Land Mines… Put to Good Use!

You know what sucks when it happens to you but is hilarious when it happens to someone else? No, it’s not prison rape like most of you are thinking. It’s not herpes either. Christ, what’s wrong with you people?

I was talking about stepping on a land mine.

Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about! DOG SHIT LAND MINES!

But wait, there’s more to this post than a picture of poo. According to our friends “the professionals” at www.wxii12.com, some dude got totes busted for drunk driving because the cops followed a trail of dog poop. That’s right. Josue Herrios-Coronilla crashed his black Camaro (nice dude) into the yard of Bill “Old” McDonald. Well, McDonald is a pet lover, you see, owner of 4 dogs. So when the inebriated Josue hopped out of the black Camaro (seriously dude, rawk), he landed squarely in a hunking pile of dog poo — i.e. a “land mine.”

Josue, of course, bails, but the cops show up and follow the stinking trail of shit to a van coming down the street. The cop halts them and inside they find ‘Sway, sadly separated from his black Camaro (tell me it was this one) and shoes stinking of dog shit. I can’t believe whoever was driving that van didn’t fucking smack him for that shit.

Hey, what’s with the quick getaway, Josue? It’s not like the cops weren’t gonna figure out whose black Camaro (I’m picking that shit up at police auction) by checking your always hilarious license plate number.

Anyway, I think this should serve as a lesson to all you bitchfaces who are all like “curb your dog, jackass, or I’m calling the cops.” MY DOG IS THE COPS, NARC. Its shit makes it safe for you to walk the streets at night!

Sigh. I don’t really have a dog. But if I did, I would use this incident as an excuse not to clean up after it.

They Report, You Decide: Life Amongst the Other Half

There are two kinds of people in today’s Amerika: those who get their news from Trawtopia, and the other 487 billion who get their news from FoxNews.

Being that you’re reading this, we already know you’re one of the good’uns. But have you ever wondered – possibly angrily and aloud after a 30-second dip into the No Spin Zone – what it is that draws the rest of your countrymen to Rupert Murdock’s font of fury?

Let’s take a look at FoxNews.com’s Top Stories and find out what broad conclusions we can infer together!

From the bottom:

Mayor’s Racy Lingerie Photo on MySpace Upsets Residents

Friends Mourn Woman Who May Have Been Eaten by Boyfriend

Third Man Dies From Tainted Dairy Products

Dog Triggers Shotgun Blast, Killing Owner in Freak Hunting Accident

Tom Cruise’s $100 Million Nazi Movie

From the get-go, a few noticeable trends emerge.

First, like anyone with any sense, the online Fox readership loves the idea of Tom Cruise admitting his SS sympathies.

Last, like anyone with zero sense, the online Fox readership is absolutely terrified of the idea of a sexually empowered woman in a position of power. C’mon, you’re already infatuated with the jackboots and riding crops (see Item 1), now give in to temptation!

And in the middle, we see that the Fox demographic is fascinated by the prospect of bizarre and gruesome death. You think it’s just those three stories? Let’s go back to the list!

Mexican Emergency Services Free Boy, 10, Who Glued Himself to Bed to Avoid School

Girl, 12, Dies After Mystery Illness Causes Series of Mini Strokes

Boy Scout Grabs Attacker’s Knife, Saves Maldives President From Assassination

2 Girls Killed in ‘Strange Ritual’ Slaying in Iowa

Missing Georgia Hiker Found After Suspect Leads Police to Body

Football Player, Wife Charged in Death of His High School Cheerleader Ex

Is it any wonder these folks see the hideous form of Satan in anything with an accent and a slight tan? Look what can happen when you trust:

Your new boyfriend:

Shearer’s boyfriend, Christopher Lee McCuin, 25, was charged with capital murder after police said they found her body, an ear boiling in a pot on a stovetop, and a hunk of flesh with a fork in it on a plate at the crime scene.

Your beloved huntin’ hound: 

“His dog was so excited,” she said. “He was jumping all around, because he was about to get out and go get that goose. That gun had to be knocked around just right to fire. I believe the dog knocked the safety off and hit the trigger, too.”

The weather:

“Next thing you know … a tornado just popped right out of the clouds,” Lischka said.

Al Ost said he “prayed like a sissy” as he fled to the basement of his house in Boone County, Ill.

Your friendly neighborhood tramp:

Union County Sheriff Scott Stephens said Hilton was a drifter well-known in the area, and was often seen with his dog, Dandy, and police-style baton. Since he was identified as a person of interest in Emerson’s disappearance, Stephens said his office has gotten thousands of calls from people saying they recognized his wiry frame.

Your Warlock stepfather:

“You’re talking about people casting spells, spells gone bad,” Sioux City Police Chief Joe Frisbie said at a Monday press conference, according to the Sioux City Journal. “Obviously, there is a lot more going on here than a straightforward homicide.”

Sweeeeet Jesus Christ it’s a scary ole world out thar!

Luckily….

Panasonic Debuts 150-Inch Plasma TV

How Terrell Owens Won My Heart (Yet Again)

In this age of ESPN (and -2, -News, -Classic, -Deportes, -HD, -Kidz, what-have-you), I think most of us can agree that professional athletes, like children, are better seen than heard. That guy from the NFL.com ad didn’t need the internets to so accurately predict the canned responses from hard hittin’ John Lynch; with few exceptions, listening to a pro athlete speak is about as exciting as watching an English professor shoot hoops.*

Then, of course, there is Terrell Owens.

Long the pre-eminent object of my inexplicable ardor, T.O. is perhaps the greatest living embodiment of one of sport’s great archetypes: The Loudmouth Wideout. From his well-publicized beef with Donovan McNabb to his Stardancin’ performance in Dallas, Owens’ on-field dominance has pretty much always taken a back seat to his off-field antics.

Now I know that I’m in the minority when I say that T.O. is my favorite athlete, and I also know that some of the shit that comes out of his mouth is nigh-on indefensible. Still, even the haters have to agree that he’s spot on with today’s message to Jessica Simpson

See, apparently T.O. feels that having the vacuous, soul-sucking presence of Jessica Simpson in the stadium during last week’s 10-6 loss to the Eagles is what caused hot-shot Cowboy’s QB and noted JS boytoy Tony Romo to crap out the worst statistical game of his career.

Whether or not T.O.’s theory holds any water is 100% beside the point. The point is, he’s trash talking his QB’s celebrity arm candy, and I say god bless ‘im!

Here’s hoping this story develops into a complete cross-media disaster of epic proportions, cause as the man says:

“Oh, I got a message for her when we make the playoffs. Just stay tuned.”

Done and done. And I mean DONE!

*For a great meditation on what it is that makes athletes such vapid interview subjects, check out the essay “How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart” by David Foster Wallace in this book. Dude’s a genius!

More Fun from the Spears Clan

In case you haven’t heard by now, Jamie Lynn Spears is pregnant. Here’s her dossier for perusal:

• Star of Nickelodeon’s Zoey 101
• Sister of internationally-known skank Britney Spears (probably with child herself… or married secretly… or something)
• Collects porcelain dolls
• Was born April 4, 1991

For those of you good at math, you realize that this chick isn’t even a chick yet. She’s a 16 year old kid. I guess she really really liked the movie Juno. I did too. But I didn’t knock up any teenagers just to prove it.

You know, on second thought, I think she’s ready to be a mother. Yeah. She looks ready.

A hilarious account of this story can be perused at Egotastic.

Contrary to what some may think, I actually like America — y’know, conceptually. But it’s this kind of shit that makes me ashamed to show my face in any other nation on the planet. Even Canada. You’d think with all the influence and money the dipshit Spears sisters wield, it would behoove them to act responsibly, contribute to social causes and overall make the world a better place. But why bother when it’s just easier to fuck and add more idiots to our gene pool.

Y’know, all cynicism aside, this child will most likely be raised in a stable, loving environment with all the privileges it could ever need, all the while blessed with a sober and functioning mother-father unit.

HA! I’m just fucking with you. This kid is screwed.

Who Framed Roger Clemens?

I was thinking about titling this post “The Needle and the Damage Done” but then figured about 80% of people blogging about this issue are using it. And they probably don’t even like Neil Young as much as I do. C’est la vie…

Yesterday, Senator George Mitchell released his lengthy report exposing the extent of steroid abuse in Major League Baseball. Perhaps the biggest name attached to rampant ‘roiding was Roger Clemens. (To which the gallery replied “yeah, so we figured.”) Of course, Clemens – through his lawyer – has vehemently denied the allegations. But I seem to remember – what year was it? 2005? – when he started his season on the 51st game of the year. He said he didn’t know if he was going to play again because of family and stuff, but he was mysteriously sitting out the exact amount of games required by the MLB for a first positive steroid test. And Bud Selig totally covered it up because he’s a greedy numbnut and it worked because baseball is making more and more each year. CONSPIRACY, I cry!

But that’s not even the half of how deep it goes. Some scary stuff about Clemens was revealed in the Mitchell Report. Y’know… aside from the common practice of shooting steroids into his ass, The Rocket has also been implicated in:

• Participating, along with numerous associates, in a con known as the “Spanish Prisoner”… bilking a Toronto businessman out of millions; this was done – it was reported – to raise funds for a “Vegas vacation”
• Tying fishing line to Bill Buckner’s glove in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series in order to “keep him on his toes”
• The aiding and abetting of fugitive robots
• Buying orphaned infants from China and distilling their stem cells into a brew he called “Rocket Fuel”
• Receiving numerous citations from the NYPD for “Failure to Signal Before Throwing a Pointy Object at Mike Piazza”
• Pooling his resources with Michael Vick in order to buy a Stinger missile from Iran; later, after a night of drinking and dog fighting with Vick, would pledge allegiance to Al Qaida
• Multiple incidents of domestic abuse when his children would fart, he would call “doorknob”, and proceed to punch them in the arm mercilessly until they got up and touched the nearest doorknob
• Killing a total of 19 hitchhikers from 1984-1990
• Shooting his own version of Human Growth Hormone into Andy Pettitte’s ass (GROAN!!!)

Pretty scary stuff. I always thought Clemens was a big douchebag… but calling “doorknob” on his own seed? That’s fucked up, man. That’s just so fucked.

In Real News, Polar Bear Still Cute. Kind of…

Knut the polar bear (aka “K-Nut” aka “Groß Pelz”), celebrated his one year birthday yesterday. Of course, most of you don’t need any further introduction to this adorable animal, but for those of you who don’t know, he’s the ursine sensation out of the Berlin Zoo that took the world by storm. (And made the Berlin Zoo a cool $14mil in ticket sales, licensing, etc. He’s basically the LeBron James of polar bears.) All of this… just because he was just so cute!

Behold the synapse-collapsing preciousness:

OMG! OMGZZZZZZZZZZ!

And then there’s today’s Knut:

Well, maybe not AS cute, but that bear has some personality. Look how he is about to hit something with his enormous bear paw!

Anyway, I’ll always feel a special affinity for this bear, even though I’ll never meet him. Why? Well, I’ve always thought of the polar bear as my spirit animal or totem or familiar or whatever. (Although once, an ex-girlfriend of mine reported that all her men have said this and I felt really dirty — like a “type”. Blech. And this has nothing to do with the whole His Dark Materials series of books.) So there’s that. Plus, he clearly craves a lot of attention. I do that too! And lastly, he’s German. I’m German too. Kinda. Go Germany!

So yeah, that’s the world’s most famous polar bear. You know you love it.

“It appears my hypocrisy knows no bounds.”

So says Val Kilmer’s “Doc Holliday” in the legendary pertinent perpetually-airing-on-USA western Tombstone.

Seems that me and ol’ Doc have a few things in common — other than the propensity to speak like total assfaces just to make ourselves sound fancy and reflect our overall self-importance. Ask anyone who has known me what single thing I’ve been bitching about for the last couple of years. Actually, that’s pointless. You’ll get an unending list of answers, including but not limited to:

1) Omar Minaya

2) Not getting laid

3) Wes Anderson films

4) Rich people

5) Wherever I live

The list goes on and on. Anyway, ONE thing that I’ve been bitching about for the last couple years is the always hilarious “ironic facial hair.” Y’know, hipsters with mustaches that make them look like Napoleon Dynamite’s brother. Well, I went and double-crossed my own sensibilities and recently did this:

I know. I’m such a douchebag; the fact that I’m blogging about it alone speaks volumes to my state of mind.

ie pay attention to me, world! My facial hair makes me look like a 70s porn star!

Teachers Just Don’t Understand (When it Comes to Mega Man)

In this week’s edition of “PUNISH THE CHILDREN FOR BEING CHILDREN” a young boy in Oregon faces suspension for a stick figure drawing. Take a look at his most hideous and violent crime.

This, according to school officials, is a portrayal of one person shooting another person in the head with a gun.

According to Ryan Weathers, the 6-year old artist who faces school suspension of this drawing, it’s “a wepwesentation of how Amewican vallews of democwacy wiw never take hold in a Muzwim nation.”

But all kidding aside, it looks to me like Mega Man. Large arm cannon. Vacant robotic eyes. You know, if school officials would just spend a little more time watching television and not being narcs, we wouldn’t have problems like this.

I remember when I was in school. I drew and wrote a lot more fucked up shit than that. And there is no doubt in my mind the materials confiscated from me between 6th and 10th grades would have had me expelled as a potential school shooter. My folder of “poetry?” Just all rewritten versions of Nick Cave’s “Murder Ballads” made applicable to people in my school. I would have been SO kicked out. Luckily, there was some kid who wore a trenchcoat around all the time. He received most of the “potential killer” publicity.

Anywho, if you want to know why a 1st grader is being suspended for the above picture, check out the Mail Tribune’s (Oregon) take on it here. And for the love of christ, feel further shame for the system we refer to as “education.”

Bow to our Economic Equals to the North

Well, I hope you’re happy, America. After an administration’s worth of economic “things are juuuuuuuuuuuuust fine; let’s pour more money into wreckin’ Iraq” policy, a terrible inevitability has finally caught up with us.

The Canadian Dollar is equal in value to our own.

According to the number-crunching, finance freaks over at Bloomberg.com, “the Canadian dollar rose as high as $1.0008, before retreating to 99.87 U.S. cents at 4:16 p.m. in New York.” Apparently its the first time such a thing has occurred in 30 years, sparked by a 5 year surge in the Canadian economy, backed by a high demand for Canadian goods. Check out the full details — and it’s Bloomberg, so they have them — by clicking here.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love Canada, but I have a myriad of problems with this whole thing. And it’s been creeping up on us for a couple of years now, unnoticed in the national consciousness (unless you live above the 43rd Parallel). Where to begin? Where to begin!

1. Their dollar is a fucking coin with a bird on it.

Which means this

now beats this

in everyone’s favorite childhood game: Loonie, Greenback, Pecos

And let me tell you, I will not STAND for a day when that filthy Pecos overtakes my boy with the wooden teeth. GW always used to be the sure thing. Now thanks to NAFTA and this, there’s no sure things left! Thank goodness for good ol’ rock in Rock, Paper, Scissors. Nothin’ beats rock.

2. I remember the good old days when my folks and I used to travel to Canada, as it was only 20 minutes away from my hometown, and spend ourselves retarded. It was so easy! Back in the day, $1US got you about $1.40CN. Maybe more on a good day. Imagine that! $20 becomes almost $30! They might as well have been GIVING shit away.

The best was gambling. Losing was like losing Monopoly money; we all had a good time and laughed our way home no matter what the outcome.

3. And I quote from the Bloomberg article:

“It’s a long time since those heady days,” said Frank McKenna, 59, deputy chairman of Toronto-Dominion Bank, the country’s third-biggest lender, and a former ambassador to the U.S. “Canadians should understand that this is a badge of confidence in our country.”

Congratulations, Canada, on your shiny new badge. America, ours is a badge of economic SHAME.

4. Part of me wonders what Canadian products are so great that their economy is cranking at such a head of steam. Well, thanks to the internet, the answers are but a click away! (More from Bloomberg.com)

Canada, the world’s eighth-biggest economy, has benefited from rising demand for copper, gold, wheat and oil from neighboring U.S. and emerging economies such as India and China. The country is the world’s largest producer of uranium, the second-biggest exporter of natural gas, and sits on the largest pool of oil reserves outside the Middle East. Canada is also the world’s second-largest exporter of wheat, which rose to a record this month.

Copper, gold, wheat, oil, India, China, Middle East, Oil, wheat?

Bring the boys home, Bush. We’ve got a much more serious goldmine terrorist threat to the north. Name o’ Canada.

Oh, and lastly, don’t buy Canadian maple syrup. Support your Vermont, New York and New Hampshire syrup kingpins. Remember: $30 a gallon ISN’T too much.

Countdown to Extinction

And now, let’s enjoy a bit of song:

1600 ’scans and whattaya get?/Another chain closing and closer to death/St. Branson won’t be calling to save your ship out/Cause Virgin’s closing shop: proceed to fucking flip out!

My horrid meter notwithstanding, this is actually some brutal news – as reported in the NY Post earlier this week, Virgin Megastores North America has been sold to a real estate con-glom. “Industry watchers” are forecasting the imminent closing of both NYC Virgin locations, in Squares Times and Union.

If you’re thinking “meh,” well, I can understand that. But here’s why this is terrible news not only for me, but possibly you as well.

Last year, when Tower Records and their 81 locations finally succumbed to bankruptcy, Virgin Megastore became heir to the Deep Catalog Chain-Store throne. A dubious honor, to be sure, but a pretty vitally important one in the world of independent music. Whatever faults you may have found with Tower/Virgin, you could at least expect them to have a) a somewhat knowledgable and musically-inclined staff and b) a pretty deep catalog to back it up. Sure, if you’re looking for obscure and out of print prog LPs (and who isn’t!), you’re going to have to go to a specialty store (or more likely online), but in terms of overall depth/consumer reach, these two outfits supplied a lot of independent music to a lot of independent music fans.

And as much as a lot of independent music purveyors and fans like to dance around the issue in favor of upholding some idealized world of Music For Music’s Sake, the real fact is that it costs significant amounts of money to produce, distribute, and promote the overwhelming majority of the music we consume.

Consider this: next time you’re in a Best Buy, go check out the endcap/wall/whatever of New Releases. Then consider that, for each title you see displayed in this section, someone spent roughly $20-$30,000 to put it there. Like, not in some abstract sum-of-parts/this-is-what-it-costs-to-get-your-record-noticed way. Literally, someone cut BB a check for 20 large in order for their CD to be placed on the New Release wall.

The general point to all this being: putting out a record costs bank, and as the marketplace for physical retail shrinks away from independents and deep-catalog megastores, what you’re left with is Walmart, Best Buy, etc., whose interests aren’t in providing you with a wide array of choice, but rather pushing the top echelon of saleable goods at cut-rate prices in the hopes that while you’re in there, you may decide to pick up a washer/dryer combo on the way out.

(SIDEBAR: This is also actually why, if you see a CD on sale ridiculously cheap at Best Buy, you can sort of feel morally ok about purchasing it; often, they price new releases below cost to bring in the customers with the hope of making up the margin elsewhere. So as long as you *don’t* get the w/d combo as well, you get your shit for cheap, Best Buy loses money, and everyone’s happy! More reading on this here (simple) and especially here (lengthy and in-depth discussion, but worth it if you have the time)

Uh, sorry, back to the point: it seems reasonable to conclude that there is a tipping point for independent labels, where their music is not mass-friendly enough to warrant sale in the big boxes, and there are not enough specialty/deepcat stores left to take in enough of their product to even really justify manufacturing and distributing the CDs in the first place. All of which, at the end of the day, leads to a shrinking of the overall choices available to consumers (and perhaps more importantly, a shrinking awareness that these choices even exist in the first place).

All of this opens far too many cans of worms to even think about starting to get into – the intersection of art and commerce, the morality of file-sharing, intellectual property and copyright law, and the cloudy future of the music industry, just to touch the tip of the iceberg – but to end this ramble on less gloomy note: regardless of how it all exactly plays out, it seems to me there are a few (hopefully) incontrovertable facts about all this. First, that (hopefully) a lot of people are going to continue to make the kind music that they want to make. Second, that (hopefully) a lot of people are going to want to hear this music. Thus meaning that third, someone is going to have to figure out the best way to get this music to them.

How this will happen in this crazy digital world we live in is anyone’s guess (at least anyone more informed than I am), but ultimately it seems as naive to think that the death of independent retail will kill good music as it is to think that all those albums you got for free on Bit Torrent aren’t actually hurting anyone. Sooner or later, some genius capitalist will figure out a new model for the whole system and get filthy rich, and in the end perhaps we’ll all be better off, as fans and artists alike.

Oh yeah…and god willing, that genius will be me.