people on the list and am not wishing death upon them... I'm just taking my best educated guesses as to whose number may be up.)
1. Britney Spears - 3 points. She's a walking OD waiting to happen... and has gotten so trashy that even I am not really as interested in the inevitable pictorial in Playboy now. Only two questions are: will she pose before she goes? ... and will she live longer than my #2 selection....
2. Lindsay Lohan - 3 points. Another OD walking. She's got some talent, but you'd never see it hidden under all those shenanigans. I have friends who argue that Britney's antics are largely harmless partying that is different than what we all did in our college/early 20s years only in that she has a microscope on her. That argument is harder to extend to Lohan. This kid's in trouble, and without an intervention of some sort all that talent will go to waste.
3. Zsa Zsa Gabor - 1 point You can only slap so many cops before karma smites back. Famous for being famous, in 2007 this octegenarian sexpot will become famous for not being.
4. Barack Obama - 2 points I don't want this. Repeat, I will be thrilled if I'm wrong. But Obama poses too big a threat to the ubiquitious "they" ... racists and suthun crackers won't like the potential of a black man with a non-traditionally American name becoming President... conservatives won't like a liberal populist... there's too many people who'll feel too threatened by this man. I fear a Bobby Kennedy-like martyrdom.
5. Eddie Van Halen - 2 points Another one I don't want. But if you've seen Eddie lately, you know that he is a poster child for the walking undead, and the prime example of what decades of hard living can do to a person before their time. He's already had cancer of the mouth... and he's still smoking, insisting that it was years of holding guitar picks in his mouth that caused his tongue cancer. The Van Hagar reunion was cut short when both Sammy and Michael Anthony got sick of Eddie being too drunk to perform well on stage. Methinks Eddie's on borrowed time.
6. Rush Limbaugh - 2 points Wishful thinking on my part? Maybe. But objectively, the man's had multiple addiction problems with painkillers, and an overdose would seem possible -- as would other health problems related to years of abusing opiates like oxyc0ntin.
7. Henry Kissinger - 1 point Now that Ford's gone, Kissinger is really the last scion of the post-Vietnam Republican leadership. He's had a long life, and it may be time for him to mumble on up to that great think tank in the sky.
8. Bobby Knight - 1 point He's got the record. What else is there to live for? Especially for a hypertensive Type A personality like Knight? If there's ever been anyone capable of tantruming himself to death, it's Coach Knight.
9. Hugh Hefner - 1 point He's 80 now, and has spent 50 years living a life that most straight American males wish we could have had for just 5 years. It has to catch up to him some time.
10. Courtney Love - 2 points She'll be on this list every year until she either proves that she doesn't belong on it anymore, or finally finishes herself off.
So there it is... my 2007 list. My 2006 record: 1 point (and even that came late, as Gerald Ford died on December 26.) Anyone else out there got any suggestions?
Posted by Christopher at 07:34 AM | Comments (0)December 26, 2006
Goodbye, President Ford
Breaking news tonight... President Gerald Ford has died at the age of 93.
Mr. Ford was a good and decent man whose laid back, informal character and personality helped the nation heal from the bitter open wounds of Watergate. His dedication to his country overrode his political goals -- and while I would have been angry about the Nixon pardon if I had been old enough in 1974 to understand what it was, I must admit that in hindsight it was the right thing to do; he not only did what he thought was right, but did what he thought was right for the country despite the impact that decision had on his personal fortune as president. I wish more of our leaders today had that kind of courage.
Goodbye, President Ford. Your decency and commitment to our country will be missed, sir.
UPDATE: In the AP story recalling Ford's decision to pardon Nixon, there's an amazing quote that I wanted to highlight.
On the other hand, granting a pardon could touch off an uproar that would sink Ford’ s election hopes.
“I’m aware of that,” Ford recalled snapping at a cautious aide. “It could easily cost me the next election if I run again. But damn it, I don’t need the polls to tell me whether I’m right or wrong.”
God knows that we could use more of that kind of courage in our so-called leaders of today.
Posted by Christopher at 11:55 PM | Comments (0)December 23, 2006
Survey: Are There Heroes Worth Having Left?
In general, I don't have heroes anymore.
This is partly just out of personal belief that John Lennon had it right when he said "I don't believe in Beatles, I just believe in me." Putting your faith or adulation in anyone other than yourself is, to me, a capitulation to fate -- a willingness to cede to others the control of qualities you want in yourself. (I'm referring of course to making heroes of those one doesn't know; admiring someone you do know and who you can observe displaying those qualities on a regular basis is a different and natural thing. And it goes without saying that the courage and bravery dsiplayed on a daily basis by firefighters and police officers is eminently worthy of respect and admiration, but I am talking about a different kind of hero worship right now.) We all have a need to believe noble things about humanity... I just think it's better to strive for that nobility one's self than to project it on to others.
This is also partly because I've learned as I've gotten older that so many of my earlier heroes were merely flawed human beings themselves. John F. Kennedy was a serial philanderer and addict; Kirby Puckett cheated on and may have beaten up his wife; the heroes of the 1998 home run chase were likely 'roided up beyond recognition. I've known politicians personally, met captains of industry... and invariably they're all just like me -- maybe smarter, maybe stronger, but still just human beings with strengths and flaws just like me. And if I'm going to admire and project heroic qualities upon any flawed human being... why not just work harder to embody those qualities myself?
Over Thanksgiving, I saw "Bobby," and have been mulling the concept of heroes ever since. Bobby Kennedy was my last hero, the last larger-than-life one I was willing to let go of as someone to look up to or want to emulate. I know the flaws (he ordered the assassination attempts on Castro, he was unscrupulous as all hell in protecting and promoting his brother... but no, I don't believe the Marilyn Monroe rumors... I think only JFK had the affair with her), but I also see what he believed in for America -- a more equitable, fairer society that takes seriously its responsibility to care for its lesser members and sees doing so as one of the obligations of wealth -- and what he represented to the people who believed so deeply in him... and I want to be more like that person.
That may not have been who Robert Francis Kennedy was, but it was who "Bobby" was to the people he sought to represent. I cannot imagine that any politician since Bobby -- white or black -- could have ridden standing in a convertible through the poorest barrios and ghettos of our nation's cities, and had people rushing the car and tearing at him, wanting simply to touch him or to get a small piece of his clothes or aura... not because he could play ball or could sing well, but because of the appeal and nobility of his ideas. It isn't so much who Bobby was but the hope he represented to his followers that made him my last hero. In the end, however, my aforementioned belief that it is better to try to be your own hero has won out, and I stopped idolizing Bobby Kennedy; stopped, that is, until I saw the movie.
And while the script is merely a fictionalized idealization of Kennedy and his followers, I still found myself crying at the end along with the characters. Not crying for Bobby Kennedy, necessarily, but rather for what I think was lost that day... the passionate hope that someone could lead the people and that we could change things. (The more popular politicians since then -- Reagan in particular -- have represented not change so much as a desire to roll back change, to turn the clock back to simpler times, in simpler terms -- i.e. more black and white with no gray in between -- and the protection of those who have rather than the empowerment of those who have not. And while Clinton was magnetic, even I as one of his fans have a hard time defining just what it is that he stood for.)
I've been thinking since then about whether there's anyone left in the public realm who's worthy of that kind of faith, that kind of passion, that kind of hope. Today's politicians leave me cold... maybe Barack Obama, who seems to have that kind of charisma, but I have questions about his experience. I saw that Bono was given an honorary knighthood in the British Empire this weekend... I think he honestly probably comes closest for me, if I were going to choose any contemporary public figure as a hero.
He could have lounged around as a supserstar emeritus of rock -- either becoming a sad self-parody a la Mick Jagger and Keith Richards or Paul McCartney, or fading cantakerously from the scene a la Bob Dylan or David Byrne -- or could have just sat around counting his money and making increasingly less relevant records. Instead, he chose activism. And not the Tim Robbins, Richard Gere, or Patricia Heaton style activism either, where public figures get an inch deep of information and then spend their time either preaching to their respective choirs or making unwelcome intrusions on inappropriate situations (i.e., when you're making an acceptance speech at the Oscars or Emmys). No one wants to hear from a celebrity who's signed on for the cause du jour armed only with the talking points provided to them by some interest group.
Bono has instead a) first armed himself with as much knowledge and understanding of the issues he's passionate about as any think tank policy wonk; and b) set about trying to effect real change, not by talking to the like-minded, but by going about trying to change the minds of those who have a different view. Name me another entertainment celebrity who could have gone into Jesse Helms' office to talk about AIDS funding and Third World debt relief and dsiplayed so much mastery as to not only earn Helms' respect, but actually change his mind? Bono has used his fame and wealth to try and make the world a better place... not for himself, and not even for his fans, but for the untold billions who have no other voice through which to be heard. And to me, that's as noble and as close to heroism as anything I see out there.
So there's my vote cast... if there are any heroes remaining worth having in the public sphere, Bono is my selection. I'm curious as to who others might tab as a hero still worthy of the label. Fire away, kids.. enquiring Mudges want to know.
Posted by Christopher at 10:05 AM | Comments (0)November 27, 2006
Somebody Up There Likes Me
All I can say is... somebody up there likes me. A lot. I don't need anything for Christmas now.
Oh, of course I looked. What, are you kidding? (I was impressed.)
Posted by Christopher at 10:54 PM | Comments (2)November 25, 2006
Time Magazine's Person Of The Year, 2006: Mudge's Nominee
There are a lot of scary things about people I work with having discovered this blog... but one of the nice things about it is that every once in a while I get a completely unexpected note from someone I never would have thought was a reader, telling me that they liked that day's post or enjoy reading me. A couple of weeks ago, one such note came from a friend I didn't realize was a reader. In that e-mail she also suggested that I do a post on my thoughts as to who should be Time's "Man of the Year" for 2006. I replied that I had done such a post in 2005 and was planning on doing this year's after Thanksgiving. Well, it's after Thanksgiving. So "K," this one's inspired in part by you!
Remembering that Time's criteria is the person who "for better or worse, has most influenced events in the preceding year," there were a number of people I could make arguments for in 2006 -- but none whom I could make really strong arguments for. Sadly, very few of them were even positive influences on the world this year; it's been that kind of year. And each of those people ended up connected back to the same individual... so in the end I chose that individual. But before I reveal that person, let me review the other candidates, in reverse order (in other words, as the list goes on, the case for that person grows stronger):
-- Jack Abramoff A corrupt and crooked lobbyist, Abramoff had ties to seemingly half of the Republican Party. Just being written about in the same sentence with him was pure poison; ties with Abramoff contributed to the defeats, ousters, and in a couple of cases indictments of: Tom DeLay (R-TX), Conrad Burns (R-MT), Bob Ney (R-OH), and Richard Pombo (R-CA), sunk the candidacy of Christian wing-nut Ralph Reed for Lieutenant Governor of Georgia, and was one of the larger factors in fostering an image of the Republican Party as corrupt and out of touch that contributed to their defeat in November and the turnover of control in the Legislative Branch. Take down a half dozen people in elections or court, and cost your party control of Congress in an election, and you warrant consideration.
-- Howard Dean A lot of "mainstream" Democrats -- many of my good friends and readers of this blog included -- were mortified when Howard Dean took over as DNC chairman. They had bought hook line and sinker into the conservative media's portrayal of Dean as a shrieking liberal madman, and were convinced that Dean's ascension meant the end of Democratic hopes in 2006. I recall several conversations in which Dean's "50 state strategy" was belittled (and you know who you are... but in case you don't recall, it was someone who likes basketball a whole lot). Well, we got the rout folks predicted... but it was a Democratic rout. Dean's 50 state strategy fell into place nicely. And while the November elections were much more a national statement about Republican corruption and incompetence, Dean had to have the Democrats in a position to take advantage of public frustration. He did.
John Murtha For years, Bush Republicans covered their incompetence by using the media and strong-arm scare tactics to bully opponents, suggesting that anyone who disagreed with or criticized Bush Administration policy was un-American and unpatriotic. For a few sad years, it worked. And then John Murtha, a 37 year veteran of the Marine Corps who'd served with honor and distinction in Vietnam, pointed out what everyone knew but no one had been "allowed" to say: that the Emperor had no clothes, and that the Iraq invasion's aftermath was a failure. And this time, when the predictable conservative response of "unpatriotism" was trotted out, no one bought it. Republicans were roundly hissed and booed for suggesting that Murtha was a coward. And in making a courageous stand against incompetence, cowardice, and deliberately putting our servicemen and women in harm's way, John Murtha poked the first successful hole in the chickenspit "our critics are un-American" defense that Bush/Cheney/Rove/Rumsfeld so often fall back on. It doesn't work anymore... thanks in large part to John Murtha.
Kim Jong-Il and Mohammed Ahmadinejad Want to prove to the world just how incompetent and all-talk-no-action George W. Bush is? Just point to these two -- famous members of Bush's "Axis of Evil" who have defied not just Zippy the Wonder Chimp but the entire world, and have acquired nuclear weapons of mass destruction. Apparently, Bush will invade a country that doesn't really have WMD (he'll just lie to the world and say they do), but when a nation actually has WMD, Bush' words fall flatter than a side view of Kate Moss. With their megalomaniacal pursuit of weapons of mass destruction to no consequence, these two despots helped prove the hollowness of Bush's rhetoric -- all while making our world far less stable and threatening American security.
Do you notice the common thread tying all these folks together? Yes... when asked to pick someone who, for better or worse, had the most impact on the news of 2006, I choose George W. Bush. Almost every other person who affected the news this year achieved their impact by helping to expose the utter incompetence and disingenuousness of George W. Bush. His reign of terror is only 3/4 over, but it's already an almost inarguable matter than Bush has proven himself to be the worst president in American history, and one of the most incompetent and unfit "leaders" in world history. He affected the news, all right. Not for good reasons but for those of sheer ineptitude, George W. Bush is my nominee for Time Magazine's Man of the Year.
Posted by Christopher at 09:40 AM | Comments (2)October 03, 2006
25 Million Reasons You're An Idiot
Remember the old "Sprockets" skits on Saturday Night Live? Mike Myers' Dieter would have a guest on who would be prattling off about one thing or another, and Dieter would suddenly interrupt them with a caustic, Euro-trashy putdown: "Your story has become tiresome." I have really begun to feel that way about all things involving Terrell Owens. I honestly don't care whether he tried suicide or merely took an ill-advised combination of pain pills and diet supplements. I have tired of his act to the point that I can't even muster outrage at anything that idiot does anymore; he's a cipher to me, a zero, a nothing... he doesn't exist.
His publicist does, though. And she's an idiot. Kim Etheredge is an ignorant, unprofessional, stupid idiot.
By now everyone's heard her rant at the end of her press conference last week "defending" T.O. "Terrell has 25 million reasons he should be alive." Most of the outcry from sports columnists has been along the lines that her suggestion was stupid because it implies that money buys happiness. As ESPN Radio's Mike Golic said, "To say that rich people don't have problems is just stupid." You'll pardon me if I don't pat them on the back for their croccodile ink. See, I think the sports world is in that one together; sports culture has devolved these days, especially in the NFL and NBA, into a chase for bling, where winning and the score don't matter as long as you look good, where appearing on SportsCenter as an individual is more important than winning a championship as one of many. I honestly think that the "outrage" from most in the sports community is merely a loud cry that "hey, our lives are hard too!" And I honestly think that Ms. Etheredge's statements came from the culture she's immersed in. Surrounded by professional athletes who do equate money and bling with happiness, she can be forgiven for having succumbed to that mindset.
As I've written before, I have personal experience with depression and mental illness; I've heard plenty of ignorant statements on the subject. Frankly, the whole "he's rich so why would he be depressed" mindset bothers me less than the ignorant things I've heard from others in the past... people who will tell a depressed person that s/he needs to "snap out of it" or "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" or that "it's time you cut this out and went on with your life" or some other ignorant thing -- the implication that being depressed is a choice, a character flaw involving willingness to wallow. A depressed person can choose to "snap out of it" and be happy again as easily as a paraplegiac can choose to stand up from their wheelchair and walk out of it; depression is real, is physiological, and cannot be escaped simply by choice. Those kinds of statements bother me a hell of a lot more than a suggestion that money buys happiness and that anyone with $25 million shouldn't be depressed. The money argument comes from the sports culture; the other argument comes from willful ignorance of a disease.
But what really bothers me about Kim Etheredge is that she's -- allegedly -- a professional publicist. Her chosen profession is my chosen profession, really; her clients may be professional athletes and mine corporate executives, but we share a basic profession. I work with friends and mentors who also do this for a living; we're good at it, we take pride in it, and it's not something that just anybody can do (as Ms. Etheredge has so ably demonstrated). And she's given us all a black eye.
A publicist/comms person's job is to quell or stifle controversy, not add to it. Owens and Etheredge's apologists have been defending her with the rather stupid notion that, as Owens said, "It was a new situation for her. ... [It's] very uncomfortable to be in front of the camera getting drilled with a lot of questions." Excuse me, but isn't that what she's paid for, Terrell? If it was a new situation or was something she was uncomfortable with, then she shouldn't have been in that position in the first place.
A publicist's job is to be ready for every question -- to have prepared, to have anticipated everything, to be ready for the tough questions when they come. And Kim Etheredge had to know going into that press conference that she was going to get the question, "Is T.O. depressed?" How she, as a "professional" PR person, could enter that room without the word-for-word answer to that question practiced and perfected is not only beyond me, but insults the profession I've chosen and been successful in. She failed PR 101.
She showed up snapping gum, reinforcing every negative stereotype reporters (and people like me) wanted to have of her as a hanger-on posse-member rather than establishing herself as a professional to be taken seriously. Her credibility was shot the moment she opened her mouth to issue her first statement. And were she a professional, she would have known better.
Most of all, Etheredge was ignorant of her most basic role on that day. Her client was involved in controversy -- again. There were already preconceptions of the client's behavior and attitude, due to his past actions. She was there to make her client a sympathetic figure; to explain the facts, yes -- but even more so, to try and win support for her client. And that's where she failed most miserably. Because let's just say for the sake of her inane argument that it were true -- that 25 million reasons would in fact preclude depression.
Why would you rub that in the face of the public?
Why would you basically reinforce to the public that "my client is richer than you are and has fewer problems?" Why would you take an unsympathetic character and issue the statement that above all others is guaranteed to set the public against him even further? Have you not been watching what's been happening in the Bronx this year, Kim? Alex Rodriguez' $25 million contract is a source of resentment and disdain that has turned fans on him, and no level of performance on the field is ever going to fully win them over. Part of your job as a publicist is also to get the lay of the land, to know the environment in which you and your client are operating... and two minutes' research or study would have let you know that highlighting T.O.'s contract was not going to win him any sympathy or make the public feel better about anything he's done or will do.
She wasn't prepared. She walked in with an attitude and snapping her gum, making herself a strike against her client rather than a damage control artisan. She missed the very basics of the dynamic she and her client were into. I can honestly tell you that I have had interns who could have, and would have, done a better job handling that situation.
I'm a communications person/PR guy by trade. And I'm embarrassed to share my professional calling with someone as unprofessional and unintelligent as Kim Etheredge.
Posted by Christopher at 06:46 AM | Comments (1)July 31, 2006
Mel Gibson Is An Idiot
For the record, I never liked the Lethal Weapon movies. I thought they were paint-by-numbers scripts with dialed-in performances. And frankly, Shrek has a better Scottish accent than Mel Gibson's William Wallace did.
Of course everybody has heard by now of Mel Gibson showing his true colors and true beliefs during his recent DUI arrest in California. Driving 87 in a 45 while having a blood alcohol level of .12, Gibson set off on a tirade that was alternately megalomaniacal and hateful, but consistently pathetic, Gibson proved correct everyone who said "The Passion of the Christ" was anti-Semitic.
He not only got pulled over for DUI at 2:30 a.m. on Friday after driving more than 80 mph, he became belligerent with the arresting officers, tried to flee to his car and had to be handcuffed, then yelled, “I own Malibu!” and “You’re going to regret you ever did this to me!” But his anti-Semitic remarks really set this apart from the usual formulaic Hollywood busts. He allegedly said, “The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world” and then asked a deputy, “Are you a Jew?”
I suppose it's too much to ask that the Hollywood community drum Gibson's pathetic uber-right wing ass out of the business. Then again, not only would that make him an even bigger hero to the Christian right, but it would make him a martyr among his father's friends (his father has famously called the Holocaust "mostly fiction" and Gibson has famously declined to repudiate his father's beliefs). And, as my brother mentioned in an e-mail this afternoon,
Ironically, if Hollywood does run him out of town for being an anti-Semite, it will seem to prove the existence of the "Elders of Zion" kind of world conspiracy that people like Gibson want so deeply to believe in: the hidden
hand of a cabal of Jewish power brokers who run the world and can make or break anyone as they will.
Sad thing is, he's right. Then again, I don't care. Gibson's an idiot, an anti-Semite, and an extremist, and he has earned pariah status. Hopefully, both Hollywood and the movie-going public reject everything he touches from here on out.
Posted by Christopher at 08:10 PM | Comments (0)July 25, 2006
I'll Take Arrogant Ingratitude for $1000, Alex
It seems that everybody's least favorite smarmy, flyover country living, geeky nobody -- Ken Jennings -- has started believing his own press just a little too much, and he's bitten the hand that feeds him. Jennings, who won $2.5 million on Jepoardy a while back, is on a blog snarking at the show that made his pipsqueak ass rich, and Alex Trebek as well.
In the posting, Jennings went on to say about Trebek: “Nobody knows he died in that fiery truck crash a few years back and was immediately replaced with the Trebektron 4000 (I see your engineers still can’t get the mustache right, by the way).”... He also took aim at what he said were the show’s “effete, left-coast” categories and “same-old” format. “You’re like the Dorian Gray of syndication,” he wrote. “You seem to think ‘change’ means replacing a blue polyethylene backdrop with a slightly different shade of blue polyethylene backdrop every presidential election or so.”
Okay... I will reveal a deep dark secret of mine: I was on Jepoardy once. In 1997. (I gacked an easy question in Final Jepoardy after being totally in position to win the whole thing and dominating Double Jepoardy.) It's a bitter memory, failing so ignominiously on national television. I thought Trebek was stuck-up, mean to the production staff, and generally not a nice guy. So if there's anyone who's inclined to bash Jepoardy and Trebek, it's me.
But I don't, generally. And if I hadn't gacked an easy question (name the only country that has the same name as an American state), but had instead won $2.5 million, I'm quite sure that I'd keep my mouth shut. Especially if I were a geeky pissant from Utah who didn't get laid until I was 33 years old, had the personality of a ball of dryer lint, and got lucky and got my 15 minutes and life's fortune from a game show. If I was that big of a loser, I'd shut my mouth and be glad for my fortune.
"Effete, left-coast?" Yeah, that's what the coastal engines of the US economy want -- to be told off by some cult-belonging, backward, narrow-minded, mountain time zone cletus. Be thankful you have a job and some game show money, Poindexter.
(For the record, I have nothing against the non-coastal regions or the mountain time zone. I just hate the attitudes of pissants like this guy... so I'm reaching for whatever insult I can grab hold of.)
Posted by Christopher at 09:10 PM | Comments (1)July 20, 2006
Open Letter To Airport Idiots
Dear Angry, Stupid Person:
There's travel delays. It happens from time to time. You screaming at Joey Bagodonuts behind the counter will not make the torrential downpours stop nor end the lightning storms; your tantrum will not make the lights go back on in places where they're out..
Speaking of Joey, he's been trying to help you for 30 minutes now. You're still standing at the check-in counter, occasionally flailing your arns and animatedly trying to get him to do something. Well guess what? If you haven't gotten anywhere with him in 30 minutes, you're not going to get anywhere; if he could help you he would. He hasn't, so quit monopoilzing his time at my expense; it isn't going to change your situation. Meanwhile, I have a calm conversation to have with him. Get the hell out of my way.
And would you look at that? They cancelled our flight. Yes, I know it's 10:00 pm and none of us knew it was coming. I know it was a frustrating six hours here at the airport trying to go home. And I know none of us can fly out tonight now. But they've just asked us all to form a line and arrange reschedules. I don't know if you're aware, but the baby-faced kid behind the desk has no policy influence within his airline to change their policy about not paying for a hotel for you if the delays are caused by the weather. So you screaming at him mercilessly for 20 minutes isn't going to change the fact that no planes are coming tonight, that you'll be missing your connection, or that the airline's policy is not to pay for your hotel if the delays are weather related. He doesn't make those calls, and he's not empowered to tonight -- no matter how loudly you shout. You're making an idiot of yourself... and worse yet, you're giving me a headache. And that's the last thing I want right now. So sit the fork down, shut the fork up, and chill the fork out before I come over there and slap some manners back into your damn head.
Oh - and one last thing... quit eating those gawddamn pretzels in the gate area. My nerves are as frayed as yours; the last thing I need is to listen to you chomping blissfully away on that bag of rocks and chewing with your mouth open. Keep it up, and you're like to get a donkey punch.
Posted by Christopher at 06:53 PM | Comments (6)June 29, 2006
A Great Day In The History of Nudity
It's not quite the full monty pictorial that is her destiny. But the Queen of the Trailer Parks, Britney Spears, has taken the next step in her progression toward the best selling issue of Playboy ever. She's posed nude -- and six months pregnant with the unholy spawn of Federline -- for Harper's Bazaar. (Airbrushers everywhere can take pride in the work of their professional compatriots at HB.)
Not wishing to dare risk contact from the magazine's publishers (more accurately, their lawyers), I won't be reposting the images here. But here's a link to someone who opted to (heh huh heh heh huh). Britney... honey... just a couple more years, a big comeback album, and a divorce from one freedloading embarrassment bum, and your PB pictorial's all set. Keep up the good work (i.e., not singing, just posing).
Posted by Christopher at 05:10 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBackJune 03, 2006
Nice Try, God
Gotta give the Big Guy credit for trying, anyway.
A Learjet registered to religious broadcaster Pat Robertson crashed in Long Island Sound while flying in heavy fog Friday, killing both pilots, authorities said. All three passengers escaped without serious injury.
It's not often we get to see God in action trying to correct some of His mistakes, so I'll give him props for this effort. Even though Robertson wasn't in the plane.
“We’re still trying to figure out who was on the plane,” she said. “It’s not Dr. Robertson or (anyone) related to CBN or related to Dr. Robertson’s individual businesses.”
Note to self: never rent a plane from someone on God's bad side.
Posted by Christopher at 01:30 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBackMay 09, 2006
Venus & Mars Below The Asteroid Belt
This would explain so much, wouldn't it?
While only 38 percent of women said they think their partner wants sex more often, a whopping 66 percent of men said they do want more (only 25 percent of women report wanting sex more often than their partner).
That's not the only conclusion of the study, but it was the was that amused me the most. Especially when it's combined with this other finding:
Most men and women said they have sex once or twice a week. Yet, taking all their answers into account, men think they’re having less sex than women: Men said they have sex a median of 5.5 times a month while women said 8.4 times.
What does this mean? And what do you make of the rest of the survey findings? I dunno. But it's funny how men and women seem to perceive things like frequency and what the other is thinking. Which I think we can all relate to.
Oh... and I still hate Kevin Federline.
Posted by Christopher at 09:05 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBackMarch 27, 2006
Sexy Results
No, I am not talking about the song by Death From Above 1979. At the end of every March, FHM magazine comes out with its yearly "Sexiest Women In The World" issue. Usually, I am left shaking my head at how few of the top 10 are on my top ten list. (It's my opinion that FHM's readers are generally 14 year olds who wouldn't know a sexy woman if she bit them... too many boobs on the list. And some of them even have large breasts.) Anyway, this year's list is out, and the #1 choice was something of a surprise... not Angelina Jolie (yuck!!!!) or Jennifer Lopez (give trash money, she's still trash), but instead, Scarlett Johansson. And for the first time in a while, I actually find FHM's #1 sexiest woman to actually be sexy. Nicely done, FHM.
The rest of the top ten: Angelina Jolie (no, says Mudge emphatically), followed by Jessica Alba (yes), Jessica Simpson (decidedly no, has a man's face and a protazoan brain), Keira Knightley (yes), Halle Berry (yes), Jenny McCarthy (not even with a ten foot... um, pole), Maria Sharapova (yes - gotta love athletic women), Carmen Electra (no! Rodman's been there, which automatically disqualifies her from being lusted after) and Teri Hatcher (yeah sorta, but I haven't forgiven her for her Radio Shack commercials).
Here's my take on their full list, broken into five categories: Group 1 are those I'd go all William Hurt in Body Heat over, and start tossing chairs through plate glass windows to get to. Group 2 are those I do find attractive, if not as intensely. Group 3 are the "eh" ones. Group 4 are the ones I didn't even know. And Group 5 are the ones I just do not see the attraction at all -- find them unattractive for whatever reason. (Yes, I needed more to do tonight.) Angelina Jolie, for example, is in Group 5. I must be the only man in the world for whom she does absolutely nothing. (And yes, I realize that categorizing women based on physical appearance is not really respectful. But FHM made the list, not me... and as a human male, I look. Deal with it.)
There are only 15 inductees into Group 1, out of an alleged 100 sexiest... just confirms for me that the mainstream's taste is not nearly as refined or sophisticated as my own (how's that for spin?). There were 17 I had never even heard of, thus confirming that I am really, really old. There were also 18 in Group 5 -- those who are simply not attractive to me at all -- thus confirming for a second time that my tastes are more sophisticated than the majority's. (A couple of these were DQ'd for being X-Gamers, while others are DQ'd because of the famous men whom they've been with.) There were 21 in Group 2 -- attractive, but not so incredibly so that they force their way into a top 100 list for me. That left 29 in the middle -- those generating no reaction one way or the other. When it's all said and done, I found just 36 of FHM's "100 Sexiest" to be attractive. One third. That's not an indication that my standards are impossibly high; rather it just means, I guess, that I find the standards by which society seems to judge a woman sexy to be unrealistic and somewhat silly.
My personal top ten from this list? In no particular order, they'd be: #99, #98, #77, #61, #43, #42, #34, #15, #8, and #1 -- with #43, #99, and #15 close to the top. Anyway, women... fell free to do your own lists of the 100 sexiest males to counter. Whatever works for ya!
Posted by Christopher at 09:36 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBackMarch 17, 2006
They're Always After Me Lucky Charms
I'm not Irish. I've never been Irish, actually. While my bloodstream contains scads of the variants of chocolate in my peanut butter/peanut butter in my chocolate that tend to happen here in America (I am a true mutt in the finest sense of the word), the Irish are not among the nationalities whose natives, in some (likely alcohol-assisted) sordid coupling at one point or another, contributed a gene or two to my eventual DNA.
However, I did attend grad school in Boston. And that makes me as Irish as one needs to be on a day like today. The fact that St. Patrick's Day falls on a Friday makes me truly fearful for the city of Boston -- the gateway to a legendarily debauched weekend has been thrown open. I wish I were there.
So I wish you all a happy St. Patrick's Day, and offer you this blessing (which may or may not actually be Irish in origin, but I found it on an Irish blessings web site so just work with me here, people!):
"Here's to lying, stealing, and cheating!
May you lie to save a friend;
May you steal the heart of the one you love;
and may you cheat death."
Oh yeah... and for my female readers: Kiss me. I'm Irish.
Posted by Christopher at 07:39 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBackFebruary 10, 2006
An Icon Departs
An American icon -- and I think a hero -- died last weekend. Betty Friedan's passing merits noting, because of the contributions to American society that she not only made herself, but inspired others to make. Long before the concept of "feminism" was complicated by sexual politics on one end of the spectrum and fear-and-control-insppired insults from Limbaugh on the other, there was a basic premise that seems incredibly "duh" now, but was quite revolutionary in its day:
"A woman has got to be able to say, and not feel guilty, `Who am I, and what do I want out of life?' She mustn't feel selfish and neurotic if she wants goals of her own, outside of husband and children," Friedan said.
During her lifetime, Friedan was vilified by many for airing the simple concept that if a woman wanted more out of her life than her MRS degree and 2.5 kids in the suburbs, that was not just okay but was normal. But unquestionably, America is a better place for her having been here. Feminism and its definition changed over the years, both from within (schisms over sexual politics, sexuality itself, and an unfortunate sort of demonization of the choice to stay home and raise children all impacted what it meant to be a feminist) and without (frightened reactionary men, seeing their complete control threatened over not just their homes but their workplaces, responded with name-calling, exaggerations, and demonization of their own). But that basic concept: that women -- not society -- should be in control of their own destinies and making their own choices, shouldn't be lost in the confusing melange of political agendas that elicit such intense reactions today.
Friedan wasn't the first feminist, nor were her concepts original. But by daring to articulate what generations had felt -- and drawing the arrows of ignorance fired from lesser quarters over it -- Friedan empowered generations of American women to explore life and make the most of their gifts. It's not just women who benefitted from that. Whatever choices women make today -- careers, families, and combinations thereof -- are all up to the individual and not "society." Men, too -- as husbands, boyfriends, brothers, fathers and friends -- are the better for this.
And for that, we all owe Betty Friedan a debt of gratitude. Bon voyage, ma'am; you'll be missed.
Posted by Christopher at 06:06 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBackFebruary 07, 2006
By Request Blogging Part VI: For Eden
Eden's challenge to me was to blog about "someone (past or present) who "gets" you. Someone you have a kind of verbal or mental shorthand with or to whom you don't have to explain your jokes or allusions." Okaaaaaay. This one won't be an easy post. Because I really don't think that there's anyone who "gets" me. Hell, most of the time I don't even "get" myself, so expecting others to get me is a bit unrealistic. I have bonds with a few close friends that could, in different arenas, be described as "getting" that particular part of me -- but I don't think anyone has that whole picture. That's not meant a whiny boho artist's lament that "no one understands my art," but simply an assessment of my interactions with people.
I suspect, Eden, that you were looking for some relationship-related answer. There isn't one. As close as I have been with some of the women in my life, I can't say that any of them ever really "got" me. I'm a hard person to know -- both in the sense that I open up on this blog more easily than I do in a conversation, and because who I am has changed so often and so dramatically during the different phases of my life. And on the occasions where I had once thought that I had that kind of bond with someone, time and hindsight have since taught me that none of those bonds were what I believed them to be. So none of them count. Doesn't mean it won't happen someday, I just don't know that it has yet.
My brother and I can communicate volumes using the single word "Dude." Intonation, length of vowel sound, punctuation... all of them matter; we can even turn "dude" into a two syllable word for use under great duress or frustration ("duuu-uuude!"). In the same manner that tribesmen speaking Khosian languages convey varying pieces of information through simple clicks, my brother and I can get a dozen different meanings from that one nonsensical word. If that's not mental shorthand, I don't know what is. However, for as close as we are, we haven't lived in the same metro area in going on 12 years now -- save for three weeks in August 1997 when he had moved to the DC area just as I was getting ready to move away from it -- but despite our ability to discern the many complex meanings of "dude," there's too much distance involved to really "get" someone...
My friend Nancy and I have an unspoken sort of thing going on in the realm of relationships; we can each sense disaster in the other's romantic lives a mile off. I've gotten warning bells going off in my head about some of the guys she's dated who turned out to be the biggest jerks, and she's had similar alarms going off over many of the biggest mistake women I've ever gotten involved with. It's uncanny and unerring, at least in my memory -- I don't ever remember one of us having a bad feeling about someone that turned out to be wrong. Unfortunately, we rarely if ever listen to the other's warnings. We should -- by now we should really have learned -- but neither of us do. But even though we each give the other failsafe romantic advice, I don't think either of us would say that we totally "get" the other.
Professionally, there's no question that Doc and I hit a rhythym when I worked for him a few years ago. We were good friends before that, but when we started working together we quickly settled into a groove where we knew what the other was going to say, how the other would react to business issues that popped up... and when we started working on speeches, we literally would just shut ourselves in an office and start brainstorming aloud, because we knew that if one of us even came up with a half-finished thought, the other could complete it and we'd make it as eloquent as necessary. We did great work together and made the other one look good. And certainly on a personal level, he and I share a sick and twisted sense of humor -- it's usually a race between us to see who will, in Tourette's-like fashion, blurt out the crassest, lewdest possible comment or reaction to something, and we bond over the well-placed vicious insult... but I don't think I'd say he "gets" me. (Especially with Brokeback Mountain jokes being all the rage lately.)
Despite a series of partial bonds like these with other close friends, I just really can't say that I have that kind of overall thing with any single individual, Eden. Does that answer your question?
Up next... Jill's challenge to me.
Posted by Christopher at 10:08 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack
