Giving Thanks

It’s that time of year when we unbutton our pants… in order to take in more animal flesh, sugars, and carbs then retreat to the couch for competitions involving sublimated aggression, booth reviews and buxom cheerleaders. Glorious.

It is also that time of year when we are supposed to give thanks for the things we have in life. Free History lesson: this dates all the way back to Colonial America when Puritans got drunk enough on mulled cider to invite Lutherans to invite the native americans over for some mutton and millet. Godless liberals like those at NPR always forget the Lutheran middle men but without them we wouldn’t have this holiday, and for that I am thankful.

I am also thankful that pizza sauce is now a vegetable. I think I smell a new thanksgiving vegetable dish! Thank you congress! I cannot wait until bacon doughnuts become a grain. I am sure I can be thankful for that next year. No pressure congress but I’ve been good so pretty please? Please make doughnuts a grain.

I am thankful for Tim Tebow. The man just loves to give shout outs to Jesus. Yes, the savior of all mankind, the son of the supreme being that created the heavens and the earth that sent his only son to suffer and die for the sins of man by being crucified with nails driven through his wrists and feet needs “shout outs,” especially after a 3^rd down conversion. I am thankful that an option right that keys a 4^th quarter drive is on a par with crucifixion.

I am thankful for that wonderful film ‘Your Highness.’ I am thankful that the charming matinee price of $11 per ticket went to this lifeless yet humorless comedy. I am thankful I never lost my breath during this one; for some movies I laugh so hard I sometimes lose my breath and spit up coke and popcorn on the person in front of me but for this one I was able to catch up on some well deserved z’s and plot the horrible, torturous keep-alive-for-days deaths of “writer” Danny McBride and “director” David Gordon Green.

I am thankful for the occupy protests. Yes, without these, the middle class workers at the pepper spray plants would also be worrying about corporate greed and government bailouts of rich with middle class tax dollars. Not to mention the police baton crafters and wooden bullet carvers. Way to put those people to work protestors!

Lastly, I am thankful for you. Yes you, you crazy son of a bitch. How long have we been friends? God we go back a long way me and you. We have been through some tough times but man-o-man have we had some crazy times. Like that time you drank too much bourbon and olive juice and threw up on that bartender on new year’s eve. And how her bouncer boyfriend put you in the hospital by breaking your jaw away from your skull and how the hospital staff couldn’t help because you couldn’t tell them what was wrong and I was no help because I was laughing my ass off. Good time. I am bummed you can’t make it for dinner but I will surely raise a pizza sauce vegetable in your honor.

Salut!

Intelligence Cubed

In the latest Intelligence Squared U.S. debate entitled 'The World Would Be Better Off Without Religion', Dinesh D'Souza said that religion gives hope for life after death – you can face death with anxiety or with hope and it is better to do so with hope.

If there is life after death you aren’t even facing death. Death exists or it doesn’t. Life after death is an oxymoron.

And so, a conversation betwix a couple of dudes.

Viva Tod: I am stoked for heaven, I can’t wait to die.

Will Mortis: Why wait?

Viva Tod: Well I can’t kill myself, I won’t get into heaven.

Will Mortis: Ironic isn’t it.

Viva Tod: It’s not ironic.

Will Mortis: Sure it is. Heaven is better than this life and the requirement to get there is death. Yet, creating your death to get there prohibits you from getting there.

Viva Tod: I have to die a natural death, I can’t commit suicide.

Will Mortis: Why is suicide unnatural?

Viva Tod: Because life is a precious gift?

Will Mortis: If life is so precious why do we die and go to a place more precious?

Viva Tod: We don’t actually die, we just change planes.

Will Mortis: So why can’t you commit suicide if you don’t actually die?

Viva Tod: Committing suicide is a sin and won’t let me change planes.

Will Mortis: Even if the goal in mind is to be with god in the best plane created?

Viva Tod: I guess so.

Will Mortis: Ironic. I’ll take death.

New Rule!

New Rule: Bill Maher can never look at anything aesthetically pleasing ever again until he recants his “visual arts are bullshit” statement.

Now I know Bill would have all the kids major in chemistry so his weed can be more potent but Bill, what would you stare at for 3½ hours if we don’t have any visual arts programs? Elizabeth Hasslebeck’s abs?

You see Bill said that one doesn’t have to go to school for the visual arts and he is 100% correct. You don’t have to go to school for nutrition either, just look at America’s waistline for proof. You don’t have to go to school to be president, just look at G Dubya. You don’t have to go to school for anything and you can be shitty at everything, just like Bill’s America.

Now I usually like Bill but he blew this one quicker than a Charlie Sheen escort.  

Now sure, we are lacking in the STEM areas to be sure but Bill’s implicit premise that the STEM college programs are more valuable than the visual arts and that visual artists don’t need technical, formal education is as absurd as putting Christopher Hitchens and Mos Def on the same panel. Oh wait, I think Bill did that.

Maybe Bill needs a refresher course, maybe Bill doesn’t know that we kooky humans started putting visual art up some 32,000 years ago on cave walls, well before republicans hated the national endowment for the arts. Maybe Bill doesn’t know that Albert Einstein said that "The greatest scientists are artists as well."

It is truly a shame that a supposed man of reason doesn’t see the importance of collegiate visual arts programs and how the skills learned in these programs can be applied to other areas for informed, fresh perspectives but then maybe Bill has gotten a little stale.

So you can put that empty frame up on the wall Bill and you can call college visual arts programs bullshit, just close your eyes when you do it. You might want to close your nose too, because the shitty art that is going to result is going to fucking stink.

11/18/11 News You Can Use

Ashton & Demi are divorcing. Looks like the cougar and the grave robber couldn’t meet in the proverbial middle after she started receiving her social security checks and he saw his birth certificate.

Herman Cain is getting some national security. Any chicks on the force? Didn’t think so.

Obama is sending troops to Australia. Krikey! I didn’t even know they had oil.

Breaking Wind, er I mean, Breaking Dawn opens today and it is getting some horrible reviews. Some are saying it isn’t realistic enough, especially the birthing of the vampire by a nonvampire with the wolfman serving as the midwife only to then be overtaken his evil twin the germanshepherdman who insists throughout the movie that “zee bats are comingk, zee bats are comingk!”

I saw this headline 'Top 10 Tips for Black Friday Shopping Virgins' and just thought...lube.

Regis Philbin is retiring and it’s been said that he is actually willing to marinate and grill himself if Kelly Ripa would just eat something.

Pop Culture and The Fucking Tautologies

Christ almighty let it stop. Sheezus with the tautologies everywhere. People think they are communicating with this shit.

A tautology is a statement that is ALWAYS true. Always. Yes, I know you have doubts but remember…ALWAYS. You may think it is neat but it is BORING. Boring because nothing new is conveyed.

“It is what it is.”

Thank you so much. I had no idea. Let there be light. I have seen the errors of my ways. For a second there I was confused but now, well now, I know that it is what it is.

NO NEW INFORMATION IS CONVEYED! You had me at “it is” Jerry Maguire.

It’s like I’m taking crazy pills anytime I pull the qtips out of my ears.

“He is who he is.”

You hear this on sports talk radio like WEEI. Man, that was a close call. He is who he is huh? Are you telling me I had it all wrong this whole time when I was thinking that he wasn’t who he wasn’t?

Think of it this way grasshopper: If I tell you that “It is either raining or it isn’t raining” you would likely tell me to fuck off and I would deserve it. Because you already knew that and it helps in no way, shape, or form in our lives. Be it juggling, calling audibles when you see a nickel package, or making a sculpture of your package in nickel…it just doesn’t help.

But these people, these fucking people who think they are actually saying something with the “it is what it is” and the “he is who he is” statements are taking points off our collective IQ’s like oprah taking off lbs on a liquid diet.

So, I’ve decided to begin all statements with tautologies.

                You: Hello, how are you today?

                Me: I’m good or I’m not good. And you?

You: I’m good. You see that game last night? Tom Brady was great except for his out of wedlock baby.

Me: Tom Brady is who he is and the Jets defense either has it going or it doesn’t have it going.

You: You have to hand it to Belicheck though. He sure has changed his ways since the Metcalf-up-the-middle days in Cleveland.

Me: Belicheck is Belicheck and not non Belicheck and his choice of coach wear is either patriot vagabond chic or it isn’t.

You: Cool. You want to grab a bite, maybe some mutton and haggis grinders?

Me: I will or I won’t. He is who he is. It is haggis or it isn’t haggis.

MAKE IT STOP!

Captain and Officer - Reloaded

Captain: Damn I love bear claws! What’s happening with this kidnapping case?

Officer: The family received another ransom note but it was in code so we have our cryptanalysts working on it.

Captain: We have cryptanalysts?

Officer: Well, we just pooled the office to see who did Sudoku puzzles.

Captain: Great, a life hangs in the balance and we’re doing jumbles.

Officer: Word finds too.

Captain: Dammit! Did we dust the note for prints?

Officer: We did. But we used Pledge and ruined any chance of getting a print.

Captain: Dammit! Did you think it was a coffee table or a ransom note?! How’s the family holding up?

Officer: Not too good Captain. They are trying to distract themselves by doing Sudoku puzzles and they’ve rented out his room in case they figure out the ransom note and end up needing money.

Captain: More Sudoku puzzles…weird.

Officer: They’re doing word finds too.

Captain: I need another bear claw.

Standard Time (Movie Quotations)

Me: what’s up NASA? How you doin’? A lot of people want to cancel you but I just want to talk to you all right! Just kidding. That was my impression of Andy Samberg doing Mark Wahlberg. But I do seriously want to talk to you.

NASA: About what?

Me: About standard time. Standard time is bull feces. I’ve been up at 4:40am and 1:20am over the past two nights and it’s because of this standard time-turn the clocks back nonsense.

NASA: Do you know what NASA stands for?

Me: If I’m curt with you, it’s for a reason. Now clean the fucking car. Just kidding. That was my Wolf from Pulp Fiction. You do space exploration not acronym training so stay with me here flock of seagulls. Just kidding. That was my Samuel L from Pulp Fiction.

NASA: Look at the big brains on Brad.

Me: Niiiice. But back to the matter at hand. Standard time. Every year I get depressed enough to watch Bergman movies and I go to bed at 6:30 every night and I eat my weight in marbled meats and brown sugar clumps. And it’s all because of standard time.

NASA: Pork chops taste good…bacon tastes good. What is your issue with NASA? You seem to have Seasonal Affective Disorder. You might want to see a physician, not an astronaut.

Me: Yeah right, like I’m going to go see some symptom treating physician who got his medical degree in the Philippines when I can get go straight to the cause. I crap bigger than you. Just kidding. That was my Jack Palance from City Slickers.

NASA: There’s gonna be bursting?! What do you mean the cause? NASA doesn’t cause the earth to tilt on its axis. Maybe you need a refresher course (Fletch line) on why winter happens.

Me: I need a refresher course like I need an infected scrotum. No, you don’t cause the earth to tilt on its axis but you do go up in orbit and the last time I checked we still made mirrors. So, you and your boys need to getcher asses up in orbit and position some big pier one mirrors or something up there so’s I can get some damn sunlight at 5pm in November. I’m not asking for the tropics here, just some daylight Captain Stubing.

NASA: Yeah well, Gopher and Doc are making another run and Isaac told me we get our big mirrors from Target so you are shit out of luck Marky Mark.

Me: What we’ve got here is, failure to communicate. Some Nassholes you just can’t reach.